Some make a decent check

• Running out of work again today. How are you all coping? (sm) - One of the webbers
  • NSA all the time - another webby
    • No company in particular but - gourdpainter
      • Agree. - nm
      • Some make a decent check - Not me
        • true but - gourdpainter
          • Yes. - Indeed
    • You still qualify for holiday pay as long as you sm - CDW
    • same here - xdembew
      • Lost accounts are mounting up - lifer
        • Good luck to you. Hope they are lenient with the benefits with all the low work. nm - sm

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And while you are at it, TT Management,

BITE ME!!!  You were fools to file this lawsuit.  $294.50 to lose all credibility in the MT World.  Sad, truly sad...

And many thought you were one of the good guys.

Just thought I would add my 2 cents worth.  It would be great to be paid 10-11-12-13 cents per line (as an employee not IC), but that is not a reality in this job market.  Yes, MTs will take jobs that pay 7 cents per line, but that MTSO is not necessarily underpaying or demeaning the MTs that work for them. 

Bottom line is that you have to do your homework because, yes, there are people who can make a living on 7 cents a line and will take those jobs.   It really depends on your skills and how dedicated you are to making your maximum possible lines per hour.  The MTSO that is offering only 7 cents a line but has easy dictators can actually pay you more per check if you type more lines per hour than an MTSO that is offering 10 cents a line but has horrible quality, ESL dictators, nasty QA, etc and you can barely type 100 lines an hour because of it. 

MY TIP:  When you interview, ask what the approximate minimum and maximum lines per hour that the other MTs that are doing EXACTLY the same accounts that you are going to be doing are achieving per hour/day/pay period.  If the recruiter/MTSO will not tell you that information, you probably don’t want to work there anyway so just terminate the interview before wasting any more of your time.  The slowest MTs are probably new and the ones achieving 200-250-300 lines per hour have been there a long time and know the account(s) forwards and backwards.  If you plan to make that MTSO a long-term employer, you will have a pretty good idea of what you can potentially achieve if you stay there long enough.  Don’t let them tell you the “average” of all the MTs that work for the company or what their perfect employee Suzie Q types.   We all know every account is different, so Suzie Q who just started last week and is already doing 150 lines per hour may have easier accounts than the one you are going to be working on, so that is not very representative of what your account(s) is really going to be like.  Ask specifically about the accounts you will be assigned to and don’t let them distract you.  Again, if they don’t want to tell you, terminate the interview. 

According to the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, in 2004 !!!, the MEDIAN hourly earnings for a Medical Transcriptionist (probably  mostly hospital and office based) in May of 2004, was $13.64 an hour. 

Just for reference, it seems like most MTSOs have a 6000 lines per week minimum production standard which is about 150 line per hour (40 hour week) on average for full-time MTs.   

·        If you are being paid 7 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (150 x 0.07) = $10.50 per hour.

·        If you are being paid 8 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (150 x 0.08) = $12.00 per hour. 

·        If you are being paid 9 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (150 x 0.09) = $13.50 per hour. 

·        If you are being paid 10 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (150 x 0.10) = $15.00 per hour. 

If you are one of the highly trained experienced MT and type 200 lines per hour on average, you are even better off. 

·        If you are being paid 7 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (200 x 0.07) = $14.00 per hour.

·        If you are being paid 8 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (200 x 0.08) = $16.00 per hour. 

·        If you are being paid 9 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (200 x 0.09) = $18.00 per hour. 

·        If you are being paid 10 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (200 x 0.10) = $20.00 per hour. 

The median hourly earnings in 2004 was $13.64 per hour.  That was almost 4 years ago.  With a minimal 2% per year cost of living/inflation increase, by 2008 the median hourly earning should be about $14.76 per hour.       

2004 --------- $13.64

2005 x 2% = $13.91

2006 x 2% = $14.19

2007 x 2% = $14.47

2008 x 2% = $14.76

So, in my humble opinion, if you are an experienced MT with 5 or more years of experience, when you call that MTSO offering 7 cents per line the accounts you will be assigned to should be easy enough so that you can make an average of 210 lines per hour within a relatively short period of time.  If they say their experienced MTs are only doing 175 to 200 lines per hour on average, that MTSO is drastically underpaying their experienced MTs and it is time for you to move on.  If they say their MTs are averaging 250 to 300 lines per hour, then that MTSO may be worth looking into further, even if their starting wage is lower than what you originally thought you should be getting paid. 

I think if WE ALL start doing this, the MTSOs will start to figure out that we are not going to work for companies that underpay our skills and experience.  If enough experienced MTs hang up on these companies, eventually they will figure out that the recruiters/supervisors need to be more honest with us regarding their pay structure and the difficulty of their accounts. 

Some food for thought !! 

More information from the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: 

Medical transcriptionists had median hourly earnings of $13.64 in May 2004. The middle 50 percent earned between $11.50 and $16.32. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $9.67, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $19.11. Median hourly earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of medical transcriptionists in May 2004 were:

If you want more information, check out the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics web page for Medical Transcriptionist. 

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos271.htm

Does it seem like escription accounts want to pay less because you can produce more with the editing? 

Never take less than 4cpl for editing.  That's the highest I've seen.  I personally won't take less than 9/10 cpl for the straight typing with those accounts either.

Accurate Typing of Suffolk, NY - use Word and Hyperterminal.  Dependable Transcription of Florida - use Word, FTP, DSS files.  Documed of NJ - Word and email of files.  EFD of Alabama, but you need a Lanier or Cphone. Use Word and PCAnywhere.  First Choice - use Word and FTP.  Heim's in Pennsylvania - use Word Perfect 9 or higher and FTP.  LML Transcription in Illinois - use Word with DocShuttle and FTP.  Medscribe in Pennsylvania - only 7 cpl, use Word with DocShuttle.  Metro in Georgia - use Word and FTP.  MRT Services in Georgia - use Word and FTP.  MTs in Mass. - 7 cpl, pay weekly, use Word and FTP.  PRN Transcription in New Mexico - use Word Perfect and email, 7 cpl.  Transcription Connection in Ohio - 8 cpl, use Word and maybe ExText. (posters don't have much good to say about them, though).  There may be others and some of this info may even have changed in the interim, but it's a place for you to start from. Good Luck! ... Wanderer

My first paycheck was in the bank ON TIME and for the correct amount too!

In short....the answer about Is it possible to make a decent living with them, without having to work 40 or 50 hours per week?.... NO 

TransTech did a big hiring blitz back in October last year for a new account, but the account almost immediately started going to VR, so the doable dictators left in a hurry!

The jobs that get sifted towards the MT's out of VR machine, thus, are the very difficult dictators that should be warned about their dictation habits.

The ExSpeech (editing platform) is very awkward and time consuming, so it is a catch 22 for the MT's. ExText has a good spell check and is easy platform to learn.

TransTech does not allow the MT's to check/verify our lines in the manner in which, in my opinion, we should be able to do. The CTRL I function does not give even a close line count and our pay stubs do not show it either -- just the word *piecework*. We can go to iChart; however, it does not show an immediate line count nor the jobs or line count per report -- only a total line count for a period of time per TransTech's counting method. It is a lot of trouble to go to iChart to get an immediate line count each time you choose to check your pace. We should be able to do this right from the platform/software that we are working in, IMO.

It seems our lines have been much harder to obtain in the past several months -- I suppose more to the dictators shuffled our way from VR, than anything that Transtech is doing with the line counts. I can't imagine them messing with our line counts in any form or fashion, as some companies have been accused of doing.

VR is the way of the future in order for the companies to be more profitable for themselves, so this is what we have to look forward to -- those of us who remain in the MT profession.

I'm looking for a decent national company. It's really important that they provide the computer since mine is ancient and they accept satellite internet because I live in rural Maine and that's all available here. I support a 4-person household and really need a company that's dependable. I was looking in Webmedx, Transcript USA, and Transcription Relief Services. Anyone know anything about any of those. Not interested in Diskriter, Transcend, JLG, Spheris, or Precyse. Oh also, are all the companies going to ASR now? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

They are a decent compay with better than average pay and good benefits.  Pretty flexible as far as scheduling.  Platform is user friendly and easy to get lines with.  Team leads and supervisors are nice and helpful.