Bad...I'll show you the math inside SM

Where I used to work, they said a minute of transcription more or less equals 11.5 lines (average dictator).  So, 60 minutes would equal 690 lines.  If you divide $40 by 690, you would end up earning 5.8 cents per line.  As an employee that is terrible...as an IC (independent contractor) that is even worse.  You would need to earn at least twice that much to make it worth your while.

Chickadee  

• 60 minutes of dictation for $40 - LG
  • Bad...I'll show you the math inside SM - Chickadee
  • Hope you're joking...nothing more need said. nm - huh
    • Nope that was the pay I saw for a job - LG
      • 60 minutes of dictation - Brandy
        • 60 minutes - Patti

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MTSOs are paid by hospitals and/or huge ugly conglomerates who exist to attempt to try to help the hospital turn a profit, or at least less of a loss. MTSOs are desperate to get business, so all too often they sell their soul for a pittance (what a decently paid IC would make per line).

The MTSO has to pay the piper:  You, copy paper, management, technicians, equipment, QA, trainers, lawyers (yikes!), accounting firms, rent, and on and on.

Yes, many MTSOs make a boat-load of money, many spend money badly and the MTs pay the price, but many are barely hanging on by their toenails.

It's the trickle-down theory in real life. People use the medical system dishonestly (people we know, might even be you), insurance companies want to pay as little as possible because they have mouths to feed, hospitals want to be able to pay their people and improve equipment and be able to save lives, so they try to cut down on what they pay to THEIR overhead, the MTSO. The MTSO is making less so (hopefully) try to cut down on their overhead so they don't affect us, but I know for a fact that too often the MT pays the price long before the CEO and his/her close friends have to cut down on their spending. But, that's the story at every level. The little guy pays but, in truth, we are also the crux of the problem.

Life goes on. Let's all move to a socialist country!

1,000 words x 5.5 char per word = 5,500 characters total

5,500 characters /65 standard characters per line = 85 lines

$5/85 lines = $.059 per line, which is less than 6 cents per line.  Not a very good deal unless you're a total newbie or it's a really easy report to type. 

But everything else I said is correct.  (GD&W)  

So that would be based on 8 cents per line, she must make at least 24 cents per line?

LMAO!!!!

Ok, let's say you're a speedy Transcriptionist and can do 2000 lines a day.  You would earn:

15.50 x 8 = 124.00 (base pay) plus

$40 extra for extra lines plus

employee status with bennies (value? a lot!)

but based solely on pay, you would earn $20.50 an hour!  Not too shabby!

Chickadee

I just charged a POSSIBLE new client 11 cents a line - now here is my dilemma - I suck at math. 

If the client should ask me, is that 11 cents per 65 characters with spaces or without spaces - what should I say.

Second, how do I figure out the math  I have Microsoft Word and it has a line count and character count with spaces and without spaces.  How does one figure out the math?

Oooohhhh what was I thinking....

on one of my word documents, and they were almost exactly the same.

1545 characters without spaces divided by 55 = 28.09 lines

(same report) 1851 characters with spaces divided by 65 =28.47 lines

so, I would say it is almost exactly the same as 9 cents per 65-character line with spaces.

Chickadee

Okay, here and on other boards there are many questions as to "which school to attend" and "best schools" and "only three schools matter" and so on and so forth.

There are at least 100,000 MTs working in the U.S., according to the BLS stats.

100,000.

Not even 1/10 of the working MTs could have possibly gone to those schools.

That leaves 90,000 MTs trained elsewhere, for those of you following along at home.

And yet, the constant refrain is "Andrews, M-Tec, and CS."

And they are good schools, certainly, especially the first two. But they aren't the ONLY schools and people who are spreading the hysteria that "you won't ever work unless you attend on of those three schools" are not helping the profession. Some of the message boards on other forums (fora) are so obviously biased that it's laughable, yet the newcomer to the field might not pick up on that.

A challenge: Tell where YOU went to school.

I went to Meditec and I'm working, folks. And doing well. And enjoying it! I have several "online buddies" who attended MT Advantage. They are working, too!

And to those who will say it was "mere luck:" 90,000 people gettin' lucky -- I like those odds!!!

To make $15 an hour, one must edit 500 lines an hour.  That is a furious pace and cannot be kept up except by the exceptional MT, one who is that coordinated and focused. Perhaps one can do that for four hours, but eight hours?  Unless there was a break in the middle, maybe.  And every day?  And is the dictation that good that one can fly through the reports?  Every day? I think not. 

I make roughly $20 an hour straight typing now, so VR is out of the picture for me.  I just do not want to do VR and will get out before demoting myself to those insulting wages.  We are worth a decent wage.  The MTSOs need to realize that our knowledge is worth something.  We are not just typists. 

Current pay  0.1122 cpl    $18.54 vacation/holiday pay.

Company bought.  Am now being offered 0.095 cpl and $13.50.  What is the percentage of my loss?  Am so upset about this cannot think.

ST:  250 lines an hour at 8 cents a line is $20.00.  (I can do 250 an hour if I concentrate).  If I can only do 200 lines an hour, that is still $16.00 an hour.

Now for the VR:

VR:  400 lines (roughly 60% more than straight typing 250 lines an hour) at 3 cents a line is $12.00.

How is that more money?  It's a 25% cut!   

How many of you spent years perfecting your macros and shortcuts and Expanders just to have it taken away from you so you can't make a decent living? 

I won't be doing any VR work.  I think they wasted their money with this new technology.  They could have given us raises with that money and had happy employees cranking out the lines.  Win-win.

Too bad for us.  Shafted, once again! 

trying to figure cell phone plans (pay as you go type)....do i divide minutes by dollars, or dollars by minutes to get the cents per minute...

and more so, how does one know which way to divide other things of similar nature (not necessarily dollars vs minutes).

mega thanks .

Son is out of school due to chickenpox and teachers are sending home the homework w/o samples. They learned a new thing in math and it's been a LONG time since I did this stuff. The sample in the book is really no help. Is there a website I can visit too?

He needs to write out the equation and then solve the problem. How would this be written out. There are 25 more questions like this and I'm lost. After he gets the answer he needs to put it in the equation and see if is the correct answer.

B + 1/8 = 2/3.

THanks for any help.

matter where they go to school there are going to be kids that just struggle in a subject.   Not having family support could be a major issue too.  I never understood not having family support and why it mattered to a parent whether they had it or not because they are the parent.  It would be nice if the family was supportive though.  I have known people whose parents were so against it, but later saw that they were missing so much and bought into it and actually enjoyed helping them learn and explore.   It doesn't take an education to be able to educate your child, it just takes love, time, and patience.  Not all parents can provide that, but most can and do.  I have 1 year of college and my just turned 11-YO is so far ahead that we went to a local college bookstore today to get him books because he has pretty much mastered everything else.   I spend my free time reading his books trying to stay one step ahead of him and in the process getting a better education than I ever got when I was in school and I went to pubic and private schools and was also in advanced classes. 

Homeschooling is not for everyone, but it is an option and those who choose to do it should be allowed to do it without being degraded for it.  There are a tremendous amount of resources available to homeschoolers, the bigger the city the more options.  Lack of socialization is one of the first issues that a non-homeschooler brings up.  Our children still play with neighborhood children, participate in community sporting activities, scouts, 4-H, etc. so there are plenty of times for socialization.  My youngest son has never met a stranger and everyone wants to be around him from ages 1 to 100.  My oldest isn't as social and most of his friends are public school kids, but when he was in public school he didn't have but 1 friend, mainly because he was so advanced and the things he would talk about where things way over the other kid's heads and they thought he was lying.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now. 

Getting credit for headers and footers or not, doesn't make much difference in the math.  It's simply not possible.  Even if you figure she gets 10 free lines per report for headers and footers, she still would have to type 300 lph for 10 hours a day and her hands would virtually never have to leave the keyboard!

Her pants are on fire!