there have been regular attempts to organize MTs over the years ...
Posted By: dandelion on 2009-08-13
In Reply to: Loyalty to Companies Who Have No Work and Expect a Schedule from YOU - MT
generally, we sell out each other -- for many very good and practical reasons -- but also because, as far as I can tell, many in the MT population are fundamentally extremely conservative, don't tread on me, anti-union people ... though most(like most Americans living today) have only (bad) anecdotal experience with unions.
The best thing that can happen for us in the short run is national health -- perhaps eventually some sort of prohibition on off-shoring certain facets of medical records management and billing (though I'm doubtful Obama would push for such a thing) ...
Electronic medical records have been the next big thing for a long time ... but they have a lot of real problems and have failed to catch on or even be adopted in many niches where they should be perfectly suited.
I can't tell how much money would be saved by voice recognition if the files were not off-shored ... the administration of the accounts and individual records, the fixing and various stages to a complete report suggest that this MAY (again) be a case of companies investing heavily now in a FUTURE technology which may or may not come to fruition (the EMR may make voice recognition largely too much trouble for the gains)
We'll see -- I believe the Service Worker's Union has been approached -- their web site might be a starting place for anyone interested in past efforts to create an advocacy organization or union (since the AAMT is HARDLY that) ...
There will always be someone desperate enough to be willing to accept absurb line rates ... Bashing those desperate people is energy misdirected, imho.
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Let's organize
Please, anyone and everyone from MDI who is interested in discussing our situation and trying to bring some resolve, please help me organize a forum, private emails, or whatever we can come up with. We can help each other, not by whining and complaining, but by putting on our thinking caps and working together. I have email set up for this sole purpose. Everything is confidential! AmericanMT@yahoo.com
but how to organize a lobby
how do we organize a lobby? No Transcriptionist is willing to stand up because they can hire Indians or students who will work for 4 cpl. Also the doctors do not care about quality they just want it done cheaply.
Companies organize, not professions
Unions are formed at the company level. A union can be formed to represent a particular group of workers, but only individual companies can be organized by the union. Unions generally focus on larger companies, as that's where the union dues are going to be significant. If you work for a small company, your company will almost certainly never be unionized. It's just not worth it for the union leaders (no money in it for them). And ICs cannot be part of a union, only employees of companies. The MT profession itself cannot be organized, only at the company level, and only if the majority at the company vote for the union.
Same here, about 40-50 regular drs on my acct, with
probably 10 of them being so awful, I can hardly attempt them. I'm happy to say that some I hated at first are now ones I enjoy, so hopefully I will keep finding that to be the case. Others though, UGH!
If you have a regular phone that has a
foot pedal control connected to it, you can use that for transcribing rather than a c-phone. And there are quite a few generic telephone transcribe units that are compatible and cost a whole lot less than the c-phone. Also, DVI compatable.
Do you keep regular phone?
Thanks everyone. I do use a c-phone and I wondered with Vonage if you have to give up your regular phone. Sorry, I am technically challenged. LOL I appreciate all the input. Also, I live in Nevada.......anyone from this state use vonage....everyone is giving mixed reviews and I will check out that other site also. Man......what a dilema....cannot believe some wise person has not come up with something for this type of business to have ULD. Thanks to all you wonderful people giving me a response so quickly. I will keep watching for more suggestions.
They can pay you on regular pay day if you quit. nm
nm
Same here in MT, always last check on a regular pay day. nm
s
Yes, just regular rate
They have never paid for any OT. When I first started and they asked for OT, I asked them if it was line and a half rate or how they calculated it, and she said what do you mean, you get paid the lines you type. Thinking she didn't understand me, I repeated the question and asked what we got paid extra for the OT pay, and she said nothing, you get paid for what you type. I thought it was illegal too, but obviously they are getting away with it. I know I refuse to work OT...never have and never will. When they cry about being out of TAT, I politely tell them that when I get paid extra for doing extra that I'll be more than happy to help.
I also work 2nd shift, and I'll have to check to see if I've been getting my differential due to what the above poster said. I'm going to be even more mad if I didn't, but it wouldn't surprise me none.
This company is going down hill fast since SPi took over. I think they forgot we are Americans and have a different way of doing things here. They want to pay us like they do over in their neck of the woods, and it's just not happening. It's getting to be quite insulting actually. I know I'm definitely looking for something else!
No just put your regular shift
Just put your regular schedule unless you work approved OT. That is all that is necessary for the payroll people because they go by line count anyway.
ASR sound seems to be better than regular. Even if
help you figure it out. It seems like it's the same dictators with the worst sound quality no matter whether it's ASR or regular. Try it, you can always tell them you don't like it.
You sound like me! I went from ASR to regular MT
this week and loving it! I'm still part-time with the ASR company but I sure enjoy getting back to the typing I love to do. I know that sounds crazy, but I love MT-ing some much more than editing (and of course it will ultimately pay more since this BIG company's ASR/voice recognition SUCKS).
:)
my regular rate is 10 cpl
tr
They did not *cut our pay* for regular transcription sm
We were told how we would be paid for VR editing straight up. Yes, it pays less but at least it pays a lot more than the 2-3 cpl straight pay that most MTSOs pay; at least you get 70% of your regular line rate for editing.
As for *not telling their clients* - How do YOU KNOW what they tell their clients? Unless you are management (and obviously you aren't), how would you know what the clients are or are not told about VR?? How do you know they don't offer a line rate cut to those to use it?
You don't. I'm sick of the bashing. There are plenty of jobs out there with other companies (where you won't be treated nearly as well as Webmedx). If you don't like the company, go somewhere else.
Where does it leave regular MTs?
It leaves a lot of them complaining on these forums about always getting lousy jobs or not enough work, etc.
I do both regular transcription and VR
My biggest complaint, like everyone's is the ridiculous pay scale. Because of the low rate for VR, I am still not making the money I used to, but I don't think it is because Cornerstone is slowing me down so that I can't do as many lines as I need for the same pay I used to make. I would have to do 3000 lines of VR a day to make my former income, which I've been able to do once or twice on a day when the volume of work was there. I have way too many people that end up as secondaries in my account which is very frustrating in the mornings when the work is low in all the accounts.
I work mostly in my primary account, but do have 2 secondary accounts. I could have more but choose not to ask for any, because my primary account generally has enough work most of the time.
I don't even remember when I started on VR, but I think it's been about 9 months.
Because most of the better dictators are on VR, that does leave the crappier ones on regular transcription, which, in my opinion, now makes the pay rate for regular transcription too low because you are now only dealing with the harder dictators. I used to be able to use macros for many of the easier doctors that were more accurate than Speech, so now I am getting paid half as much and having to do more work on those easier doctors also.
Nothing about the pay scale is fair, and their little pilot program to figure out why was a complete joke. We all know the outcome of that should be that they are simply not paying us enough and they overestimated what VR could really do. The slightly better ramp-up pay was not good enough to compensate. I was way beyond the ramp-up lines so I got a measly $89.00 extra on one check to make up what I would have made on the new ramp-up pay. My income has dropped by several hundred a month and that 89 dollars was a joke. The only thing that would truly be fair would be to raise the rates overall, but we all know that isn't going to happen. That being said, Spheris does pay a higher rate than a lot of the companies for VR, so switching companies doesn't seem to be the answer either. They are all ripping us off.
And as far as the new blanks procedure, that one has me pretty angry. The whole thing is ridiculous, the training was ridiculous, and in the survey at the end, I answered their question about it making me more efficient with a big NO!, and I put in the comments that they need to pay us more to make up for the time it will take for such nonsense.
As I said, I can complain about pretty much everything else at Spheris, but I don't find Cornerstone to be the problem that so many others seem to think it is.
I make very good use of Instant Text, and use the mouse more than they recommend, but I find the mouse faster for me then some of their shortcuts.
If they would simply pay us fairly, it would be easier to put up up with the rest of the crap this company has to offer.
Vonage, but also have regular ULD as a backup
I spent about $45 a month for the 2 combined, both residential plans. If I use my ULD (through Qwest) I'm careful how much I'm using so I don't red flag their system. I haven't had any problem with Vonage for the 2 months I've been there and using it heavy. I talked to a couple of other people who have used Vonage really heavy for 1-2 years and haven't had a problem, so I decided to go with that. I only picked up the Qwest ULD recently because my Vonage box malfunctioned and I didn't have any long distance for 3 days until I got a new one, so like I said, the Qwest ULD is now a backup.
not my regular account - just helping out
nm
Yes, honest I do. I have my regular account (sm)
and a backup. It is probably to your advantage to do the same. Learn one, and then ask for a backup. That way if one gets low you will have work. I don't know why people on here are saying there is never any work. I can honestly say, when I had only one account, it got slow right around New Year's and lasted for a day or two. But never actually ran out. Don't know what these people are talking about. Believe me, if I found out they were offshoring,I would be mighty upset, but I do not believe it. Good luck.
I'm doing regular MT now, but in the past I have gotten 0.05 V/R with .10 transcription sm
but never had enough work, so went back to regular transcription. I had thought about applying, but did not want to waste my time with the whole process if the rates stink! You know what I mean? I hate going throug the entire process only to find the rate absolutely stinks!
Actually your ASR rate drops to 70% of your regular sm
rate, not 35%. If you do not like ASR, ask your STM to be removed. You have a choice whether or not to use it.
I'd say that would depend on what your regular line
is what I've seen posted on here. If you read fast you'll do fine, if you type faster than you read, well, it's iffy. If you have lots of formatting, i.e., ROS/PE flush left margin and ASR doesn't do it, screw it; use macros/shortcuts because you should have ROS/PE in macros/shortcuts for most dictators. I ignore the company's advice on how to do Keystrokes with it, turned off that hideous hiliter, and never waste time on tab plus whatever the other key combination is, it's too far away from home position and I'm a lefty and it's totally inconvenient for me to use it. I use the ctl/arrow keys to move forward or backward and ctl/shift/arrow to both navigate and hilite, then all ya gotta do is hit delete. All that also depends on how the ASR is set up. I hated it at first and I'm still not fond of it, but it's better than sitting with nothing.
Well, that's you're getting 45% of your regular line
try to work your way around it like I did. Do what's easiest for you, sometimes their way of doing things is bass-ackwards.
I just use a regular debit card......sm
I think bank is out of texas.
Mine came regular mail
But was included with my new-hire paperwork. Give it time, mail is really slow this week (at least in Central New York!)
Absolutely not, just a regular peon... NM
NM
Are regular and VR lines separated on your pay
check stubs? 35% sounds about like the difference between regular and VR lines. Ours are called pretty much the same thing and you have to know which one is VR and which regular because they're not added up on the email summary we get but they are added up on the actual pay stub itself that comes in the mail.
I wouldn't wait that long. If I cannot be on a regular
What are they paying, once a month? So, for the whole month of May, you draw pay on June 13th?
Not for me.
We dumped regular landline and got Vonage
HUMUNGUS savings! You can get unlimited long distance for $25.00, and if you call other people who have Vonage, no charge at all.
Man, are you wrong! I'm just one of the regular "Joes" here, not mgmt at all. nm
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If you work it you get extra cpl. You CAN ask for it off if it is on your regular days also. sm
Personally I don't think it is a bad deal at all. Better than nothing, which is what my other job paid for holidays.
We get 1.5 times our regular rate on holidays, so it is the same sm
as the hospital that I worked at previous to working for Keystrokes.
I did not work any holidays last year or this except 4th of July. I am not a big fireworks or too-hot-to-breathe outside kindof person, so I always volunteer for that one!
Diskriter, contractor or regular employee
I was just wondering if Diskriter hires on an IC basis or as a regular company employee?
VR is roughly 60% of your regular line rate at
nm
Same for Webmedx - 70% of your regular line rate. sm
That's better than some - I hear a few pay a flat rate of 2 or 3 cpl for editing!
The regular local post office
Do you live in a small town? (Not sure if thatshould really matter). I live in a medium size town near a semi-large city in NY. The reason I ask is if I mail something to my relatives out of state or even if they send me something in never takes more than 2 days, that's why I thought 10 days sounded excessive. Are you sure they're mailing the pay checks when they say they are?
Just type in 'precyse' on the regular search box
I find that I have better results when using the MTStars search box as opposed to the 'google' box.
I worked for Precyse in the past and was not happy there. I also have a friend who worked there in QA - she left also.
There are WebmedX accounts still on regular transcription?!?
That's news to me. Have worked on most all in the past 2 years and ALL are on VR. And they don't tell their clients or the clients would not HOLD CONVERSATIONS WITH THE VR, talk about how something sounds funny, give editing information, ask how we are today...etc LOL
No one was bashing, they were telling the TRUTH.
Regular and VR lines are listed separately
NM
25% sounds good to me too. I put it in my regular account, but I write it somewhere else so I don&#
x
All KS MTs are employees, no ICs anymore. I have Aflac and regular insurance. sm
I chose the $500 deductible for the regular insurance and have Aflac for supplemental accident and disability, which is taken out pre-tax. I had Aflac through the hospital I was at and loved it. I was happy when Keystrokes started with them.
1 extra hour per day in additional to regular shift...nm
xx
....Don't know why a regular Infinity pedal didn't work. nm
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Is the Emdat footpedal specific to the software or will a regular
s
Are you saying those of us who work for nat'ls aren't "normal, regular" MTs? LOL. NM
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Webmedx pays 70% of your regular line rate. nm
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just one more question....do they have regular full-time employees with benefits or......sm
just ICs? Thanks.
I have never heard of that....always waited until regular pay day to receive final check.
Any company I have resigned my position from, I just received my final check like usual on the regular pay date scheduled. No big deal, it was always in my bank when it was supposed to be.
Should mention that my VR is 7 cpl - 2 cents below my regular pain...I would be thrilled with 500lph
Keep up the great work!!!!
This job is only good for extra pin money for people that have other regular income coming in.
It may end up being a good job for people that are experienced and on social security and have other investments now for some extra money. Would never want to have it to pay all bills. No way.
Youch, MQers, how do you handle DQS timesheets if you're a regular employee with no set schedule?
nm
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