Home     Contact Us    
Main Board Job Seeker's Board Job Wanted Board Resume Bank Company Board Word Help Medquist New MTs Classifieds Offshore Concerns VR/Speech Recognition Tech Help Coding/Medical Billing
Gab Board Politics Comedy Stop Health Issues
ADVERTISEMENT




Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

You have it all wrong. I work SMARTER, not harder.

Posted By: Can and have done ESL in many years of MT SM on 2008-02-17
In Reply to: ESL dictation - Debber

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.




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

Work Smarter, Not Harder...
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!!!
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 :(


WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! We turn down work because so many hospitals are sm
calling wanting a company that keeps work in the USA. The trend was stronger a few years ago before it all came to light about poor quality, the woman in Pakistan who threatened to post medical records on the web, 911, etc. There are hospitals who look for US-only and they are the MAJORITY not the minority. Definitely seeing the tide turn on offshore from an MTSO perspective, both MTs and customers!!!!!
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'.
Why, Is something wrong? I used to work with them
I just sent a note to say hi and heard nothing back. Where did you get this info?
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.
Wrong- employee only. No SE work at all
nm
Nothing wrong with that. Their work requires someone with
that set in stone requirement.
It could be that you are on the wrong account, there is a lot of work.
Things are busy. If you'd like, send me a private e-mail. I think I can help.
WRONG - I work on 2 which are NOT overflow and know of 3 more sm
in my own STM group that are not.
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.
So you are supposed to work until that minute like nothing is wrong? sm
Do they really expect everyone to just say OK and carry on as usual until that time? They're nuts.

I don't think it'd work just to unionize here. Timing's wrong. SM
Actually, the phrase Pissing into the wind, comes to mind. Once the folks offshore competing for the same work unionize, then maybe. (Did you notice that successful unions are for lines of work that can't be sent offshore? Inability to replace workers is key.) And once EMRs come into widespread use here in the States and a new workforce has transitioned around them, maybe. Being an optimist, I also like to think that countries with new growing middle classes will start producing, not only more demand for middle class wages, but plenty of local work too generated from people who will also get to benefit from this amazing medical revolution we're all part of. In the meantime, identifying and training for a position in the medical information field or another that will/should have decent-paying work in the future would be a good idea for any of us. Anyway, that's what I think.
Well, it wouldn't work for me - (wrong equipment).
to make hanging look like an accident (for an adult, anyway). Making it appear that it was part of a partial-asphyxiation sex act seems like the only way to do it. Unless, of course, he was messing around with some other person who fled the scene once things went wrong.

You're right, though... very sad.
Sometimes you get spelling and abbrvns over the phone, typing later on. Bone up on your harder
s
Wait .. that came out wrong. I'm not glad you don't have work .. just relieved I'm not alo
x
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.
Wrong. Companies chose to or not to offshore work, nobody makes them. sm
My company does not offshore work, absolutely will not. We've actually gained/kept accounts assuring clients that we do not. We have many clients, cutting edge technology for both customer and employee, a healthy growth rate and a high MT retention rate. It's not impossible to have a successful USA-only based company. Sadly that may not be the norm anymore, but it's a choice MTSO/CEOs (whatever they may be) make and in my opinion maybe cutting some of the bottom line and offshoring is being done in place of producing a high quality of work that keeps a customer happy and not looking around for other service options. Subsequently I think these companies then suffer inferior work further because they are paying less and/or maybe have contractural obligations. Personally I'd like to think they'd still prefer high quality to low prices and inferior product. I have to wonder if these offshore companies are losing just as many accounts because of their product. I just know I am glad I work for a company who doesn't outsource, doesn't plan to, and has every intention to remain successful because quality does count.
You're wrong. You are not required to work one weedend day a week.
s
I have not posted anything wrong. It is common knowledge that Keystrokes does not send work offshor
Now I know why so many people do not like these boards. I did not write anything bad or over the top. I simply stated facts. I agree with the others and will now observe but not post. This is craziness here. If someone asks a question, I guess they would rather have answers from those that do not know the real answers. Call the company if you have questions from this point out. The phone number and web site are not secret.
You are wrong! Here is the ad. I got it too. There are no words spelled wrong and the caps are pa
This is pasted from the bottom of the email blast.

Why are you trying to stir up trouble? Keystrokes does not send ANYTHING offshore.

Here is the email blast from ILHIMA. The KS logo is at the top but does not paste here:

Rapid Turnaround, Guaranteed Accuracy, Measurable Cost Savings, U.S.A. Only, & Personal Service. These are our Five Stars of Excellence Promise. Find out what they can mean for you today. Email Pam.Gingrich@KeystrokesMT.com today!

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!
SO WRONG

You are so wrong in your assumption!  Although she is not with us anymore, the records need to be set straight.  Shannon has over 10 years of medical transcription experience and typed on every account we have at MDI.  You may have thought she didn't transcribe but that was because she was too busy typing on other accounts and doing the job she was hired to do which was to manage ALL of the accounts.  So before you begin to drag Shannon into the line of fire, please do your research.  She was hired to do a job which she did very well and she will be sorely missed.


Wrong, just someone who has to SM
work with people like you and is really tired of listening to the persecution complex.  I'll bet you have the same problems with the job you have now, right?
Wrong again
Actually, it's y'all - for you all.

Ya'll is for you will.

The contraction divides the words.
WRONG!
Before you start cutting people down, why don't you do a little bit of research on your own? Flossie is not QA DIRECTOR. BS is QA Director. Flossie is QA MANAGER. There IS a difference. And she's a DAMN GOOD ONE at that!!!!
Wrong !!!
She is out of town.
Man, you are WAY out there -- WRONG.
If you're working for MQ, you're getting up to $50 a month DSL reimbursement, not $30.

YOU pay to update your computer??? How is that?

You'd be paying your electricity anyway, unless you live so frugally from the stoneage that you don't require electricity. If you're an SE, you can claim part of that on your tax filing -- if you have a designated room for an office. As well, you can claim any rental fees for equipment -- if you're an SE.

It's your job to make sure what you are typing is correct. Asking to be paid for researching what you are responsible for is as idiotic as saying you should be paid to run spellcheck. Geez.

Virtually every part of the demographic screen is filled in and they provide all the search tools for that. On occasion you MIGHT have to type a patient's name in. Get over your bad self.

If you want to be paid for actual time you spend regardless of how productive it is in lines, then you need a job with an hourly pay instead of production. That simply isn't how it is done. You don't like it? Get an hourly job. Don't like that? Get into a different line of work.
That is where you are wrong...
There are a lot of MTs employed at OSi, so where does this "me along with everyone else" come in to place.  Oh, let me guess...you and all the other smart people?  lol!  too funny
Are you ever wrong about anything?

Opinions are always welcome...if they are not shoved down our throats.  You make me choke.


What is wrong with you?
You obviously do not work for MQ and are very rude.
You are wrong
Nothing is paid for if you work out of Amherst MQ other than production time and PTO time. I was directly told that. No exceptions!
You are wrong.
I work for Diskriter and THEY DO pay for downtime.  They have been more than fair with my pay.  Do not post things that are not true, you are WRONG.
Wrong

I have worked as an Editor for a US company. I am not the owner of a MT company. I did an excellent job there and left because I chose to leave for a better opportunity. The US company where I worked had MT's call in sick daily, yet the HR person was constantly receiving emails from them about the possibility of a raise. They complained about not having enough work, yet when they were offered the opportunity to work on another account, they refused. I know that there are many quality US MT's who care about the level of quality of the work they produce. Yet there are many who are lazy and do not care about the quality of their work who constantly call in with excuses about why they can't work their shift. And US MT's (many  of them) are constant job hoppers. MTSO's have a responsibility to provide their clients with a product. If they can't count on you to work your shift, you leave them with little choice.


My experience since working for a company who offshores has been totally opposite. These MT's are eager to work. They are meticulous about the quality of every report they produce. They are eager to improve their skills as an MT. They are all educated. It's amazing that they are able to produce work that rivals yours in quality and most often exceeds it when English is not their native language. You may not want to hear this, but the truth is the truth.