If you are paid by the line and make over $25 an hour, then I hate to say it
Posted By: Another QA specialist on 2005-09-08
In Reply to: qa pay - no name
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.
Complete Discussion Below:  marks the location of current message within thread
- QA wages - Terry
- qa pay - no name
- If you are paid by the line and make over $25 an hour, then I hate to say it - Another QA specialist
The messages you are viewing
are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select
the boards given in left menu
Other related messages found in our database
Does anyone know if Indian MTs are paid by the line or by the hour? sm
That's something I have been curious about. I know the MTSOs charge by the line, but was wondering how they pay the MTs. I recall various articles about all the benefits they had, free medical, etc., even food.
Are you paid by the line, word, hour?
If you're paid by the hour, and not by the line, YES.
.
I usually average $25/hour paid by line so most places...
I'm paid by the hour, but by page or line are both common.
I work on-site, which is why I'm hourly. I also think working on-site with the actual paperwork in front of you makes for the best quality. Otherwise there would be sooooo many tech errors or dictator mis-speaks that I wouldn't be able to research from home that it would drive me crazy. But lots of MTs do it, of course.
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.
make $20 an hour plus 4 cents gross line
nm
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.
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.
For QA consulting I'm paid per hour; QA instructing (college) paid salary, QA editing paid per li
I am an IC and work for two different MTSOs as well as instruct at a business college.
I appreciate your responses. I had an option of line vs hour ($14/hour) but if line pays more...nm
nm
if mt paid 9, editor paid 4 or 5...how can company charge 14 and make it..sm
I know the going rate in our area is 14 cents per line. As MTs most companies here pay us 8 or 9 cents a line. Now add in the Editor rate at 4 or 5 per line..you are paying OUT more than you can charge a line. How would companies stay in biz?
Unless all work is sent by the company overseas at pennies per line, this would not pay for a company.
just curious how this works out
You don't get paid an hourly rate you get paid by line - sm
so because of how you are paid (not an hourly rate) you don't get OT, especially if you are an IC.
What is the average line/hour for a 65 character line with spaces? NM
.
If you are paid by the hour--
I wouldn't mind jumping from one account to the other either if I were being paid BY THE HOUR-- but when you are on production only and you have to sit and read a zillion different client profiles, do this for this doc, but don't do that for that doc, etc., and are only allowed to work in an 8 hour time frame, it does not make for great production. If they want us to do that many accounts, we should be paid hourly, not by production alone.
I get paid by the hour, THANK GOD!
I had no idea it was 3 cpl or in the proximity out there. That's just awful. They want professional, perfect reports by transcriptionists who make no mistakes and type like the wind. Yet they don't pay for that. It's sick. Thanks for opening my eyes.
getting paid by the hour
I have not been paid by the hour in 6 years since I worked in a hospital. What is the going rate? I will be doing clinic notes for a small family practice office in Tennessee, probably about 2 hours a day after the backlog is caught up. They are going to see if they can offer me health insurance which they will pay for but I have to wait to know for sure until they talk to their insurance agent. I was just curious what others were charging. Thanks.
Because I am not paid by the hour;
I am paid by the line. And the faster I go, the more I get per hour. Others working at the same line rate may make more or less per hour depending on their speed.
I get paid by the hour
I'm working at a local nephrology clinic, unfortunately not for very long because of EMR, but that's another story. I'm am employee and work from home, but get paid by the hour. I liked that set up because when there's little or no work I still get paid for my full 7-1/2 hours a day.
I have more than paid for VR. I achieve 1200 lines in 3 hours. No need to hate sm
the MT to use technology to its full capability. Do you think a company cares if you type everything no. The bottom line is you have to get you line count.
I agree with you. I would never want to be paid by the hour.
I would be looking at a major paycut I believe. I average $28-$30/hr now and am paid by the line.
Are there any MTs left that get paid by the hour?
Just wondering. As an IC, I was trying to figure what I made per hour after having to pay my share and employer's share of SS. If there is anyone out there that still gets paid per hour, I would like to know what area you are from and how much. Thanks.
Do you get paid by the hour or production?
`
It would be very rare to be paid by the hour
while working at home. Too many variables and too many people would take advantage
That still is not a paid line rate. If your base is $0.10 per line, it will be $0.08 cpl.
Considering other companies pay 4 or 5 cents per line for VR - you are still making out.
Question about what is PAID for a line and what is BILLED for a line
Does the MTSO actually bill for headers, footers, and other things the transcriptionists are not paid for? I worked for a company a while back and their copy of what each Transcriptionist typed the day before and our copy was a lot different, about 30% different. Their copy was the billing copy. So, double their enhanced amount and subtract our 9 cents a line, it comes to a bigger profit than what I thought.
WhenI was paid by the hour, I kept them LONG ......sm
but now that I am paid by the line, they are short! Bucks before beauty, I guess.
reAre there any MTs left that get paid by the hour?
Mid-South (Tennessee) hospital employee, $23.00
My former job paid by the hour. Higher producers with
lkj
how does one measure lines. i get paid by the hour so i have no need to do that.
just wondering
You would need to go back in-house to be paid by the hour.
Yes, I leave cable news on low, but since I get paid by the hour plus incentive,
x
One in Jonesboro, Arkansas, does. Paid by the hour with incentive based
They want minimum of 120 minutes/8 hours. After that is when you start earning that incentive.
could be short reports and getting paid for headers/footers in a 10-hour day.
nm
I do radiology now, paid by the hour, work from home, can it get any easier than that?
Yes at PHNS-- this was a few years ago....was paid initially on how many lines you averaged an hour
the highest you could get was .085 which is what I averaged, however they restructured and it plummetted to .07.....you could get .085 again but you had to really work your butt off (something like +1500 a day). I was PT so I was only doing 500 lines or so a day, at most 1000, so it basically sucked after that. Plus the company totally changed, they started to outsource to the Phillappines, work dried up big time and we fought over the lousy crumbs. Many of us left and moved onto to better things though!
Love psych notes. HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE,
HATE ER notes.
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.
Your right...my fault. I QA for 4 cents per line and I hate it.
If you type fast you can lose money doing QA. At 4 cents per line I can QA 700 lines per hour (roughly) which is still $28 per hour. Honestly I think the industry standard is 3 cents, but the company I work for will have me QA when they are bombarded and I will not QA for less than 4 cents per line.
i hate when our line count site goes down
I like to know how much i've typed. The line count site at my job has been down for days. I hate that.
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
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.
|
