There are too many MTSO that whine about making not enough money to pay you a livable wage.

I applaud you for being truthful and NOT GREEDY..

• Anyone else offended or insulted to be offered 6-7 cpl? Or is it just me or finds this insulting. - Fourteen years of experience
  • you don't need a career change...IF ALL MTs sm - Kathy Stryk
  • It may depend on the type of work? - SM
    • My work is clinic also - Patti
  • Small MTSO here - 6 cpl -- ridiculous - Patti
    • There are too many MTSO that whine about making not enough money to pay you a livable wage. - THANK YOU!!!
  • Way friggin' insulting!! Or getting a job at a higher rate & finding a newbie - getting the same rate at same company?!!! nm Thril
    • ....NM Thrill Is Gone - NM
  • I just had someone offer me 5.5 cpl. I laughed and said no thanks - nm - mammamt
    • cpl - Cheryllynn
      • I get 8.25 with one and 9 with the other - Destinyisntfree

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I may just be crazy here, but I do not see how anybody could possibly just make minimum wage on this job.  At 8 cents a line, that would be only typing less than 75 lines an hour, and even at 5 cents a line it would be less than 130 lines an hour. 

Do people really and truly sit down and type for an hour and only make 5.85 an hour? 

0.05 cpl profit.   I think you have to look at each potential account individually.  Do you had equipment that they can use to call-in, do they use tapes, do you have to print and deliver work,  etc. 

I also think you need to look at where you live.  If you live in a metropolitan area you could get away with charging more.  It you live in a very small town with no much in the area you would probably need to charge less. 

You could offer to do the work for a couple of days and then come up with a rate.  Maybe they have tons of normals, very easy dictators and it you could really be productive you might charge a little less versus if you have to pickup tapes, print and deliver work, etc. 

I've never had my own accounts or even worked as an IC so I have no personal experience. 

Any of you who do this, how in the heck do you make any money? I accepted a job with a company for 4 cpl for VR, but I nearly have to type the entire reports over.  I was doing it part time and it takes so much time that I figured out I am only making 5.00 per hour.  What's the average rate for this?  I  gave it up, it's not worth it for the line rate, considering I was editing typed transcription as well that came back from India and it was just as bad and took just as much time.

I think the only way we newbie MTs can make any money is to make it ourselves, like counterfeiting. 

I consider myself still a newbie at almost 2 years of nearly full-time working at home with IC status.  Love my company and enjoy my work; it is mainly VR and 3 cents per line.  I am rather slow because I keep double checking everything, but on a good day at 8-10 hours and 800 lines I will make $24.  Isn't that encouraging?  

The extra dollars do come in handy and so appreciated for my farmer husband's income, but this could no way support a single income. 

Working for $3.00 per hour was great sometime in the past, you know?  Like 35 cents per gallon of gasoline in 1969. But it 2009.

I do think if we newbies hang in there long enough and become good at our work then we will move up to better pay.  However, we who work for 3 cents or 6 cents per line and are so thankful to be making even that are probably the ones others may blame for the poor pay since transcription companies can hire us so cheaply.

Don't know what the solution is.   

If you consider an 80-hour pay period (which I don't do), at $27 per hour with the 800-number company, you'd make $2160.

At $33/hour, paying $1.80/hour, you'd make $2640 minus $144 (a deductible expense also), still netting you $2496 -- substantially more than the company giving you the toll free number and less pay.

Makes no difference to me.  I personally wish you all would stay away from MDI-MD so I could have more work ... LOL

As a hard worker in this industry to put my son through school to become a medical professional, I can tell you that after all my hard work and broken back, he is still paying student loans, works like an animal, hardly has time for his family, continues his education and is not "rich." He treats his staff like family (constantly haunted by his mother to do this) and barely has time to take a bathroom break. I know there are those with fast cars (always thought they did it to get to the patient faster, but I'm sure that's not the case with some of them) and those who are rude (perhaps not taught right by their moms) but some are just ordinary guys and gals who put their pants on one leg at at time like the rest of us and worry about the next payment like the rest of us. They're not ALL the same. I read another post about docs yawning while dictating. I think in most cases they're exhausted and the paperwork is just another thing to deal with after they put their kids to bed, if they get the chance to do that even. I didn't understand this until I "lived in it". As the babysitter, I can tell you, "it ain't pretty." They suffer just like the rest of us.

Just like tapes get misplaced so does digital dictation.  Also, have you ever timed how long it takes to download and upload files?  I think it runs about the same.  I am assuming this is clinic work.  So, if you don't go the office, then you'll need patient lists faxed or e-mailed, what have you.  It also costs money to have a secure FTP site for transfer.  So, no matter how you look at it, there is that time taken for the administrative end of transcription so to speak. 

To the OP:  I would ask if the problem really is the delivery if you could cut back to two days a week and given them the option of typing STAT reports to be faxed to them OR you could ask if they'd go halfers on a courier service.  But, I think the problem is the cutting of the paper, so you may just want to mention that you'll need to attach a fee. 

I had to attach a FAX fee to an office that was constantly calling and requiring me to search for letters that they apparently hadn't filed yet, so I started charging them for that service.  Guess what?  They don't call as much.  Just a thought.

I'm new to this career. Have only been working for 6 months or so. Does anyone have any advice for a newbie? How do you make a decent living on 6 cpl? Any advice for increasing speed? Thanks.

MB

CONSTANTLY.  The next generation US MTs want everything handed out to them on a silver platter AND want the higher pay, too!  Here is what I have run into of late:

1. Hired, but only want maybe 10 or 15 minutes 3 days a week. Yeah, that's production baby!
2. Say they'll be online but then aren't and don't communicate with you.
3. Whine because a dictator isn't speaking perfect English and enunciating each word slowly and clearly.

The list goes on so, feel free to jump in and add your experiences...

I have 17 years experience.  I'm an IC, was getting paid 10 and 11 cents a line for the last decade or so.  After that work basically dried up, I started looking for more work.  No work to be had at at 10 cents a line anymore, rarely find anything even at 9 cents. 

Decided to take an 8 cents/line job.  Hey, I was gettin' hungry.  I swear....I type, type, type, type, seems like all day and all night and still not making the money I need to pay my bills and eat! 

I know, I know, people justify 8 cents a line by saying hey if you can do 200 lph, that's $16 an hour.  Yeah, that's great for those who aren't used to making up to $30+ an hour for the past 8 to 10 years!  Man, I'm soooooooo tired of typing, so burned out, just very unhappy. 

I can see now how some people are happy with MT and some people aren't, just depends on what you've been used to compared to what you get now.  Sad. 

I really don't have any other skills to do anything else, and I'm dying here as far as finances, killing my hands and other body parts trying to make money at this 8 cents a line...maybe could've done it 15 years ago when I was younger but just not able to type like a demon day and night anymore.

Let it be known that this is the end of my vent. I have no idea what I'm going to do