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Since we work over the internet who do you report bad labor practices to...sm

Posted By: passing through on 2006-05-26
In Reply to:

I know one of the MTs that had their job eliminated at Medware last week.  The problem is this person's job was not eliminated, they gave it to someone else, but in the generic email it stated that there was no more job.  Seems like this should go against some labor law, but since we work over the internet who would you ask or report this to?  The job that was eliminated was the day person's job and the day person was given the evening person's job - the job that was supposedly eliminated.  We are trying to figure out if there is something that can be done about this or if this person should just say the heck with it and move on.  Thanks for any advice. 


 




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How do you report an MTSO to the Labor Board - sm

I work for an MTSO that lies about when paychecks are sent out.  We are paid twice a month, on the 15 and the 30 or 31.  When the owner of the company was on vacation, I got my paycheck on time.  Ever since this individual came back, it's the same old s##T all over again. I have heard that this person holds checks until the last minute and it takes around 10 days to get paycheck in hand.  This person blames it on the post office being the worst in the world.  Well, how come during the most busiest time of the year, I got paid on time, when the post offices notoriously are supposed to be slower?  I called the post office over there and was told that I should report this company to the labor board, only how do I do it and retain anonymity?  Any ideas?  I don't want to lose this job YET!  I have something else in the works, but not just yet.  I realize this will probably be hard to prove, too.


Perhaps you know of someone yourself or had this experience yourself that you might be able to share and give some advice.


Only ran out of work for 1 hour after Labor Day. (sm)
Usually always work in primary, if not secondary and tertiary kick right in and seem to be plentiful.


For those new hires or people considering TT, ask the recruiter and she will let you know if they are hiring in anticipation of another new account or not. That should help alleviate your worries.

It's a great company, well worth riding the slight ups and downs with.
Work for MQ and would rather share with you all than our ILP (international labor partners). sm
Actually I bet after seeing this on here a lot of MQers will be trying to get on at DSG. We both use Docuscribe and that is certainly a plus IMO.
which companies do internet work -
as opposed to having to have a second phone line? Thanks.
unfair practices
I would like people to be aware of a company called Advantec MT, to let people know that at least at the beginning they pay 1/2 cent per line but don't let you know until your first paycheck is due and then you find out and you have to pay for their equipemnt which I believe is very deceptive.  Thought everyone should know.
Shady practices
If an MTSO were late with my pay, I would refuse to transcribe another word until I had the check. This just plain old doesn't work and I would not accept such tratment.
Hiring Practices
Well, I thought I found a company that was going to be different from the rest.  The recruiter was ever so efficient and responded to my resume and tests very quickly.  She answered my emails almost instantly.  However, it seems that once I submitted my acceptance, the communication has come to a standstill.  Is this just the way it is?  This same scenario has repeated for me a few times in the past.  Maybe I'm still very naive in expecting something new and different this time.  I wonder, do the recruiters get a commission once the recruit says yes, or is this a far-fetched notion?
i have no idea how their practices are now s/m
But when I was there they required you to work overtime all of the time but would not pay overtime pay, and checks were not always accurate amounts. I guess the department of labor stepped in regarding previous practices
is proscript internet work or ld plan - tia - nm
nm
phoenix med com has lots of internet work...
.
I work strictly through internet; they have some accounts
that you work off phone lines but not many. If offered a position, state you only want internet work and nothing to do with phone lines.
I work for them, and I have dial up internet access.

Well, maybe you should change your billing practices.
I have a hospital account that I bill every week and am paid the following week - never late!

As an IC or MTSO you have the right to bill whatever way fits into your accounting/bookkeeping techniques.

Just a thought!
internet work or long distance plan? -nm
nm
internet or extra phone line work? - nm
nm
Someone else asking if you still need a Cphone & 2nd line to work for them. Any internet accts? nm
s
TAT and staffing practices (do they overhire to make TAT?) Also...
is the work routed to you or is it first in/first out. You should be able to plug in and have at it, as much of it as you can do at your own pace, and whatever doctor (ESL or not) comes up, rather than have someone select for you and decide when your 'Q' will run out. Those practices will hold you back from making and working at your full potential.
Maybe...maybe not...but they have sure lost A LOT of good MTs because of bad business practices
x
Small MTSO and bad business practices

I think the reason for late/bounced checks is exactly due to a lot of small MTSOs not keeping business and personal money separate and they do not have a reserve to fall back on in case something happens.


I had one that did not keep her personal finances separate from business and some government agency (she was having legal problems) went in and wiped out her bank account...she still owes me big bucks and that was several years ago. Unfortunately, I kept working (2 months with no pay, stupid) believing things would get better and believed the excuses and lies before I found out what was going on and quit, but could not collect because she had no money left and then she just dropped out of sight (rumor has it she changed her name and moved to a different state).


Another one had the same situation as far as not separating business from personal money and bounced payroll checks (I quit when the first check bounced, lesson learned from the first time). I finally got my money from that one after months of waiting. Needless to say, I will no longer work as IC for small MTSOs. They will lie to you when you ask if they have a separate business account and a line of credit or reserve to ensure payroll is on time even if client does not pay on time or they themselves get into financial trouble.


BEWARE THE CONTRACT THAT SAYS YOU GET PAID WHEN I GET PAID because it means just that and you will have no legal recourse of getting your hard-earned money, definite red flag. 


 


one line for listening to work - internet to send back.
x
I will only work by the report for radiology and only if sm
I am paid for links and extra for specials. I type 120-200 reports a day for Keystrokes and make more money by far than when I worked for another service and when I worked for a hospital. But make sure that you are paid for links and make sure that the person who hires you and/or trains you is familiar with the account and can tell you what the average report count is. Go with a service, such as Keystrokes, that is known for radiology. There are a few out there but make sure that they have enough radiology accounts to keep you busy. There are slow periods just like with any speciality and a good service knows when they are and how to schedule for them. Do your homework. Not sure if KS is hiring but they have the most rad accounts based on what I researched two years ago prior to going with them. Good luck!
They'll work with the report being created in front of them...sm

With all the times I've had residents, PAs, or NPs dictate sentences, erase them, start again, erase them, and then end up saying go back to where I said [fill in the blank] and put [such and such] instead, I can't see a machine being able to correctly interpret all that.  If they work with the document being created in front of them, they can fix all this stuff as they go along. Just highlight the old stuff they want out and replace it with the new stuff they really wanted.


I can't see the computers picking up medication errors, dosage errors, incorrect dates, new operative equipment, being able to correctly flag right/left, or correct spelling of cc'd physicians' names. Most likely there is another program running with it that would do a pop screen for amoxicillin 5000 mg tid to question it. Physician names are probably in a pop up screen too. Of course, it's not going to correct everything but when the COX-2 inhibitors were taken off the market do you think a human could go through all 5,785 charts to find the people who had been prescribed Celebrex to call them to tell them to stop taking it? Of course not.  It's not a matter of IF MT's will be replaced, it's already happening.


 


 


I "only" make $1.15 per report and have made over $62,000 this year so far. I only work 8 hou
5 days a week and pick up one 4-hour weekend shift a month. It depends on the account, your company, the report length, your expanders, normals, etc. I made $1.43 with Edix before I switched and even though I took a per report loss, I make more money in the past 2 years than ever with Edix. I rarely run out of work, which is a HUGE factor. I know that the company I work for is both praised and condemned on this board, but I am happy at KS.
Some of the VR editing work you have to retype the whole report and then you get pathetic job offers
I had some offers for editing VR as low as 1.5-3.0 cpl and I just want to say to them ARE YOU SERIOUS!!! That is not realistic. I am really afraid to see where this profession is going. Slave wages.
I use both, internet and books, but mostly the internet..nm
nm
It may have to do with their labor law of ...sm
anything over 8 hours is considered overtime and must be paid 1.5x even if you work 12 hours one day a week.

It is no longer anything over 40 hours per week but anything over 8 hours a day. That, my friend, will cost the company plenty of money.

That is why companies are not hiring California MTs.

You might want to try IC positions......and not employee.
Labor Day. nm

You have to be IC because of labor laws sm

I don't know of any companies like this because they have to verify the # of hours you work.  Most places require a set # of hours per week, if you are full time often 32-40 hours, PT 20-32.  All I have dealt with require the hours be met more importantly than the lines, they have to have staff to cover set hours for client needs.  If your lucky enough to type 250 lph, apply for part-time, then you'll only have that 6 hour day you are looking for and not be obligated to type longer, then if you don't meet the line requirement in that time, you'll still have room to type longer without costing the company OT if you need to type another half hour or hour longer than expected to get there.  These companies have to be very careful to keep track of the hours because they are required to pay OT for anything over 40 hours, and they have a minimum line count so they know the have people that can get the work done instead of people that aren't disciplined to type from home.  All of this is just what I have seen in my 12 years as an MT, may be different for other MTs. 


US labor laws
Maybe this company is claiming ignorance of US labor laws b/c they are based far, far away. I have no idea, really. It's a lame excuse if that's their thinking. Something's very wrong at this company!
labor board
Oh boy, I worked for a place like this. They didnt actually threaten the IC's...but...the first time an IC was not available they would send them an email and say that their services were no longer needed. They held IC's to a schedule and let them go if they didnt work the scheduled hours, so yep, agree with you, they say IC, but expect EMPLOYEE like hours and schedule.
So they are not doing offshore labor only?
Are you the OP?
SWEATSHOP LABOR -
c
Contact PA Labor
Oh, well if you were not a part of the HMC account, by all means if you were not paid, email me and I will give you our contact at PA Labor and Industry. Im sure he would be interested in hearing your story, as the Marinos are just pleading innocence to all our woes.  You could be another cog in their wheel.  Email me and I will give you his name. 
PA Labor Board & D&L
They already have my information as well as the PA Sates Attorney's office.. There were a lot of us that quit in and around August, because when the big account people left, they ran out of money to pay us too!  My question is what did they do with all the money that we made on the other accounts that were not a part of the big hospital account.  Heard they (Marino's) live pretty high on the hog partying it up and jet setting or at least trying to keep up with the high society.  Sounds to me as though they have a Champagne appetite with a Beer pocket book. 
Ive used the Labor Board, and they definitely get
}:) heh heh heh
Labor board.
x
IC labor laws

HAPPY THANSGIVING...  Could somebody point me in the direction I am needing to get the independent contractor labor laws.  And can an employer tell you that you can submit your work in an e-mail if you cannot get into your system.  Doesn't that break confidentialty laws?  Anyway I am needing to know how IC work, works.  Can I set my own hours?  If I am too sick to work for a day and I tell my employer can they charge me a penalty fee?


I would appreciate any help I can get.


If I were you, I'd be at the Labor Board the next day
Even dinging employees' pay for mistakes is pretty low, but since you never typed these reports, I don't see how they think they can legally deduct your pay for not typing them. It would be sort of like if the government siphoned money out of your SS fund, to cover all the years you didn't work because you weren't born yet.

Ripoffs like the one you describe are exactly why your State Labor Board exists. Go sic 'em on that low-life employer of yours!
Labor laws
That is because a lot of MTSOs abuse the IC status. They treat the MTs like employees instead of ICs. Many years ago I worked for a service that fired someone. That person went to the Labor Board and the service had to pay back employee taxes on everyone. We all had to get a second account to satisfy the State that we were ICs and not just working for one company, which they considered a employee situation.
labor is not the only expense
an MT company has so your figures, while interesting, don't show the whole picture.
Labor laws
Why was your last thread locked?
go to the department of labor web site
and check out their TAA and ATAA page --Trade Adjustment Asisstance Program and Worker Adjustment and retraining and notification act. Congress was talking about extending benefits for people who have lost their jobs due to offshoring. My heart goes out to your all.
thanks for the support, Labor Dept. did say ... sm
that they will investigate and they will get compensation for me on lost investment earnings. MW sent me a check for what they withheld from my pay but denied my request for 4% interest that I would have gotten in my money market account. I truly hope this is just my problem and not the other 133 participants in MW's 401(k) plan. I have not been in the plan long enough to be vested so their contributions don't matter to me personally.
I'd pay a little visit to the LABOR BOARD, myself. sm
Many years ago, my last paycheck from an MT company I worked for BOUNCED. Not, once, but TWICE. (I put it thru a 2nd time at the owner's branch). So, I went to the Labor Board for help. They not only got me the money from the last paycheck, but also some insurance reimbursement I was owed to me. Apparently this had happened to others at that place, as well. A former co-worker told me the L.B. paid the COMPANY a visit one day, and they went through her office with a fine toothed comb. Found lots of illegal little problems going on, and put her out of business for good. What goes around, COMES around! ;p
That Acetera is going offshore labor only? NM
.
If Indian labor is so cheap, how come.......
there are getting to be so many Indian-based companies here and in India, owned by Indians?  Do you think maybe this is a lucrative field for owners of transcription companies? 
Labor Relations Board
might be another place to check in your state or the attorney general in the state, what we used in passed experiences
to break labor laws?
x
labor boards and lawyers
A nice thought, but in today's economy, it is an employer's market. And we are ....hate the dreaded word....human resources, commodoties to used up and discarded. The only way anything could be achieved is if none of us had to eat during the time it took to get organized. Got a plan?
Over the Labor Day holiday people were
crabbing the work was low. But that was the end of the summer holidays as usual anywhere when everyone including docs take their kids on vacation. Aside from the usual lulls from holidays we are busy. This MT has several accounts and I for one have rarely run out of work. If it ran low during the holiday, I would take a break and come back and there would be reports there. Now there is the usual amount of plenty of work as far as I can see. They do keep things in TAT, but staff accordingly as you need to let them know your intended line count so they will have enough work for your projection. They, in turn, staff accordingly.
They need to be reported to the Labor Board..sm
and their names posted.  Another example of MTSOs pushing as far as they can before we MTs cry, Ouch!   They know they are breaking the law.