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I work for a national but I have worked...sm

Posted By: MT on 2006-04-24
In Reply to: Does everyone here work for national companies? - JK

for MTSOs.  I am actually waiting to start work with a national for the first time.  I am not sure how different this is going to be compared to working for a MTSO.


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Does everyone here work for national companies?

I work for my local hospital at home and find this website very useful when I need help with a word that I cannot find in my books.


It just seems like most people work from their homes for national companies.  Is that the case? 


RE: Does everyone here work for national companies?
I see you did not get an answer to your very innocent question, so here is only one response, I work full-time for a local hospital (40 hours weekly), and work part-time in my home for a national company (20 hours/week).
I work for a national. Never took any classes. Got
on-the-job training at local hospital.  It can be done.  It may not be the norm, but it CAN BE DONE. 
part time with a national will put you at the end of the line for work sm
and give you the crappiest accounts. Only way to work for a national is full time. Good luck!
i work for one national, one smaller, and have one private account.
i am always busy, but never without some type of work :). I make a great line count with MQ. I was statutory but effective January 1st, I am an employee. Not sure how that will work out. My secondary account is with a smaller company I have been with for over ten years, and I have a small private account that pays very well but low volume.
I only wanted to work for a local company, not a large national. So... (sm)

I went to Google Local.  Clicked on "find businesses".  I then put in medical transcription in the "what" box and my City, State in the "where" box.  I sent a resume and cover letter to every hit that looked good to me.  I also went through the yellow pages and sent a resume and cover letter to every listing.  I sent out more than 50 resumes. 


I had about fifteen calls back.  I had five offers.  I accepted one.  I have been getting calls ever since.  In fact, I left my first position about three months after I got it in order to go to another company that was offering me more per line plus incentive.  Yes, I accepted 7.5 cents from my first employer and she worked me to death and had some serious, shall we say, boundary issues.  But I got my feet wet and in the door and was on to better things within months.  I have been at my current position for about seven months, and it was a position I got based on yet another one of those resumes that had been received, kept on a desk somewhere, and acted upon months after I had sent them out. 


One thing that no fewer than five of the fifteen callbacks said was that they were very impressed by my resume and my cover letter.  One lady said that she was amazed by the number of people applying for jobs as medical language specialists who cannot even manage to put out a resume and cover letter that is free of spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes.  So, do a professional resume and cover letter and make sure it's PERFECT. 


I love my job and feel very blessed that I never experienced some of the awful newbie troubles I have read about here.  If you have any questions or anything, feel free to contact me off the list or reply here and I will get back to you ASAP. 


Elle


I love the work. If I worked at Wal-Mart
I would hate every minute of it.  I am not really a people person and need an intellectual challenge to be happy.  I learn new things all the time with MT, so it is always interesting.  Also, I love being available at a moment's notice if my kids get sick at school, being able to change my schedule easily if they have a field trip, etc.  Money isn't everything, and this is the right career for me at the moment.
I have traveled and worked for several years. I worked for a company

where I could download work, work off-line and then send completed work, had a 6 hour TAT.  That company went out of business and the company I have now supplies the computer and I have to be on-line to work, so short of taking their computer and having high-speed access, I am no longer able to travel/work.  It can be a good thing though because sometimes you just have to have some down time. 


National?
I am very new to all this- what is a national?
What are the top national companies
that have good reputations as employers? I'd like to contact them to see what schools they see as "top notch". TIA! -Anne :)
When I got my first IC job with a lesser known national - sm
I took and passed the test in Feb. 02, told I had a job....got the contracts a week or so later, but did not hear from them or actually start until 04/29/02. So don't give up just yet, sometimes it takes a while for them to do whatever it is they got to do. I never followed up with them since I found another job while I was waiting for them to get off their butts. So in the end I worked for both jobs. But you really should follow-up. Send an email to your contact and if you don't hear from then in a few days then call and inquire. It cannot hurt. Good Luck!
would not say success = job with national
xxx
National MTSO
I really have no experience with a national MTSO, but I think it depends on where the MTSO is based. So, if the MTSO is based in the US, you would be paid dollars, and if it is based in the UK, you might be paid in EURO, and so forth and so on. However, while checking around on the net, I found a company based in the Philippines. You might want to check them out, the web address is, www.peoplesupport.com. I don't know what their money would translte to US currency, but it may be easier for you.
PHNS - a lessor known national - sm
They were a good first company then. Things changed a lot with them though, its been over a year and a half since I last worked for them.
IC or employee? There's no way you're working for a national
and making more than 8 cpl in your second year of MT. 6 is an OK rate for a newbie who's still wet behind the ears. You've never seen her resume or school transcripts. How can you tell her she's worth as much or nearly as much as experienced MTs? I won't nitpick, but newbies need serious feedback.
local hospital versus national
Hi,
I was with a national company and, like you, only did about 1200 lines per day at 7.5 cpl with 18 months in. I felt like I was never going to make the big bucks!

In May, I resigned from the national co. and went to work locally. After a short 1-month in-house training, I am working from home again. This hospital has some great normals to use and yesterday, I did 2200 lines!!!!!

Finding a good fit is the hardest part. Thankfully, I think I have found mine!!!!! Just keep in mind that there are other options out there. GOOD LUCK!!!!
7 years with national - 30 hours per week -
a little over 16 thousand - Good luck making 25 thousand plus - not easy at all to make especially if you type a lot of ESL.
Most of the larger national teaching hospitals...

with residents (on 6-week rotation), PAs and RNs and ESL docs are already using VR for at least the last 4 years.  Don't delude yourself.  About 80% of my work was VR for multiple national accts...The only straight transcription I got recently was the worst of the ESLs or mumble-mouth English speaking docs... I've done acute care, basic 4s (op notes, consults, H&Ps, ERs) procedure notes, multiple specialities, rare clinic notes for one company for 14 years. 


It would be nice to work for one small docs ofc with a coupla docs in it and do just clinic notes again...Those were the days!  Cat


Don't know about course, but I have worked for them.

It has been a while and things have changed since then, but if you go to the company board and read through the archives there isn't much good to say about working for the company.  I don't think I have ever seen a post about the school.


They are training women in Trinidad and some other country to become MTs.  Every time I post this it gets deleted, but it says it on their website so it isn't just gossip. 


Any one worked for
A+ Scripts 'N More Corporation? I am thinking about doing their externship program to gain more experience (while I am currently working) and was wondering if any one has done it and how it went for them? Thanks.
I have worked VR
The hospital I work for has VR for everything but radiology. It takes too long to recognize and the we also have to edit it before it is sent back to the docs. Most of the doctors don't like VR where I work. Several asked to have their dictations typed by the inhouse transcribers.

But, it is VR is sorta alright now. I expect in the future, as most technology does, it will improve.
Has anyone worked for
Focus Infomatics Inc?  I received an email from them saying they were interested in my resume.  I just want to make sure they are legitimate.  Thank you in advance.
CS worked for me
I did Career Step, not M-Tec, so I can't comment on the differences, although I have read repeatedly that Andrews and M-Tec are much better.  Maybe they are, but I felt that I was prepared with the Career Step course, and I also did the Spheris Training Track and got hired on immediately after graduating, which is a wonderful way to bypass the whole first job issue.  That being said, I studied the Career Step program like a madwoman, looking everything up, going slowly, and typing every report in their FOMS section (even though it is not required).  If you feel comfortable learning on your own and don't need a lot of feedback, then Career Step can work for you.  I don't think the 4 month time frame is realistic....give it a good 8 months to a year.  I have had great QA scores since the beginning, and I don't regret doing their course.  JMHO!!
No, it's not your job - when I worked in a hospital (sm)
I was paid hourly with bonus for production.  Therefore, we could occasionally do other work (like the charting) if the clerk was off, answering phone, etc.; but being strictly on production, I would say, no it is not your job.
I worked inhouse and got little or no help from anyone
Everybody seemed angry and competitive. I guess they may have been angry because they weren't allowed to work from home. They were not friendly and certainly not helpful. Working from home with someone to contact when I needed help was ideal for me.
This was the same time I worked for her (sm)
I didn't work very long with her because I couldn't ever log into the site. She said there was "system failure"... right, a system failure for a week. What it sounded like to me was she didn't pay the fee for the website, just my opinion of course.

I never received my foot pedal either. I repeatedly asked her what the hold up was and she either told me she would check on it or just not reply to my emails. Finally, after I stopped working for her, she told me that she had a receipt where FedEx tried to deliver the foot pedal and no one was home. This I know to be false, the FedEx driver for my area is a personal friend and knows what to do with our packages if no one is home. I receive packages fairly often and this has been the only one I have ever had problems with. She told me when she "sold" the foot pedal she would send me the money for it. I won't hold my breath waiting for it.
As for the paycheck, same thing. I never received it. She said she would check and see if it had been cashed and if not, reissue one. This was at the end of July and I have still to receive anything from her.
As for what is going with her now, all I can say is she got what she deserved. The only thing that bothers me is the number of people that she scammed.
I worked for Focus
for about 6 months. It was my first job. I really liked the account I was on, and my team manager was very nice. The only reason I quit was because I couldn't get fast enough to make any money on voice recognition. I was not in the apprenticeship program though. It was kind of hard understanding the technician that got my software downloaded because he had a very thick accent. If I didn't understand him, I would just ask him to repeat himself. He was very friendly and even laughed sometimes when I asked him say something again. Overall, I had a very good experience with them. Some people weren't so lucky. Good luck!
I also worked for Focus
It was also my first job.  I only lasted a few months only because there was no work.  There were days that I only got 5 jobs....I'm sure this is not the case anymore.  The guy who trained me also had a very thick accent and that was frustrating at times.  At that time I had to purchase a $40 foot pedal that is NOT compatible with anything but there system.  It was also difficult for me to make any $ editing VR because the reports were so bad I ended up re-typing them...for .4 cpl.  Not a great experience for me. 
I have heard of them, but have never worked for them.
I would check the archives and see what posters have said about them.

Good luck!
I worked for probably 12 years with only one
computer, but I was the only one who pretty much used the computer.  That was years ago before the internet became what it has and you weren't downloading music, uploading pictures, etc.   I would make sure you have a good virus protection program.  If you have a SO that likes to play on-line games or computer games or have kids who need the computer for research I wouldn't spend the funds for a second computer, especially if funds are tight. 
Has anyone worked for Meditec?
If so, can you make any decent money with them? Do they have good accounts, support and platforms?  I'm thinking about applying.  I'm so tired of working long hours for less than minimum wage. 
I just recently worked with someone - sm
who "graduated" from there. They were lousy to say the least. They were let go as far as I know; did not learn from their mistakes and took forever to QA, had to go over everything with a fine tooth comb. They received thorough QA back but they either did not read it, or just did not learn not to make the same mistake over and over again. If they had learned from their mistakes though they probably wouldn't have been let go. It was a very frustrating experience.
Hours you worked

Starting as an IC, did that mean you were able to determine the hours you worked in a day?  For example, I would like to work early morning part-time and finish in later evening and night.  Is that something that was common to do as an IC, or do you have to give them a detail of the hours you are working?


I have worked at home since day 1 of graduation from M-TEC
I had multiple job offers when I graduated. I make excellent money now, after getting out of the learning curve of new accounts, etc. You might contact them and see if some of your training already received can be credited. Just an idea. I called around before I even went to school. All the employers told me to choose Andrews or M-Tec if I wanted marketability.
Worked for Spheris for 6 months.
there are better places to work for that pay much better. For the new MT, they have a great training program and mentoring, but I did not stay there longterm as the pay was very low and the benefits were awful. I only wanted to be an employee for the medical benefits, but their medical was more expensive than if I purchased it on my own. The account I was on was also horrible (mostly ESLs). I was stressed day after day trying to make my line count. Since being away from Spheris, I have never had an issue with meeting line counts and actually do 2x the amount of lines each week working 10 hours less. I don't know what it was about there, but I just couldn't get over 120 lph. I would never go back there, but I did learn a lot while I was there.
I worked for a bank that did the same thing
and laid off about 3000 US customer service reps (3 call centers in 3 states). I was a CSR on the phone and luckily left less than a year before that happened. It was WaMu (and look how great they are doing with their home loans too. I hope they go down the tubes).
I worked for 2 years on site before I went home, but that was just
the hospital I worked for.  You technically had to do one year or so in the office, depending on how good you were.  I didn't really want to go home at first, but they kind of forced the issue. I hear Medquist will hire right out of school to start at home.  Good Luck!
I have worked exclusively on a laptop for nearly 6 years.

I have traveled through 34 states and Mexico and worked the whole time.  I have sat by the pool many days while my children swam.  I have sat out on my deck on a pretty day.   When space allows I use an external keyboard, but it only takes me a few minutes to readjust to the laptop keyboard when needed.   I obviously use a wav player for my work.   I have a bus card, a foot pedal, my earphones plugged in and sometimes my keyboard and I don't notice a significant difference in the drain on my battery whether I have these attached or not.  If your battery is running low that quickly you need a new battery.   I do not have an external mouse but use a touch pad.  I find that a mouse is necessary if you are using an external keyboard, becauase your computer will be elevated and it will create a strain on your wrist to use the touch pad.


She didn't say she worked in another state. That's why I asked WHY?
x
Everywhere I have worked, coders made more money than MTs.
nm
I've worked on-line for 15+ years and never
had to take a timed typing tests.  I've had to take terminology tests that were timed and I've had to transcribe some reports, but never a typing test. 
Indian company with base here in USA..stay away..I worked for them once.
I would rather work a lemonade stand before I would work for them again. When you first get the job, you might possibly speak to an American voice. After that you will be dealing with Indian Team Leaders, Indian QA..Indian everything. Not to mention the fact that the Indian QA will tell you that you are wrong on something when you are right. Also, once I had a team leader (Indian, of course)who questioned me on whether or not I knew what headings when into a physical examination...I was transcribing surgery notes. Nonsense like this happened all the time because I would point out the error that QA would make (usually Stedman's to back me).

There are great companies out there who are strictly USA workers, and they are posting on here all the time on the job seeker's board..you just have to keep looking.

Hope that helps! Have a wonderful day!
I did 10 years ago and have worked at home doing acute care ever since! sm
They prepare you for the real world of working from home.  It is worth every penny! 
Have worked for two years part time straight out of school. sm
I have never worked "full time" since graduating from the VLC two years ago. I have always worked about 3-5 hours per day, five days per week. No weekends unless boss really needed to get things caught up, which I think was only once or twice. I have three kids and love spending my time with them as much as possible. I volunteer at their school for just about everything under the sun, so part time is what works for me. You shouldnt have any trouble finding part time as a newbie. Good luck!
Most people lucky enough to be paid hourly worked on-site first.
Otherwise those jobs are very rare.
I've seen awful work from "experienced MTs and good work from new graduates
I've seen awful work from "experienced MTs and good work from new graduates.

Training and education really does make a difference. Some people just have 15 or 20 years of very bad experience. They may be fortunate that one employer was willing to hire and keep them, but if that one closed, they would be in trouble. It all depends on the person. some new graduates are a better bet then some experienced MTs. I would prefer to find an experienced MT with great skills and a teachable attitude, but many experienced MTs know everything and are only willing to do things the way they've always done them.
most psych work is included in multispecialty hospital work..sm
contracted to a medical transcription service that requires multispecialty experience because of the hospital work. Unfortunately, very rarely can a medical Transcriptionist these days be given only one specialty when working for a service or hospital. We have to be well versed in multi specialties. The Turn Around Time on demands have increased, and thus the service or hospital gives the MT many different types of work. Learn as many specialties and gain as much experience in different specialties, which in turn will make you a more valuable MT and more apt to gain employment.
Just be sure not to pay for work. There is an MTSO below who apparently charges to work for them (sm
It might be tempting when you're getting desperate for work to pay someone so you can work for them, but don't do it. You can buy software and a foot pedal on your own, so don't let them fool you. If you are approached via e-mail from this site by an MTSO saying they have work for you, please read the posts below before making any decisions.
Can you share where you work that the work is plentiful? nm
s
Work for MTs
I was hired before I even graduated or had begun job hunting by a large transcription company. It was the easiest job I have ever gotten. I was hired because I attended a top-notch school (M-TEC) and did well in the program. There are plenty of jobs for well trained MTs, even new ones.
Work through it
Type the report thorugh the first time. Look up any you are not sure of to gain understanding of the report. Listen again full through and fill in blanks. Then listen again to problem areas to pick out works. Never guess. Leave blanks where you are not sure. Any hard dictator takes time to learn and multiple listens to the voice file to complete it to the best of your ability.