Even if they pass, how can they do the work? They will make pennies an hour and
Posted By: have to work 16 hr days, just like in India. on 2005-08-20
In Reply to: I suspect it's another newbie doing a test tape to get a job - and has no clue about terminology
zzzzzz
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RE: I totally agree!! I work at home can came make upwards or $25+ per hour (sm)
Where outside of my home could I make that money, not have to pay gas, buy extra clothes, etc. I am very happy right where I'm at.
Why the stupid idiots called everyone to work on the holiday to make sure they meet their 1 hour TAT
time.
instead of outsourcing Wal-Mart is "importing" illegal aliens to work for pennies
nm
Yes, they do. If you can pass their test, you can work for them
We were all newbies at one time. There are companies that hire newbies. You just need to find them. Try the big nationals or small MTSOs with clinic notes. Or you can start out with Worker's Comp, physical therapy, chiropractors, vets, dentists or insurance, and then transition into full MT after you've finished your training and education. Try working on-site in a doctor's office or in a hospital. Once you've proved you can do the work, they'll often let you work at home. Be proactive instead of reactive.
I make over $20 an hour
and I do VR work with some text, mostly VR. I live in Georgia but unable to tell you where I work as the last time the company THOUGHT I was recommending, was told in no certain terms they did that. Well, excuse me.....
what do you need to MAKE per hour? take that x 3 and that's your ans. (sm)
When you are an independent contractor, you have to pay ungodly taxes just to start out with.
You have overhead etc.
So say you need to make at least $10 an hour (my gawd you can make $10 an hour at WalMart! running a cash register)....
anyway, if you want to make $10 an hour after taxes and overhead -- then you need to be charging at least $30 an hour.
Now how long it takes for you to produce $30 an hour worth of work is yours to figure out. If it's difficult work, you better charge a lot more than 7.5 cents a line (at 65 characters per line remember!/not 80 or 90 characters)
If its easy clinic work or ER work, then charging something like 12 or 13 cents a line would get you about what you need.
If its difficult work from a medical records in a hospital where you have op notes and tons of docs, you need to charge probably 15 to 20 cents a line.
There are so many hidden costs that docs don't want you to remember.
Those down times when your computer gets fried.
New programs, updates (again down time plus cost of updates)
New computers because everything goes out of date and you can't fix the computer because nothing is compatible anymore.
The updates on the internet costs - faster speed - the increase in costs from the internet company.
You get sick and just can't type - or family is sick. There is no sick time to draw from -- you just hope you have some money saved - which you can't save if you are charging 7.5 cents a line as an IC.
Getting the picture yet?
Then there is the fax machine you probably need to be a proper business and the cell phone for when they just have to contact you.
The heat and a/c to keep you going at home that would not be running if you were at an office all day.
I tell them they might make $25 to $30 in 8-hour day...
...when first starting out. I used to get asked, often by the same people several times, until I started breaking it down into financial specifics. Nobody wants to hear that and they don't ask again. Most people ask me about transcription to "make a little extra money". I tell them that I had to look at my first MT job as an internship, making less than minimum wage to get experience while being home with my daughter (we were stationed in Hawaii when she was an infant/toddler - admin jobs paid $6 an hour and daycare, like everything else there, was outrageously expensive unless you could get on the base waiting list so working out of the home was not feasible). I explain that entry level pay for many companies is 6 cents a line. I tell them that training programs give basics, real learning is acquired on the job and much of their day will be consumed looking up unfamiliar words, drugs/capitalization, etc. I explain that many doctors are foreign, have tough accents and/or speak quickly which also hampers production. Once they get the picture that 10 years' experience is what allows me to pay the bills, I no longer get repeated questions from the preacher or fireman who may think that typing fast enough to keep up an IM converasation and having WebMD in your favorites are all skills and resources you need to do this job.
At 18 cpl, yes, I make sometimes $50 an hour. nm
x
Please tell me where I can make $20 an hour!
I left QA a couple of years ago because the company I worked for started paying per line for QA and then I noticed a lot of MTSOs following suit. I would love to be paid $20 an hour for doing QA. And I'm not talking SR editing, I'm talking QA, editing the MT for quality. A lot MTSOs don't know the difference!
I can make up to $40 per hour....
But the keyword is CAN. I don't always make that, but when I'm in a pool of one GOOD dictator, it is easily done. I love those days. If I could do that all the time I would be in business. I think there are too many variants to determine an exact hourly wage.
I make $43.50/hour and my doc knows that it takes me - sm
three hours to do his tape from transcribing to printing.
If I even went to him and said "I want to charge for the copies," you can bet he would be looking for a new transcriptionist. He has had plenty of offers from other transcriptionists to do his work at a lower rate, but he likes my work, and I will not jeopardize that whatsoever.
My ink costs me $32/month, which is an expense write off.
350 lph when when a majority of us don't even make $10 an hour out here?! What are you asking us
.
I do MT and make about $35-40 an hour. It can be done and is out there. Keep the faith! nm
x
Per line - could never make much per hour.
I do 350-400 lph at 12 cpl - no one will pay me what I make by the hour! Per line is the way to go, plus keep your flexibility.
It varies but make between $12 and $16 an hour - nm
xx
Wow, I make $15 an hour as an editor and ...sm
thought I was doing pretty good. I can make more per hour line wise, but I get easily distracted, which causes me after 8 hours to do very badly. ;o(
If I worked an 8 hour day I could make that much
money. I only work about 5 hours day and make good money, but I have a good platform, paid for gross lines, fairly easy to get lines, etc. I am an employee too.
You are pathetic. I make $35 an hour with
you would make some money. Instead you want to stir up trouble and complain. Why not look at what you DO have instead of what you DON'T have? The reason I am in MT is because I make $35 an hour and I can't make that anywhere else. If you don't believe it, I don't care. I'll go back to my work now and make some money, and you can sit on this board and b*tch and make nothing. And it's your own fault!
I agree. I make 8 cpl and get $29.00/hour
you have to stay in one place long enuf to get used to the dictators, then you can make good money wiht them
I am a sub bus driver and make $15 an hour - sm
doing that, though I never know when I am working, waiting on a route....when that happens I will bring home about $1200 a month which will be nice on top of any MT work I do (still plan to do this but cut back some when I do finally get a route). So for now $60 for working 4 hours subbing for another driver, I can live with. Makes my life a little easier.
Although I would love to make $72 an hour...
I have to admit that is a bit over the top. But my point was that unions are there to protect the workers and make sure they get a fair and decent wage for the work they do. If workers aren't protected, corporates would have everyone working for slave labor kind of like MT is now. Yes, MT is production paid and we all knew this when we signed on but we aren't protected and our pay keeps getting driven down by corporate. At least unions have negotiations with corporates - give a little, get a little. Compromise. We MTs have NOTHING. We have no say in decisions being made, even when those decisions negatively impact our jobs. I know as an MT I would never agree to ILP or ASR as those two decisions are the downfall of our industry, only my opinion of course. Corporate keeps making these decisions that will only benefit them and their own pocketbooks. They are not looking out in the best interest of MTs because they don't have to. As I said in my previous post, they keep chipping away at our jobs little by little because nobody is stopping them. But if we as a whole had some sort of organized leadership negotiating on our behalf, then maybe we could stop ASR and ILP from taking all our jobs and the MT industry could once again be a respected profession that we could actually make a decent living at like it used to be.
A lot of us here still don't make $10 an hour. You're lucky. nm
,
I teach and I make 20.00 per hour. Not that great
but nothing to sneeze at either. I teach community service classes (medical transcription, anatomy physiology and medical terminology) at a local college.
To start expect to make about $6 an hour - sm
If you are good, meaning not having to look up a billion things and a quick and accurate typist then you can make more, $16+ depending on the type of work you do. I am not a fast typist, though I do not have to look up much (except for address which slows me WAAAAAAY down), and I currently make about $12 an hour with 4 years experience. So this is no huge money maker. As you are only looking to supplement, you could probably expect to make an extra $30 a week to start, presuming you can find someone to take you on for so litte work. In time you may get that up to $60 a week, but still it is not a fortune.
but VR usually pays by the hour. A fast MT will make less $
x
Figure what you make per hour doing tapes
x
Depends - one account I make 40 an hour, other - s/m
I grunt it out to make 10 bucks an hour. If I worked just the ER account, I would definitely make full time money for part time hours.
Durn second account. :}
You make 25-30 an hour by letting the editor do your job for you dumba$$!
You will get yours in the end sweetie. Having someone else do your job shows you are lazy!!
If you are paid by the line and make over $25 an hour, then I hate to say it
but I am wondering if you are doing full QA. By the line is NOT fair pay for QA. I know I mentor new MTs on a very difficult account and there is no way you could earn a decent wage on any amount of line pay, no way!
Don't go telling someone they could do better if they are paid by the line. Quality specialists MUST have ethics in their work. You can do a decent amount of reports a day and give feedback and mentoring, but you certainly would not be earning $25 an hour on line pay that I have seen....just no way! The most I have seen QA paid is 7 cents a line and still those women do not average that amount.
Now, I don't know what you do or if you listen 100%, but most QA positions I have had have had megablanks, 100% listen as well as 100% feedback and you just cannot produce that much doing your job in a proper manner.
Hospital MTs around my neck of the woods make $24 per hour +. sm
The jobs are out there, you have to find them.
make $20 an hour plus 4 cents gross line
nm
I'd figure out an average I make per hour, and charge that. -nm
x
Work for 1 hour, then count your lines of the completed work - sm
either check you total characters in word (with spaces) then total them all up and divide by 65, and you get your total lines per hour. 10,000/65 is 153 lines. Or if you have a line counting program us that to figure you count, either way will work quite well. Maybe do it a few times and then figure an average over 3 hours or something like that, it will vary with the ease/difficulty of the work you are doing.
No - not worth 12 bucks an hour when you can make triple that by the line, sm
but that all depends on what company and VR platform you are talking about.
Do you LPN's on-call make around $50-60 an hour?!! Nice chunk of change! nm
x
not a liar, not an old person, I make waaaaay over $20/hour, probably double (CA, .15-.17 line) sm
I have two accounts of my own and do vacation coverage for a few other MTs as well as occassional work for a lawyer and a psychologist. I charge .15 for one clinic and .17 for the other clinic... clinic #2 is a husband/wife neurologist team, and the husband was a major A&& at first... with a very strong accent and every possible bad dictator habit you can imagine. I told wife I would transcribe for her, but not for him, I had plenty of business. She said charge whatever you want, have whatever turnaround time you want, just please don't leave. At the time they were at .12... so I upped them to .17. That was 5 years ago and now after having gotten to know him and his *quirks* I adore them both. I am an IC, but they give me very large gift cards for Christmas, kind of in lieu of a bonus, I guess.
Clinic #2... just this week took on another physician and I told them point blank it was too much for me to provide quick service and they may want to consider a service. They said no way, we changed the turnaround time to one week with stats as needed. I even asked them if they considered voice recognition and the office manager laughed and laughed.
I am just now putting both clinics on digital, and after the initial cost, this will increase my estimated hourly wage as it will take away my delivery time and cost, and my paper and ink printing cost and time. Though I still plan to visit each office on a regular basis for customer service and because I know my customer service is what got me here in the first place.
For the *occasional* work, the lawyer and pysch I charge $50/transcription hour.
I know you will all doubt me. But I work extremely hard, have put in my time with my education - not just learning MT but learning the ropes of running a business and how to do everything smarter, faster, and in the most efficient and sensible way possible. I also have another business I do in a totally different field! I am very blessed. Well, I also know the fields I have chosen were perfect for me, and also I've had good luck. You know what I think though? I think my sense of humor and just being as honest and open and observant as possible has made this possible.
Would you do all that work for 12.50 an hour?
x
Yes, unfortunately you do have to make a pest of yourself to make it work, but.....
as the years went by that is why I stayed away from those type of companies. BTW, Noni is a fabulous product, I absolutely do not care for the "marketing techniques" they use. One of the facts of this type of industry is you cannot just recruit to make it, you have to retail. Ever since I "overhauled" my techniques and system...I never had to ask another person to some on board again. Well, nuf for now. Take care and have a blessed week!!
How do you guys pinch your pennies
Anything, how to save on toiletries, can you mix and match what you use for your hair as well as dish soap, split the toilet paper into two separate sheets? I absolutely hate using coupons because I end up buying what I don't need just because I have a coupon so those are out. Any under cover stores to find cheap scented candles? Cheap produce? I think if I could cut back it would save me a lot of stress on where my money is going, it just leaves my pocket so easily these days. A way to get all the food groups in without breaking the bank because thats where most of my money disappears, toiletries and groceries. Advice needed!
i remember having to roll pennies
to buy gas for the car, and it wasn't 30 dollars. Gas was about 1.50 at that time, but doesn't matter how much it is if you don't have the money! Another time, I had a 25 cent coupon good towards some cleanser...the store clerk forgot to take it off my grocery order, stating that "it's only a quarter!" I only replied, "I hope you never have to find out just how much a quarter is." Unfortunately, I found out a few years later that, yes, she found how much a quarter meant.
Received one also -- saving my pennies
Got my yesterday in the mail. Thought that they changed their name. And I thought it was personally addressed to me. Don't know how they got my name and my business name as I do not belong to the organization. Anyway gotta get my reservation in by December 20th or so.
How does one go about getting a raise? IC working for pennies needs more $$$
I have been working with my company as an IC for over a year, want to make more $$$$. Make 3 cpl editing and 8 cpl typed. The first time I asked for a raise I was making 7 cpl and owner said they could give me a penny more for the typed lines but no more for editing, since that would leave the editors with only a penny per line? I like the flexibility and freedom of working with them and thought it was a trade off but feel unappreciated and underpaid...
thanks for any replies...
suzq
Why do they expect perfection for pennies?...
When you work on production to make a decent check you have to push it, and you have all these horrible accents, why, then, do they expect miracles? Maybe if I had an hourly salary.
physicians pinching pennies
while making over $100K a year (after insurance premiums), for a service that is tax deductable.... they really dont have a clue...
I feel like I'm working my @** off for pennies
nm
Off hour work shift
"posted by wouldn't have it any other way". Thank you so much for your post! I work a similar shift for similar reasons. I don't start until 8 p.m. most nights so like you my kids are in bed before I head off to work and I don't feel gulity taking time away from them. I do work one long day on Sunday to catch up, but I start at noon so we are all still able to attend church together and my husband usually plans a daddy fun day with them that afternoon. I WISH I had done this when my kids were even smaller as I breast fed and still worked off hours so I didn't have then in daycare, but I had to pump at work and my husband had to give them bottles when I was gone.
I agree it can be tiring, but you get in a routine, and honestly do you know any mom stay-at-home or out-of-the-house worker who isn't tired?
Being there 24x7 for your kids that is dedication! :)
Off hour work shift
I should probably add that while I am working I am dedicated 100% as my office is downstairs and I work with my door closed and locked. My husband is upstairs with the children and gets up with them if they get up before I am done with my shift. So, I don't feel guilty neglecting work either because I don't. :)
If MTs want to work 10+ hour days
...more power to them. Not me - I'm gettin' tired of this. They're lucky if they get 6 hours out of me. I worked 10+ hours a day and weekends when I first started. Now, I could care less. I may not perform 1200+ lines a day, but I have excellent QA.
I work 4 ten-hour shifts...
Sat thru Tues. My DH is on a rotating 12-hour 3 on/4 off shift and we have at least 2 days off together. I love it; I start at 4 am but I am done at 230 and have all day to do what I want and rarely run out of work.
I think it's better to work by the hour than the line.
By-the-line SOUNDS good, but there's no control over what accounts you'll get, or how accurate the line-counting software they have is, etc. You may start out on an easy account, but as you pick up speed on it and start to make money, they'll switch you to a harder one. And when you pick up speed on that one, you'll get another harder one. And so on and so on. Benefits probably won't be as good at home, either. The only thing that's better about home is not having to deal face-to-face with management. But at least you have the security of knowing your paycheck is going to be the same each time, and won't dwindle down to less-than-nothing if you have a bad day, or a bunch of bad dictators, or no work. And you mentioned a RAISE. That's something most of at-home people will never see in our careers with any company. The only way we seem to be able increase the cpl is if we change companies. But then you still end up on that treadmill of being given work that you may do well, but you can't make money doing. They get ya coming and going.
made pennies working on-site-sm
but I live in an extremely rural area were the pay is generally lower across the board for any type of job. I also drove an hour each work as well, to the next town over. Around years ago the transcriptionists in my hometown were making 7.50/hour. So I am pretty proud of my 9 cpl job.
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