Not good ones and so far I am still employed

• Refusal to do certain doctors... - SCMT
  • On my acct are 2 drs. that all know are horrible. - We are told SM
  • I have an idea. Let the MTSO do impossible - Dr. She is getting the most money having SM
  • First rule of being an MT - thou shalt not cherrypick
    • MY first rule, before being MT. is I have to - support my famly and cant to it with bad dr. nm
    • Let the next MT refuse him also. Be open bout - not wanting to do him, not sneaky. SM
      • They're not going to give up a lucrative account - because it has bad doctors
        • Thankfully for me, this has not been my - experience. If it were, would have to SM
        • It would be one thing is MT was getting 15+ cpl - to do garbage but at 9cpl, not worth it. nm
          • I don't understand this attitude. At other - Just My Opinion
  • Never actually refused to do one doctor out of many, SM - MissIndigo
  • I have worked with people who have requested - kt
    • Maybe if we all refused to do cruddy Dr, they - would be forced to learn to dictate better. nm
      • knee-slappin' LOL (nm) - IGETIT
    • If you priority is to make less $ in order to learn - a hard Doc, good for you. Gve me the $$. nm
  • Unless you have a job where you can pick - Just My Opinion
    • Right on, JMO. Also, when I have the ability to choose dictations SM - MissIndigo
    • Have asked to be taken off 3 accts cause cant - make money. Was never a problem. nm
    • MTSO in this for the $. So am I. If I cant make $ - I might as well do this for free. nm
      • AMEN to this! nm - nm
  • Would MTSO rather keep good MT who knows - the ropes, can do the work, except for 1 SM
    • put it this way - it's you or the account. NM - IGETIT
      • Not good ones and so far I am still employed - same company. nm
        • if you were MTSO, would you give up - igetit
          • The person MTSO pays is the person who - keeps her in business. nm
            • and they get 500+ applications per job ad. - jusme
    • Yep, a good MTSO will get rid of the crappy doctor, not the good MT...sm - Resignation Ready
      • You are so right - Cindy

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

There are variables.  Is the person working 10-12 hours days and pretending they are working 8?  I know many who are.  If so, income should be considerably higher.  People with their own accounts can usually make 50-60K or more. 

For a 6-8 hour days, 5-day weeks, as an employee with experience, I don't think this job should ever pay less than $30,000.  It takes too much concentration, medical knowledge and complete isolation to pay any less.  Hospitals pay at least that and you are expected to take breaks, lunch, talk with other staff and physicians, get sick sometimes, have bad days and get bad authors sometimes, take vacations and generally be a human being.  Working from home, most of us hunker down and feel guilty if we have anything else we need to do, then making it up at all hours of the night or our supposed days off.   

Obviously, you work as an employee.  Sure hope you got a raise to change from what you were hired at.  Again, not all of us can be that flexible to just change.  We do have a life.  Furthermore, anyone can dial in and listen to a dictation on the weekend if they need it that bad.  Just call the floor get the identifying numbers, call the number, plug in the identifying patient info and badda bing, you've got the dictation.  It used to happen all of the time at the hospital I worked at because they didn't want to wait on the outside MTSO that was soooooooooooo slow.  TAT was never met or hardly ever.

you set your own line rate.  However, we all know that NONE of the MTSOs hiring IC MTs allow us to set our own rate.  They "offer" a rate, and we accept if it's OK.

I worked for a real cheapo doctor when I first started out.  He paid hourly and kept riding my backside to type faster because he only wanted to pay for the actual time dictated instead of the time it took to transcribe.  More than once I told him that it takes an average of 3:1 typing to talking ratio to get it done.  It worked out to be $.03 per line.  I dropped him like a bad habit.  He bounced through a few other transcriptionists who all quit on him before he wound up having to pay to outsource to a service.

There is a new type of retirement fund for self employed business people where you can put money in as both an employee ($15,000) and as a percentage of your profits as the business owner.  It is called an Ind 401K.  Here is a link...

http://www.troweprice.com/common/index3/0,3011,lnp%253D10264%2526cg%253D960%2526pgid%253D10057,00.html?scn=Low-cost_plans_with_&rfpgid=7622

I wanted to go with T. Rowe Price but they do not allow loans, so i decided to go with Oppenheimer.

I am a self-employed MT, trained by the office I have been contracted with for 9 yrs.  When I started, it was myself and an in-house Transcriptionist working for 4 physicians.  I gave a 24 hr TAT.  I had one 18-month-old child when I started, and was able to work around 6 hours a day.  I drove about 40 min to work and back, picked up tapes, working sometimes 6-7 days/week.  Since then, they have hired 2 more drs. and 3 NP's.  The in-house MT retired, but they did hire another MT who works at home.  I had another daughter, and a set of twins in those 9 yrs.  They have always known I try to work around my children's schedules.  As I am sure many of you do, I was getting up in the middle of the night working, working on and off throughout the day and at night.  The new MT and I are backed up now and we can't possibly get it all done.  It is more like 48-72 hr TAT.  They call all through the day asking me to stop what I am doing right then and search the tape, type the note and fax it ASAP.  I picked this profession to work around my children's schedules, not have to push them aside at every moment to cater to the office.  I do not have a certificate in MT, was just trained by this office.  I checked in to other places, but the pay is much less as I get paid 65 char/line including spaces at $.125/line.  The reason they pay so well is because they know I probably can't get on somewhere else with no certificate and no experience in any other field.  They want to make sure I stay there.  Also, the driving is ridiculous.  They refuse to get technology for telecommuting.  They refuse to hire someone else.  On top of that, I was just diagnosed with IST, and am on Toprol and not capable of working the hours I once did.  Is there anyone else out there who understands or has any advice?

Hi all. I am new to this board. I have a home based secretarial service and do both medical and legal. I have never worked for a big company, just attorneys and docs as well as sales profesionals with no secretary. I have always charged by the page, but I have a possible new client that wants me to bill her by the line. Is .12 per line reasonable or too little for medical? Are there any other home based self employed individuals who can offer advice on per line charges?

Thanks!

but not sure how expensive it is or how much it costs to join NASE.  Their website is www.nase.org.

Good luck!

prefer OPs and have done MT work for about 16 years.  I have worked for MQ for 11 years for the Univ. of Pa. which they lost and now I am working for a small company in Michigan with just tons and tons of crap work.   I would like an IC job with OPs if possible. 

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.