Charging for printing/mailing reports

• Charging for printing/mailing reports - Tonya
  • rates - K8
    • Thanks! - Tonya

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I have always just done mass mailings, 100 or so and always received anywhere from one to three responses and some of those accounts are with me 18 years later.  Now it is more word of mouth.  I am also listed in the phone book and receive some from that -- mainly a one timer transcription but those are good cash jobs.   Again, it is hitting the offices once every three months or so and they recognize your name.   If they do seem interested or if there is a particular office I want, I do follow up with some cookies or treats for the office.  Good way to get past the front office.  I have already been told it is dorkey to do this.  But I do it.  I have someone from our church that makes homemade cookies and the large ones, so for a special price she will do a dozen or so and when she wraps them, on the second wrapping is my business card so as they receive the cookie, the first thing that she see is my card.  Costs a little but has worked for me.   Have used pens, calendars but the cookies do seem to work the best.  If there were enough of us doing private accounts we might be able to bring back some of those from overseas as I tell the doctor -- I do not have overhead, big expenses so I can pass those savings onto you with excellent personal service.  I do some extras -- cut apart chart notes, envelopes, etc.  Again, I make a good living, my accounts pay on time and yes I provide them with a personal service on a first name basis and we all work together.  They know after this many years that if I raise my rates it is because it is necessary and never give me a bad time.  Never question my line counts, delivery time or what.  So keep at it, find your niche and go for it.  The downside is -- sometimes you get a bad account just like the nationals,  you really have to think and plan for time off and there are days you want to run away but all in all, I would not change having my own accounts for anything in the world.

I usually do a mass mailing out to those clinics/solo docs/specialists with one to two in an office - usually 100 to 150 flyers, brochures.  Then if anyone calls or if there are offices I am interested in picking up or know do have companies do their dictation, I stop by with a dozen cookies --homemade and leave with a brochure.  Gotta get past the receptionist and sometimes that is the way to do it.  I try to go at times I know the offices are not the busiest, right before afternoon hours, right before lunch, etc.  I have gotten inquiries from perhaps 5 to 7% of my mailings, which they tell me is quite high and have picked up my last two accounts from mailings/call backs, etc.  They have all stayed with me.  I have not done a mailing in close to five to six years because I have had my accounts for so long.   But that is what I did.  I am thinking of getting my nephews and on a Saturday morning putting flyers underneath office doors in several medical buildings we have that are next to the hospitals here in Portland.   Also send out to orthodontists, psychologists, counselors, podiatrists, chiropractors, etc.  If you can do digital, then send flyers out to outlying smaller cities where no one delivers or picks up.   There are accounts out there just gotta dig for them sometimes.   But be willing to do it all, pick-up, deliver, printing, envelopes, copies, to get your foot in the door and then word of mouth works very well.   Good luck. 

Patti

if you still have your old computer...this advice might not help if your old computer is gone.

Good luck!

Chickadee

of the TASP?  I have been looking for information on TASPs and have contacted a few and of course they all say they are reliable, bla bla bla.  The two that I actually was able to get hold of by phone took almost a week to get back to me, so I'm not impressed already. Thank you very much. 

I wouldnt pay them for the work that they held up.  Get all the proof you can of when the clinic sent the work, when it needed to be returned, etc.  If you lose the account over something like this, that means the TASP gets less money too.  Doesn't make sense to me. 

wait for their reply.  If they tell you they're going to hold your check, tell them again that if you'll be more than happy to return the equipment if they send a mailing label or arrange for pickup.  In that letter / email, mention also that after 30 days you will be charging them for storage and after 60 days you will be forced to sell the equipment to recoup your losses for your last paycheck and will send them the remainder of the sale profits.  Keep sending them letters every week or so to show good faith in trying to contact them and work out a solution to the problem.

It doesn't mean that's what you have to do, but tell them it's one of your options and see how they respond.  If they threaten you with court, tell them that you have copies of all correspondence regarding return of the equipment, but they have been unreasonable.  If they really want their equipment bad enough, they'll pay to get it back.  This expense should not fall on the shoulders of the MT.

And I mean huge, over 200 brochures with over 25 years of experience and a digital system -- they were willing to pay about 9 cents a line for surgery notes.  Since I live in California, 16 cents would be more like it.  I guess I'm not that flexible.

They must have answered that India ad. 

and mailing lists.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA011269731033.aspx

I have several hundred typed out, but cannot for the life of me figure out how to turn it into a mailing list.  I have downloaded Avrey Wizard, but when I try to do it, it asks me about field delimiters and no matter what I pick it doesn't work.  Maybe there is a simpler way??

Thanks!

If they were to provide you with the ink cartridge then you would have to put it in and out everytime you printed something personal or for someone else.   You will probably go through 1 to 1 1/2 cartridge per year for their printing needs and this is an expense of doing business included in your cpl.   I do all my printing and do probably close to 35,000 to 40,000 lines per month and go through about 2 to 2.5 toners for my HP which is about $200 to $250 per year -- not even $20 per month.  At 10 cents per 60 charcters that is a decent  price and if it is decent lines, pretty good dictators I sure would't rock the boat over that.  Again, if you do they could go elsewhere or else give you a toner and say do not use it for anything else and ask for documentation when you use it.  If you become petty over this, they will become petty.  I just would not start out this way, but then I have been told that I am too easy on accounts but then they have been with me for many, many years, and pay on time and treat me well.   So do what you feel is best but to me it is just being somewhat picky. 

My hp LaserJet 1300 will not print what I send to it, however, it does print a page with a single line at the top - ?%-57755}euom%oog/ and so on.

I turned off the printer for 1/2 hour and tried again and it is still doing this.

Any ideas?

Thank you. Barb

Thank you for all the help. I tried everything and then called the place where I bought the printer. Three days of no printing, the morning the tech was due here the thing printed! He came out and determined that we probably had a "brown out" and that something was hung up in memory and it eventually cleared itself. Had a few other questions for him and so I guess the $90.00 for his 45 minutes of time was somewhat worth it!

When I print something from this site, i.e. a reply, the copy comes out very, very light. Is there a reason for this?

I am trying to copy and print my ShortHand Dictionary (the list of expanders) and cannot seem to find the way to do it.  Can anybody help on this one.  By the way, Happy National Transcription Week!

TIA.

The equipment you have will last for a long time so there is not that much to get into business.  13 cents sounds okay, 1  to 1 1/2 cent higher than I charge but I am out in the NW area.  I do pick up of tapes, printing, delivering, use of "sticky paper" etc.  But I average $30 to $45 per hour depending on the clinic.  I haven't raised my prices in a while as I feel it is good money for me.  I buy transcribers off E-Bay, some last for a long time, some not so long.   I am planning on going digital in the next few months but I don't feel it is fair to pass that along to my clinents.  It is my decision.  Will still have to deliver back printed material.   But you have to get those accounts and keep those accounts so charge a fair price -- the docs have more overhead than we do -- make a decent living and provide an extra decent service and you will do okay.   I have said many times -- my accounts have been with me the oldest now 16 years -- psych account and my shortest is 5 years.  They pay on time, have never had to ASK for my check, never a bounced check, and always Christmas bonus and a Birthday present.  So that is why I keep my prices a little lower and spoil them a little but in the long run -- for five years now -- have not had to look for a new account/client and I know that they will not go overseas.   I have had my share of those accounts that stayed with me for a little while until they got something cheaper and those that were just not for me and so that is why I will do most anything to stay where I am right now until I retire in 7 more years.     I put in about 25 hours per week on these accounts as an IC and make $38 K per year.  So for me it fits just right. 

I was offered the opportunity to type for a doctor that is moving in wiht another group of doctors and need a transcriptionist. I have typed for other clinics in the area, but these physicians only paid by the hour.

I am wondering if it would be in my best interest to see if they wont pay by the line or character. I have never done this before. I work full time at a hospital and will be doing this at home in the evenings.

Any information on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks

My charges for copies depend on who it is and how many copies.  I had one guy who wanted to use me and my little inkjet printer as a personal photocopy shop.  I was charging $.10 per copy to cover paper and ink, but he'd want 20 copies of each page I typed.  Finally, I told him to go to Staples to make copies because I wasn't going to do it any more.  I was driving there every few days for more ink and paper anyway, and he was just someone I didn't want to do business with.

I don't charge my other client for carbon copies because he usually only wants one or two copies.  Besides, he pays me really well and I've been typing for him for 8 years.  When he wants full color copies of digital pictures printed out, however, it's at least $1 per page because it chews up the color ink cartridges so much.

Right now McDonald's in our town starts employees at $8/hour and pays benefits and some school benefits.

I have worked 30 years in transcription and make less now than I did in 1985.  That's 20 years ago.  I know more and earn less.  In fact I am a fraction above poverty level.

If you don't think MQ is getting ready to take us all below poverty level right down there with Mexico City, just hide and watch.  Or rather, sit here and think you are with a "good" company.  I didn't, because they are making millions in profit off your hard work and not sharing a penny of it with you. 

In the old days an employer spread the wealth of the company with the employees who made it happen.  This group has never heard of the concept.

I can agree with you.  I used to run a small "word processing service" as it was called back in the 80s.  I was competing with others and I figured one high-paying job was worth more to me than a bunch of inexpensive jobs.  My fees were higher than anyone else's.  I charged $25 an hour for anything other than regular text, be it medical, legal, foreign language, technical, editing, compiling bibliographies, checking footnotes for correct site within the text as changes were made....  I had more work than I could handle and it was all by word of mouth.  I had to hire 2 others to help with the overflow and still turned down work.  Would have continued except for needing to care for terminally ill father.  I had graduate students trying to book me years in advance to do their dissertations. 

Cheap doesn't work.  Not in the long run.  You do indeed get what you pay for.