Well put; I'm hoping to hang onto this for a couple more years (sm)
Posted By: Mushroom on 2009-06-19
In Reply to: The automobile put the horse and buggy drivers out of work... - FBL
when I could retire - although I'd really like to keep working for a while longer. However, I think if I was a decade or 2 or 3 younger I would be looking into the field of medical information technology.
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This is good to hear. I am hoping that I can hang in
until the work picks up... I really don't want to find another situation, although have to admit I have my resume out already just in case... I wish today there were so much work I would work my fingers to the bone, and put some in savings. Been at this a long time and know that I should be doing that. Unfortunately, it has been a rocky 6 months working for another MTSO and promises not kept. So this is a long string of bad events for this MT. Perhaps will take on another IC and wait it out, just want to work, you know, an honest day's work for an honest day's pay sort of thing. :)
I did this a couple of years ago--SM
Hospital benefits were great. Acct managed by Diskriter staff. I had a decent acct manager but I have heard some of them have not been that good (the person I worked for has since left). I used Chartscript, I like that platform, but the lines were tough to come by. I normally would do a good 1500-1600 lines a day at my previous job (and at jobs I have had since Diskriter) with about 6 good hours of working and for some reason it took a full 8-hour day to get 1300 lines with Diskriter. That is why I left.
It has been a couple of years since I was there
.
I did a couple of years ago.
If it is the same company, they pay weekly (nice), and are such nice people. Everyone in the office was readily available to answer questions. The only downside was they did not have a platform at that time. Work was received and sent via FTP files, and I prefer to work on an actual platform.
I have been with them for a couple of years-sm
and I say they are great. Don't know anything at all about bait and switch - could be happening but it did not happen to me. I am with Shirley on the 9/10 because come on- it is a job. Probably account, account managers, things like that make a lot of difference but I say the management right up to the owner of this company are top of the line. Every issue I have ever had with them has been addressed fairly and settled fairly. I say talk to them.
A couple of years ago...sm
I had KU as a back-up account when I worked for MedQuist. I don't know if they outsourced all or their work to MQ or not.
This was a couple of years ago
and I really am over it. Went through a false start with a company that looked like it would be a long-term home for me, but wasn't. (This time, I was the one who said good-bye after a year.) Now I'm with a company that I really like.
Have you not noticed that the trend with employers nowadays is to fire you and have security escort you off the premises? They do this so that discgruntled soon-to-be-ex employees have no time to mess things up on their way out rhe door. Sure, SPi (a Philippine-owned company) knew that the plan was to dump all of us when they acquired CyMed, but it was just 'good business' to play their hand close to the vest until they were ready. They wanted us to want them, until they no longer needed us. They needed us to work during the transition to offshore. Then they were through with us. At least I got unemployment.
This happened to the employees of the local branch of a national restaurant chain. It was my favorite breakfast place and the company was closing restaurants all over the country, but the locals were assured that this was a profitable shop (it was always crowded) and they would be okay. Right up until the morning they reported to work to find a sign on the door that the place had closed. Had the corporate office given them notice, many would have found other positions prior to the closing. What would the company have done then? They weren't quite ready to close and needed those people to keep the place staffed until they were ready. Dog eat dog world.
So I'm a lot more proactive now and at the first rumblings of a problem my resume goes out there. This is what happened with my last job. Things started to seem 'just not right' and so I found my current job. But if I become uncomfortable here, I'll start looking again immediately.
I've been with them for a couple of years
Nothing changed from that article and it was a story about an incident from 15 years ago. The work is steady and my paycheck is on time. I have no complaints.
I left a couple of years ago
From what I heard they still deduct like crazy but maybe they are better now than they used to be.
I worked for them for a couple of years - sm
It was awful. What should take me 3-4 hours to transcribe one hour - would take me up to 6 hours. These are seminars with MULTIPLE speakers. Everybody talks at once and you do not know who is who but are expected to know that!! I would keep many notes by my keyboard such as accent, deepening of voice, female or male,etc. But when you are working on a transcript that is 4 hours long, you are obviously not going to sit for 16 hours to finish it. The pay was good, but I would break it down and realize that it is not that great. Sometimes I only made $10/hour because of the all the accents of people and everyone talking over each other. The quality was many times not that great because they would record next to an air conditioner or to the person that had a cold and cough so I would have tons of inaudibles. Very frustrating work. The pay at the time took up to six weeks to get. They might have changed that since I left, but I do know that they were offshoring a lot of their work because they do have such a large turnover. One of my friends still works there and she told me that the company lost quite a few clients because the offshore work was hilariously pathetic. So maybe now they are changing their ways and structure. Who knows. But It is very difficult work.
I had an offer from them a couple of years ago.
Hmm.
I used Cquence for a couple years
I thought it was a pain in the rear.
not just these days over the last couple years
revolving door lol
I've been there a couple years and.....
I struggle everyday to meet my production. I'm really beginning to beleive the posts about the lines. I was PT with a different company before coming to TT and exceeded these lines in less than 6 hours. Something doesn't feel right here.
I worked for them a couple of years ago and
pay was above average and on time, but work flow was a little undependable, sometimes very heavy or sometimes nothing.
I have only been there a year, so I don't know about a couple of years ago - SM
My experience has been nothing but good. I have always had tons of work and great supervisors. I am always left alone to do my work and never bothered by tons of e-mails or phone calls. Whenever I have needed help or had a question, someone has always been there for me and have always been more than willing to help me or answer any questions that I may have. My pay is always correct and on time, and I have been able to make much more money at Keystrokes than I have at any other company that I have worked for in the past. I have no clue what they were like more than a year ago. Perhaps they did have some problems back then, but that has not been my experience at all there.
I tried to work with them a couple of years ago...
xx
I did ortho a couple of years ago...
and it was definitely a challenge! What I did was got an ortho word book and studied it when I could. I also took as many repeated phrases as I could and put them in autotype. Hope this helps!
I worked for them for a couple of years
right out of school - they're a good company to work for. Granted, this has been a while back, but they were very nice, very helpful and always paid on time (most importantly!) Good luck to you if you decide to apply! =)
Yes, a couple years ago when looking I know I was in touch with them regarding....sm
a position and talked to the recruiter, I forget who it was, I will try to look in my records that I faithfully keep, but they were a recruiting company that works for many companies on contract as a middle man to help get prospective MTs, do some leg work, some phone calls, etc., weed things out, and send good prospects along, at least in my case with the lady I was speaking to.....have you spoken/communicated with them?
I got a pen for MT week a couple of years ago
--
I took this to LD's a couple years back and
x
Actually, within the last couple of years the IRS has really been cracking down on this.
The government is losing a ton of money in lost taxes when companies miss classify employees as ICs. Even some states such as Colorado are starting to impose stiff fines for companies violating this law. People just need to stand up for themselves and start reporting these companies to the IRS and their state labor boards.
I worked for them a couple of years back sm
Nice bunch of people, all IC. Nice platform. Always had plenty of work and I think they paid 7 cents a line. I did weekends and always had work. I'd go back to work for them if I could. They had lots of radiology and acute care and tons of cardiac.
Very happy at TransHealth. Been there a couple of years. nm
Worked for Spheris a couple of years ago
I worked for Spheris and would not recommend it to anyone who wants the least bit of flexibility in their schedule. You are expected to punch in and out to the minute on an online timeclock according to a very strict preset schedule. You aren't allowed to deviate from it without jumping through hoops and getting time off approved or adjusting your schedule, and you can't ask earlier than 2 weeks before the date you want changed. Kinda puts a damper on making vacation plans that may never be approved. I prefer a more open 12-hour window to work my 8 hours in, with no one keeping electronic tabs on my 24/7. I'll bet the FBI knows less about what their employees are doing on a minute-by-minute basis. I do have to say that their platform is pretty awesome, though. Wish the company I'm at now had it.
I worked for them a couple of years back... SM
They are a pretty good company to work for. Pay always on time. Work flow waxes and wanes sometimes, but pretty consistent. I liked them. Only reason I left was to take a job in the office which didn't work out. I'd go back to them in a heartbeat if I didn't need bennies.
It didn't when I worked with MQ, but that was a couple of years ago. SM
Instant Text works very well with DQS, though.
I like ChartMatrix. Have worked on it for a couple of years...sm
There are 2 versions, the one they've been using for the past few years and a new one they're rolling out that can also be used with ASR. I like the new one a lot better than the old one, but the old one was pretty good. There are a lot more Keystrokes with the new ChartMatrix.
I have not worked on Enterprise, so I cannot comment on that. Sorry.
I worked for Breitner a couple years ago
for about 3 months (if that). They had more excuses for my check not being on time or the amount was wrong or the accountant was new or the accountant was on vacation or.....WHATEVER! Glad I'm outta there. They are thieves! You get a subtraction for headings!!
not matching for a couple years now since I left.
It was just sitting there. Started another 401K with next job. Let it ride say the politicians...yeah, right. Could have done better in Vegas.
That was a couple of years ago. Greed, India, not enough
QA, lies, lies, and more lies. They lost a couple of accounts and they lost a major account, what little was left wasn't much. I've heard L started another company and M is still her slave. Don't know any other details.
That was a couple of years ago. Greed, India, not enough
QA, lies, lies, and more lies. They lost a couple of accounts and then they lost a major account, what little was left wasn't much. Owners divorced. I've heard L started another company and M is still her slave. Don't know any other details.
Until about the last year it was a great place to work and it took a lot of adjusting going from gross lines to 65 lines.
I worked for Keystrokes for a couple of years...
I was very happy with the company. I didn't have a problem with them, just needed to take a leave for a while and ended up starting with another company a few months later. It's been about a year and a half since I worked for them, but at that time there was plenty of work. I had no problems with supervision. I really don't have anything negative, but again it's been a while, so I don't know what the workload is like these days. Hope that helps - good luck!
Are they still around? I thought they folded a couple of years ago. Does their website have a
s
I tested a couple of years back; never heard anything...
I emailed them for update; still never heard anything.
Annudder is right. I used ExText a couple of years ago, and my cable sm
went out and in a pinch I took my computer over to a friend's house, and she had dialup and it was AWFUL .. everything was incredibly slow, from downloading the files in my queue, to anytime I accessed the internet. Of course, dialup compared to the cable or DSL is slow anyway, but it was very time consuming. The only thing I can say was it was better than not working at all.
Good luck! 
I've been there a couple of years and it has been a good fit for me, very flexible with my schedu
as long as production is being met. We are definitely a growing company and sounds like you have the experience that we need. Paychecks have been always on time for me, direct deposit.
It has been a couple of years but I tried to work there and lasted 1 day and so did a friend of mine
The ESL were AWFUL.. It was all I got and I could not understand anything they said. They were out of California so had a real mixed bag of ESL but none of it was doable. Things could have changed, who knows.
I've been posting the same thing for a couple of years. I don't understand
why people feel like their company has to provide insurance and they may take a job they hate just for insurance. Getting your own policy is almost always cheaper and then you aren't tied to a job/company you hate.
If you have pre-existing conditions situation may be different.
I left Amphion a couple of years ago and never looked back.
It was one of the best moves I ever made.
Hang in there!!! After about 3 or 4
Tookie Williams
Just hang in there with DSG
I have been with DSG for about 4 years and it has changed quite a bit. However, in spite of my dial-up issues, DSG has been a good company to work for. Yes it has its ups and downs, but every company does. Communication is the key for any transcriptin company and a successful MT. Hang in there....this is a slow time since we are getting out of the flu/cold season. The work will pick up. Just be patient. Maybe you could work for a second company part-time to cover for any slow DSG work. Just a thought.
hang it up
they are NOT flexible.
It has nothing to do with being able to hang...sm
or not. If you are the main breadwinner in the family and now you have to look at training on a new account with smaller checks, as you have a learning curve especially when you are going from typing to VR,the pay is going to be less and the amount of lines you have to get is quite a bit different. So, those of us that have only ourselves to depend on as far as income are scrambling to figure out how we are going to keep the lights on and the house payment made. I really love people who think they can just make snap judgments about people without knowing where they are coming from. Let's see how well you chill when you know that for at least a month or so your check is going to be terrible until you can get up to speed on a new account and if you are even going to like the account they put you on. Good luck to you and I hope you are never put in a position where you are told to either hang or go on. Geez.
Hang in there
Well some of us can't 'hang in there' waiting for people to quit, I had that same idea and it worked for 2 or 3 weeks until the new hires came on, and then no work again. and besides, all these companies do when people quit is hire more people, so that is not a good idea either, they just put more 'warm bodies' in the chairs, one quits, oh opening, one more warm body, needed. That's all we are to these companies is 'warm bodies' in chairs. That's how they refer to us in meetings!
Hang on it will change
I am surprised to hear that FOCUS ICs are without jobs!!! I work for another company that provides services for them and we have so many jobs from FOCUS that we are asked to work extended shifts. I know that they have some accounts that are supposed to be VR editing but everyone working on them is mostly doing MT work until the VRE kicks in. We hear it is about 30-60 days from 90% VRE.
Hang in there, I had the same situation
It is hard to adjust to new rules, but you will catch on. Reading over material/samples provided by the part-time employer is a great way to familiarize yourself with their ways of the trade. Also, do not argue with QA. Let it go. If they let you go because of your QA score, then it was not meant to be. There are plenty of others who would appreciate your intensity to learn. Do not beat yourself up about it. If you have a full-time job, then you know that you are worthy. Keep trying, you are definitely playing it smart. Never give up what you have until you find what you want. 
Hang on a minute...
I'd like to address something that's really bothering me as I see it expressed so frequently -- It's what I call THE GRATITUDE TRICK.
First, I am not trying to find fault with what you wrote. You sound like a fabulous mom and a very dedicated MT. I really admire you for the sacrifices you've made to accomplish what you have -- and that goes for everyone out there in the MT world who has done the same. I mean this sincerely. I am amazed at what some of you have managed to do and how you continue the struggle now. Hats off to you all!!!
But I have to question why do MTs have to make such sacrifices in the first place??? It sounds to me like this has been the case for many years now. If we are the professionals we claim to be, we deserve the same standard of living that any other professional gets to have who works out of their home. The perks go across the board for everyone who works from home, no matter what profession--gas savings, wardrobe, etc. We are no different. This aspect of what our job is worth income-wise is only a small part of the equation. The difference for us is that we are not fairly compensated for our work as other professionals are for theirs. THAT is what sets us apart, not the perks.
I think this is a way the services have used to keep us in submission for years, and it's dirty playing. I do not feel grateful to my employer to be able to work from home. My gratitude goes to God for the technology that allows me to do this. Heck, I'm saving them money in overhead from working from home, buying and maintaining my own equipment and reference materials, paying my own Internet service fee, etc. No, THEY are making money OFF OF US. Yes, businesses do that. They have to earn a profit. But it is wrong for them to tell us pretty much to go away and be quiet and count our blessings because they are so kind as to let us work from home, thus making us feel that we should be ashamed for wanting to be paid more. This is nothing but a mind game. They are using this way of responding to us to shut us up and we're falling for it. Next, it will be but at least we hired you and didn't send the work to India! Little by little we are being demeaned by them as they reduce benefits, demand more in production, etc. all the while telling us how lucky we are to be able to work from home and we're falling for it.
If our profession (and I keep using the word profession because that is what it is) goes down the drain because of technology, etc. then we can't control that. But let's not help it along by buying into a mindset that says we're not valuable. Anyone who has the knowledge and skills to do this job well should see their worth reflected in their paychecks, bottom line. All the other stuff is just icing on the the cake.
I think we as a body of professionals and as individuals need to have a much greater sense of self-respect, self-worth to begin with. We are not the cast-offs of the working world! If you can do this job well, you are no idiot. And all of us know, this is anything but an easy job. Many of you have invested most if not all of your working lives doing transcription. Companies should be grateful to YOU for working for them. A qualified MT only increases the company's image.
Now how to become fairly compensated is a whole 'nother can of worms given what we are up against today. But I think we need to start valuing ourselves more before we expect to be valued by those for whom we work. This gratitude to our employer trick they use on us has got to be exposed for the dirty trick that it is and it needs to go!!
I think a lot of our frustration with this profession comes from such mind games. If you can keep your employees confused, if you can keep them from feeling they have no right to complain, you've got it made as an employer. They're under your control. But in the end it weakens employee morale which results in frequent employee turnover which results in loss of production while new people learn the accounts, etc. so it really backfires on them and is a stupid (to put it nicely) way to run a business. You can run it right into the ground this way.
Even the benefits packages are somewhat of a joke if you can't afford the insurance. I'm sure the companies have ways to write off those expenses to their own benefit. That's another trick they use on us. My dental insurance won't pay the rent. Pay me a decent enough salary and I'll get my own dental insurance!
If we have any hope of turning our situation around, we need to be able to see the tactics that are being used against us. Just trying to point out some red flags here as I see them.
I do too...took me a bit to get the hang of my ESLs...
but doing fine now, just took perseverance, dedication, and patience. My docs are all pretty good. Sometimes the volume is low, but that is to be expected, and I plan accordingly.
Tell them okay, hang up and forget it. Let them
x
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