then they'll offer you 8 cents/ 65 char line. very sad nm

• Problems with testing/files - Ludi
  • Most companies do no use their only files (HIPAA). They use files provided by other companies, serv - jj
  • It has been my experience --sm - noyb
    • then they'll offer you 8 cents/ 65 char line. very sad nm - mearad

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

Mebbe just got my first OWN ACCOUNT YAY!  He said to charge him the "going rate" since I pay him that.  This could be the start, baby!  (I hope)

because we were on new software and it was hard (before EDiX). Then we went to 60 char and you have never heard the screeching and griping (LOL. We just didn't know).

I have told this story before, but for five years I was the supervisor in the MT dept. All I did was evaluate MTs, line counts, average lines per hour, just endless figuring. I could tell you off the top of my head what any particular dictation should count out to.

In fact, after I decided to go back to transcribing, I knew the very day that my former employees started cheating - our line counts were posted by ssn on a computer-generated list. I knew that work like the back of my hand.

When EDiX did their spiel, I was eager to start with them because I knew how they supposedly counted their lines and I knew how many lines a day I could type. Man, I was gonna be RICH.

Not one line count EVER matched what it used to. Bad thing about that is, I just got blank silence on the telephone when I asked what was the deal. When I asked my immediate supervisors how they were counting these lines, I got "I don't know. I'll get back to you." Nobody ever answered my question. I gave them a year full time, and then I had to start working other jobs to make ends meet so I quit.

They asked me to come back, and I said I would, part time. They said they really needed me on that account. All told, I was employed there three times in three years. I never made enough money to even cover my basic expenses. I cannot live like that.

My biggest problem with nationals, and the reason I refuse to work for them, is that the money goes to the suits first, the MTs next. People who do what we do simply do not need that much supervision. If they hire newbies who do need extensive supervision (and they do, we all did), we all pay for it in that situation -- I'm not against hiring newbies, by the way, but the $ it takes to hold their hands the way the need their hands held should not come out of the pocket of the veteran MT who sits down and chugs out her work day in, day out.

So no more nationals for me. I make three times what I made at EDiX now, working for a company that could be considered a national because we're scattered out, but it's still run by the owner, and her aim in life is for us to make as much $$$ as possible because then SHE does. That's the way it should be.

National companies treat MT as a cost center and that is not right. That's for the facilities to do. The MTSO should treat us as an income-generating entity instead of a hole to divert money away from their executives. They've got it all wrong!

The two accounts I've worked on wanted 0.5 inch margins on both sides.  One of the accounts wants 10-point Times.  The other wants 12-point Times.  They want the margins so big because they are trying to save on their paper costs, because the sticky back paper (I think that's what they use) is apparently quite expensive.  I send the documents via e-mail for them to print on their own.  Anyway, charging for a 65-character line with spaces nets me more than a gross line because of the margins, font, and typeface.  Try it with your line counter.  I have one built into my Instant Text (which I don't use for invoices) and SylCount.  Both of them show that the gross line is quite a bit less when the margins are this big. 

Why not charge for spaces?  You type 'em like you type a letter or number! 

I have one client who doesn't want bulk and is Franklin condensed 10; another is on Garamond 12 with a 1 inch margin R and L. I take a large block of type, put in a format that gives me 65 char per line and do a line count that way and get a price for the whole block, for example, 58 gross lines at 12 cpl = $6.96. Then I take the same type and format it as the client wishes, get a line count and divide the dollar amount by the lines. If their formatted version came to 28 lines, then 6.96 divided by 28, would come to 24 cpl for their format. I always include a line on the invoice to indicate their 65 char line rate. Something like

2586 extended lines at 0.24 cpl = $620.64

(your line rate converts to 0.12 cpl for standard 65 char line)

I always educate the client as to the industry standard of the 65 char line which allows clients to compare apples to apples...

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.

And if it takes ten years, thats kewl 2! AOL has ripped me off in so many ways and caused so much aggravation and crap on my credit report I am willing to wait as long as necessary just to be a part of this lawsuit. I absolutely love it. Merry Christmas, AOL! Love it!

When I started about 15 years ago I did clinic.  I had the same doctors over and over, every day.  While I got to making decent line counts, I also was very bored after a short time.  Clinic has all, but dried up at this point. The people who do it generally have their own accounts, pick up tapes or use an Olympus digital setup.  The days when there were lots of small companies with call-in systems who hired MTs are pretty well gone.  They exist, but not in the numbers they once did.

You are extremely wise to stick to acute care.  That is where the work is, at this point.  It is hard to develop the kind of ear that doesn't get rattled by many different voices on a daily basis.  Frankly, some MTs never do get there. 

With VR or SR or whatever you call it coming on more strongly as time goes on, the worse it will be for those who do traditional I-type-every-word transcription.  The shloch you are getting will be the norm, not the exception. 

I'd actually ask if I could have my secondary as my primary. You are fairly new to MT and you sort of need a bit of a leg up right now.  Once you get into more of a groove, and yes finding a groove often takes longer than a couple of years, these things will not be such a problem for you.  You will have "got it" by that point.

Tell me you are using an Expander and making the very most of it.  That is one thing that is really helpful.  It can help to take your mind off things like spelling and trying to push for more speed, and shifts more towards hearing the voices, recalling obscure terms and your accuracy.  You have not been doing this too long to learn an expander and make the most of it.

Hang in there.  It will get easier, but perhaps not as rapidly as you would like.  For all the years I have been at this, it has only been about 4 years where I felt I had a wide margin of mastery. The scope of knowledge is just too broad.

I still say some cents per line is better than no cents per line. You know yourself how hard it is to break into this field. If, after posting on all the sites and getting no response because you do not have the magic two years experience, I would work on getting the two years experience, even if it was at 3 cpl. Better than staying at home every day and keep on posting resumes...

**insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results **

That is the median rate.  This would probably also make it worth your while.