Schedules are there for a reason
Posted By: basically you're stealing other's work on 2007-12-28
In Reply to: Nice in theory, but most of us have to work a lot more than - 40 hr/wk. to get by in this business. n/m
Say I'm scheduled to work a certain time slot. Say you feel entitled to work an extra 4 hours each day that laps into my time slot. Then I consistently run out of work and start doing what you're doing. Soon everyone is working weird hours and schedules mean nothing, and the supes can't adequately staff accounts because everyone is cherrypicking their hours. How is this fair to anyone?
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schedules
We have to work a schedule every day because its patient care/coverage, but we do have flexibility because sometimes things do run out AND sometimes they get swamped and NEED our help! Wont they see that that wont work? I guess if people are sick or on vacation they will transcribe it themselves. LOL
Hope it works out for you all.
schedules
Yes, I realize the reason that MTs have to have set schedules for TAT, coverage, etc. I actually don't have a problem at all with a set schedule, but it is really frustrating when continuously (nearly every day), there is no work to do during your schedule. When I started with MQ, I gave them a schedule and had every intention of keeping to that schedule. Within the first week, I ran out of work and had to work at a different time to get my lines. That was nearly two years ago.
It's not the schedules, it's the PAY. That's sm
why they can't get help from US MTs. The nationals I have applied to are offering about 6-8 cpl for experienced MTs. Who can live on that. No wonder they can't get good experienced help.
No, it is the schedules
One thing works in relation to the other. I can tell you that each day I turn on my computer I have bleeding from the eyes because I cannot get people to work their schedules and they are NOT making .06/line either! It drives me crazy because they have a great situation with our company. The bigger companies have always had their problems in direct proportion to the way they mistreated their people and eventually it will come back to bite them, but somewhere in this equation our home grown MTs have to take responsibility for themselves and know what they are doing, do it in a timely fashion, and produce a good work product. If the clients are not happy .. it should be obvious that they will move on. No company should have to QA each sheet of paper that leaves their office, but many should!
pay schedules
Because based on my experience - they either have a tier structure based on production/experience/test scores or the rates are based on the particular account you work on and vary from account to account. I agree I'd like to see at least an average range given but it seems most don't.
Schedules
National companies are concerned with getting the work back to the hospital within turn around time. It usually does not matter to them who gets the work done. A company is not going to "save" work for a certain person's schedule. If you want more work, you may have to try working outside your schedule. This is just the way the game is played. Maybe it isn't fair but then you know how the say goes....life is not always fair.
schedules
Sounds like you are one of those people who wants a set schedule, regardless of when the work is there and evidently you are not willing to work "off schedule" - you are in the wrong field my friend, most MTs have to work whenever they are needed, not just when they want, the company I work for often asks for extra help, in return I ask for time off and have the pleasure of knowing I am not going to be scrutinized for it, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours - the MT business evidently is not what you expected???
schedules
Same here - and I work Tuesday-Saturday - but as an IC, if I want a weekend off, I just tell them I can't work. I have found a pattern though, at about noon on Friday everyone shuts down and then those of us who do work the weekend are flooded with work - wonder why the CO. hasn't figured it out and done something about it. We even get paid more to work on Saturday and Sunday - but go figure.
IC schedules
A lot of the companies allow for a 12 to 24 hour window to get your lines in. I guess that's where the flexibility comes into play. I picked my hours with my company and stick to them, but they do not require their IC's to do that. The companies are out there that aren't so rigid with the hours, you just have to find them. Good luck.
MT's choosing their schedules.
One of your complaints about being a supervisor is regarding people who give more than their fair share of time and those who are "just there when they want to be". I just want you to clarify. You see, when I hire on at a company, I tell them EXACTLY how many hours I will work. One of the main attractions of this job that companies always cockadoodle and cluck about is that you can name your hours. Flexible schedules, be with your kids, blah, blah, blah. Or you commit to a minimal line quota, and again, I tell them EXACTLY what line quota I can meet. I can tell you from past experience -- going on 20+ years now, same GREAT company for the last 5, that some other companies wait until after you've started with them, agreed to a schedule/quota plan, and then say, sorry, scrub your personal home plans, you see basically we lied and comitted contract fraud when we took this account on and promised them 2-hr turnaround when we are understaffed. But we have to lie, that's how we get accounts. A former supervisor for MQ actually told me this. She truly justified doing business this way. And yes, it was MQ. But neither of us work there any more, and I'm sure other companies do this as well. And I'm REALLY sure that makes it okay.
I don't think the MT should have to apologize for saying "No, I can't help you. I put in my time. Sorry. I have a spouse and children and other responsibilities." And you're right, they may be only there for pocket change, since that is what so many companies offer. Why kill themselves? Sorry, but the MT has the right to choose whether she wants 10 hours/week, 20 hrs/week, or 60 hrs/week. She takes the smaller check as a trade-off. So you see, there may be another perspective.
I'm rarely on here lately because of schedules ...
I work when I want to so stick it if you don't like it! Hahaha
work schedules
I just wanted to let you know that Spheris wants you to work your schedule, whether you have achieved your line count production "quota" for the day or not. If you are scheduled to work 8:00 to 4:00 and you achieve all your required lines for the day by 2:30 p.m., they still want you online until 4:00. It's something they enforce and regularly check up on.
Kids schedules
My 12-year-old daughter isn't as busy as some that I know. She has Girl Scouts every other Thursday, Student Council after school one day a week, and an after school bowling team (for her middle school) from 3:30-5:00 one day a week for the next eight weeks. She also wants to do Color Guard this year, but I'll have to see if that is going to be too much for her. She's a straight A+ student and I want to make sure she has enough time to do homework without feeling rushed.
work schedules
I worked in house 24/7/365 and we were called in on our days off and after hours. Middle of the night call ins were not unusual.
Not always...not all companies are flexible with schedules!
..
Schedules. Are you talking about *employees*...
on *schedules* ... or SE/IC's on *schedules*? Thanks.
Kids schedules outside of school....sm
It's amazing to me how many parents push their kids to the extreme with extracurricular activities. I saw a cousin this weekend and her 2nd grader is taking 4 dance lessons (4-1/2 hours a week), an acting class (1 hour) is in some special gifted program that meets 1 hour after school each week and is in the church kid's choir on Wednesdays. This means this 7-year-old has 7-1/2 hours of extracurricular activities scheduled.
I told her that my 6-year-old chooses 1 activity to participate in outside of church kids choir (meets on Sunday) and that's all she does.
What about your kids if you have them? If you have your child scheduled in a lot of things aren't you worried that they will burn out? I've recently read stories that a lot of kids that are overscheduled are getting depressed and I can see why.
Planning, organization, schedules, determination, and
making others be responsible for themselves and respectful of your time, effort, energy.
Taught the boys to do laundry, cook, do housework.
Taught family/friends to respect work/study schedules.
I don't feel the obligation to answer to anyone else anymore.
Don't forget the Sun-Thur/Tues-Sat only schedules as well! sm
I wrote a post about this a while back and was surprised by the reaction I received.
Every decent company seems to have gotten into a new trend of giving MTs two options only, give up every Saturday for the rest of your life or every Sunday, period. All I heard was "well this is 24/7 business." Well so is law enforcement, nursing, and even being a clerk at the nearest 7/11. I don't know any cops, nurses, or clerks that have such limited options that require never having a weekend off again...ever! Even doctors get an occasional weekend off! I refuse, but that's just me. :)
Doesn't it give you the option of printing all the forms and schedules?
x
the reason you (and I) don't get it is sm
probably cause it is a gross exaggeration of their production. No one could produce that much, unless they kept their fingers glued to the keyboard. I'm sorry, it's just not possible. Don't beat yourself up because of other people. Be proud of who you are and what you do! 
For some reason if you have a different
opinion than the people reading your post, they tend to grow fangs and sharp fingernails and tear you up. I don't understand this as we all have the right to our opinion. We need to work on a solution to resolve this issue not attack one another. We don't know what kind of situation the other posters are in and they don't know what position we are in. Just because one person has a wonderful experience with MQ and DQS does not make the person posting a bad experience with MQ and DQS a liar. It simply means that you are in different situations.
Reason
The reason for that is straightforward: the owner of the other website is very pro-offshore MT transcription and apparently is in cahouts with the MQ execs up to her eyeballs. Nothing wrong with, nothing illegal, all very straight up, but all very you scratch my back and i'll scratch yours. They LIKE each other, and the other website simply will not tolerate any negative MQ comments. And here? Well, the truth is allowed to be aired out. Thank you MT Stars for having the cahoonas!
The reason is for ME's 20% pay cut
They underbid on jobs, telling the client if they use the ASR system they will pay 2 cents less per line, telling them it is such a fast system they can do this. That is not the way it worked out. We are not producing more with it. Expansions were just as good, if not better is some cases and now they have to take the money out of our pockets. (It is on the archives here if you read back through as well.)
There was a reason behind this
As was mentioned, they are not actively seeking offshore. However, in order to keep this very large account (and it is large), they had to use some offshore labor. You know, I don't love it either. However, all of the MTs on this account could have just been out of work. So, now a little of it goes offshore, and the US MTs still have their account and their work. It's not great. It's not the ideal. But, at least we are still working.
You know the reason--
Because some idiot did it and they got sued. When I worked at a hospital years ago, it was July in Phoenix and the temperature was well over 110. We had a guy bring his daughter into the ER with burns on her legs because she went down an outside metal slide at McDonald's and got burns on her legs. His excuse was-- Well, there was no sign on the slide saying it was hot. People are just plain stupid any more.
The reason you don't see many men
in this profession is because they are unwilling to take _____ and they are also unwilling to work so hard for so little pay. I would not recommend this job to anyone just starting out, because I believe it is a dying industry. We are already seeing that now with VR, etc.
One reason why (sm)
Actually, it depends on how the company connects to the internet. At my company we cannot hire any with satellite because we use an IP Sec VPN with our platform (ExText) and there are latency (slowness) issues. If you found a company that uses SSL VPN you would be okay. Here is an article that explains it in a little more technical terms. http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/127542.html
One I like for some reason
"Don't let the screen door hit ya on the way out!"
Perhaps the reason they are
hospitalized is due to a childhood type illness that is better dealt with by a pediatrician.
Reason I'm asking is
I have a friend who uses EXText and says lines seem harder to get with EXText than with other programs. I just interviewed with a company that uses it, and I'm wondering if anyone else has trouble getting lines with this program.
This is another reason why I'm
exploring other career options. Although I've had some bad office experiences I don't think that the constant isolation is good. I agree with the suggestions to get out of the house and away from the computer.
The reason for this...
Many insurance companies are now requiring owners to sign a statement saying they will not knowingly hire anyone who has been convicted of a felony. That's why I believe we are seeing more background checks. Just the nature of the business.
run! run far away! If there was ever a reason for VR, this is IT.
x
And the reason for that is
not that they believe he is the worst. In fact, if you actually look at the site, you will see they are backing him because their whole goal is to "stick it" to AI, Simon, the producers, etc. They are backing Taylor because he is good, he's different, and he's definitely not the manufactured pop star that AI wants. They so don't know what to do with Taylor, just like they didn't know what to do with Clay. I'm sure they would love to have Kat in there because it's easy to market another California diva with the same kind of voice that you hear on the radio every day. Her attitude isn't exactly "idol" material, but then again, I'm sure it's commonplace out there so she'll fit right in. I would have loved to see two polite southern gentleman in the finals. So VFTW is backing Taylor to give a "take that" to AI, and I hope they are successful. I joined the Soul Patrol way back...right after the auditions...and I would love nothing better than to see Taylor make it all the way and welcome any help we can get.
Here's one reason
I didn't know it meant "no message". I just saw it used a lot, so I used it, thinking it was for anyone who didn't want to make up a nickname.
Would the reason you think he
sounds dumb be because of his accent? He's southern. He can't help it. But he is certainly not dumb.
Oh, the other reason is
when she e-mailed me about losing that account, she asked if I had any experience in another specialty, which I had very little of and told her so, and I have not heard back from her.
They do this for a reason. sm
The reason they give you a test that has bad audio or is otherwise difficult is because they want to see how you will handle the situation. On the job, you WILL encounter reports which have bad audio or spots that you cannot understand. It is just a simple fact of life in this field. They need to know what you will do when confronted with this situation. Will you try to gloss over your blanks and guess, or will you flag appropriately? I have worked in QA, and you would be amazed at the number of "transcriptionists" out there who will fill in whatever nonsense sounds close rather than flagging a spot appropriately. It's actually very scary. These companies just want to see if you know how to correctly handle dictation which is unintelligible. They aren't trying to make a mockery of the profession.
well one reason could be
for example, a heart condition runs in my friend's family (the condition that sometimes causes athletes to suddenly drop dead for no apparent reason) and her doctor told her that all her children should be tested because it was a 50/50 chance they would have it too. So I would imagine if her kids were still in school it might benefit the school to know this, especially if the child was involved with sports. Perhaps knowing this the school might invest in a defibrillator.
I don't know if that is the reason they ask about family history but we don't really know why they ask for it so I would probably find out why they needed that information before I either gave it out or assumed they couldn't possibly need it.
I was a little surprised at this response- It didn't sound to me like Pattie was ignoring other people's opinions, just stating her own. I certainly don't think she was trying to offend anyone. Lighten up a little. :)
reason?
Any particular reason?
The reason
I 'viewed' is because I'm thinking of making the switch over to editor, and wanted more information. Hopefully, more will respond. It's anomymous after all. 
For some reason I think of CSI but that would be
pathology or Medical Examiner transcription.
BTW: Does anyone ever notice that doc who does the autopsies on CSI LV mispronounces when he is dictating? It drives me nuts. Makes me want to apply for a consultant job on the set. LOL.
I wonder if this is another reason...
for getting out of the hospital setting. Out of curiosity , I just looked to see what kind of MT positions are at my local med center. They have a part-time position transcribing for Radiology 4 hours a night , MWF. They expect :
1-2 years of progressively advanced radiology transcription experience in health care setting (hospital, clinic, etc.) Professional experience to include ability for extensive research and staying up to date in radiology procedures and equipments. Producation Expectation: 50-70 reports per day (after 1-2 MO orientation) 75-100 reports per day (after 3-5 months of orientation). Preferred: CMT
That's 12-25 reports / hour! Now , I don't know how long radiology reports are (I haven't even started my MT course yet) but does that seem like a reasonable / doable production number for radiology reports?
The reason I am asking is because I
am an IC for a client, who does not telecommute. I need a way to make up some of the driving time picking up tapes and returning completed dictation. In researching, I came across the Express Scribe and wondered if there is anyone else out there who uses it to convert the microcasettes to text. If there is anyone, who could give some insight or advice about this, I would greatly appreciate it!
The reason is...sm
I thought all transcriptionists used spellcheck. It is to assure that if you overlook a word then it will highlight it so you know that you misspelled it. It is easy to accidentally put 2 letters or something like that. With spellcheck I am assured nothing has been overlooked.
I have never transcribed without a spellcheck. Out of habit, I am so used to it I don't feel right not using it. It saves so much time also. With my software it will highlight and if it is a word you aren't sure the correct spelling of it give the suggestions and saves me the time of having to look it up. It is just something I have always used and don't feel right not having it.
All the more reason for us to have it right. NM
I think the reason...
you like it is because your demographics are already filled in. I worked on it for a short time where the account demographics were not filled in at all...definitely a nightmare.
The Reason.
I was accepted to work for her. She is very nice. The main problem is that when you start, you get sent a "ton" of paperwork about how to do the job. I don't remember exactly how many pages you end up getting, but it seems as though it was over 100 pages of information to absorb/learn. It is wayyyyyyyy overwhelming and extremely hard to ever remember all that "stuff." Plus, "tons" of macros to learn also. Her set up is extremely cumbersome. I don't know how anyone could ever remember all of it. I ended up resigining the next day or two after hire and ended up getting a "regular" opthalmology transcription job elsewhere, shortly thereafter.
Well, now they have a reason...
...to release BOS 4...to change back all the changes they made from BOS 2. lol
Then again, some of the changes mentioned here only further cut into our wages, especially those of us paid for visual black characters (VBC - no spaces). WTG AAMT/AHDI on further injuring the worker bee MTs you once claimed to advocate for.
Does anyone else have a feeling this BOS release is just the start of AAMT/AHDI pushing for standardized MT rates based on VBC?
Seriously though, does anyone really believe with all the outsourcing overseas and VR going on that the majority of those facilities really care about the finished product? If they did actually care, they wouldn't settle for crap quality just because it's done cheaper and faster.
One reason.
An old management technique is "divide and conquer." I speak from in-house experience on this. They want people to mind their own business, just as you say, because it is much easier for them to manipulate individuals than it is groups that stick together and look out for each other to prevent mistreatment.
I assume from your post that you are in management.
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