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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

QA should be paid $30 an hour minimum

Posted By: Just my Opinion on 2006-07-09
In Reply to: I do not think $14 is acceptable--no. She has not - QA specialist

A good Transcriptionist should be easily able to make $20-30 an hour, and I know there are those who make more.  Since QA supposedly requires more knowledge and expertise, how can any company offer only $14 an hour?  And why would anybody take that?  I really don't understand it at all - makes no sense. 


In the real world any job that requires more expertise will pay more.  Medical transcription seems to have it backwards - just my opinion.


 




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Must be paid MINIMUM WAGE for each hour -sm

worked under 40/wk if employee in the U.S., regardless of work type, job description.  In addition, must be PAID FOR ALL WORK PERFORMED - I won't even go there.


Att: Flamers: You can look this up yourself in DOL regulations.


minimum wage is $ 7.--/hour.....nm
nm
$1,000 divided by 40 hours is $25.00 an hour. Where do you live that that is minimum wage? nm
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Are there any QAs out there that are getting paid by the hour at 15+/hour? If so, where are you and
how are the work conditions/requirements/benefits,etc?
MT paid by the hour?????
Does anyone know of any Transcription companies that pay by the hour instead of by the line.  Please let me know of any.
Are you paid by the hour? Why do you care
what is on your timesheet?
They are paid by the line, not the hour. nm
x
Getting paid by audio hour
I have not gotten paid by audio hour before and just wondered if anyone has an idea what good pay per audio hour is? It's straight typing for seminars/speakers. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!
Not that many QA people are paid by the hour sm
I am on furlough from a job that paid me hourly to QA. I was paid $16 and hour and I can do almost double that with VR or with typing. I QA for other reasons.

At my FT job that I still have, the QA is paid 3.5 cpl to edit reports and VR is 4.5 cpl. Given what QA has to deal with, which are traditional reports with the worst dictators and numerous blanks, that is almost not enough. Our VR platform is good, not outstanding, good. I have reports where I hardly change a thing and I feel overpaid. One of our accounts has MTs who are not doing their VR properly and the VR on THAT account is a pain in the backside. My primary is excellent, however, and I got to 400 lph in the first couple of days I used it. About 10 days in, I did more like 500 an hour today.

VR is not for every MT. Typing the old-fashioned way is not for everyone either. Personally, I am glad that no one has offered me hourly to do VR because they would not pay me what I am already making...and it is early days yet. Paying QA hourly has lead to some pretty shoddy work and QA people who bilk the system, I know because I have seen it.

Your points are valid. I am wondering what VR system you are using and who you work for. I tried it on WordClient Extext about a year ago...AWFUL. I am on ExEditor now and it is a breeze. I have a friend who has done Escription for a few years and loves that platform. Now, both Escription and ExEditor learn corrections as they go along. The problem is that so many MTs don't know their stuff, have a slightly different style or, sadly, don't care about their work and they are not actually editing the work. That adds up to a mess for those who care about their work, know their stuff and are making an honest effort. My main account has the best our company has to offer in the way of MTs because the account is very picky. End result? Excellent and constantly improving VR script.

There are just so many variables with this, more than with traditional MT, even with ESLs figured in.

Oh and by the way, we have some terrible ESLs they put through VR and I love it! Slow boring dictators are easy with VR. Even the slurring, sloppy talkers are good. Add in that my hands hurt a lot less and I am less tired at the end of a day...well I am ecstatic.
Or you're paid by the hour/not line
Or, you are paid by the hour/not line.
When I worked in-house I was paid by the hour....

only had to maintain 135 lph...but I never heard of anyone who was reprimanded for not maintaining that. The nice thing was the hourly pay (between $13 and $17 an hour) whether there was work or not, PTO, etc. Had work 98% of the time and if not we could go down to medical records and help out or go home early.


Why do MTs who are paid by the hour cherrypick the normals off accounts.

Line counts shouldn't be that important to them. 


I was paid by the hour and turned in my hours and noticed then cut in half
Turned in 60 hours for 2 weeks and noticed only 28 hours. They went through my timesheet and changed number of hours each day. Never signed anything saying they do not pay for downtime so you sit 20 hours a day trying to get in your 1,000 lines a day with no work coming in so they do not want to pay because they did not have work, but I was online 20 hours babysitting each hour catching a job here and there.
I was paid by the hour to work from home for a large hospital. nm
x
Bare minimum? I make over $50,000 a year in 40 hours a week. That is not bare minimum. sm
Bare minimum would be $8 an hour which is $16,640 a year or $10 an hour which is $20,800 a year. I make more than twice that and that is NOT bare minimum.

I worked to get my typing speed to 80 wpm. I worked to get my Expanders user-friendly and plentiful. I am not the fastest because I look up what I do not know, but I am lucky to have a very good memory so if I type it a few times, I do not have to look it up. I keep notes when I run across something I do not know. I am interested in my profession and read the magazines for our profession and network with other transcriptionists during my free time, devoting a minimum of 2 hours per week to networking and learning new things.

I am not the fastest MT, but I am accurate and boiled it down to simple math. I need to transcribe 250 lines per hour for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. At 10cpl, that is 2000 lines a day x 5 days per week x 50 weeks per year. I take 2 weeks off per year during July to visit my grandchildren (unpaid), 1 week a year to vacation with my husband (paid) and 1 week a year to spring clean (paid). I have worked for the same company for 4 years and 8 years for the one before this.

I treat my work hours as work hours and take 1/2 hour for lunch which I do not include in my 8 hours. I pretend that I am working outside the home and do not answer the door, get the mail, do laundry, etc. If I have a good day and go over the 2000, I bank it in my mind for days that are not as good and make sure that I get 10,000 lines each week.

My W2 each year is consistently $50,000. A few years it was higher, but I worked a few weekends, which I no longer do.

It IS possible.
think, people! If she does 250 lines/hour, same docs daily, will make $15/hour
nm
100,000/year - no way. I charge $35/hour and work 10 hour days - sm
AND I DO NOT CLEAR $100,000/YEAR.


what's not to believe - I said that I charge $35/hour and work 10 hour days AND DO NOT MAKE - sm
I DO NOT MAKE $100,000/YEAR

try READING the post.
$35/hour x five 10-hour days = $1,750 gross/week.
x
$20 an hour is not even average for radiology. You should not make less than $25-30 per hour. sm
I work for Keystrokes and have for 3 years. I average 25 reports an hour, which is $31.25 an hour. I have 401, health insurance, direct deposit, life insurance. My lead tells me I'm wonderful when I talk to her, but I do not need a daily pat on the back.

I also have a good friend who works for them on a clinic. She only makes 0.08 per line but does 300 lines an hour, which is $24 an hour, again higher than your $20.

I don't think we're selling ourselves short. There are companies out there that are good to work for, 6 or 8 of them that I know of personally. Don't settle for $20 an hour.
Well if I could do 500 lines per hour, I would be making 35.00 an hour. sm
nothing to sneeze at. More than fair for having a 2-year degree. Come on people, we are all acting like we expect 6-digit incomes! Whatev!
Training on the system, not paid, but if you are physically typing reports then you are getting paid
nm
Oh, yea -- PAID, too. Grandmother PAID LEAVE would be a great drawing card to TT !!

Just love that PAID TIME OFF !!


Any company that makes you wait to get paid until they get paid by the client
is not a company you want to get involved with. That's part of being an MTSO, figuring out how to cover your payroll while waiting to get paid. I would stay away!
Is this a live count of lines paid for or same as CTRL I that we do not get paid for ?? nm
m
If that's $9.50 an hour, that would be just under 6.5 cpl at 150 lines an hour. nm
s
For example, I count every hour on the hour with my job
and while I was posting here and also checking email in between I averaged $22 an hour for 2 hours, not bad for someone who is a) slow or b) does not have a lot of time in transcription work; therefore making me a prime candidate for VR.
Minimum....
I was told the minimum for FT was 1000 and PT was 700.
Do you think they would have a minimum?
Why would companies state a minimum line requirement if they didn't expect MTs to reach it? 
I think she is just trying to set a minimum. If anyone
was unwilling to work for 8 cpl, they could always try to negotiate a higher wage with individual employers.  I think trying to get everyone to not take less than say 8 cpl is a very good idea.  Personally, I would not take 8 either.  I am currently getting 9, so it would be a decrease for me, but I believe she is trying to start a movement to get these 6 and 7 cpl wages to disappear.  She is on the right track.
Me too.. the outsourced company was paid for and paid me for headers, but OSI does/did not.
x
I have always paid yearly and have never paid or been assessed a penaltly. nm
nm
Be glad you get paid tomorrow. We are paid on the 1st and the 15th, so sm
since the 1st is on a weekend, we don't get paid until Monday.  It will happen again on the 15th of August …sigh.  It is the only thing I do not like about the company, though, so I guess a few weekends of poverty a year is not too much. 
I believe that would come to a little over minimum wage...
Not good at all!
Minimum wage at best, probably not that!
I would not take any QA/editing position unless it is a set hourly rate. Again, I have said it before, do not sell your fellow QA/editors down the drain like AAMT has sold us. Hourly is the only way!
Minimum 12,000/month for IC
for IC status.  FT as an employee is 32 hours/week.  Hope that helps.
FT/PT? Minimum lines? Thank you. nm
nm
From the ads I have seen companies are looking for a minimum of
97%, but most 98%.  I would not put that on my resume.  It is not verifiable information.   I think scope and years of experience is what will get you hired. 
Minimum of 1000 lpd at 8 to 8.25 cpl. nm
f
I agree. Should pay $30 minimum. However
I have not seen a company that paid more than $25 max per hour ever.
20 hours is the minimum...nm
NM
My company minimum is 150 lph and seems to be
the industry standard, though there are always exceptions. 
They have to pay minimum wage s/m
They have to pay for minimum wage if you do not reach that on your line counts.
Should say - minimum per day - she must average 100
x
again, why would they state a minimum?
If they have a minimum line requirement, I would assume they expect the MTs they hire to reach it.  Why would an MT take a position with a line requirement when they can't/won't make it?
minimum lines for ICs
You have to watch it with MedScribe. I am not a lazy person, just a single dad, but when my production dropped a little low for just a short time last month they ended my contract like BAM! And no second chance. So after half a year of high quality Rad work for them now I am looking again.
Minimum Wage

You have hit on a point that the service owners did not plan for.  Pursue this with the DOL office in your state:


USMLSU Initiative
Washington,  DC


ONLINE, REAL-TIME CONFERENCE CALLS/MEETINGS BEING SCHEDULED FOR THE FIRST WEEK OF 2009 !


Respect, reasonable compensation, and humane treatment for all U.S.A. Medical Transcriptionists


our company minimum 127 lph
nm
VR or not, need to pay MINIMUM WAGE--sm
Not just my 2 cents' worth -- that's the LAW in all 50 US states.  At 3-4 cents a line, this is hardly possible, especially at the start, to make at least a minimum wage that any 16-year-old kid makes delivering groceries.  Add to that all the UNPAID work we are required to do for the privilege of being fleeced by the MTSOs, CCs, researching doctors, endless demographic work having nothing to do with transcription...
Minimum wage

You cannot by law make less than minimum wage.  If you are making less than minimum wage I would tell the company, they have to make up the difference.  If they don't then you should call the labor board.


I too work for QT, but I believe if you do a minimum of your line
count your scheduled days to work and usually work extra even if not asked if you know they are behind, that you shouldn't be asked to work weekends, if this is not your scheduled shift.   The work has been out of TAT for months and there didn't seem to be any concern, no incentives offered to catch it up and lots of time not even requests to do extra, then all of a sudden every day it was a phone call or e-mail asking you to work extra and then on top of that they asked you to start doing 30 minutes on weekends.   It *issed me off that they were holding the threat of losing the account over us.