Sick and tired of poor audio quality (sm)
Posted By: Company MT on 2006-03-28
In Reply to:
that seems to get worse and worse as the days go by? Remember when we were told that switching from tapes to digital would make all the difference in the world with regard to clarity and our production? Remember when we were paid more and had plenty of work? Remember when there was no working on Sundays or holidays?
Why is EVERYTHING MT going to the dumpster?
Why do these MTSOs accept reports dictated on cell phones? Can't they write in their contracts that cell phone dictation is not clear and it can also be intercepted by others and therefore unacceptable? Why don't the QA personnel who read our flagged comments about awful audio pass this information on to the client so that it can be fixed? It's getting worse and worse.
Back in the days when I had my own accounts, one of my dictators asked me to please tell him as soon as his equipment malfunctioned (in those days, it was batteries running low or a tape that needed to be tossed and replaced). He said there was no need for the MT to suffer with poor audio reports when there is a simple fix. So, what's the difference here when the idiots dictate on cell phones? Or there is a hospital phone with a short in it? Why can't these things be fixed?
My plea: If you are a QA person or MTSO getting repeated complaints about specific dictators' dictations being garbled or unclear, won't you please notify, and keep notifying the client until they are brought up to par. How about sticking up for the MTs for a change rather than protecting the client all the time!? In the end you are protecting everyone, including the poor patients whose reports are being dictated and transcribed.
I'm tired of MTs taking all the blame for this industry's downfall. If MTSOs and clients demand 2-hour turn-around time, how about improving the technology to make your unending demands more attainable? It's 2006. There is no excuse for the garbage I have to listen to day after day. No excuse at all.
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How's the audio quality with TT? nm
x
I have had zero problems with ESL/audio quality/whatever. TT is the best so far for me.
nm
Wasn't just fast, the audio quality (re-recording)
2
Sick and tired
Vent away! At least those of us on this board understand.
Anyone else sick and tired of the Emails
to work? Geez people - if the MT isn't working the right hours - then FIRE THEM and stop sending me Emails when I've already put in my 8+ hours! GET OVER IT!
I am a recruiter and sick and tired of the stipulations put on us by applicants. sm
You want the job, why should we bend over backwards, arrange our schedules, etc. What happened to actually working to get a job. Instead, it seems like everyone wants it handed to them on a silver platter.
I work Monday through Friday, 9a.m. to 5p.m. If that does not work for someone, they need to make arrangements to make it work. If you were in another industry and were interviewing, they would not stay late, work weekends, etc to accommodate you. Grow up and treat this as a career - you may be pleasantly surprised!
Nope. We just get sick and tired of our company getting bashed
at every turn. We love this place and have run out of patience with posters like this who clearly have no idea what they are talking about.
Have you never lost your patience?
I am SOOO sick and tired of BEGGING for work!
Anyone know of a company that is hiring ICs, flexible scheduling, multispecialty clinic, at least 8 cents a line (shows my desperation...!), steady, dependable work flow for the most part, a company where you can stay and work for at least a few years straight. Any out there? Do not want MDI-MD. Do not want to be an employee - want to be an IC. Do not want any complicated platforms. Any smaller companies out there? I can't find jack lately, even with over 10 years experience. I need consistent work!
It is usually the ones with poor quality most likely.
x
If I had been fired for poor quality...sm
I certainly would have never gotten on the board and blamed the MTSO. I'm not sure what this person expected.  We all make mistakes, but when we are called down for them (again and again) we should own them and fix them. Until an MT can do that, she will never reach her full potential. And... while we ALL go through some awful times in our lives, we must remember that the medical records we are typing also represent others who are experiencing misfortunes as well.
Whose fault is poor quality?
And, why do we keep hearing that the welfare of the patient is a top priority?
I took the time to point out some errors in reports. It seemed to me that the facility did not care about the body of the report. The only part they seemed to care about was the demographic information, usually in the header, and the carbon copy designations, usually in the footer. This was because their automated filing system did not work properly if the header was not correct. Otherwise, they never even required the physicians to review and sign the reports. So, how can it be said that they cared about the patient? I truly believe that the patient's welfare was far down on their lists of priorities. What really seemed to matter was getting the billing process correct and getting the reports on the chart in order to comply with privacy and JCAHO requirements.
I also continue to believe that, if facilities cared about the welfare of the patients, bad dictators would be required to improve or not allowed to dictate at all.
The quality of the Indian work is so poor, sm
that the company will eventually lose the accounts, thereby the US MTs lose even more work!!
As soon as a company offshores, it creates its own doom. (A chink in the armor, so to speak.) It will eventually come back and bite the company where it hurts--unfortunately, it's the US MTs who get hurt the most.
Offshoring is putting US MTs out of work, plain and simple.
When you've been around this business a little longer, you'll understand.
I left due to the poor sound quality. I don't know if it was just my
account or what, but I couldn't make lines and was stressed out. I was told that they were going to upgrade their system within the year. I don't know if that has happened and if it made a difference if it did.
As to your generalizations about American MTs and poor quality, sm
Do NOT include ME. I do ALL work types, work ANY shift, work ANY day and EVERY day, I transcribe whatever I get. I am not a radiology or ops-only snob. I bet I can transcribe circles around you and all your silly little QA friends and I can transcribe circles around the Indians. There is NEVER a place for anyone but Americans to have American jobs and never will be.
You would be surprised how many MTs with 10, 15, 20 years of experience put out poor quality. sm
Unfortunately, based on this, testing saves everyone a lot of headache down the road. The company I used to work for did not test and they would go through the hassle of getting IDs, training the person, etc just find that they did not know the difference between an elbow and a knee :)
Horrendous dictators, poor sound quality, system
not user friendly, management issues, pay not on time, many complaints over line counting. MTs who have asked for and no heeded advice have come back to apologize because everything that has been said repeatedly was true.
They don't give a hoot - they'll take the poor quality for less money.
It is clear nobody is held responsible for poor quality medical transcription - do you often hear of lawsuits for errors on dictated reports? How about JCAHO failing a facility for errors on reports? Rare. And as an auditor I have seen what gets through. Either nobody checks or nobody cares. Part of the problem with MT rates. Very unfortunate.
typos are one thing (inadvertent), but poor grammar is a poor reflection and demonstrates lack..
of knowledge. In this profession, if you lack proper grammar knowledge, you should expect to receive comments from those MTs who take pride in producing top quality work. Just my opinion, but I think it is quite embarrassing to see inproper use of the english command from those who profess to be MTs. There's a difference between typing a message here and having a slip of the finger and just not knowing proper word forms and spelling. I see grammer quite often, dependible etc. I truly do no believe these are simple typos, sorry.
tired, tired, tired of all the tech
problems with these platforms. I just want to work on an old fashioned program, like WP5.1 or Medrite, maybe with voice wave. Too many problems. Does anybody know any companies that use something like these. Just call me a dinosaur lover.
They offshore, sound quality not great, quality
of work coming back from India is bad and they don't pay enough for editing it.
you spelled quality qualitily maybe that is why you have quality issues.
Sorry, but even spell check misses stuff. You have to at least be able to spell to do this job. Well, you don't have to know English if you are Indian, but us Americans have to spell!
audio
I just left them for the second and final time due to extremely bad audio files. I was assured this second go-round that the problem had been corrected but was not. I spent the biggest part of the first week - lasted about 3 days - trying to hear dictators, mainly ESL. The people I dealt with were terrific; benefits are some of the best; audio extremely poor. I figured no money could be made under those circumstances.
AUDIO HOURS
Can anyone give me any idea what to charge for an audio hour of transcription and how much time this equals out to? I was offered a freelance job of 30 hours of audio hours for TAT of 2 days and have never done this before. It is television production work. Thanks for any help!!!!
There is no way to do 30 audio hours
I can usually transcribe 1 hour of dictation, my easy stuff, in 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Even if you have really easy stuff to do, on the low end it would probably take at least 60 hours to transcribe, and mayve 90! Geez..even if you could transcribe it in real time...taking only 30 hours to transcribe those 30 hours, you'd be putting in 2 15 hour days to do it. Realistically, for 30 hours of dictation you would 60-90 hours of work.
Patti - about audio
Thanks for your input. I haven't taken the job yet, as I wanted to get some advice from others. Of course, the sample test he had me take was extremely clear! The calm before the storm! He said he would pay me $50 per audio hour. I'm thinking, if it takes me over 2 hours to do an audio hour, it probably isn't worth it. Maybe I'll just have to try it first and tell him up front what my plan is. Do you think $50 sounds fair?
Everything audio I was sent was horrible..
xx
Really bad audio and account--sm
Was a verbatim account and really bad dictators, lots of heavy ESL. So, yes. Very hard to make good line counts under those working conditions.
medgarde audio
I was wondering if anyone else has ever applied to medgarde and had trouble playing the sound files?! I have been trying to get it to play for a day, and I updated the media player... I'm just curious if anyone else had this problem and what they did to fix it.
the audio is horrible on the new system....
I had my husband listen to a little bit of one of the doctors and even he said it sounded like mush. I bought an expensive pair of noise cancelling headphones and it is still terrible. I can handle the software, but the audio is another thing. I am ready to resign. Grrrrr.
Getting paid by audio hour
I have not gotten paid by audio hour before and just wondered if anyone has an idea what good pay per audio hour is? It's straight typing for seminars/speakers. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!
Good luck with audio
I have done seminars/speakers, etc and never again unless I listen to the tapes or whatever first. It all depends on where they put the microphone and their euipment. I got stuck doing a seminar and found out it was all about building a chip in a computer and had all orientals at the seminar - worse nightmare that there was. You would have to see how many lines you would get in an hour worth of the audio to figure out a fair price -- not in an hour of typing for you but the audio and the difficulty. I had 10 tapes from a 2 day seminar -- 60 minute tapes not all were filled on each side and their bill was well over 1200. Had another on the use of animal with sexually abused children for therapy, 8 to 10 hours of audio and that one was also over $1000. But I charged by line. It took about 4 hours to do each hour of audio when it was good recordings and up to 5 to 6 when poor. We did average about $25 per hour when typing but adding in the QA and listening again to make sure we did not miss anything brought it down to under $20. So then it would be a charge of about $80 per audio hour -- rough estimate. Again too many variables and I would not charge or be paid that way.
Posts here say you need about $2 per audio minute to
p
You'd do better to bill by the audio minute; I'd bill $0.75 per minute of audio.
x
I agree on the audio. Not sure what causes their problems with this. nm
:
DocQ audio from keyboard
CTRL + SPACEBAR to toggle on and off for play, CTRL + comma and CTRL + period for rewind and fast forward. Once you've tried it for a half a shift, you'll never want to see your footpedal again!
Unless your audio can speed up more than mine
I would say the person (people) telling you 3x as much as straight are just outright lying. I think I mentioned my speed, high also but never have tripled on VR and I keep my audio at full speed, cannot do more than the audio allows. I am very satisfied in the long run with Escription. I had so many straight reports yesterday, usually do the op notes but mostly discharge summaries on the weekends sometimes and so many ESLs, I could have pulled my hair out. What is strange, sometimes a particular dictator on VR and sometimes not? Don’t get that but wish all were. Good luck!
A wav pedal for the audio transcription part....(sm)
I honestly don't know if you NEED one or not...there may have been manual 'play/pause' buttons you could click on with a mouse, but I cannot remember for sure, so don't quote me on that. Reference books are definitely handy...I had to break open my AAMT rule book for a couple of things I wasn't 100% sure on, and even had to pull out my old dusty Dorland's that I've been using as a foot rest for some obsure thing I couldn't get a definitive answer off the 'net from.
Like I said, I enjoyed taking the test because I've honestly never tested before. I've only been doing transcription for 5 years now, and it was always with the same company, and still have oodles to learn. The part I enjoyed most though was the actual sample transcriptions. Fun to hear other voices and accents and type up material I never got exposed to before.
Just give it a shot! After you finish a 'block' of testing, it asks you if you want to stop and come back to it later or keep going. When you first sign up for the testing, it assigns you a log-in and password, solely for that purpose that if you need to take a break or plain ol' stop, you have that option.
I shoulda asked the interviewer how I did. No part of the test said anything like, 'Sorry, but you stink and you can go away now.' I guess if you pass one part it feels you are good to go onto the next? No idea honestly.
Go on...just do it. 
The two ladies that I talked to, both before and after testing, were very nice and I'm sure it's a great company. I just knew where I really wanted to be is all.
I work for the DSG-2 side. One account has some bad audio sm
some of the time-not all. Otherwise I am happy where I am. I cannot speak for the other side which has different accounts.
DocQ, hmmm, how to play audio from keyboard??
Can you share. Didn't know, worked on platform twice and nobody ever said this.??? Can you share?
Quality is quality, and really should have nothing to do with getting new accounts.
MQ isn't scheming against the MTs regarding QA. They just want a quality finished product. Heck, half the slams on this board about MQ are the garbage work the MTs put out. Talk about a no win situation! Getting used to a new account should not lower your quality by any real degree if you are a good MT. Even getting used to new dictators or ESLs. Good MTs still produce quality work, and should not have to fret over QA.
Poor me?? Really now!
I have seen only one post that you could possibly misconstrue as a "poor me" attitude, and that was from a very close friend of mine who lost her home to a hurricane. She wanted me to go to work for OSi because she thought they had been very considerate of her circumstances (plus she wanted the referral bonus). I will say right now that she is THE strongest woman I know. She does not kiss butt at work or here on this board. She told the truth about her experience with the company. She has not said a word about anything other than OSi's support. She has never met any of the managers and does not participate in garbage gossip of any type on either "side." Does she gush over OSi all the time? No, absolutely not, but she voices her concerns and opinions with them, not on a public board, particularly in order to humiliate another person. I am highly offended that she has been attacked without cause. I used to work with her at a local hospital, and she is a joy to be around and doesn't go around with a hang dog "poor me" demeanor. There is never a dull moment because you never know what she is going to say next. "Poor me" - you don't even know who or what you are talking about. It is time to write something productive on this board instead of jamming it with bulls**t.
Yes, they do, but very poor IT
x
Some poor MT will take it though.
That's pretty bad.
LOL!!! Poor pud! ....nm
s
Poor pay
I got paid per line during QA but had to submit 10 reports at a time for review and then had to wait around for approval of each set before I was allowed to type again. Sometimes I was idle for 1 to 1-1/2 hours after each set waiting for the go ahead. Needless to say, I lost a lot of money that way.
Not OP either. Just another poor
sap who hired on. I think the statement is correct in that they only do overflow work, too. The account I was on was behind on discharge summaries for 15 days.
It's too bad that you have had such a poor experience - sm
I have never worked for another national so I have had nothing to compare Transcend to but I am happy with my choice and I am not a newbie.
The size of the company is comfortable and the people I work with are great. If I were truly being a cheerleader for the company, I would post my name too. I'm not trying to recruit anyone. I just stated my own personal opinion based on my experience and was curious to know how you came to yours since you posted it.
I just don't understand why the negative posters have to be so nasty. If I was unhappy with a company, I would say why but not bash. That's not my style and I think its playing dirty.
Have I always been happy with them? No. There have been times when I wanted to just give it up but I didn't. I saw it through and have been glad I did every time.
It's my fit though. It obviously wasn't a good fit for you and that's fine too.
poor management
I think someone should write a letter to the corporate office, they really have bad management at MQ, all over the board!
They offshore, they lie to you, very poor
communication, some very difficult acounts, and pay is so-so.
They are a very poor company - NM
NM
Poor dictations
Many companies seem to be going to voice recognition. The only reports they have to send to us, then, are the poor dictators, the ESL's, etc. Time for a new career.
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