You're math is correct. It is obvious

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I suppose the platform used has A LOT to do with it - I didn't think of that prior to my post back at you.  *S*  I'll have to rethink it all.  But I am far faster on ASR than any regular reports (well, I get tons of ESL as we all do today). 

*S*

MTSOs are paid by hospitals and/or huge ugly conglomerates who exist to attempt to try to help the hospital turn a profit, or at least less of a loss. MTSOs are desperate to get business, so all too often they sell their soul for a pittance (what a decently paid IC would make per line).

The MTSO has to pay the piper:  You, copy paper, management, technicians, equipment, QA, trainers, lawyers (yikes!), accounting firms, rent, and on and on.

Yes, many MTSOs make a boat-load of money, many spend money badly and the MTs pay the price, but many are barely hanging on by their toenails.

It's the trickle-down theory in real life. People use the medical system dishonestly (people we know, might even be you), insurance companies want to pay as little as possible because they have mouths to feed, hospitals want to be able to pay their people and improve equipment and be able to save lives, so they try to cut down on what they pay to THEIR overhead, the MTSO. The MTSO is making less so (hopefully) try to cut down on their overhead so they don't affect us, but I know for a fact that too often the MT pays the price long before the CEO and his/her close friends have to cut down on their spending. But, that's the story at every level. The little guy pays but, in truth, we are also the crux of the problem.

Life goes on. Let's all move to a socialist country!

1,000 words x 5.5 char per word = 5,500 characters total

5,500 characters /65 standard characters per line = 85 lines

$5/85 lines = $.059 per line, which is less than 6 cents per line.  Not a very good deal unless you're a total newbie or it's a really easy report to type. 

But everything else I said is correct.  (GD&W)  

So that would be based on 8 cents per line, she must make at least 24 cents per line?

LMAO!!!!

Ok, let's say you're a speedy Transcriptionist and can do 2000 lines a day.  You would earn:

15.50 x 8 = 124.00 (base pay) plus

$40 extra for extra lines plus

employee status with bennies (value? a lot!)

but based solely on pay, you would earn $20.50 an hour!  Not too shabby!

Chickadee

I just charged a POSSIBLE new client 11 cents a line - now here is my dilemma - I suck at math. 

If the client should ask me, is that 11 cents per 65 characters with spaces or without spaces - what should I say.

Second, how do I figure out the math  I have Microsoft Word and it has a line count and character count with spaces and without spaces.  How does one figure out the math?

Oooohhhh what was I thinking....

on one of my word documents, and they were almost exactly the same.

1545 characters without spaces divided by 55 = 28.09 lines

(same report) 1851 characters with spaces divided by 65 =28.47 lines

so, I would say it is almost exactly the same as 9 cents per 65-character line with spaces.

Chickadee

Okay, here and on other boards there are many questions as to "which school to attend" and "best schools" and "only three schools matter" and so on and so forth.

There are at least 100,000 MTs working in the U.S., according to the BLS stats.

100,000.

Not even 1/10 of the working MTs could have possibly gone to those schools.

That leaves 90,000 MTs trained elsewhere, for those of you following along at home.

And yet, the constant refrain is "Andrews, M-Tec, and CS."

And they are good schools, certainly, especially the first two. But they aren't the ONLY schools and people who are spreading the hysteria that "you won't ever work unless you attend on of those three schools" are not helping the profession. Some of the message boards on other forums (fora) are so obviously biased that it's laughable, yet the newcomer to the field might not pick up on that.

A challenge: Tell where YOU went to school.

I went to Meditec and I'm working, folks. And doing well. And enjoying it! I have several "online buddies" who attended MT Advantage. They are working, too!

And to those who will say it was "mere luck:" 90,000 people gettin' lucky -- I like those odds!!!

To make $15 an hour, one must edit 500 lines an hour.  That is a furious pace and cannot be kept up except by the exceptional MT, one who is that coordinated and focused. Perhaps one can do that for four hours, but eight hours?  Unless there was a break in the middle, maybe.  And every day?  And is the dictation that good that one can fly through the reports?  Every day? I think not. 

I make roughly $20 an hour straight typing now, so VR is out of the picture for me.  I just do not want to do VR and will get out before demoting myself to those insulting wages.  We are worth a decent wage.  The MTSOs need to realize that our knowledge is worth something.  We are not just typists. 

Current pay  0.1122 cpl    $18.54 vacation/holiday pay.

Company bought.  Am now being offered 0.095 cpl and $13.50.  What is the percentage of my loss?  Am so upset about this cannot think.

ST:  250 lines an hour at 8 cents a line is $20.00.  (I can do 250 an hour if I concentrate).  If I can only do 200 lines an hour, that is still $16.00 an hour.

Now for the VR:

VR:  400 lines (roughly 60% more than straight typing 250 lines an hour) at 3 cents a line is $12.00.

How is that more money?  It's a 25% cut!   

How many of you spent years perfecting your macros and shortcuts and Expanders just to have it taken away from you so you can't make a decent living? 

I won't be doing any VR work.  I think they wasted their money with this new technology.  They could have given us raises with that money and had happy employees cranking out the lines.  Win-win.

Too bad for us.  Shafted, once again! 

but we don't make posts with our former titles. Get over it..

Doctor dictates:

"The patient takes Doxepin for insomnia.  He has been taking 25 mg four of them at time, but I am prescribing 100 mg tablets which is the same."

This just made me giggle...

 I am pretty sure that she was referring to the manner in which her very unsupportive post was worded, i.e. "a REAL transcriptionist".  How in the world is that helping someone who is coming here for a little bit of help and, dare a person aspire for, a kind word...  anyway, just mho. 

Let's take a moment to put ourselves in her shoes instead of trying to think of a way to boost our own ego.  Perhaps the place in which she worked had a different style, a different format.  I even have done some recent work for a hospital who wants all of their references to the spinal disks spelled disc (even though this is specifically a no-no with AAMT).  I'm not an expert, but if there were a helpful thing that I could think of to say, it would be to buy of borrow a current AAMT Book of Style (3rd Edition) and make sure that you are all up on your format and style.  Anyway, good luck!!

that some of these docs do not have the first idea what they are going to say when they dial in.  They have not bothered to organize their thoughts or mentally outline what they intend to dictate.  They just 'wing it,' go back and add, delete whole paragraphs, then maybe say virtually the same thing as the deleted section somewhere else.  I've learned never to delete but to cut sections just in case they get pasted back in someplace else.

One guy in particular says things like:  'Put temperature was 98.3 degrees and say BP was 130/70 and write respirations were 18 and could you say weight was 225 pounds, and like, he was sort-of short of breath?' 

How  do you verbatim that?  Dude!  I'm not you pal and we're not having a conversation here.  Do you realize I'm supposed to be transcribing EVERY SINGLE WORD YOU SAY? 

trying to figure cell phone plans (pay as you go type)....do i divide minutes by dollars, or dollars by minutes to get the cents per minute...

and more so, how does one know which way to divide other things of similar nature (not necessarily dollars vs minutes).

mega thanks .