Work Smarter, Not Harder...
Posted By: Traci on 2005-11-10
In Reply to: 150-170 lines per hour is pretty average. - I agree
Exactly! Go to work for a company that pays for ALL of your work, not just what is reflected in your typed reports. What about time spent looking up physicians out of a data base of 50,000! Trying to figure out what in God's name the doc is saying when pronouncing some foreigner's name, and wasting 10 minutes doing so...with no pay! ALL of my expertise is worth compensation, not just what they see on the final report. How many times do you type an entire report, just to hear at the end, Erase this, I'll redictate! No credit! What a waste of time and I deserve to be paid for the work I did, even though the DOCTOR screwed up and screwed me out of earning my pay for those lines! What a bunch of BS!!!
Complete Discussion Below:  marks the location of current message within thread
The messages you are viewing
are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select
the boards given in left menu
Other related messages found in our database
You have it all wrong. I work SMARTER, not harder.
I will take on any acct. After months of getting used to it, I see what I am making an hour. If it is worth the work required to do that acct, great. If it isnt, I ask to be taken off acct and so far, have never been refused. Sometimes takes little while for them to get another MT for acct but have never been refused. Company is not working for the prestige, loyalty to an acct, or ME for that matter, or for the good of mankind. Why should I? I am in this for the money, just like the company. I am very much a pro, which is probably why companies would rather have me on another acct, than to quit giving me work all together. They know many companies are always looking for a good MT. Like other posters, I dont understand why someone would work below their worth. There are too many companies out there to try. I have tried several, staying with the ones where I could make good money.
Burnout...wanted to work smarter, not harder.
It seemed like I was sitting at my desk for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, just trying to pull the bare minimum. I had to hop around from one hospitals operating system to another and to another constantly...and if you've ever had the pleasure of doing that, you know that lines don't come easy that way because you spend all your time waiting for things to load and what not. There just wasn't enough work to stay on one account all the time, the way I think it should be, so instead of becoming an angry and bitter employee, I left.
They really did try to make me happy, but all they could offer were more hours, or more accounts, and like I told them, I simply wanted to work my 8 hours and make a decent living. Had a really hard time doing that over the winter. I think they overhired but I never asked that question head on. It was a great company when they first started out, but then got really big really fast. Great benefits though, if you can make the lines.
If I needed to get my foot in the door, I'd work for them, get the experience, and move on. It's that kind of place. But during a moonlighting gig I tasted freedom, more money due to a more efficient way to work, and better overall work environment, surrounded by people who truly loved their jobs, and when I was happy to log on for THAT job, and got sick to my stomach when I had to log on at DVHP, well that's when I knew it was time to be on my way.
I was doing VR, too. For me, the work is just harder to come by.
I work second shift, and it used to be early evening the OPs would start coming in. I could really roll on those, but they have all but disappeared. I now only get handful per shift and mostly EGDs or I&Ds. I also worked Fridays and Saturdays, which were great for work, but even those days are depleted now.
I think now I just am bummed out thinking I worked my butt off to get to the 5 to 6-year mark where I could apply with the better companies, and there just is no work. My daughter is almost done with her transcription course, and it is scary to me that she has to work for 3 cpl but even scarier that I might have to pretty soon :(
You work longer AND harder and the work is
??
Anyone who's not smarter than Flo is on SSI
That narrows the field down a bit.
You really think that you as an MT are smarter than doctors?..sm
When doctors will be put to the task to correct their own VR, you can bet they will be up to the task, some immediatley, some with some training or polishing up their grammar and spelling. Certainly regarding the medical terminology. After all, it is they who s-t-u-d-i-e-d it, 8 years, some even longer. Do you really think that MTs can not be replaced?
65-character is the way it is now. The clients are smarter and cheaper than sm
they used to be. Very few have weekly pay. I agree about QA rudeness.
9-10 cents per gross line! Where? Sign me up !!!
Well said, fellow member of the smarter gender.
Very well said. The only male MTs I have come across in my many years, have been at 60% accuracy (I QA'd them, so I speak from experience), and then they are absolutely shocked, horrified and rude when they never make it out of their probationary period.
It's harder to get your own accounts
Most guys don't have a choice but to work for nationals in this business or own their own business. Would like some input into how guys work at making that much money in MT. Thanks.
Seems like they are just making their job harder.
They should be taking the time to do the job correct the first time. How is rushing through going to help them in the long run? The reports are just going to come back for corrections, which is then going to take them longer to fix in the end then just editing them properly the first time through. I understand not wanting to get pay docked, but it seems they are only making things worse for themselves in the end.
Working harder for less pay.........
to achieve the same figure on one's paycheck is circular reasoning.
As has been stated before here, it is a pretty sure bet that the clients are being charged the same for their reports whether an MT physically transcribes it or whether a speech engine translates it and an MT cleans it up. That being the case, with the MT being paid even less for speech recognition, the middle man (management) is making way more money off the MTs back and will continue to make more as the MT is pushed to turn out more production.
As for adapting to more coming technilogical changes, you'd better prepare to adapt yourself to another line of work because the MT field will become obsolete as we know it even today. There will be fewer MT positions needed as speech recognition becomes more and more proficient at creating a medical document that is within acceptable limits.
I must agree with you. Seems harder the older you get.sm
When I was in my 20s, sure I could do 1800+ a day, but it's a different story now that I'm in my 40s. Sore wrist and fingers. Forearms tight and painful.
IT SUCKS!!
PS: Chinamom, sorry, I didn't mean to reply by email. Clicked the wrong thing by mistake. I must be getting old!!
Yes, for some reason Bayscribe does seem harder (sm)
Harder to make your lines, that is. The only time that Bayscribe will not add demographics (or autopopulated info) to your character count is if you mark the report as a No Report. Otherwise, on all reports, including the ones marked Incomplete Report, it will count all the demographic info too.
They say that Bayscribe is Word-based, but personally, I haven't seen much simularity at all between Word and Bayscribe. I do know that when I switched from using Word to using the Bayscribe platform, my average lines-per-hour production dropped somewhere around 25%.
So yes, with Bayscribe, I do find myself working longer hours in order to make the same line counts that I used to make. I'm not really sure what the answer is, but I don't think that it's the accounts.
Sometimes the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Lots of these big MTSO co's are in bed with AHDI, and I have a hunch the whole kit-n-kaboodle of 'em are ridin' for a fall. Or a public hangin'.
Even if some of them aren't harder to manipulate,
it's just assumed that they are. I've found that the few guys I worked with on-site in the past WERE fairly woman-like in their willingness to be manipulated and taken advantage of. Which is probably why they got into, and stuck with, MT in the first place. Those guys who won't stand for that sort of thing never got into MT at all. Which is probably about 99.999% of them.
The benefits to the MTSO for having at-home MTs is not only the savings of NOT having to run, maintain, insure, heat, cool, and clean a brick-and-mortar building for their workers, but more importantly, the physical and social ISOLATION of those workers by basically chaining them to their desks at home. The isolation makes it far easier for us to be lied to, intimidated, cheated and overworked because NO ONE ELSE SEES IT HAPPENING.
The internet, and forums like this one, have broken us out of that isolation to some degree, but obviously not enough of a degree for change to happen. It's likely that for every MT that knows of this, or other MT forums, there are 10 who don't.
Further compounding the trouble those of us who DO use online forums to communicate with each other have, is the fact that we all know the MTSO suits cruise these boards, and we have to be careful about what we say, and to not reveal our identities, or else we'd most likely find our little selves fired.
So to date, medical transcription, and the sweatshop conditions it's done under, is the healthcare industry's best-kept 'dirty little secret'.
Is it getting harder for anyone to get jobs now with all the people applying for them. How does
this seem to be going for most MTs looking for jobs. What seems to be the one factor that gets MTs a job before all the other 100 or so looking for the same job and what are the most desired qualities today that companies are looking for.
Anyone else going from DQS to ExText and noticing lines are harder to get? (sm)
Both accounts are about the same difficulty, just find ExText more cumbersome and where I used to do 1200 lines in 6 hours on DQS I now take every bit of 8 hours and sometimes that doesn't do it. Am i just getting slow to learn new things or has anyone else noticed this same thing?
Definitely harder and I've given it a lot of time. I'm thinking about
nm
Acute care is quite a bit harder than clinic.
Definitely. Never a good idea to lie. You won't find anyone at most big companies to ask beginner questions to, on ops or otherwise.
I, too, went from MQ to TT, and line counts are much harder to get at TT with Dictaphone ExText.
I have always been called *firey fingers*, so know it is not me, as I am very fast and accurate on the keyboard. Line count continually gets harder to achieve. I know it depends on how the company has Dictaphone set the line count parameters -- whether to pay headers, footers, spaces, demos, normals, expanders, etc.
Also speech recognition using ExSpeech at TT is so cumbersome and awful. Really made good money and line count with DQS speech editing. Just must my opinion. Other comments would be interesting.
The requirement is 50% participation. It is actually harder for a larger company sm
than a small company if they are national to get good rates. Once in, they will have it easy after that. I dealt with it personally for another company and it was a nightmare. Insurance is crazy and once national, it is harder to get the insurance. They should have gone with BC/BS when smaller but chose Unicare for some reason. Now they are regretting it.
Sometimes you get spelling and abbrvns over the phone, typing later on. Bone up on your harder
s
It is much harder on the wrist to constanly use the mouse to jump around the report to edit, rather
x
I agree that it is an easy platform, but compared to other platforms I have used, lines are harder
to get, probably counted or weighted differently.
Easy tests versus harder tests...
Having passed both and offered jobs at both, which company would you likely go for? They both have the same basic benefits and line rates. Would I be assuming that the harder testing will mean that the dictation is more difficult? Any opinions on this would be greatly appreciated!
As a whole.. nice people to work for, decent benefits but the get off/on the system, work/no work,
is maddening. I couldnt pay my bills or even work the schedule I was assigned. They would ask us not to work until work built up in the evenings and I specifically wanted to work days as I have kids etc. It just didnt work out for me but to each his own. It just seems there has to be a better balance in this business that what is happening.
I did speak with my manager. Work was promised. No work there when I needed to work.
I see the reports everyday too, but when I get work it is of bad quality, then there is no work unless I work diffrent shifts. Thank you.
My liaison always says to work on secondary when primary is low on work/no work. n/m
n/m
That's going to be nuts...I do ASR work too, plus work split shifts. We'll NEED a spread shee
NT
Work is easy, very nice owner, pays weekly, work in Word.
A majority of at-home MT is overflow work with in-house getting the bulk of the work. If they clean
s
Pay is always on time, direct deposit, very nice management to work with, and DQS platform, work
load normally busy, but low now because of the summer slow down on my accounts. Sound an issue on some accounts, but not others. Overall, wonderful company.
That is a BIG problem at TransTech is leads assigning work, rather than letting the work flow
This TT MT just admitted to that fact. It has been very obvious, as so easy to tell how work comes into our que and then gets pulled out as fast as it came in and replaced with YUKKY dictators. VERY frustrating to us other TT MT's who take the JUNK that is NOT assigned to other MT's, such as this poster.
Ever thought of a home health care aide? Usually paid training and start work right away. Can work
m
Absolutely not! I work for the best MTSO. I am have been so blessed to work for the small company I
I will share this about the MTSO I work for. I called her late last Wednesday night after Church and told her I was compelled to help out with Hurricaine Katrina in some way and an opportunity arose for a small group from my Church to go to Louisianna this coming week. Would she be able to cover my work. She told me no problem without any hesitation and even donated money for the trip.
And I am sure there are plenty of good companies out there to work for. To compare us to migrant workers is just not right.
It does work, you do not need to "make" it work.. it works in all word based programs.
x
I did some overflow work for Landmark.. they are wonderful to work for.. very nice people.. pay was
.
They have to be flexibility because of the erratic work flow. No sense in a schedule if no work..
nm
I was told Escription would not work with Vista. Turned out it wouldn't work with my sm
Office Basic Edition 2003 either, but no one could figure out why, it was supposed to.
There is actually a section on the Dell website that offers Windows XP. I haven't checked it out as I'm not in the market, so I don't know if it costs extra. I have a Dell and it's been fine for me. I hate the ESL tech department, but it seems like most of them have that now.
Yes they do send work overseas and do not hide this fact. There is plenty of work and they do pay
well. Overall, I like having work as I have been at places where you had to fight to keep busy so this works for me.
There is NO work at Transtech. Maybe they just choose special people to send work to
df
Are you required to work major holdays at KS. I know nature of biz to work them. Thanks for info. nm
nm
Great people to work for, but I had to leave due to lack of work. Hopefully that has changed. SM
Most of us who do not live in California had to go IC. When I was there, they did not have statutory status, although they told me they did when they hired me. Their pay for VR is VERY low, not a living wage. Many of the folks in the office are ex-YOG and great to work for/with. Good luck.
1200 lines daily is great if you have the work, personally, I never had enough work so
I left and have NEVER been sorry!
Don't know about radiology work load, but we have been scratching in the dirt for work for a numb
of months now. They hire, lose account, hire again before new accounts comes onboard, then have overhired, having to put new MT's on the current low workload.
Medical field is 24/7 work unless you work for a clinic or stand alone operation.
I just look at the other cool people working holidays and weekends in the ICU, ER, paramedics,and am glad to be there. When you work in a hospital for a length of time, it becomes a necessary evil to show up at the worst possible times.
Having a family or a life you'd miss from Friday at 5 PM to Monday at 8 PM must be hard and
I think that there is a place for you where they can meet your requirements (M-F). There are plenty of those jobs.
They require that you work in house until your have clean QA for 3 paydays then you can work
e
All nationals I work for you only work 40 hours unless they approve overtime.
x
I'm part-time and don't have to work all weekend. I work Tues-Sat.
I've never heard that from Chronicle, of course I didn't see the ad.
The bid has nothing to do with consistancy of work. MTSO cannot control how cosistant work is.
:+
I'll love to know who you work for. I also work every weekend with no extra pay.
It'd be nice to get paid for all the nights and weekends I work.
|
