Just my opinion, but I have never and would never take a pay cut per line from a client. SM
Posted By: jd on 2007-03-06
In Reply to: Looking for suggestions!! sm - lowering line rate for client
Think of the mere pennies you make to produce the medical report compared to what the patient is billed for the visit. I know there are overhead costs, etc. in running a physician's office, but please, our important job is part of the process that keeps them in business. I had one client over the years try to negotiate a lower line fee. My response to them was, "I have not raised your line rate in over 4 years despite cost of living increases, and I am sure in that period of time some of your office staff have received raises. I am certainly in no position to take a decrease in pay." Sounds like your client was a little too enthusiastic with voice recognition, and quite possibly the doctors there could not handle it or did not have the patiennce for it. If they can you because you won't drop your line rate, trust me, they are not worth it.
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- Looking for suggestions!! sm - lowering line rate for client
- Just my opinion, but I have never and would never take a pay cut per line from a client. SM - jd
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bottom line it's what client wants...sm
and all of her corrections, most of them were right on....sorry to say that to you.....but it's p.o. b.i.d. and 82-year-old and all that good stuff. If they want you to EXPAND GERD that's in your favor.....you get more characters which equates to more line counts. But bottom line, it is what the client wants and all the clients are different with different things they want......hence why you think there is no consistency. Best of luck!!! 
65-char line to client and charge for gross? sm
That's a bit underhanded. If they ever get suspicious, your line counts are going to exceed what they count at 65 char. a line. You said yourself that 65-char/line and gross line are two different things, so why do you contract with the client saying you bill for one and actually bill for another ?? That's shady, IMO, and I would never quote my client a 65-char line and then charge them for gross line.
in my opinion, you are losing out dramatically on your line count..sm
if you relisten to dictation. Only as a brand new MT should you need to ever do this while building on your confidence. Even then, it is not necessary. A skilled Transcriptionist actually edits as they type. Quite honestly, I have probably only re-read a few of my reports over a 20 year period. Part of speed and skill is learning to edit as you type. Without this, line production is nowhere near the area of making a decent living at MT. We should never compromise quality for quantity though. This is truly a huge factor, I believe, in what makes some successful in this industry and others not. It is a true skill; some have it and some do not. Proper MT education is the base of it all though. However, I have had MTs working for me over the years who were less educated in the field and had a better skill in the industry than those who had much more education, but just lacked the skill to be a good MT. I believe this to be the reason why there are many happily employed MTs, and others who just cannot quite fit it in despite their good intentions and efforts. Give yourself the confidence to attempt to edit as you type rather than re-listening to dictation. At that point, based on your feedback, you will know whether you have the potential to make it in this field long term.
k, that is your opinion, i stated mine. poor quality in my opinion shows bad work ethics if they do
;
A gross line is anything on a line is a line. A line set at 65 characters means it sm
has 1-inch margins on each side. The maximum number of characters on that line would be 65 and that includes spaces. If there is 1 character on that line it is a line.
A standard 65-character line usually consists of 65 characters with spaces unless, of course, the employer does not pay for spaces and then it would be 65-characters without spaces.
Anything on the line makes up a line even if just one letter or number. Every line of print is a
s
Gross line = each line on page counts as a line, even if it's only 1 word. nm
x
Gross line means anything on a line is counted as a line.
You can get an idea in the difference using documents you have already created, assuming you're working in Word. Simply open a document and check the properties. Click on the statistics tab and you will see the number of lines as well as characters with and without spaces. If you're currently getting paid by the line and a line is 65-characters with spaces, do the math and see how that number of lines compares with the number of lines in your stats.
One thing to keep in mind: if you have a blank line between paragraphs, instead of hitting the enter key twice, format your document to give the appearance of blank lines between paragraphs.
FTP Client
I still don't know what an FTP client is that was asked in the original question?
the client always wants a little something...sm
The client always wants a little something for nothing.....so I give them a free line if there is only one word on the line...I give them a 68-72 character line (spaces I do count). I have never upped them in 9 years, but on my 10th anniversary I am upping them to 13 CPL. I also give them their 5 line headings for nothing as it's only 2 Keystrokes for me. They are good to me so I bake for the offices a couple of times a year and give the offices a gift during the winter holidays.
I do for one client
One of my clients requested that I charge this way. We do 10 words = 1 line, so basically a penny per word. From what I have figured, I'm doing okay when compared to the character count way of charging on this account. I think they requested charges calculated this way because of being ripped off by their last MT. Once I send their files, they can check the word count and keep a running tab to compare with my statement. They're satisfied and I'm satisfied, so it works well.
Have your client do it. SM
Call the office of your client and have them fax/e-mail to you samples of their prior surgeries. There's certainly nothing wrong with asking for this.
the client does not have to have it-- sm
The client can unzip using WinZip or whatever program they have installed, but MP Tools is so easy, some clients may want to use it. I have a couple who are interested in purchasing it just for the printing function, which works really well.
I had a client ask me to look
They provided a patient list for the date of service, but if the patient was not on there, then I had to view on-line the past week of patient lists to look for the name. Yeah right - that took 15 or 20 minutes sometimes uploading and viewing. So now, they get an inaccurate spelling of the patient name with a comment when I send there report, pt. not on list. Hello? Like the low wage isn't bad enough, and then add in that kind of junk. It is pathetic. 
What the client says is law, if that is what they want, then
that is what they expect and they have the right to tell an MTSO who can and cannot work on their accounts.
Even with this, the client is always
BOS is a style guide, which I do not own. However, I aim to please the client. So, if the doctor wants to spell something his own way, then so be it. He went to medical school, not me! A book of style means absolutely nothing to a client who wants things a certain way. End of story. 
It is just according to what the client
wants. Most do I would think, but some want them in a paragraph form and not captialized. Need to check with your supervisor or client.
Oh my! Do you have your own client? sm
I don't know of any MTSOs who pay 13 cpl. If you found one please share.
I'm not sure, but if the client does not
get a cut for using ASR, they why would they care whether their physicians use it or not????
We would be a lot more valued if they all thought ASR was as good as originally touted and had no editors to fix the darn reports it spits out.
First off..there is no way the client is getting a
And ASR is NO WAY 3 times faster...that will never happen. Most transcriptionists type the speed of the dictator to begin with. ASR could be a great tool for those of us needing a break from transcription, but it does not warrant ripping off our cpl's..ESPECIALLY when the client is charged the same...the have NO WAY of knowing whether the report is goes to ASR or not. Lastly, an ASR Editor needs YEARS of transcription experience, becuase to insure a correct report
It would be according to what the client
wants. We just type the numbers if they are dictated that way.
Unless specified by the client, I only
expand in diagnoses, procedures, impression, etc. I always type what they say when it comes to drugs, you don't change things like two a day to b.i.d. unless directed to do so by the client specifically. Also, on my client we are not allowed to use slang, so if they say "sat" we expand to saturation, bili is changed to bilirubin etc. A good MT never takes it upon herself to change something that is dictated UNLESS they are specified to in certain instances by the client or it something is wrong--then if it is changed you flag it for your QA.
Gross line, also including blank lines because my line rate is so low. It all works out in the wash.
x
I think relistening to a certain client until you
are very used to them is a good idea. Just put it on high speed and go over it. That won't take near as much time. I am QA and I can most certainly tell the difference between those who relisten or at least reread and those who do not.
never a client from a national, but...sm
A client approached me AFTER both HE and I had quit working for this one particular MTSO...I worked for him, she found out and tried to sue ME for $20K.
I sent her back a play $20K bill and told her that was about as much as her "lawsuit" was worth. Never heard another word from her.
Own client question
Those of you with your own clients. What do you do when you want to go away for the weekend, or get sick? I can see this as being about the only reason to stay with a company. The ability to get someone else to pick up your accounts for a few days is appealing.
Depends on the client.....sm
At any rate you have too many commas, imho.
"I told him to clean the area with hydrogen peroxide and after that he can apply the Neosporin ointment." Works just as well.
It just depends on what the client wants.
I have some that still use tapes and some that I do through a TASP. So for the TASP, I have a wav pedal for the computer, Express Scribe, and that's it. For the tapes, I have the usual trancriber setup.
Maybe the client requested the
x
Pleeeez help. What is an FTP client?
I was asked that when applying for a job. I know it means file transfer protocol, but how the heck am I supposed to know how my audio files get transferred?
And I thought I was pretty gosh durn smart. 
Client rate
It depends on the rate in your area, but I would charge no less than .12 per 65 char line. I think this rate is not too high and not too low. You have be careful about charging too much as someone will undercut you. Practicount is a line count program that will allow you to charge for headers, footers, bolded areas, underlines, and so on. This way if you have to drop your price in order to get the client you can charge for other things that will make up the difference.
Good luck!!!
it's really client preference......NM
x
In general no, but your client may need you to
nm
Well, if that's how she's billing the client SM
then that's how you should be billing her (just characters and spaces). I'm sorry you're going to be losing money. I'd be unhappy too. Maybe you can work on your shortcuts/macros more so that you are typing less for the same amount. No real words of wisdom for you...sorry.
Maybe so, but ultimately it is the client
x
The needs of the client have changed.
They can say they need the work whenever the fancy strikes them. You can either provide it or not. That is just the way this business works.
I lost a big client and a new one to EMR
My own doctor hired me after losing my account to EMR. I sat around for two months waiting for him to start only to be told on an office visit that he too has gone EMR. Good luck.
Losing a client
You have my empathy.
This happens with the big companies too. The MT is the last to know that client whose account they have worked on will not renew a contract. I worked 60 days in a row on an account to help catch it up not knowing the Co. was losing the account. I felt betrayed because during that time I could have been trained for something else. I was on a C-phone at the time, and others had already been trained on newer systems. Things really can be quite thoughtless/heartless when regarding the MTs feelings. Makes one feel like just a number. Or as they say a "Human Resource" I that that word..... it sounds like an entity that uses-up, wads-up, and then discards. What ever happened to personnel? Once again, you have my empathy.
Of course, forewarn the client.
Let him/her know that should you continue to be required to provide service over the weekend there will be an additional charge for doing it. Your work week is M-F and if you must provide service over the weekend you will have to charge a higher rate. I have had clients do this before and most of the time after talking with them they would change their mind about the ASAP timeframe. If you are getting slammed with a week's worth of dictation on one or two days then you should be allowed a longer TAT or charge a higher rate.
One client wants it, the other doesn't. :) nm
nm
ICs work for more than one client, always.
x
How do I set up a digital client??
Hi,
I just got an offer to do transcription for a doctor about 20 miles away. Only problem is this is a pick up tape deal and I do not want to have to travel especially with winter/snow coming on. I'm sure this isn't a big money maker account, but I would like to be able to have the voice files come to me encrypted and deliver the work that way too. I am not very good at things that are overly complicated, so any help as to what to suggest for a recorder and such would be greatly appreciated. I am hoping they will go along with buying digital, but if need be, I suppose I could provide it just to save driving. Help please. Thank you.
I have a PS client, and he does put pt's together when asked...sm
Lots of times he has new patient's talk with other patients. Not sure how, probably has current patient call the new one or something. You should ask. Wouldn't have plastic surgery without talking to someone who has used him, actually more than one and would want to see pictures too.
DocShuttle Client
 Does use DocShuttle Client? Can I use Express Scribe or do I have to use the Wav player by Bytescribe? I really like Express Scribe. Does not matter either way, just wondering . . . . Thanks!
DocShuttle Client
 Thanks! Good to know!
Meditech Client (sm)
How many of you are using Meditech Client and like it? Is it something you get used to?
That's up to you and the client to decide.
If you're concerned about whether or not to count the content of the header or footer, that is something that should be decided by your and the client, not the people on this board.
It's up to the client how they wish their work done.
Yes, I know it is our initials on the report. I've done work for hospitals and physicians who want pure verbatim, modified verbatim, an old version of BOS and their own modifications, updated BOS, no BOS and no verbatim, and "just type what I say that's what I pay you for." The one thing you can do to cover yourself is just save your work to a CD/floppy/Zip. If you don't feel comfortable about something, flag it for QA and let them make the last decision, but at least you have your original to go by in case something happens along the way. You have proof of what you typed and what was changed at the other end.
Yeah, I get it, but what I'm saying is my client went to using them and
g
Your client will not run out overnight
Palleeassee...... If the IC is repeatedly not making an effort to support the contract, then let it go. Geez............ You can't be beating yourself up about a bad IC. Just cut your losses. My goodness, I think you've been burnt too many times. 
This is for the client's that ask for timestamps
to be put every 30 seconds or so in the document meaning you have to type them in. It is a big pain which is why i charge a bundle for it. Usually I am not asked to :)
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