Depends on what kind of hospital? Large urban hospital or small community hospital? SM

Also, is it a large teaching hospital? If so you have to consider there will be A LOT of different residents dictating, usually a lot of ESLs at teaching hospitals, and the residents rotate out and new ones rotate in every summer. So you can't expect to get the same dictators and build up your macros because the dictators change all the time.

I would say 9 cpl would be a pretty good offer for a small to medium community hospital where you will be doing the same dictators on a daily basis.  But for bigger, urban or teaching hospitals I would want at least 12 to 15 cpl. 

• Hospital Job - Happy MT
  • That would depend on such things as what system they use - ExpMT
  • yes yes yes yes!! - jmo
  • Depends on what kind of hospital? Large urban hospital or small community hospital? SM - Tinks
    • 12-15 cpl as an employee? That's a joke right ; ) - nm
      • No joke. I made 12 cpl as an employee at a large teaching hospital. I should mention the ended up - Tinks
        • that should read "they ended up sending all the work" - Tinks
    • Hospital Job - Happy MT
      • Then, I would say 9 cpl to 10 cpl would be a decent offer. - Tinks
        • Sounds like the hospital I work for - If I knew they were hiring

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well-known service.  The quality of the work was shockingly bad.  There's no way to describe it except to say it was painfully obvious that the MTs on our account had no business being MTs.  They didn't even have the very basic skills for the job, let alone the medical terminology.

I had the opportunity to read through the contract, and there was a paragraph in the contract that clearly stated that not only did the service promise to adhere to a specific TAT, but also promised high quality, proofread reports.  Basically saying that they employed a highly qualified QA staff that insured nearly error free reports.  That's the OUT clause as far as I'm concerned.  I started a file of every report with errors from the service, every ridiculous error.

A new supervisor for our department was hired and her first order of business was to cut the flab out of department.  She told us that the service doing our overflow was being paid something like $60,000 a MONTH!  The hospital was paying the service 45 cpl.  Now do the math!  The service gets 45 cpl and pays you and me 7 to 8 cpl to transcribe for them or even worse pays 2 cpl for an India-based MT and 3 cpl for an American QA person to edit and correct it, so that's only 5 cpl they end up paying.  That's quite a profit.  I vowed the day I found all this out to NEVER work for a national service again and especially not THAT service.

The new supervisor was against outsourcing which was good news.  She set out to renegotiate the contract or drop the service all together.  I threatened her with breach of contract and that's where my little file came in handy.  Needless to say, the service backed off and we not outsource overflow to a service local to our area and a much more reasonable rate.

My advice to you is start your file and keep track of everything.  Tell your boss to reread the contract, especially those paragraphs that speak to what the service promises to provide for the inflated line rate!

Good Luck!

I work for a very small rural hospital with only two full-time transcriptionists and one part-time transcriptionist.  We have recently been told that the administration of our hospital is entertaining the idea of on-call Transcriptionist for uncovered hours.  We already work alternating Saturdays (day shift only).  I wanted to know if any other hospitals out there do on-call transcription (Not from home and not outsourced).  They want us to physically drive in and be in the office to do this transcription.  Any information at all would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks. 

In the hospital I worked at they should have called it basic five, then.  It was OPs, discharges, H&Ps, ER, and consults. 

This board just cracks me up sometimes!  Can't we just tell the poster what she wants to know?  Why belittle someone by questioning someone's education, etc.?

I would bet a lot of us here with 20 plus years in this field never even attended a transcription school or course dedicated to transcription.  It used to be lumped in medical secretary.  Get a grip people.... 

What difference does not it make?  Basic Four is hospital work and can include OPs and/or ER. 

There are MTs that ask about platforms, equipment, etc., and no one is bashing them or questioning their education!  Why on Earth are people so nasty?! 

It is clinic notes that are pretty easy to type.  Some of the work is digital and some is still on tapes.  They want me to come in and pick up tapes, and they want me to print and deliver reports when I pick up the tapes because they don't know much about setting up a remote printer.  I made an introductory offer of 12 cpl for the first month and then 15 cpl if we both feel like continuing to work together.  I felt that since I am going to be out the cost of gas and ink, my offer was more than reasonable.  Well, they countered with a flat 12 cpl period with a one year contract and then we reevaluate at that time.  While I was mulling that over, she called back and asked if I would be interested in doing some radiology for them in addition to the clinic work.  So basically this account will keep me very busy and is not going to be just overflow.

So now I'm back to thinking 15 cpl and because they balking, not offering the introductory rate anymore.

What does everyone think?

Some MTSO's and hospitals have a clause regarding penalties if account is out of TAT and some do not.  That is a negotiated point in a contract.

Hope this helps.

but no O/T.  But you could get on there and do BONUS MINUTES at 6/cents a line all you wanted.

I always felt like that should have been illegal.  If I'm working, then I'm working.  If I'm an hourly employee - then anytime I'm working!!!!! I should be an employee and thus paid HOURLY WAGES.  But they got away with it.  Sort of a hybrid deal.

They screw us any way they can.

  (good little screws all in a row)

 (Medical Records Supervisor yucking it up drinking coffee, practicing snapping her whip)

(Me at the end of the day saying WHY AM I HERE?????)

At least with the hospitals out here in the west, they always have posted salary ranges and you can usually always exept with decent experience to start in the middle somewhere and reach the top in 5 years.  Worked in HR in a large hospital for a bit.  They always post the salary ranges here with positions and with that you go in with a bit of knowledge.   I never did see one start at the top though.  Good luck. 

That's good pay and bennies to boot!!! I would die for that.

I worked for a hospital as an IC for many years at home. That's the only way the hospital bigwigs would allow it, not employee status.  Never ran out of work except in the first few weeks in a new year. Never had "just the junk" as some suggested. I did the same work as everyone else. I tried to get my employee status back (which I was once) but no luck. I was at home. Some rule about that, but I was happy.

I'd go back to my hospital in a flash. My buddies want me back. The boss wants me back. For some reason, they still won't give me employee status. That sucks. ('scuse my French).

Don't even THINK about what to do, DO IT. You'll never be sorry.

I work full-time from home for a local hospital and am paid per hour.  I also work an IC on a part-time basis.  I would say if you need the benefits and steady paycheck and can handle working possibly rotating weekends and holidays, yes.  The only good thing with working with some nationals is having the flexibility with your schedule but you will NOT make a steady income.  You will constantly run of out work, loose money and find yourself clocking in and out all day long just to make 8 hours.  With a hospital, you know that the work will be there everyday and if you have downtime, you will still get paid.  Also, having that security in knowing that you can speak to management face to face or over the phone. Go for the hospital, because I know a lot of MTs wished they could have that opportunity.  Go luck to you!!!

I'm thinking of taking a position at a local hospital. I would be picking up dictations and taking the reports back the next day. What would be an acceptable line rate? It would be a mix of both ESL and non-ESL. Any input would be appreciated.

I work as a full-time remote employee in Central NJ.  My pay after six years is 14.75/hour.  I started at 12.50 with small incremental raises since then.  Raises were hospital-wide and not based on individual merit.  I've tried to get an invidual increase but no luck.  We have a minimum line count per hour of 160, with incentive at 180 lines and again at 200 lines.  Unfortunately, most of our easy work has been steadily going to the outside services, so incentive is more difficult to make but not impossible.  PTO is 10 days to start and accrues from there.  Decent benefits.

When I applied at a sister hospital not too long ago for the same job, their starting pay was LOWER than our hospital's starting pay was SIX years ago, so if anything, in our area the average pay is going down for in-house MT's, at least in our hospital system.   

I'm actually considering the opposite route and seeing if I can make more money on my own, since it's pretty clear to me that our pay isn't going to go up anytime soon where I am now.