Take concern/questions to MTSO. Ask how line

you are being paid correctly at a certain line rate but if she cannot SHOW you how those figures are arrived at, I would be very leery that she is being less than honest with me.  If she knows exactly how she is figuring lines to pay you, she should be able to demonstrate to you how figures are arrived at. 

• Line count verification in MS Word. - See message.
  • headings - FLMT
  • Take concern/questions to MTSO. Ask how line - count is calculated exactly. MTSO can say SM
    • I agree with above poster... - SM
    • Some companies just take a percentage - nm
      • How do these companies get away with this when they promise - a specific rate. Is this a DOL thing? nm
      • Unfair! A % of a long report going to be much - more than a short report for same amt of info.
  • Yes, if you are not addressing this with your - MTSO. Need to know exactly how line figured.

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I would like some line count pros to help me figure this out, please!  During the recruiting process I specifically asked how I would be getting paid and I was told "per line which includes 65 characters including spaces, footers, headers, and any norms pulled into the report."  I downloaded the FlashCount program from this site and started comparing this line count against the company's.  So far, It "appears" that I'm getting shorted about 100+/- lines/day and they are using more like 74 characters with spaces.  What is the difference between cpl and gross cpl?  How would you interpret their explanation for how I would be paid?  Is the FlashCount program accurate enough?

Thanks!

I just recently went back to work in the office at a local hospital. We type in both Meditech and Cerner, depending on what you are typing, i.e. Medical Records reports versus Radiology.  We are currently typing blindly in Meditech, meaning we do not have access to our line counts and must depend on management to give us our totals.  In Cerner, we are able to run a line count report and print out a hard copy of our line counts at the end of the day.

We are finding that 800 lines in Cerner equals about 500 lines in Meditech.  We are not paid per line nor do we have an incentive plan, but we have a new HIM Director who would like to institute an incentive plan and the administrator over our department has laid down the law and decreed that all transcriptionists not making minimum in the department will be written up.  Problem is according to Meditech line totals that we have been given, that would be about half the department.

The transcription supervisor has taken our concerns to the new director who told the MT Supervisor to hold off on writing people and has taken home all the line counts from the last month and she is going over them with a fine tooth comb this weekend.

I am not a very trusting soul by nature, so I am doing a little research on my own.  I've been in this business for about 15 years.  I started out in a hospital and have worked for a few services at home and am now back in the hospital setting.  So I know a few things about line count and I consider myself to be pretty well informed on trends and technology in the industry.   I would like to walk into our next department meeting armed with as much knowledge as possible.  So I have come up with some questions that I would like some fellow MTs to answer, give opinions, and maybe even direct me to websites or individuals who could give me a better understanding of Meditech and Cerner.  Here are my questions:

1. Is it possible for an MT to have access to her line count in Meditech or is strictly a management function?  Any MTs that work in Meditech on this board, do you currently have access to your line counts and if so, how do you check them?  Is it an option on the main menu after you log into Meditech?


2. How is a line defined in Meditech?  (i.e. 65 cpl, with spaces, without spaces)


3. How is a line defined in Cerner?


4. What abbreviation Expanders work with both Meditech and Cerner?


5. Examples of incentive plans (if anyone would like to share that with me that would be great, if not I completely understand).


6. Measuring productivity by minutes of dictation versus typed lines.




1. What would be the minimum minutes required for an 8-hour day?


2. How would one structure an incentive program based on minutes?

I was thinking of presenting the idea that we keep track of productivity using minutes instead of lines since there is such a discrepancy in Meditech.  I also worry that if an incentive plan is put into place and we are still typing blind into Meditech, what's to keep management from shaving off a few lines here and there?

Feel free to email me or post here any responses.  Either is fine.  I really appreciate any input, comments, or just plain old supportive posts would be nice too! 

In response to a previous post on newbies finding a job - I've been typing for almost 15 years and was lucky enough to "learn the right way" from a great mentor, learning all specialties.  Editing speech rec jobs is relatively easy when you have the background in all specialties like "us old folks".

At least for right now, I believe speech rec is only as good as the experienced Editor behind it to eyeball and correct any errors.  I hate to admit it, but speech rec has made dramatic improvements in its accuracy over the last few years.  It's here to stay, it's improving - and surprisingly, the people I work with really enjoy editing.

My concern though is when the old folks like me in the field retire, and many of us are getting close.  Newbies need the opportunity to get in the door and gain their experience in all specialties to take over as the older folks leave the field.  There needs to be mentors to continue to be available to these newbies to guide them along the way.  There are good schools out there, but to "learn it all" you really need to be actively working in the field on a job that gives the opportunity to learn all specialties.

This is my concern as speech recognition becomes more and more successful.  We will continue to need quality, seasoned transcriptionists to become quality, well rounded editors in the future. 

I've taught completely green people transcription, and I've taken newbies in and guided them along the way.  It is satisfying for me because someone took me green 15 years ago and gave me this opportunity, and for that I am eternally grateful.  Putting 3 kids through college was a lot easier thanks to my full time job and another part time job I had. 

Best of luck to all you newbies out there - if you can get your foot in the door at a local hospital, even working in house to start, its a good place to begin.  Gain all the experience you can.  I'm not sure working for these big shlock houses, the nationwide transcription companies, is the best place to start - it can be frustrating when you're given all the ESL docs and junk work and try to plug through it. 

Good luck newbies - keep on pluggin.  

Go to whitehouse.gov/contact or ehow, etc.  I did just that today.  They invited me to e mail the president - so I did.  Not sure he will ever get it but it was a nice friendly letter.  I asked him to find out and report how many jobs are being offshored every single day, faster than he can create them.  I asked him to try to get specific figures on tax implications and our social security system.  No one has ever given out this information, which would probably be a difficult task since the offshoring companies will not fess up to how many jobs really leave the U.S.  I figured if any one could find out it would be President Obama himself.  As an aside I asked him could it be true that the big banks who received approximately $150 billion dollars of our money actually applied for 20,000 new visas for foreign workers (up 1/3).  With our own money?

 I asked him how his stimulus package was supposed to work.  I have always stimulated the economy, worked, and paid taxes.  Now my job has been given to a foreign worker who does not pay taxes.  What gives?  If that is not on a drain on the system, then the lines for unemployment income are.  I mentioned that the stimulus checks handed out were never going to trickle down to the average American citizen.  Look what they are doing with it.  The best stimulus he could give us is to save our jobs.  We can't spend what we don't have.  I also congratulated him on his new job, financial security, the American people keeping the mortgage up to date on the White House, and that his kids certainly seem to have everything they need.  Keep up the good work and get back to me on those huge figures.  Oh, and I gave him my figures, unemployment at 50% of your earnings for 6 months.

Your e mail can be one sentence or up to 5,000 words.  Can you imagine the President receiving e mails from 300-500 MTs in one week.  Do it.

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.

A gross line is anything on a line versus 65 gross characters per net line the other way.  You make more money working for the gross line than for the 65 gross character line, as long as the line rate's OK.