how many hours does it take you to type a

• how many hours does it take you to type a - h-mt
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I know it depends on lots of things such as difficulty, typing speed, expanders, etc.  Just looking for how many hours people have worked to get to 2000 lines.

On my slowest day, I will not allow myself to get less than 200 lines an hour.  Depending on the worktype, I can type up to 400 lines an hour.  It is hard for me to consistently stay at that speed as I have orthopedic issues!!!  I also can type extremely fast, (120 wpm).  I also use a lot of Expanders and shortcuts. 

I am a seasoned MT who back in the day 2000 lines was nothing to achieve.  I sat for 8 straight hours, barring potty breaks and 30-minute lunch.  But now that I am pushing 50, I can hardly stay in the chair 2 hours at a time.  I have set my goal at 1600 lines per day as that is what my employer pays 9.5 cpl for.  If I drop below that, my cpl drops also.   In addition, I have a backup up IC position with another company (to compensate when I run out of work on my FT job)  that pays 10 cpl.  I type 2 hours  on that account  (usually at night) and get 600 lines per day.  Fabulous account, fabulous "internet software" everything is right at your fingertips, and they count spaces, headers and footers.   Actually both jobs count spaces.

My advice to anyone wanting to get more lines- first and foremost priorty is check out the software the company uses.  If it is not user-friendly... forget it.  There was this one company who paid 10 cpl, and I could hardly get 500 lines in a 2-hour period.  They said they counted spaces, but it was hard to tell, and they surely did not count footers or headers.

you slice it, both companies will still get 8 hours worth of work out of you.

That is the problem I've been having lately being an MT.  Companies want to pay us on production and they set minimum productivity standards, but want us timed in for 8 hours a day.  My thinking is, if they want 8 hours of work out of me, pay me hourly with production incentive.  If they want to pay me on production and tell how much I have to produce in an 8 hour period, then when I hit that mark, I should be able to call it a day even if I've only worked 4 hours.

Seems these companies want it both ways and it is simply not fair to us MTs.  JMO, tho.

immediately following the slash and have it expand.  For example if I needed to transcribe mass/sebaceous cyst, is there a way to use my expanded sebaceous cyst without having to back space after I type the slash mark?  TIA

but 14 hours to get a decent line count.

If you are an employee and have a schedule to work, then you should work all of your hours. Generally services don't hire you to do so many lines per day (although you will always have a minimum goal), but to work 40 hours/week as a full time employee. One of the biggest problems is those who agree to a schedule and then just decide they don't have to work it. If you can get your "quota" in 6 hours, what will be expected is that you simply are able to do more work on that day.

And BTW, never any such thing as a dumb question! :)

That broke down to 1881 lines in my usual overnight shift (I've done 1950 before but usually average more like 1200-1400/shift), then far less productive the rest of the day as I had both children home (daughter homeschools; son was sick).

Thank you all for being so very encouraging.    I didn't expect that . . . I've seen other posts about production where the OP got hammered for bragging.

My method is normals; I save a copy of practically every report I transcribe (no patient info, just the body).  Even if I only do the same dictator twice, I save a lot of lines on headings, especially since my primary account has highly formatted headings.  While I love Instant Text and have been using Expanders for 12 years, I believe the combination of normals and expanders produces far greater productivity.

Think the service will notice?  I love them dearly, but they've been in a sparse-communication mode of late.

1600 lines/day is great!  The service I work for says their top MTs average 1300-1400/day.

Never takes me more than two to three but then I have everything gathered and ready to put in.  Even the first time I used TT it only took 3 hours or so.  And now shorter since it downloads last years info.   But give yourself 4-5 hours on a Sunday afternoon.   I usually do it, let it sit, and then recheck it before sending it in.

$3000 sounds like a lot but you don't say how many hours a day and how many days per month you work...if you work 12 hours a day/30 days a month that isn't very good ($8.33 hour) but if you work 8 hours a day/20 days a month that is much better ($18.75).  No one can know if that $3000 is good or not without this info.

I work about 8 to 10 hours a day, five days a week.  Of course, sometimes I spread that time over the weekend too...but I work about 40 to 50 hours over a seven day time period.  I have been there, making little money and typing all day and not getting anywhere, but I stuck with it and I asked for a raise and got it, and now I feel like I'm finally making some money...but making 7 or 8 cents per line...you almost have to kill yourself to make a lot of money.  I would not start with a company, at this point, for less than 10 cents a line. 

I hope this helps give a better guidline!