Hospital has it TOO good

The hospital I work for asked me to give them an average of reports and an average minutes of dictations I transcribe for them.  I have been working for this hospital as an IC for almost 10 years being their primary Transcriptionist with only one other girl to help with H&P and overflow.  A third of my work is radiology.  I get paid by the minute (Use to think this was great) of dictation and finally asked for an increase the beginning of last year.  After that they started looking at national services and found out they charged THREE times as much as I did.  Now the hospital is being bought out by another company and I guess I have to prepare myself for the threat again.  ANYWAY, I hear everyone complaining about radiology reports being paid per report.  If I got paid per report, my income would go up considerably.  On my averaging reports, I found that if I got paid for radiology per report I would make twice what I am now getting for these reports even if I only got a DOLLAR a report.  That's a considerable difference. 

• Hospital has it TOO good - TIA
  • How much per minute, I worked for hospital and ...sm - ntk
    • $1.00 is too low - tia

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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. 

but I live in the northeast and not much need for that where I live.  I also live in a small town so that limits my options.  I have spent the last couple of years as a substitute teacher to supplement my MT job and just completed 4-1/2 months as a long term sub which I enjoyed and was a change of pace from MT.  The only problem is as a sub or ed tech you only get paid during the school year so I would have to keep my MT job for summers and school vacations.  With the way things are going in the MT world I hate to rely solely on that.  I don't want to find myself without any job whatsoever.   

Thanks for all the responses.    

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.