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Yes, it is about the almightly dollar. I worked for a hospital who outsourced to Spheris

Posted By: WanderingMT on 2007-09-09
In Reply to: Unbelievable - Grrr for today

and the only reason was NOT because they could not find available MTs but it was because it saved them money from having to pay benefits etc..


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First for hospital, then outsourced still on same hospital work
and believe it or not, the hospital was so much easier. Had worked at the hospital for 11 years before they outsourced and then worked another 3+ years for the company they outsourced to. What a difference! The company had so many rules and regulations you could hardly keep up with them all, thousands of them, on the same account, mind you. The higher ups would not leave you alone, constant IMs about any and all. I have gotten to the age where I do not need all that and walked the other week. Have scheduled testing with another hospital for this month. Hope I make the cut, love the hospital work 1000 times more than a company.
My hospital used to, but then they outsourced. sigh. nm
x
Outsourced by a hospital in the 2000s
and saw where you think they should take MTs back in. The hospital where I last worked had to pay it all, benefits, PTO, pay plus incentive so why would you think they would want that amount of money on them again? Now I do their work but outsourced to a company. They pay the company's rate, then I am paid by the company. They have cut out the middle man (benefits and the like) and I would see no reason why they would ever want MTs back in the office because they are coming out cheaper. AS far as your advancing the causes of MTers, I do not see by these posting where you do that, just the opposite myself. You retired and others asking about taking a job for less than YOU think they should when they are the ones trying to make a living now instead of say retirement money and/or SS.
If there is a way Spheris can make a dollar at the trans expense, they will find it.
nm
Spheris? Word has it one more account was totally outsourced. Sigh

OSI lied when a company I worked for outsourced to OSI and .......
The gentleman representing OSi was present offering five of us a job with OSI. I point blank asked the gentleman if OSI outsourced their work, because I did not want to work for a company who outsourced overseas. His response was, No they did not; however, if they ever felt the need to do so because a client specifically requests them to do so, they would have to consider the client's request. I had just cut out an article not three days before that meeting where an OSI executive stated they were outsourcing accounts to overseas. I did not have it with me because at the time of the meeting, we did not know that the meeting was to tell all of us we were outsourced, no more job, see ya or I would have shoved the article in his face after his answer. Of course, I had no intentions of ever working for them, but just wanted to see what people like that say when directly asked. Oh well, if that is how they run their business, it will catch up with them eventually.....
I also know Spheris would fire you if they knew you worked for MQ. That is a BIG NO with Spheris!
nm
Spheris is taking over our hospital
HELP!  The hospital I work for has now hired Spheris to come in to help with overflow- right - I've seen all the messages here about Spheris - from what I understand is that - we get them comfortable with the hospital work and then they take over - complete control?  PLUS the quality of what is coming back is marginal, some is absolutely horrible, some is okay, but the hospital admins are saying as long as it's on the chart, they don't care....What is that junk?   I just can't understand how anyone in their right mind would hire Spheris or work for them....  
I worked at a hospital that used ...
Cerner for their medical records and I found it to be user friendly and easy to learn.
Most who have worked at a hospital know the
but, how many hospitals now the transcriptionists work anymore? To say you have gotten out, well you really are still in this line of work, just working for a hospital instead. I along with others on this board have been outsourced from hospitals and I along with others on this board made excellent salaries. What you are saying, we already know. Consider yourself lucky. I was outsourced from three hospitals before working for a company. The money here is good, just not as good as in the 90s working inhouse.
I know that feeling. The hospital I worked for
when I started had us all at the same "starting pay". Then they changed it to commensurate with experience.

So, new hires (even those with less experience) were getting hired in at sometimes THREE BUCKS more than I was getting.

They wouldn't raise me up to make up for it. So, I quit.
The hospital I worked at used C-Bay and needless to say
It was a nightmare. They are an Indian owned company with an office in Annapolis, Maryland. ALL of their transcription is done in India. Our department spent so much time redoing the reports that we just got sick of it. They still got paid, but we ended up doing double the work.

They will not lie to you about the fact that they offshore. There have been many articles in newspapers (check the Baltimore business newspapers for the articles) about their offshoring to India.

Good luck and get ready to redo a lot of the work. You probably will not see any mistakes for about 4-6 weeks. They make it a practice to do excellent work until they feel the client is comfortable with them enough to stop checking the work.
When I worked for a hospital we used their computers

I could chime in anytime to see what we were doing.  They did it to me several times.  Plus, they could read our e-mails even though we were at home.  They were more worried about us minding our own business and working and not snooping into medical files.  


When we were connected to the VPN, internet was blocked.  We could surf without the VPN.   We could not put any software or any extras on it except what the hospital wanted. 


I am using my own computer now but I wonder if I would be better off with a company that provides the equipment for more structure.  


when I worked in a hospital laboratory...sm
it was suggested to some of us (including me) that we take anger management (don't know if that's the same thing hehe). Of course, we were in denial and decided to step lightly instead.
When I worked in a hospital, we all fought
for ER dictation, so much that we were assigned days. Love ER. There are a lot of runny noses, etc., but the docs normally say the same thing over and over, so you can get lots of macros to increase your line counts significantly.
rad dept at the hospital I worked at
everything was automatic and errors throughout; no one cares anymore.... .  it's sad in a lot of ways... . needless to say, I no longer go to that hospital ; they can forget it; I wouldn't send my worst enemy there; yes it's that bad....
I worked in the hospital for many years - sm
and worked for private doctors' offices on the side with my own business. When I relocated rurally, I found it so much more cost-effective to work at home. No uniforms, no gas, no lunches out, etc. Could get up 15 minutes before my shift, etc. Now the companies all offer full time status (usually a minimum of 39 hours) with full bennies. Your hourly wage would depend on your speed. You would have to type over 200 lines per hour in order to get the salary you are quoting. It really depends on what you want out of the job. If it's social contact, that surely is lacking. But the pay and benefits are similar, and as I said, some of the additional costs of working outside the home are saved. Also, if you set up an office in your home, you can get tax benefits for that. I came home finally full-time because the bennies at the hospital were way too high a cost. Cheaper with the company I work with, a LOT cheaper. Plus my dad, who lived with use, got cancer, and I needed to be closer to him, as the hospital was over a half-hour away. That's my story, though. Hope yours goes the way that gives you more of what you want. Good luck to you!
When I worked at a hospital we were told
that if stupid mistakes continued from using expanders, we would not be allowed to use them. That is probably the problem, too many mistakes.
I know her personally. We worked together at a hospital for years. nm
x
Not compared to what I used to pay at the hospital I worked for. I have better coverage with sm
Unicare than the one that my hospital used (United Healthcare).  It includes prescription coverage too.  I am about half the premium I used to be.
This happened to me in a small hospital I worked at SM
several years ago.They actually saved the ESLs for me! With that on top of DS which I can't make money with (I love OPs), I found another job.
worked 3 yrs, went to work for local hospital nm
nm
I was lucky and had on-the-job training in the hospital I worked for. SM
But, it wasn't the medical terminology that I had trouble with. It was the medications that always got me!
Who did they outsource too? Seems like I briefly worked for a company that did ER for a hospital in
either Wyoming or Montana. I cant remember.
It is weird. I worked for the Florida Hospital thru Diskriter.... SM

back in 2005 when Diskriter first landed the gig.  I had to take a drug test, see my personal doctor for a physical and have him fill a very long and involved form, and get a TB test all for a facility I would never set foot in!  It took three long weeks for me to get through all the red tape and actually start the job.


The work was okay, but it ran out and you had no secondary account because you were employed by the hospital.  So if you wanted a backup account, then you had to go through more red tape to actually be an employee of Diskriter too and there was a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo that came with that because Diskriter was managing the transcription department for this hospital and the hospital had a contract that said that Diskriter could not put the hospital's employees on Diskriter accounts without express consent from the hospital. 


The supervisor of the hospital employees was employed by Diskriter and was incompetent.  We weren't able to get sample reports, normals, etc. out of her.  We always got the standard I'll look into that or It's in the works.  It seemed she had no contact with the hospital HIM department at all.  However, they could have a new person in that position now.  Like I said it was all brand spanking new back then.


Oh and your benefits were out of Florida.  So unless you're planning on flying into Florida to see a doctor or have an operation, you're basically screwed.  The bennies may have changed too by now though -- so who knows.


After three months, I just decided it was all just too much and left.  All the hoops I jumped through to get the job and then to have the job be such a disappointment was just irritating!


I worked on a large teaching hospital account and was
frequently out of work.  KS didn't have the entire account.  I don't know if they had in-house MTs or they used more than one company.  You should have a backup account too, though there may be some  lag time between getting you a backup as they figure out where they can plug you in.   They supposedly are getting several new accounts so surely they should be plenty of work. 
Used to be 7.4-7.7 cpl for clinic, 8 cpl for hospital w/1 weekend shift, 10 if U worked entire
s
Ewww - I worked on Meditech Magic in a hospital system - sm
unless the platform has improved mightily, it was horrible. There was no word Expander in Meditech and the spellcheck dictionary was very limited. By changing to a Word-based platform, my lines per hour increased about 75 LPH in one whack.
Much easier and better process of doig this, as I worked at a hospital on ExText nm
n
I worked for Spheris...
It was a positive experience for me. I never had a problem with being called if I stepped away from my desk, guess it just depends on which supervisor you get? I only quit because working a FT job in addition to Spheris as PT became too much.
I have not worked for Spheris
Just by reading the archives, it doesn't seem that Spheris is any better than Q.  I would have to say that Transcend is better than the Q in my experience.  There were times we ran out of work but not as bad as Q. 
when I worked for Spheris
Went through this with Spheris, and sooner rather than later we had to punch a virtual timeclock, then it seemed that suddenly there weren't enough lines to fulfill our line count and requests to work overtime to make up for lost lines were denied, so there went all incentives/benefits. 
i worked for spheris 4 years sm
i worked in radiology part of spheris.  i had a great supervisor.  the pay is ok.  my problem was no raises, or if they don't want to give raises, at least acknowledge people some how.  there were a lot of times when we had to help cover while people were out sick or hurricane katrina stuff.  i had been there 4 years and never a raise.  (no one got raises).  another big issue for me was they send work to india.  i don't like that at all. that's one reason why i quit.  i now work for a company as an IC and they don't send their work overseas.  they are much more personable.  i worked for Spheris when it was edix, and i liked it much better when it was edix. 
I worked for Spheris for 4 years
They expect you to keep your required linecount weekly, pay on time, pay is on low side, they offshore, insurance is not good, supervisors and QA are good. Overall they are decent.
Well, I worked for Spheris for three years ...
Speaking of Spheris from the perspective of a past employee, I wasn't impressed at all with the company in its role as my employer. The best that I can describe their corporate mentality is that of a sweatshop -- low wages; poor, disorganized, unresponsive, and often inexperienced management; woefully inadequate benefits; and only minimally helpful QA.

However, if you're asking about the quality of transcription, I found that for the most part my colleagues were very quality oriented, most very experienced. Despite a lack of validation on all fronts, i.e. pay, appreciation, etc., they took pride in their work and put out quality documents.

I hope this helps.
Spheris - worked there recently
I worked there for 3 years, left in July. I made good money there, but I've heard that they are starting people out at a lower cpl now than they did 3 years ago. I thought they were basically fine to work for until they started switching all their accounts to ASR. When my account was getting ready to switch, I gave my notice,as I don't think you can make any money doing ASR. Insurance expensive,schedules vary, icentive pay was decent, but think that is being eliminated with new platform/ASR. In my opinion they are not such a good place to work anymore, unless you don't mind doing ASR for a pittance. Overall they were fair to me, but not very much communication with employees.
when I worked at Edix ... (now spheris) (sm)

when they were trying to get more hospital accounts within a system, they would promise them the moon and assign an absurd number of MT's to my accounts ... so that I got virtually NO work on my regular accounts and had to ask for more accounts -- which became time consuming and more importantly NERVE WRACKING to work on so many relatively new accounts all at once -- again -- some of which I got very little work on .... (very different from really learning one or two accts, adding another -- learning that -- then adding another -- truly I was a wreck -- oh and my line count truly sucked -- so when I saw there was an opening at a local MTSO, I lept ... I was stressed out and making no money ... and I had been on these teaching hospital accounts (my favorite) for over 5 years ... sad)


That's what the message above about accounts up for renewal (as in contracts) meant ... in my case, Edix hoped to get more hospitals in this national chain (most national hospital chains, I think, use more than one service so that if something happens they aren't completely left in a lurch) -- at the time I left probably almost 10 years ago, Edix also had a VERY unstable platform that was down a great deal ... trust me -- it was hell


DUH, I worked for Healthscribe before it became part of Spheris.nm

Then why leave? I've worked for Spheris
I would let them keep their $500!
If you ever worked for Spheris, you are classified as insane.
!
Having worked for Spheris before, I'd vote for Webmedx.
I tried to get on with them, but I was working three part-time IC jobs at the time so I couldn't get their test files completed on time.  I got maybe two hours of sleep three nights in a row because I had so much work dumped on me.  Blown chance!  I wish I'd blown off the IC jobs and finished the test instead.  The test reports were easy enough for me to do.  I asked for an extension on the test due date, but never heard back from them.  I understand their need for TAT, but they have to realize that it's tough to squeeze testing into an already overloaded schedule.  I'd much rather work one steady job than three IC contracts.
Worked for Spheris a couple of years ago
I worked for Spheris and would not recommend it to anyone who wants the least bit of flexibility in their schedule. You are expected to punch in and out to the minute on an online timeclock according to a very strict preset schedule. You aren't allowed to deviate from it without jumping through hoops and getting time off approved or adjusting your schedule, and you can't ask earlier than 2 weeks before the date you want changed. Kinda puts a damper on making vacation plans that may never be approved. I prefer a more open 12-hour window to work my 8 hours in, with no one keeping electronic tabs on my 24/7. I'll bet the FBI knows less about what their employees are doing on a minute-by-minute basis. I do have to say that their platform is pretty awesome, though. Wish the company I'm at now had it.
A friend of mine worked for Spheris
and she said they really sc***ed her.
I worked for Spheris for quite a while. Honest answers inside. sm

Their rate of pay is pretty average, compared to other companies. They way they count their lines is fair and honest, no matter what you might hear from others. Depending on who your supervisor is, the schedules are somewhat flexible. Some supervisors are pretty lenient with the schedule, and others are very rigid. Overall, the people there are pretty nice. If you're just basically looking for a company where you can go in, get your lines done, and walk away, they're probably a good fit for you.


But there are definitely bad points, also. There's not much in the way of feeling like part of a team. You pretty much feel like just another number to them. If don't give them what they want in terms of lines or overtime or whatever, you'll definitely hear about it. They love to ask for you to work extra or switch your shift to accommodate them, but they don't generally feel like paying back the favor. They're famous for turning down PTO requests for no particular reason, no matter the reason for the request.  The recruiter will promise you there's plenty of opportunities for advancement, but really there aren't. I've known gals who have worked their butts off for them for years and still haven't gotten anywhere. The only way to get a raise is to move up in levels of difficulty, and the levels that pay the most per line are the accounts that have tons of ESL's and lots of very difficult report types, with sometimes pages of really crazy account instructions that have to be followed.


In  my opinion, if you go with Spheris, you'll make the most money if you take on a medium-level account, probably with more clinic work, where there aren't so many ESL's and not so many crazy instructions, because if you can crank out the reports at 6 or 7 cents a line, you'll make more money than struggling thru accounts that pay 9 cents a line but are terrible to type.


I have worked for MQ, Spheris back when it was Edix, Transcend and OSI. TransTech is by far the bes
The pay is decent, probably not the highest in the business but not the lowest either. The benefits are good. Pay is always on time. Great bonuses. Great communication and most of all I really like the people and it makes me enjoy being an MT again.
It's all about the bottom dollar
Who's going to buy all those cheap products when the peons have no jobs and thus no money.  I fear things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better.
I would bet my bottom dollar you are
under 50! It is really funny because I hear these young starlets talking about how they would never have a face lift. I guess not in your 20-50 age range.
I am making top dollar doing VR
at TTS and I am happy.  I use Ex-text and double what I make in lines typing.  It all depends on the company and what account you have.  Hope this helps.
Ok, well here's the 64 kagillion dollar question
How is their pay, can someone divulge what they're pay is averaging? I'm applying to Transcend and thought I would just ask for curiosity sake.
At this point....I make top dollar at MQ sm
I am part-time and have been working for MQ over 16 years. The day they tell me I have to do ASR, I will quit, but until then I am satisfied with what I make per hour. Look around...there are layoffs everywhere and I am grateful for my job with MQ for now.
"almighty dollar". very well put. and its getting almightier.