There are a lot worse careers.
Posted By: old and tired on 2008-09-14
In Reply to: Glad YOU can pay bills. The rest of us..SM - Bayou MT
At this time, I would not advise anyone to become an MT. There is no security at all, but until a few years ago it was a great career choice. I have done this for 23 years, have always had a husband that could support his family, have never needed the insurance so can be an IC, and have all the flexibility that goes along with it. Those who are trying to raise a family, I understand all the problems that you are having. Maybe it is time to look at another career choice and go in another direction. All the energy put on these boards complaining about MTing could be directed towards a new career.
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Definitely not TransTech -- gets worse and worse with no work each and every day and who cares???
NOBODY, except the MT's who are making less and less money and losing whatever comfortable lifestyle they had previously had the pleasure to live. Unless you have more than 1 member in the household to bring in the money, or you have received an inheritance from family member, there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY TO MAKE A LIVING AT Transtech anymore. They absolutely DON'T CARE either. TransTech mgmt will not talk about it; only promises of new accounts coming on . . . ha ! Possibly an overflow account to replace the LOST account.
I so wish mgmt's paychecks would be affected by this NO WORK situation that has been going on for more than a year now and they would get out of that Houston high-dollar office and FIND US MT's some WORK !
Under careers.
x
just noticed their add on careers
I guess they have lowered the pay again. Now they are hiring in at .075 cpl. Gee, that much?
Changing careers
I was a Transcriptionist for 11 years and going through the same thing - less pay and terrible accounts. Changed companies a lot, but it was always the same - little or no work. Finally I had a friend of mine who is a doctor (has her own family practice) tell me that she hired a company out of India to do her work for 7cpl with 24 hour TAT and they would incorporate it into her computer system. This was the last straw for me and I got out. I found a job transcribing and captioning videos for the deaf and hearing impaired students at a local university. I also take classes with a couple of these students and take notes. There are other things out there - I am happier than I have been in years!
NEW CAREERS OR HOBBIES?
Well, I'm not sure whether this is a new career, or maybe it's a hobby, but I've recently started making stuff to sell at an online auction. I already have a stash of fabric, so I thought I would put it to use. Also, I've joined 3 companies that promote holistic pet products and/or nutritional products for people as well. I've been a discount customer for one of these companies for a few years now, but I've decided to take my involvement to the next level. I've always had an interest in nutrition and did manage to figure out, finally, how to lose weight at my old age and subsequently get cured of diabetes, while actually, for the first time in my life, thinking outside of the traditional medical box. While I truly enjoy most of what I do with medical transcription, I realize that medical transcription may become the part-time hobby, while these other pursuits may become my full-time business. Wish me luck..
Pay for MT work is getting worse and worse!!!! NM
X
And the reports look worse and worse
Any VR program and system into which it is imported is fraught with problems. At my local hospital, they have editors editing the editors. The reports are still full of mistakes and bad formatting. At my local radiology group, they have 5 different programs ranging from a combination of EMR point and click to front end SR. The MTs spend their whole day patching together the various parts of the patient record to make one cohesive record. The IT department has ballooned from 2 to 7. They only got rid of 3 MTs but exchanged them for 5 ITs. A local doctor uses point and click EMR and spends the whole patient visit with his snoot glued to the computer. The patient sits there crying and he isn't paying attention. It takes him 20 minutes to complete the record and then charges the patient for the extra time inside the room because of his bad choices or the practice manager in record keeping. I know all this first hand. I wonder when they will realize the boondoggle they have bought into.
Scoping Careers International
Is anyone familiar with a company called Scoping Careers International? I came across this on mtjobs.com and it says you will edit legal documents? Wondering if it is legit???
You'd be surprised. You can switch careers.
No longer doing MT and loving it!
MQ is where many of us started our careers so many moons ago.
a
You said it! Women defined careers just don't pay
no respect.....men would never put up with the crap we do
Actually, a lot of careers have had wage cuts
Anything that can be offshored to India for under a penny on the dollar has seen their wages cut. Do we remember what happened not too long ago to all the software engineers that used to make really good money? They're probably making half of what they made 10 years ago. The few customer support people that remain stateside probably make at least $2 an hour less than they made 10 years ago. Heck, even the radiologists that used to make great night, weekend, and holiday pay took a beating when they discovered they could offshore that, too.
So the pain is spread around, but it doesn't make it less painful. They have to find a way to bring American jobs back to America. It doesn't do much good for the so-called global workforce to lower the price of a plasma TV if I can't even afford to buy Wonder Bread.
All through this century careers have been phased out...
...due to technological advances. This is happening at an exponential rate - especially during the last decade. We're on the cusp of this business being obsolete. Maybe obsolete is a bit dramatic. It will definitely morph into a different business model.
Eventually it will take just a handful people to do the work that it once took scores of people to accomplish. Look at front end VR. Many docs are utilizing this right now, with no need for an MT/editor. EMR is vying to eliminate narrative dictation/transcription. We're at the top of a slippery slope.
Not on thing on their website about employees, careers, etc. nm
s
sorry about the typo... shoulda been careers... sheesh... NM
x
I'm thinking............Time to change careers.
Why do people struggle so hard until they are so miserable that they live, sleep, and breath misery. You are right though about struggling, it's never going to change so I am taking classes to get my coding degree. I am choosing NOT to be miserable anymore.
I looked facility up on line - checked careers and found they had a current opening for MT there. (
That pretty much told me they did have inhouse. It was an MT position for acute care, not just one of the ancillary departments.
There is nothing worse
than this monopoly that is technically not a monopoly in this field. There is always an antagonist wherever you go. When we all loved our job, MQHATER was probably here.
It's worse when you can't see them.
It can get pretty tricky when you have to rely on your senses and your past experience to figure out that somebody is either assigning the good dictators to themselves or assigning the bad dictators to you.
I have left more than one account when I found out that they assign work to MTs some or all of the time. I've never heard a valid justification for it. Anytime there is human intervention in assigning work there is the potential for abuse. Let the machine do the assigning--oldest job first.
worse pay ever
Making less than I did 12 years ago. This is very very sad for this industry. Anybody have any good companies to refer.
Spi getting worse
I started when they were Cymed, just about a year ago. Since the merge, the payroll company has twice not paid people in certain areas due to problems and just within the last month, we got an email that the payroll company lost a laptop with employee banking information on it.
Don't expect any communication from anybody with this company. You may get emails from somebody with no name associated with the email, no title, anything. You have no idea who you are hearing from.
If you are an editor, you better be very flexible. You may have to cross servers and handle up to 30 accounts to find maybe 6 good hours of work. Moveup for editors is based on line production and some of the accounts don't even count lines. Let's not forget a great many require log sheets, that's very time consuming.
I don't know what exactly the account managers do because the lead QAs run the show. Don't expect an answer if you email the account manager with a question. My account has a lead who is power hungry and even uses initials after her name that just means she is a member of a group, not professional affiliation. I've seen 3 very well-qualified people, MTs and editors, just quit without notice after being fed up. I've seen MTs left on full QA for 6-7 months, not because they were bad, but because nobody noticed they needed taken off. I am just disgusted.
I would get out before it gets even worse
This sounds like Focus Infomatics. I worked for them for about a month almost 2 years ago and quit right away. They don't communicate with you and, yes, everyone you deal with will be in India. They have a main office in Massachusetts, but they only do the Payroll and things of that nature. When they did communicate with me, they were usually very rude and hard to understand. The training was HORRID! There was such a language barrier that I could not understand a word they said. I finally quit and went with a US based company. It will only get worse!
better or worse cpl than MQ?
thx
AND.... Get this - this is worse
You have to meet minimum line counts for preceding 6 out of 8 pay periods (not only day before, day of and day after) but FOUR MONTHS of minimum line count and if your account runs out of work or you use PTO that would cause you to have less than the minimum line count TOO BAD.
You also cannot take off any time the 2 weeks prior to the holiday nor the day after the holiday for any reason.
Is this for the better or worse?
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What is the best for one is the worse
x
Worse (sm)
Having worked at both, I'd say stay away from both. Precyse's VR editing is very bad at picking up anything and invents things. If you're at precyse just stay transcribing and be glad you didnt waste your time.
Just gets worse each day
VR is a joke..
No better and no worse than any other. nm
xxx
NO and it seems to be getting worse..
on many levels.
MDI is just as bad if not worse. No work.
x
Ok, so this is hopefully just worse than usual? sm
Do I have to let them know to hop on at other times, or is it understood that it's necessary?
thanks much for your help!!!
7 months later and worse than ever!!!
I was under a 90 probationary period. I just started the beginning of December and put on a 2nd probation period after hearing how accounts didn't pull through that were to start Jan. 1st. Their pay by the hour is a scam. They don't have enough work to put in a full day of work. You sit there 19 hours just to get 600 lines worth of work, you log 8 hours and they go through your time sheet and change it to 2 hours. Thats 300 lines an hour. You follow account specifics, such as use patient name, and they count it against ya, grade your audit bad because of it, and terminate you for nothing. Supposed to pass 3 out of 5 audits. They already had their decision made by Wednesday, the 3rd day, without grading the last 2 days. Passed the 1st day of audit and terminated Wednesday without working Thursday or Friday. Just a scam and low-down!!!
Also the platform they use now is WORSE than the one before, if you can believe that (sm)
 Stay away!!
Yes, it could get worse but you can prevent that by
Please immediately get out of that situation -- even if you must take something temporarily.
Contact your mortgagor and, if your loan is FHA backed, then each state has an office designed to step in and mediate for you against your mortgagor in case of default.
Do not wait. You must take care of yourself and your family.
You are obviously extremely intelligent, responsible, and experienced.
Just because you have seen worse does not make it right. nm
nm
Went from bad (Transcend) to worse (sm)
I'm so glad you were able to dump SPI and hope you are happier with your new job(can't be worse)! I need to leave SPI too, but I don't want to take the first thing that comes along just to get out of here and get suckered again by another crap co.!
I came from a horrible company (Transcend). I went totally broke while working there. We were completely out of work for days on end. What little work we did get was being switched to VR (at a much lower cpl rate) which was just horrific since it was new. We were treatd as lab rats and were supposed to work just a few bugs out while our pay and line counts plummeted! The only time they communicated with us was to tell us we were doing something wrong, and when we had concerns about the VR, our pay, lack of work, etc., we were told to basically keep it to ourselves and not talk with other employees about it. They hated people that had a mind of their own and people who stood up for themselves at all.
I was desperate to get out of there and searched this board. I read great things about Cymed on this board, asked questions here, and it sounded good. I talked with the recruiter and asked some more questions. Again, sounded pretty good, but I never really looked into or compared other companies which was a HUGE mistake! As soon as Cymed offered me a job, I went for it without applying anywhere else.
Cymed wasn't great to begin with. Right away, probably within the first month, they started breaking promises, switched my account, and had poor communication, but it was still better than Transcend. Then came the SPI buyout, and good things about Cymed are disappearing.
Basically, I don't want to just research/test/interview with 1 co. like I did when I made this move. Even though I hate it here, I want to make sure I take more time, do more research, etc., so I don't end up going through all the hassles of switching companies only to get burned again by another crap co.
Sorry for the extremely long rant. I started off just wanting to wish you luck and saying good for you, but I'm so frustrated about my current situation that I guess I had to get it off my chest. Again, best of luck to you and thanks for listening to the rambling of a lunatic, LOL. =)
It's gonna get worse SM
When someone posted below who cares about construction workers that pretty well summed up the problem in general. Everything is about 'me.' Our America is on its way to becoming a Third World Country. Watch the news sometime.
oops, Worse. nm
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What could be worse? I hate OSI
My husband wants me to flat out quit OSI, just walk out now and worry about finding something else later. I am very sorry for the MT's who don't have other means of income.
You could have not thought up a worse
Not surprising, though. Keep on trying! I'm sure you can justify theft a million other ways...Yeppers. A sewing machine, honestly. 
Dude, nothing's worse than MQ right now.
nm
Or even WORSE, Medquist might buy both! :(
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worse than Transcam? Now that is BAD
TY
know what makes it even worse?
I was in the hospital before I worked at home. I could see the Lanier system where our vendors would cherrypick. MTs who worked in-house would also cherrypick and you could actually see them skipping around. Now, I'm at home and, although I cannot see the system itself, I can see by the job numbers that it is still happening.
The worst thing about it? The clerks and bosses know about it and, guess what they do? NOTHING.
I have been in your shoes and perhaps worse sm
You don't need to explain yourself. You are here with a complaint about something a recruiter said to you, not so that others can pounce on you for not handling your personal difficulties! OF COURSE this didn't happen overnight and OF COURSE you have been working on it. I have had this very thing happen and it took many months to get ahead of it, but I did. I have faith that you can too.
I hang out here and I hope that like several others, I have a voice that is a voice of reason, maturity with more than a little heart in it. (Okay, so I am not the whiz kid of tech issues and some of you call me verbose and a braggart and I don't care.) Some days I come on here and think whew! Some of us need to go back to kindergarten and learn how to get along with others, learn to share, root for home team, share the ropes, hug our neighbors when they need it and understand that if we like our boo boos kissed better, then we need to do some boo boo kissin' too.
Now, I don't know about some of you with cold hearts and nasty fingers...but my mom told me several things growing up and I don't forget them even if I am olderer than dirt:
--if you can't say something nice, keep your mouth shut.
--you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
--if you want a friend, be a friend.
--if you hang your dirty laundry out to dry, it isn't going to get any cleaner.
--life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
--what goes around comes around.
I especially believe in that last one. I used to be a very angry, bitter person and I used to lash out and be nasty. Then I got sick. Then I came as close to dying as I want to get for a very long time yet. I don't have my health and I might not have much time left either. I have grown thin and frail though I am not yet 50. I woke up one morning while I was recuperating and decided that since my life was going to be shorter than I thought, so I had better shape up before I got shipped out for good. I changed my attitude and I changed my life.
Today, I have spent years sowing seeds of gladness, seeds of caring, seeds of friendship, seeds of understanding and I find my life incredibly rich and full.
I know that all of you who have to rip others apart have small, unhappy lives and you can't see that you have a major role in that, in fact, you have the STARRING ROLE. I feel sorry for you and you know who you are. I feel sorry for you because you are always going to have an unhappy, unfulfilled life because WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND.
sorry, I had to rant and it is off topic, but not exactly.
Probably the worse 13 cpl you will ever work for.
x
It stinks right now, worse than ever - sm
It seems no one pays much anymore and if they don't post their pay and ask you to state what your requirements are and you tell them, you never hear from them again. Or worse, they have idiotic platforms that are not MT friendly, no matter what they say. I swear there are no decent-paying jobs out there anymore for the MTs who have been doing this for over 20 years.
S/l your STM was even worse than mine was. nm
So what you're saying is that it's even WORSE than
If this is what they get from their friends, I'd hate to see what they get from the enemies.
That makes it worse. At least the H&Ps
are easier, but op notes with all the ESLs? I can't imagine these dictators trying to pronounce the instruments, etc. Honestly, this is the worst account I have worked on. Love the Keystrokes staff though. Also, how easy is it for a person to switch accounts. With my old company (still working for them), there is no switching?
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