like I said below major abuse of power

• Nervous Nettie Here...OSi seems 2 B falling apart. - (sm) FF
  • they need to look at mgt & not blame the MTs - tater tot
  • Huh - pony
  • they were reported to feds for falsifying time sheets - scoop
    • Now there's a smoking gun..... - poof
    • OT - anon
    • good for them then - pony
  • like I said below major abuse of power - 2 sense
    • sensing a theme here - anonanoni
      • I'll take the cake! - yum
        • lol that is how osi does it - nm
    • QA - lol
      • I have a full can of Aqua Net hairsprya here...should I apply??? - LOL
        • TOO FUNNY!!!! - shaqata
      • no experince needed just a big head - LMOA nm
      • not just these days over the last couple years - Taffy
  • Have you seen the 2 LONG posts below - Pg 1 & 2
  • Can't say that I blame you! nm - RetroMTMom
    • God works in mysterious ways -- sm - MSMT

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A few months ago it came to my attention that the company I work for does not pay their employee status medical transcriptionists overtime pay. The company took on a new account with about 50 physicians and did not hire anyone to do this work, so it was on the shoulders of us medical transcriptionists who were already working full-time hours to get these jobs done. We were receiving up to 5+ e-mails a day being hounded to get the work done and being told that the owner has to pay a penalty for anything out of the 24 hour TAT time. In many of the messages we were told to, not come crying to them come the slow season and we didn't have enough work to buy Christmas gifts or pay our electric bills. So, I asked if they pay overtime for anything over 40 hours a week. I got a reply saying, No, but you have my undying gratitude. I informed them that this was against the law, and that they might want to check out the Department of Labor web site and read up on labor laws. They did not think that they had to pay us over time, because we were paid by the line. Keep in mind that this is a fairly large company! I informed them that they had to convert our wages from paid by the line to paid by the hour and pay us time and a half! Bonuses do not count as overtime pay. They actually increase what the company owes you as it increases your normal wages. After that, I never heard anything back about this. Now, once again we had an update on your platform, which left us out of work for up to 2 days for some. Again, we start getting these nasty e-mails for us to work overtime to play catch up. We got no compensation for the time we could not work while we were waiting from them to fix all the bugs in the update! This is a direct quote from the owner -- it never ceases to amaze me the number of calls I receive around the holiday season from folks telling me they need help with presents for their kids. It never ceases to amaze me the calls I get from month to month from folks telling me they can't pay their electric bill. It never ceases to amaze me the number of calls Kathi or Jennifer or Angela make begging for help on an account and are told no. What really blows me away is that some of those same folks who call me are the ones not willing to work when the work is there. We all know that from mid-November to mid-January there's a bit of a lull, so why not make hay while the sun shines as my dad used to say? This e-mail was the last straw for me. I will post my reply. I encourage you to read the reply, so you too know the laws. We are not slaves working in a sweat shop! I thought I'd share with you some of things that we, as your employees, have been dealing with. First, did you know that during the, slow time, if we are sitting at our computers for 8 hours waiting for work to come in and we only manage to snag 2 jobs you need to pay us at least minimum wage for every hour we sit there and wait for a job! It is the law. If you do not want to do this you have to lay people off so that we can collect unemployment benefits. If people who work in-house have a slow day do you not pay them? Let me tell you, the law sees no difference as we are all employees. Second, if you ask people to work overtime you by law have to pay them time and a half. I explained all of this to the HR Department months ago. The line rate increase for producing more lines or a bonus does not count towards - us just making more. You have to add up which each person makes and convert it into per hour pay and then pay us time and a half. Third, the way you pay. If there is a holiday or we take a vacation day we automatically get the lowest line rate, which is 7 cents per line. If there is no work the day before or the day after a holiday and we cannot get our 12000 lines in, and then there is work on the holiday date and we work, we do not get the 10 cents a line holiday pay - due to know fault of our own! Fourth, I never got a bonus check for getting someone a job with you as I was supposed to. Also, I think there is some trickery as to your bonus system going on. We have to get at least 1200 lines a day for 10 our of 14 days, again if we are sick, take a day off, or a holiday we do not get it. Also, I was led to believe that to get the bonus we only had to get our 12,000 lines in 14 days to get the bonus. I was waiting months to get a bonus. haha funny right. Well all of these things are not so funny to me. Fifth, it is not very professional for the owner of the company to send out e-mails like this. The last e-mail you sent out was complaining that we were not keeping up with our TAT when YOU took on new doctors without hiring more people..and did not pay anyone overtime..and then blamed us MTs, some of whom were doing double time, for YOUR lack of preparation. Now again, as most accounts are behind on TAT, you send out this kind of e-mail, complaining to us. We did not ask for you to upgrade the system and not have all the bugs worked out. Most of us were out of work for a couple of days, and of course we will not be compensated, and we will get the lowest pay now. A few weeks ago we had a small upgrade that crashed my computer! I was out of work for over a week waiting for a new computer...again...without being compensated. Do you treat your in-house employees this same way? Again, a reminder to you that the same laws apply to us at home. As my dad says, poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine, and don't ever trust anyone who says trust me.

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It's a nasty tradeoff:  Work from home and receive less pay and benefits, or work at the office and receive higher pay and benefits while being berated, verbally abused and micromanaged at the office.

Screw the benefits - I'll take a peaceful life ANY day.

It's a nasty tradeoff:  Work from home and receive less pay and benefits, or work at the office and receive higher pay and benefits while being berated, verbally abused and micromanaged at the office.

Screw the benefits - I'll take a peaceful life ANY day.

IMO, is next to nil.  They are not who decides that certification is a requirement.  The industry would have to be on board with that.  Since the MT industry can't agree on what a line is, what an MT is, how payment should be rendered, etc, and since it's heavily impacted by the dollar, it's not likely that you will see mandatory certification any time soon.

Health Information Technology positions will often request certification by AHIMA.  It has taken AHIMA a long time to get where they are and ADHI is still years behind.

I have another profession and yes, for the most part, all fees including continuing education, as well as certifications fall to me.  There are some employers who will reimburse or pay up front, however.

Look at how many ads REQUIRE CMT.  And ask the question, who has not been hired because they didn't have it.

IMO, certification of offshore personnel is going to be designed to placate possible purchasers of those services by certifying legitimacy.  You are more likely to find offshore certification required well before you see it here. (Which is unfortunate because there are many US MTs whose skills are severely lacking just as much as some offshore MTs.)

I just wanted to thank you all for sharing.  Every opinion and every point of view are valuable.  The truth really will set us free --eventually.

on a net 30 day basis.  If you are lucky they pay sooner but there is nothing that forces them to do that.  They are used to all their vendor accounts being net 30 days and that is just the way it is. That's the way the business world works.  The IC is also in business.

I think it's the MTSO who most often gets the short end of the stick.  I pay my subcontractors every other week whether I get paid or not.  My clients can (and do) take 30 days to pay me.  I still pay my subcontractors.  The clients are happy; their work is done.  The subcontractors are happy; they have been paid.  Me - my mortgage my not be paid because I had to pay my subcontractors.  

I have feelers out to about 5 companies right now and will be sending out another batch of resumes this week also.

Working in the cesspool has taken its toll. I am fortunate in that I do not need health/dental insurance. One of the things that has kept me at MQ was the 18 days of PTO that I earn (yes earn) a year. Unfortunately, I wind up using a lot of that to make up for being out of work, etc, so it winds up not being truly *my time off*.

I just wonder if it is best to look for an IC position and just take time off without pay or try to find a company that has a good PTO plan.

Are there any companies out there that have a good PTO plan (definitely more than 5 days off a year) and how do they calculate PTO pay?

Thanks in advance.

Doesn't matter to me--with all the overtime available at Amphion, it's pretty easy to whittle down using PTO to a couple of hours instead of 7 or 8.  But more importantly to me is that as long as I don't have to work the major holidays that are most important to my family--Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year's--I'm a very happy camper.  I was an IC for a long time before Amphion and was able to take my very first vacation in 5 years last year.

It just depends on what is most important to each individual.   

...usually there is no work at all.  I was told that this depends on the account though.  And your rate is x1-1/2 is paid for work done on the 6 major holidays.

I especially like the PAs who mumble and don't even know how to pronounce the medications and believe they are actually MDs

burnout and my production has suffered, but I still am able to support myself and my family (My DH works so I don't have to, though I have been sole support in the past).  I am not a job hopper.  I was with one company 13 years and only left because they lost the account I worked on and I didn't want to do clinic work.  I've been with my current company almost 7 years, so things were different then.  I do make more than most MTs, though I haven't had a raise in 5 years and a few benefits have been taken away.    This past Sunday Parade magazine did a series on what people make and I make almost twice what a medical secretary was making (and I don't work 24/7 either).   

I won't say my company's name because they aren't hiring and haven't hired in about 2 years, simply because there isn't any turnover. 

growth just in the last week alone - all for the better.  Just be patient and it'll be worth your while.   You won't be disappointed.     I'd give it another day or two and call them just to follow up. 

Keystrokes is the best so far in my long and varied career!