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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

Perhaps, but there will also be no incentive to go into medicine for US docs, SM

Posted By: MT50 on 2007-09-25
In Reply to: does anybody wonder if we get universal healthcare - QAgirl

when they get out of med school they have debt, will have to set up a practice, pay their staff, etc. What is the incentive if you can earn a limited income.

I say let the free market decide.


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Wait until we get a lower base rate and incentive and no work for incentive.Should prove interesting
because everyone will probably have a lower base rate than now. As I say, should prove interesting.
No, there's no pay incentive ... but there may be other incentive worth considering.

I'd give anything to have the radiation oncology department of a hospital I used to work at .. the reports were lovely 3 page affairs that, while not conforming to a "normal" conformed to a standard template that made the 3 pages fly by .. the dictator was a tediously slow (but clear) talking earnest young doctor .. and a small handful of his reports  could rack up 500 lines with little agitation. ... a few sighs, but...


I think in the current state of the business, it is worth tackling a speciality or two ... OP's first, of course, but then whatever presents itself.


 


The two benefits will be seen in hiring and in work being available when the other easier stuff is all gone. Oncology patients generally are older and have more history to be documented, etc.  While a great ER account is a truly wonderful thing ... when that's all gone, having some long winded, backedup accounts are a god-send, imho.


 


good luck.


MT and medicine in general

The greedy guts smelled the ability to MAKE A PROFIT in the field of medicine


and "there went the neighborhood."


It used to be a sign of respect to be a doctor - now they just work for the company store and are running out the door with the nurses at quitting time - throwing any patient they may be seeing to the winds.  One even told me to hurry up and make up my mind because she had to go pick up her kids at daycare!


And so has medical transcription - some guy in a tie said QUANTITY OF LINES COULD = MUCHO PROFIT...


Of course those people don't care if a few people die along the way because of errors. - well not at least until it's their leg that's amputated by mistake.


 


Going into medicine. I have 2 MT friends
who are already in medical school. One MT I worked with at a large hospital is now an anesthesiologist making about $300K a year. Hahaha Should I hope to do so well. Hahaha

Know 1 who is a psychotherapist now. Know 1 who got her MBA and works in government contracting and 1 who got his MS and works for JCAHO.

Lots of things to do out there! It's much easier to decide what you want to do now that you're experienced in life and know what the real investments and rewards are. I'd go on to commercial flight school if I weren't going into medicine. I have a private license. Would LOVE to be Lear certified! Would love to fly a medical helicopter. You can get funding for those flight programs, too! Not a traditional classroom setup. If I don't get into med school, I may be doing that! Hahaha

Internal Medicine
Are they hiring at all right now?  Let me know.  Am interested in part-time, evenings and weekends.
Unfortunately after paying $140.00 for the medicine (30 days) sm
after two weeks I broke out in hives and had to stop taking it.
"The Language of Medicine" sm
is a very good book and very thorough. I would recommend it highly.
Rehab medicine will include PT, OT, sm
speech therapy, etc.
MT is usually for medicine. Nursing is a different discipline.
X
Well, after all the doctors are only "Practicing" Medicine, right? nm
.
I don’t think he would just out of the blue suggest the medicine
Probably you made mention of having had the cervical cancer and that is where the dialogue started, right? As far as the x-ray, think that is being overplayed with that and fertility. Loads of children, females included, have x-rays when younger and do not lose their ability to have children. You sound like you are stressed out, mentioning this and that, xrays, miscarriages, sterility, etc., etc.
My wonderful MD is having to leave medicine sm
Because she can't afford to practice!!! The compensation for primary care docs SUX. The Blues owe her about $60K she can't collect on care she has already provided. The year I was her MT, her practice paid me $3000, it paid her $2500 FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR. She literally didn't take home a paycheck all year and took the $2500 at the end when she didn't have to pay it out. In the end, that money went to pay a lawyer to try to collect from the Blues.

I have a very complicated medical history and still have many significant problems. The idea of changing doctors right now makes me sick. I won't have any more choice about that than my doctor has about leaving the profession. She is a wonderful doctor and has cared for me for 20 years. I am sick over this.
Muscle relaxants could help also. I am on migraine medicine too but...
if it is caused by your muscles trapping the occipital nerve, injections would help, both diagnostically and therapeutically. They would then know how to proceed with your next step in treatment. The stimulator was a miracle until the lead wires moved. If the injections do not help, it rules out one type of headache and on to the next. I use Cafergot for my migraines with aura (a whole different headache altogether), but that has been discontinued now. I really wish you luck!
OT: Changing face of veterinary medicine (sm)

Is it only me or has veterinary medicine changed quite a bit over the years to resemble care of humans?  I have cats and absolutely love them but I'm becoming torn between necessary care, preventive care, and just down-right UN-necessary care.  I remember back when animals went to the vet for shots and only when they got sick.  If they were sick, diagnosis and prognosis dictated the next level of care.  And in most cases back then there were no options other than to let nature take its course if something serious/chronic was found. 


I'm now noticing that every time I take one of the cats to the vet's, the doc wants to do "baseline" blood work at least once a year and now wants to see my ten-year-old cat on a twice-yearly basis.  My kitty is healthy as a horse and has had no health problems for ten years.  Why all of a sudden does he need expensive BASELINE lab work and xrays as well as needing to be seen twice a year and have his teeth cleaned twice a year (not cheap)?  It sounds like I'm complaining about the money end versus taking care of my kitty, and I suppose in a sense I am, because this adds up to a whole lot over the course of time.  The doc mentioned the reasons for the lab work (diabetes, thyroid problems, anemia, cancer, etc.)  I'm torn between having the work done and what I would do if anything chronic showed up on the tests.  I love my kitty but don't know if spending lots of money on chronic meds/therapy would be an option when I would have to weigh other expenses against them. 


Food/medicine caught in throat
This very thing happened to me while eating pizza one day - I ended up in the ER because I could not get it out or to go down.  The ER doc ordered a chest x-ray (do not know why) and then sent me home with some Prilosec saying that I had esophagitis.  It was a rainy day - two dogs chased my car home and I was afraid to get out - plus I had my sister's four children that week, besides my own two.  I took a Prilosec and then had to have my husband rush to the pharmacy for some Benadryl - I was allergic to the dye - then, and I don't recommend this, I got a long-handled teaspoon - bent it and stuck it down my throat - retrieving the pizza dough.  I still had esophagitis because my throat was now inflamed from the pizza and the spoon handle - I put the chewed up dough in a ziploc and returned it to the ER for an explanation - of course they thought I was crazy - but you do what you have to do.  I have found that many doctors are either incompetent or on drugs (cocaine, meth, and others that they either sniff or smoke).  That is why there is such a high malpractice rate (but that's another story).  In fact, I see a doctor now who is a drug-abuser - but he prescribes what me or my family needs when we go to see him and we get well - but boy is he high - nice, though.  That's my take on the ibuprofen in your throat.
We come in contact daily with much more true medicine sm

medical problems, diagnoses, treatment, that nurses do.  I question my nurse practitioner, constantly, about why she is prescribing certain medications for me.  She seems to have a lot less knowledge of these medications than I do.  (btw, she resents it). 


It is JCAHO. The most misspelled acronym in medicine! nm
x
Nope. Many years working at the School of Medicine. SM

An MS4 is a med student till June graduation. He's "Mister So-and-So" then in June when he graduates, he's "Doctor So-and-So."


A 4th year resident is something else entirely. He is an R4 (or that's what they call them here). HE is an MD. The MS4 is not an MD.


Normal x-rays, CT scans, nuclear medicine
scans, nuclear medicine procedures and tests, etc. Anything procedure associated with radiology, which can include op reports dictated by the radiology interventionists.
Kids certainly not the reason for me, I loved the field of medicine
I had started working in hospital settings about 10 years before I ever knew about transcribing. Working at a hospital in another section my boss told me since I typed fast she had a friend who worked in MTing at the hospital, they had an opening and you could make extra money the more you typed, the more you could make. Being as my speed was 130-140, thought perfect job for me. I think loving the actual work rather than just doing to stay home is the main reason I have done as long as I have, no burn out for this person.
Oh good grief! No way. The only Dixie I know of is a forensic medicine person...
not a former bank manager.  Maybe there are 2 of them. 
incentive
i've always had a problem with what they refer to as incentives! never logical and as you so precisely put it, INCREDIBLY CHEAP!!
What incentive does she have to tell?
Just curious.  Afterall, they may never know.
incentive
I call that incentive honesty. What do you call it?
Incentive
What will we make if we do 2,100 lines per day?
plus incentive....
.
incentive pay
I would like to know how icentives usually work. If your base rate was .10 per line up to 10,000 lines per pay period, your incentive was .15 above 10,000 and you typed 15,000 lines, would you be paid .15 for all 15,000 lines or just .15 for the 5,000 lines over the minimum and .10 for the first 10,000?
incentive
Same here no incentive when working in house. You got done what you got done. The only time I have really heard of an incentive is working as an IC at home and that is by the line.
because of incentive pay
You start producing more line that is more per hour and they can slow you down to keep you from getting those extra lines. Every time I would get to my line count up, the slower it was to get the same type of work done. I even complained that it was too slow and I wanted another account and he said "I can set your speed up a little. We turn it down to keep from crashing the system." I worked third shift so how many are there working third?
I just was hired with the new SE pay/incentive!!!!!

I must say I am very happy and I think other SE's will be, as well!!


I hired in at 9 cpl and can earn up to 2 cpl in incentive on every line I type!  I'm excited!  I can hardly wait to get started!!  Though I am only obligated to do 6000 lines in a payperiod, if I type 16,000 lines in the payperiod I get my extra 2 cpl and that makes for $1760 just for that!  I think that is pretty good.


My training is next week and I hope to be able to reach that with my first check!!


If all would please be calm, I'm sure that the new SE pay/incentive plan will soon get out there!!!  You'll be very pleased! 


actually - I was told what my pay would be, as well as the incentive - sm
it was a little bit of a decision for me to make. But I based it on a few things, one being the time spent on the phone with the recruiter, questions asked and answered, etc. I'm happy with the choice I made.

Prior to this I had been emailing my resume to companies and waiting, email some more, wait some more. Then I posted my resume and I had emails and phone calls within a two week period. I couldn't believe it! The exact opposite worked! Go figure.

Anyways, it's just my 2 cents
Incentive plan?... sm
Curious how common it is to have an incentive plan at your company.  Does it make a difference if you are an employee, SC, etc.?  Currently, employee at 7.5 cpl with benefits (vacation, holiday, health insurance, etc.).  No incentive plan.  I have almost 20 years experience.  Minimum requirement is 1200 lines per day, full time.  Thanks for any info! 
I wouldn't do it without incentive
I make $30/hour now on lines
When I was in house there was no incentive.
You got done what you got done. No reward for pushing to get extra done.
Production incentive

The last hospital I worked at paid an hourly wage, no incentive, and had a minimum line requirement per day of 1200. 


The problem with this scenario is that there is no incentive to produce more - thus the term * incentive *.  If work became backed up, we were offered overtime.


When I worked in-house for a service, we had a line per day requirement of 1200 and anything over 1200 lines per day was paid at 6 cents per line.


The incentive should be for ALL lines sm
transcribed, not just the ones over 1100.  That is cheapskate bonus.
Oh, joy, yet another incentive weekend. . .
and there's not even any work in my BOB.  Why, oh, why, are all the people that run everything are the ones with no common sense?!
There is little or no incentive to learn and use
all these shortcuts, when one knows that the cpl will maximum be 4 cents.
$19 an hour and incentive too?
Sounds like what I used to make before I got outsourced 4 years ago. My pay has never been as much since -- it's been about $10,000 a year less and going down. I never have been able to do twice as much editing as typing, but they cut your pay in half. I am really tired of MTSOs getting all the money and cutting our pay. There are very few hospitals in this area that have not outsourced.
the worst incentive I got offered
Yes, yes... some incentive is better than none offered (to anyone who is ready to say, "At least you get one!"), but the worst incentive I was ever offered was when I worked for HealthScribe years back and they offered a 1/4 cent on lines typed for a certain day.  Doing 1000 lines, that worked out to $2.50 tagged onto my regular rate.  That wasn't even worth thinking about let alone spoiling my weekend for.
Incentive by minutes with Cerner
Hi -
The hospital I work for went with Cerner a year or so ago. Their software is so bad, our required minutes were lowered to 80 minutes/8hr. Incentive starts at 91.3 min/8hr.
What would you make in incentive doing 1200 lpd?

With MQ's new plan in January:   $0 incentive on 1200 lines/day.


Spheris:  1200 lines a day = $24 a week incentive.


What about where YOU work?!!


 


Sure takes any incentive out of trying to do a good job.
That is what happens when you put people in charge that have no experience other than raising a couple of loud mouthed brats that always make sure they scream when supervisor calls you.
Because of my competitive nature, I would use it as incentive to
produce more and make more money.

I always like to know where I fall compared to other MTs - am I in the middle of the pack, on the bottom or on top. If I am not on top, than I would do my best to get there. That is just my nature. I strive to be the best that I can be, although sometimes we all fall short. No biggy!! Just do your best and produce what you physically can, and that will have to be enough for that particular day.

Just use the daily information as an incentive for yourself!

Good luck to you.
My inhouse incentive experience
When I worked inhouse, our incentive was calculated quarterly. Our incentive was based on minutes of dictation transcribed, not lines.

We had a minimum number of minutes to average daily. Depending on how much we passed that minimum (on the quarterly average), we were assigned an hourly incentive to be paid for all regular hours worked for the next quarter.

Example: If my 1st quarter average production put me at 180 minutes of dictaiton, then I would receive an extra $8.50 an hour (in addition to my regular hourly wage) for all regular hours worked for the 2nd quarter. If I took paid time off, had a holiday off, or had overtime, it was not paid for those hours. Only for regular hours. So, if I worked my regular 40 hours weekly, I received an extra $340 a week in incentive.

Now, incentive started low, at $1.00 an hour and worked up to $10 an hour.

Last time I worked inhouse with per-line incentives, we literally got a daily line count and had a tiered set up with lines/hour average daily.
Incentive Production Bonus
I have worked several in-house transcription jobs in my 20 plus years as a medical transcriptionist. I have been paid hourly for each one. I have never received a production bonus. In fact, I had never heard of such a thing until I started working for a national at home. I did get overtime at time and a half for working over 40 hours a week, which is more than a production bonus would ever be. Good luck with your project!
...maybe incentive pay like OT or payment for bonus
s
I get extra incentive from my 2 employers too.
nm
That's just not true... I make 16/hr PLUS incentive, including
cx
But isn't the increased incentive JUST on whatever is over 300 lines? Not applied to the first 3
;P
Depends on incentive offered, benefits, and
nm