I worked for a hospital that was unionized
Posted By: deenibeeni on 2008-12-09
In Reply to: To the people who are against unions... - suzylyn
I was in a management position, so I was not in the union. I was working on a research study in which the study participants were called in for a day of testing, & if there were no participants that day, no staff was required. Because I was management I got paid either way, but on days when other staff were called & told not to come in, they were not paid for those days. Toward the end of the study there were many days like that, & sometimes these people would have a pay period with no pay at all but would still have to pay union dues, & these were hundreds of dollars a month.
Meanwhile, other people on my staff were unionized full-time hospital employees. One in particular would sneak off & sleep during her shift or find other ways to conveniently disappear when there was work to be done. I caught her doing this many times, & because of the union she could not be fired. At some point I managed to get her transferred off my staff, whereupon she amazingly had a back injury and went on disability. There were plenty of people who could have done a much better job, but because of the union it took me months to get rid of this person.
My huz at the time was also a manager in a different industry. He would come home with stories exactly like this one almost daily; how unions were protecting the slackers & charging their members up the wazoo for some supposed "protection" they were getting. What a crock. Unions are just another power- and money-hungry organization who might have served a purpose at some point in our history, like when infants were working in cotton mills or whatever, but now? They are part of the problem.
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RE: Perhaps if we were unionized
we would make more money. Otherwise, our only perk is being able to work at home. The services must bid low to land hospital accounts, and thus in turn we are paid low wages. The hospitals are only interested in making lots of money for themselves. If the services were charging more, we would be paid more. It's the truth! And I do not believe AAMT (can never remember their new name) is fighting for higher wages for the MT. In reality, they are working with the hospitals and physicians to pay us less.
The hospital that I worked for would
not accept any applicants with online nursing programs because they did not have the required clinical hours during training.
When I worked in the hospital sm
the only ones who had Oxycontin were mostly cancer and back surgery and cardiac patients. Knee replacement patients got morphine the first 1-2 days and then switched to Vicodin. The majority of patients reduced to Tylenol after they went home. Never heard of OxyContin being used for knee replacements but your husband may have a very low pain threshold, too, or other factors necessitating to the use of OxyContin. I'd look at the whole issue of his pain control a little more closely. Can you discuss it with the doctor?
I once worked at a hospital (sm)
doing radiology where referring physicians could had the option of listening to dictation of their patient's report if it wasn't transcribed and signed quick enough for them. They did this through a supervisor in radiology, and inevitably they would exclaim that they had NO IDEA what the radiologist said, and would wait for the report. We always had to chuckle.
I worked at a hospital that did that. Had to do
with them not wanting people on e bay all day. Since I left that job when they downsized, everywhere else allowed it so I became dependent on the I-net for research. Made my quality better. Regarding production: Yep, it broke it down. Surf too much, wayyy too much. I tried to break the habit but our job is so isolating and numbing, I need to surf to wake myself up. That is no excuse however. I guess I want contact with the outside world. Too bad the hospital can't block the net, but let you have e mail and research sites or at least just block certain sites. I think they can do that. I know it must drive you nuts, because if I had to use books again, well. Forget that option. LOL.
When I worked in a hospital, I had a
doctor actually sit on my desk and dictate while I did a stat for him. The system was working, he just wanted to actually see one of us in action.
I worked for a hospital like this
We went to the supe about it and she told us that if we had time to eyeball the job lister, we must not be doing our work so...she took our job lister away.
When I worked in a hospital, we had
access to all patient records, if for nothing else to help with current dictation.
When I worked in a hospital, there were
times we had no work or was very low on work, therefore our overflow service did not have work to give their people became we kept it inhouse. It is the nature of hte job. However, I do not agree with companies that if you do run out, you are REQUIRED to make it up on weekends or ungodly hours. Sure, it hurts your paycheck with you don't, but 90% of the time it is out of the MTSO's hands, if there is no work, there is no work.
Downtime is a whole different story. If you can not work because of computer/server problems on their end, then you should be compensated.
How much per minute, I worked for hospital and ...sm
it was 100/minute of dictation... very low in my estimation.
yes, once I actually quit my hospital MT job and worked for
Wal-Mart and actually made the same amout.
When I worked in the hospital, the docs
NEVER had a pen with them, so good gift.
I also once gave out pens at for Halloween at work, and I was very popular!
LOL
I worked on site for a hospital
that had voice recognition in their radiology department (PowerScribe). That was very easy and enjoyable, but I was paid hourly - no idea if it would have been profitable otherwise. They did cut half their staff when they made the switch, so that might give you an idea on pay. You can do about twice as much I guess? Hope it goes well! 
The going rate at the hospital where I worked...
....small city, about 60,000 people, for radiology/diagnostic imaging MTs, the range was roughly $10-$15 per hour. This is in Oklahoma, where the cost of living is VERY low compared to most places.
I worked at a local hospital
It had its good points and bad points. The good being it paid better and had better benefits than most outsourcing companies. We had a 4 tier incentive program. The lowest pay being 0.087 and the highest being 0.10 cpl. You had a choice of working in-house or at home and we were all paid the same either way. Also, if there was little work or no work you had the choice of using PTO or working in medical records at an hourly rate which gave us a little break from MT and a feel for something else.
The bad, if you were at home they would pull you in at any time just because. Also, at home we had a lot of problems with their computer locking up, getting kicked off the VPN, slow moving from one screen to the next etc. The tech support always blamed it on our ISP. Also, they always made sure you never moved up to the next pay tier. Only their favorite ones could do that. They made excuses of why you cannot move up even though the numbers were there. The one they used on me was that I took off a day during the last 6 weeks. They told another girl she walked around in the halls and talked too much to bump to the next level. However, if you did not get your line count they were all over moving you down. 
When I worked at home for a hospital
I had all of the benefits, but the hospital I worked at did not go by production. They just basically paid per hour. They did not expect a certain amount of work be done in a certain amount of time. I had access to the software the hospital used. This probably won't help you, but it has only been 2 years since I left the hospital. I make way more with my own accounts. If the benefits you are seeking have to do with retirement, then you may be better off setting up your own retirement account because if you are older, you will need to be vested before you even begin to think about a pension.
When I worked at a local hospital
this happened. I just transcribed it like any other report. I would not even mention it to the family member. When you work for a small local hospital it is bound to happen.
Eons ago when I worked in a hospital,
we had one ESL who nobody could understand. Our supervisor talked to him and he said it was not his problem if we could not understand him. The majority do not care. I currently have 2 female NPs that sound like Mickey Mouse on speed when they start giving lab values. I just blank them and go on, 90% of the time QA can't get them either. Just blank and go on, if they don't care to fill in the blanks it is not a problem to me.
I worked by the minute in a hospital sm
for five years. It worked out ok there because there was an even amount of slow dictators versus fast dictators and Iknow how many minutes I can do in an 8 hour period.
Problem is when you aer working on a line count basis only, you really do get ripped off because there are so many fast dictators.
you need to figure out how many dictated minutes of transcription you think you can do in an 8 hour period, if its 100 minutes or 200 minutes or whatever and figure from that. You are most likely going to have more minutes by the 65 cpl than you would by the minute. They may be sending you all fast horrible dictators too.
In a hospital I would do it but not working for a service.
When I worked pathology office in a hospital
My experience was that I worked 3 times as hard for a set wage than I ever did as an MT - and in medical records as MT earned set wage plus incentive.
At pathology lab, we were responsible for getting there first thing in the morning and transcribing all the micro before 10 a.m. so the pathologists could then look at slides and dictate the gross report. Doctors tried to get the gross reports back to us by 1 p.m. -- because they had to be typed by 3 p.m. so the doctors could sign the reports, and get them back to us so we could get them sorted and in the mail before we went home. In addition, we fielded phone calls, took messages for pathologists, searched for and mailed slides when other labs requested them, provided courier coverage to transport slides and things between our lab and hospital lab in the next building, and when we had a spare minute, we entered Pap smear results from precoded sheets used by the technicians reading the Pap smears (like between 10 a.m. and noon, if we had all the micro typed)!!! Every day was hurry up and meet this 2-hour deadline, then hurry to meet the next 2-hour deadline...
I learned a lot of terminology -- but I would have to be very hungry to do it again. It is hard to describe or comprehend a pathology secretary job unless you have actually been there, done that -- you will either love it or hate it... good luck.
I worked part-time in a hospital sm
radiology department for a copule years and they did the floppy disk thing. They were huge compared to now. We didn't have a main frame at that time. Your format stuff was on the "system disk" you put in on the left nad then your disk with your work went into the right hand slot. It was this big huge monster of a "computer" thing.
When I worked for a hospital, 2nd shift was defined as 3p to 11p and SM
3rd shift was 11p to 7a. They also had policy that said if you worked something like 12 noon until 8 p.m. you would get 2nd shift, shift differential pay for all the hours worked after 3 p.m. and if you worked 7p.m. to 7 a.m. you got 2nd shift differential until 11 p.m. and then 3rd shift differential for the rest of your shift.
I wondered if they could have complicated it more?
I worked in a hospital in radiology, and when an opening in MR was available SM
I applied, got the job, and that is how I got my foot in the door.
When I worked in hospital Med Records, we were told
that it is on a "need to know basis." If you do not need to know anything about the patient to perform your job, you should not be looking at the patient information.
I worked for a hospital at home for 4 years. sm
We had to work set hours. My advice is allow youself 1/2 hour for lunch, and at least two 15-minute break periods. Work 2 hours, take a break, work 2 hours, take a lunch break, etc. Otherwise, you may find yourself having back, shoulder and hand problems. Working 9 hours may seem like a drag, but not being able to work at all is even worse. Remember, if you were working on site, you would not only have to work 8-1/2 hours, but would have travel time on top of it. Just my experience.
I worked at home for the local hospital here.
It was fine. They paid hourly and provided equipment. We had plenty of work and had to stick to a set schedule. They do use a service or two for overflow, but it is strictly overflow. The hospital still has employees working at home. They don't ALL outsource. (And ironically, some hospitals are taking back their transcription and hiring in-house and at-home MTs!)
I worked for a local hospital that used the same formula for our incentive pay.
x
Years ago, I used to get a $25 gift card from the hospital I worked for.
I haven't gotten so much as a card in recent years.
I'm there with ya! I worked for a hospital that outsourced overflow to a very large, VERY SM
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 surely lost out on that, worked from home for a hospital
for 2+ years and required to come in house for meetings and never, never paid for my gas nor my time down and just asked to make it up. After that we got outsourced to a company and guess what again? Meetings at their place and again no pay!! I bet others who see this probably have had the same thing happen to them. Your place exceptional.
Same thing happened at the hospital I worked onsite with, yet
the boss definitely knew this was going on because at least on the software we had and yours probably too, the boss can run all kinds of reports, such as what time the jobs came in, in what order, what time they were transcribed, who transcribed etc. You can cross-reference these too and see that a certain person is going way out of order and doing their own thing. The boss most certainly knows this is going on and in my opinion, (having been management myself), was probably fishing to see how much you knew... when she asked or toyed with the issue in your conversation. In my case, the boss knew the person was taking all the ops normals, it was even brought out at a meeting by another gutsy MT but guess who got the brunt of it? The people who were upset by it, and of course the person who spoke up. I am not saying you shouldn't be upset, and I am not saying you aren't right. I am just saying to bide your time and see what happens. Karma will indeed come into play most definitely. And if the boss is sheltering a cheater, well most likely at the right time the cheater and the boss will get it. In our case, I don't know if the person ever got caught because she outlived most of us, LOL, she and the boss were best of friends. But I do believe Karma is still in play even when we aren't there to see it...just hang in there, do what you believe is right and you will be A-OK. Life is too short to worry about anything but the good which will come your way. Good luck!
I worked in a teaching/major trauma hospital
when I was doing radiology and we had scads of standards.
I worked at a naval hospital outpatient clinic--sm
as a salaried employee $28. In 2002 had the opportunity to work at home as an IC for .12/line. In 2003 I was told had to become an employee and dropped to .11/line as the company woudl have to pay taxes/benefits. In 2004 had a raise to .1133. In 2005 that company merged with another and was dropped to .10/line and have had no raise since then. Am at top of pay level in both line rate and salary rate.
Just told the company is buying a new platform that could possibly doudle our production and in turn may affect our line rates even more by raising the daily line requirement. Will have to wait and see about that.
Before I started my own business, worked in a hospital in-house with taxes taken out & then went hom
was getting with shift differential 23.80 when I left. Your pay seems extremely low, you could make more as an IC seriously.
well i worked for a "teaching" hospital before and it was not A LOT of hard dictators, in fact
ESLs are everywhere and she already stated she has lots of ESLs where she is at anyway. that isn't her concern.
I was merely suggesting the OP (not you) might could work her 2 days off there to get a feel for the work load, ethics, and environment as well as some office chit chat to get a feel for the place. of course, we all know what you start with isn't necessarily what you end with and that is a given.
Hospital where I worked cut raises from 12% possibility to 6% with excellent review. Which means
dd
I worked in a hospital and I could make differrent arrgmts for lunch if I needed to.
Don't let the OP scare you off from investigating.
Do what is right for you.
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.
Every company is different -- I worked FT for one as an employee but worked a split shift - sm
So I never took breaks. I would work 5 hours, break for about 4 hours then do another 3. Another company I worked for did not care what hours you worked (IC) but wanted a min. amount of work each day, 500 for PT and 1000 for FT-- BUT they paid you by how many lines an hour you put out, the higher the lph the higher up the scale you made per line in pay; they have since changed everyone to a flat rate with incentive. But bottom line, if you are an IC it does not matter what hours you work, though many ask for a schedule and ask you to stick to it, they just want you to meet line requirements daily, i.e. 1000 per day, 1200 per day, whatever it is.
I got up early, worked during naps, and worked when DH got home.
You have to be disciplined to make yourself work when baby is napping instead of maybe watching TV or doing housework, etc.
I might also go the route of having a teen come into your home, or either trying a mother's morning out program at a local church/daycare. I've been home since my youngest was born and he has never been in all-day daycare, but I did have him in a mother's morning out program 15 hours a week at a local church. It didn't help a lot with my work schedule because I had an older son in school and was a room mom and tutored other kids, but that might be an option. The only problem with the mother's morning out program is they are around other kids and tend to pick up every germ. I finally took my DS out of the program because he stayed sick. You were supposed to keep them off if they had green nasal discharge and I did, but no one else did. Every time I got him well after 2 to 3 days back he would be sick again. Other than that it was very good for him because he would not have had a chance to be around kids his age otherwise.
Hospital. I wish I'd never left my hospital job.
They'll only take me back if I start off working nights and weekends again at the bottom of the totem pole.
If you work for a hospital - how come no one from the hospital
called you?? Were they in the dark, as well?? How sad, that no one in your hospital communicates with the at home staff.
I worked on that system when I worked there...
The thing that chapped my hide about that TWS was that they designed it so that all the headers of each section of the report were canned and thus you were not paid for them, even though you had to take your hand off the keyboard and mouse down a list of paragraph headers to chose the one you needed. Just racking up more profits for themselves. Ticks me off.
that is what is being worked out, and has been worked on for the last few years already...only
why are we just hearing this now? I know voice recog has been around, but this is entirely different. This will also make coding and billing obsolete.
Don't know why, but it just bothers me that one of our 'own' is the one pushing this...and she is also connected with AAMT. Do they support this, and if so, what is their advice I wonder to the MT?
Perhaps that is one question for their website (I do not subscribe to their mag or credentials...)
Thanks, for the input!
hospital MT
Call the hospital. You can offer a better deal to them. Most MTSOs charge the hospitals a lot more than what they pay out for the actual work done. I work for a hospital. I asked for a raise after 10 years, they baulked, started looking at outsourcing. They changed their mind really quick when they found out how much they would charge them. (four times what they paid me).
Hey, if you don't want that hospital job can I
have it? Just kidding (only because it's probably not where I live in central Florida). Started working at home for the kids over 10 years ago, but they are all grown now and I realize I don't know anyone because I hardly ever leave the house!!
hospital job
My situation too. Son out of the house now. Still know all the people at the hospital as I worked there for 10+ years and still do side typing for one of the units there that were not taken over when they outsourced! So seriously considering it....Sorry, its in PA!
I think they did that to us at the hospital
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?????)
Hospital pay
I make about $15 per hour at my hospital job in Washington state and have recently quit that to work out of my home. However, I have not yet found any home job that even comes close to that when being paid based on lines.
hospital pay
i make 21/h. living in the hawaiians islands, thats actually pretty good
hospital pay
my main job is at the hospital and i would never leave it especially with all the benefits and good pay. ic has its benefits when it comes to tax time, but as far as job security and being a single mom, i choose to stay at a guaranteed $20/h. too many people are unhappy with the problems of security in this line of work and i dont want that to happen to me.
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