Starting with Keystrokes Monday, but still working

Question for those working ASR [2008-11-26]
What work types do you have and good luck or bad luck? I wonder if that has anything to do with it. From my past ASR experience with another company the ERs were terrible but the H&PS/Consults were great. I could also imagine ESLs and speed dictators or not make a big difference as well.

I'm not working T-Giving or Christmas [2008-11-25]
Send my job to India? I'm on my way out of here anyway, so I'm not giving up another holiday for the MedQ DE sade

My DQS is working okay today. Here is a suggestion [2008-11-25]
It may not be your internet. It may not be your computer. It may not even be DQS. What were you doing? Were you doing ASR or just straight transcription? If you are doing ASR, sometimes it slows way down when you get a longer job. Also, your wonderful virus scan program that the company provides will scan in the background and actually freeze up your PC. If you think this is the problem, call tech and complain, complain, complain. Call your CCM and complain, complain, complain. It has been doing this for over a year now, and the company is aware of it. The virus scan program slows your computer down - it is not supposed to. Complain because it keeps you from having the higher production numbers. I know this because I called and actually got one tech who has an IQ and was honest with me.

They've been sending it offshore longer than I've been working for them - sm [2008-11-24]
x

Try Keystrokes. They have a lot of old MQ accounts and they're hiring. sm [2008-11-23]
I made the move a year ago, and it was the best thing that I ever did. I have held on very part time with MQ because of an outstanding 401k loan but now I am going to be free completely as of 12/10!!!

Last I checked, Keystrokes group insurance was awful. Has it gotten better? [2008-11-23]
nm

yes, but you could be clocked in while not working and vice versa -nm [2008-11-23]
x

Did you notify her you were not working your [2008-11-20]
Monday shift and Saturday instead? SHe does have a right to know if you are not working your agreed upon schedule.

This lawsuit covers anyone working [2008-11-20]
for MQ between 1998 and 2008, so yes even though you no longer work for MQ, you would be included.

Sometimes it helps to just quit working [2008-11-19]
for the night and rest. Have a cup of tea. I buy Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer - that stuff works wonders after a hard day transcribing. Things will seem more clear in the morning. I hope your spirits pick up and you feel better. Tomorrow is another day! Good-night!

Been working for MQ for 8 years sm [2008-11-17]
I have been with this company for 8 years and wish everyone would stop all the complaining. No company is perfect. I worked for other companies in the past and had problems with money getting paid, work not being there. This is a good company. I wish these employees would either stop complaining, get off this site or find another job. Stop biting the hand that feeds you.

Did everybody get the letter about working your scheduled hours or are they just singling me out? sm [2008-11-13]
This was from coporate and just wondering if everybody got this message.

Be grateful. At least it keeps you working. [2008-11-13]

Oh, I'm working, all right.. [2008-11-13]
Editing my fanny off and LMAO at the same time!! Yesterday I had Coumadin for atelectasis.

Are we forgetting pay day is not until Monday?? [2008-11-09]
Are you people all forgetting that pay day is actually MONDAY and there is no reason why we should be paid early??? I bank through Chase as well and the only times I get my check deposited earlier than the scheduled date is when it falls on a weekend or holiday. I can't believe how many people are whining and complaining and it's not even technically payday yet!! Are we saying that if the pay date falls on a Friday, we should expect it on Wednesday? Get a life people!

Pay day is 10th, Monday. Direct deposit [2008-11-09]
with CHASE (same as your bank) would desposit it 9th, but being it is a Sunday then it would be despoited on the 8th. Been that way since MQ bought out my company years ago. GOSH, GO AHEAD AND BITE MY HEAD OFF. Having a bad day are we? Just asked a simple question. Geesh. Hope you had a better day today.

Payday is not until Monday, why send [2008-11-08]
out checks before you are paid?

I called tech. They know about duplication problem and working on it. nm [2008-10-29]
nm

Great, my Monday starts in a few hours - sm [2008-10-24]
It's going to be another fun work weekend. Since changing my primary, I've had nothing but ASR and I doubt that I could ever do enough lines to make up for the 30% pay cut, let alone a bonus,incentive or not. Hope you all have a good weekend!

I'm so glad to be working from home today! [2008-10-23]

After working inhouse and being oncall... [2008-10-23]
I am really loving not having someone breathing down my neck or calling me all hours of the night or sending out mandatory OT. Maybe the PS thing is at other services too, I don't know, but I love how it is at MQ! lol Do my job and when its done, its done. I don't have dreams about work and don't have to screen my phonecalls or stress about what I mess I will be walking into when I start my day.

Today's great thing about working at MQ ... [2008-10-22]
I didn't have to by the AAMT Book of Style, II…MQ provides it!

40% increase is gas starting now in my state.nm [2008-10-22]
x

40% increase is natural gas starting now in my state.nm [2008-10-22]
x

Today's great thing about working at MQ ... [2008-10-21]
I am not spending a single dollar on gas going to or from work!

You can call me silly all you want but [2008-12-01]
even the mighty can fall. You talk about karma, just look at G.Bush. He is going down in history as pretty much destroying the American economy, and suits like MQ are the cause because of their greed in taking from workers like us....Bush gave to the rich because it was supposed to trickle down to middle class, but instead they kept it all for themselve and they gave nothing back and they are all going under because of it now, and except for the few that our government decides to save with our tax money, the rest are just going down, down, down... If and when a new health care system gets put in place and more and more people can actually afford health care, the need for all areas of jobs in the health care system will begin to open up. More and more companies will be competing for our services eventually and no one will be left working for MQ because of their greed. MQ will be losing clients, as well as employees eventually, but we will still have our talent to continue on.....I believe that in the end we will come out of this ahead and MQ will just be a very bad memory.....

my letter to mr 644 [2008-12-01]
Dear Mr. 644 You really need to know what Medquists decisions are doing to your Medical Transcriptionists. I have never seen morale so low. We are depressed, barely functioning, and hate our jobs. And Medquist just keeps adding insult to injury. We were already making anywhere from $200 to $400 less a month since the start of medical editing. Whoever had the brilliant idea that ASR would be more productive has obviously never done this work for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. You can sit there for an hour and type your brains out and maybe have a really high score, but it doesn't work over the long term. My production has donenothing but go down since beginning editing. And my self esteem has plummeted to depths I never thought possible. Which in turn hurts quality and productivity. But Medquist has made it clear that quality is not their concern, just quantity. Unfortunately, we MTs were trained to produce a quality product and it is hard for us to turn our backs on that just to increase our line counts so we can pay our bills. Which I haven't been able to do in a year. And then to lower the rates you pay for this already abysmal project of yours, well, talk about a slap in the face. and THEN to heap onto that insult by saying we should be able to edit over 600 lines an hour!!?? omg. unbelievable. it would belaughable if we weren't already crying. Its just too disturbing. I finally ended up going part-time because I simply could not cope. I used to love being a Medical Transcriptionist. Have done this work for over 25 years. Worked at a hospital where I was respected and valued as an employee and had nothing by superior yearly evaluations. Ever since I started working for Medquist 2 years ago, I have done everything possible to look for another job. But jobs being what they are these days, its been difficult. So I've finally had to go part-time for Medquist just to keep from total despair. And I took a different full-time MT job, whereI am once againvalued and respected. Things that I had almost given up hope believing stillexisted since working here. Its just really sad. You have all these great employees, and they really try hard, WE really try hard, to do a good job. And what are our rewards? Work that makes it nearly impossible to hit our minimum line count. And decreased pay rates. Would you work for a company that did these things to you? You might for a while, because you are loyal. That is why we stay. Because we keep hoping for the best, even though time and time again the opposite is what we get. Your MTs are really really frustrated and this company really needs to do something before it not only loses its quality transcriptionists, but what will follow is all your clients leaving because of the poor quality product that makes its way back to them. We don't get paid enough to care anymore. For some reason we still do. Thank you for listening.

Yeah, I have a friend who is a nurse [2008-12-01]
She doesn't get the 3/4 hourly to do it, she gets a flat fee on top of whatever hours she ends up working. She actually wanted to get into MTing so she could be home with her kids until she learned what we go through.

MQ may have sent the account offshore [2008-12-01]
and just doesn't want to admit it. Same thing happened to me 3 years ago but then I heard that shortly after that the hospital did go to another MTSO - very unhappy with MQ. I had been working on that account even longer than you.

You're right, pay us more...or at least stop cutting [2008-12-01]
our pay. I'll keep doing my minimum for MQ in hope that things turn around, but I'm not holding my breath. I used to love working for MQ, but now I'm ashamed to tell anybody I do. I haven't had any luck with with my supes since about 4 of them back. She was the best supe I've had at any company I worked for. They called her up one day right before Christmas and told her she was no longer needed. No reason, she never saw it coming, they just dropped her. The supe she had replaced (who was horrible) was promoted to manager. Imagine that. These posts....same poster, and I stand by my statements above. I really am curious. Did you sign it? - What are you expecting as a result? Hope you didn't use your name like - another below has I don't think they'll take anyone seriously - who tries to be anonymous. I signed my name when I sent my comments. - I don't think putting a name is bad And? What do you think will happen? - They've made their decision

definitely [2008-12-01]
Definitely call the facility and ask for who is in charge of medical transcription. They will definitely let you know the service they are working for, and in my case, I have always gotten a raise as they want someone familar to help get the account rolling. The facility I typed with changed services three times and I followed them every single time, making more money per line at each service. Go for it! The facility is no longer with MQ, so you are breaking any rules.

Not only that, but we also get the [2008-11-30]
old dictations at the beginning of the year because most of the doctors are enjoying their holidays except for the greatly reduced work force and those who are working basically want to get home right away so they to their rounds and then ditch their dictations until after the holidays and then get it caught up.

And then they demand you take PTO or [2008-11-30]
make up the time. Plus the time must be made up in such a manner that it will not result in overtime. In my state, anything over 8 hours in a day must be paid overtime. It's counterintuitive to have to make up time by working during a time when the work is often too low to have enough work for make up time.

QA submission rate sm [2008-11-30]
I just don't understand what the heck is going on anymore. I got the email about having slightly over 20% QA submission rate and that I should try harder. GIVE ME A BREAK! I am part-time (thank God) and send to QA an average of 1 to 2 reports per 20, usually with only 1 blank per report. Are they kidding me or what? I'm starting to feel that there is no use trying anymore. They say I should ask for help if I need any info. I'm not kidding here...most of theblanks QA couldn't get either. The other day, I got about 8 reports from my old primary and made about 45.00 for the hour....and not even 1 QA marker to boot. HELLO MQ!!!! THIS IS NOT WORKING.....WAKE UP!

i know you are frustrated but I am laughing at the...sm [2008-11-30]
wonderful grammer used in the ad that was placed alongside your message. I pasted the ad below. Who talks like that? Enjoy freedoms of working at home? Freedoms? Was that written by an ESL??? Medical Transcription Become a Medical Transcriptionist Enjoy Freedoms of Working at home

Best of luck to you! I am sure you will [2008-11-30]
land on your feet soon in a new company, settle in quickly and make the $$ again, when you can then look back and actually laugh at the MQ days. It takes a while to get to the laughing part, tho, but it does come, like working thru the stages ofmassive grief, or like posttraumatic stress disorder. Outsiders would laugh at that, but anyone who works for MQ knows its true - we all end up with PTSD. Its so sad. There are great companies out there, and yes its hard to find the fit sometimes, but it sure seems at this point that the bar is so low with MQ that just about any other company would beat them now. The age of the mighty MQ is over, I believe.

Still no work for me sm. [2008-11-29]
Squat. Yeah, our lovely ASR pay cut - Merry Christmas to all of us for working so hard and getting rewarded with less money and more harassment. Sigh.. New Year's resolution will be to really look to go elsewhere 'cause this ain't cutting it. Sigh..

I looked back through my old e-mails and the only [2008-11-29]
one I could find was about being clocked into e-time and not working. Working while off the clock is essentially falsifying your time card, which can carry serious consequencs up to, and including, termination.

I went back through my old emails [2008-11-29]
and the one I was thinking of was from my old supervisor, stating we cannot be clocked off and logged into DQS, but when I re-read it, it was in regards to working on DQS and not being logged into e-time where it looks like you are making more lines per hour than you truly are, did not find one stating anything about no work availability. BUT, but my old sup also mentioned in that email that it is best to just clock out of DQS and clock back on every so often to re-check instead of staying on, so it seems was her suggestion that I was remembering. :)

I agree with you, but sm. [2008-11-28]
I'm infuriated because every supervisor I've ever had interprets this stupid policy differently. I was emailed and told we are released from work, but must take PTO or make up time. In all my 9 years of working with this company, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever been told and it stinks.

That's what I do too. [2008-11-28]
Didn't help me yesterday but after 20 minutes this morning it pulled 2 jobs and I've been steady since. By the time I finished getting a ticket # with the help desk, the jobs were ready for me so I clocked in and started working.

This is what I have been told. [2008-11-27]
I was told if you are scheduled to work on the holiday, we have to work unless preapproved time off. If you are workingas scheduled and receiveNO JOB AVAILABLE, call800 number and open ticket.May use PTO or check back later in 2-4 hours to make up time. If workcontinues to be low,IWILL BE CONSIDERED EXCUSED FOR THE DAY.I am to email ticket number and let him know if I will be using PTO or make up time. If I amNOT scheduled, do not work because do not want to take away work from others.

Done waiting [2008-11-27]
I emailed my CCM, the CCA and CCR person with the ticket number. I received two automated replies back stating they were on PTO until Monday and Tuesday. I just checked and again no jobs available. I am done for the day!

It mostly happens [2008-11-26]
when doing ASR.I had called tech support a few months ago and the tech thought that maybe my computer was working harder because of the memory. it is a MQ computer and I do need to delete some old email but need to make copies of some things first. I just think it could be my printer because sometimes I get a wierd message about a printer spooler was turned off.So i went and googled that and found steps on how to turn it on and it works okay. I think my computer could be haunted because Ihave a microsoft ergonomic keyboard and every so often the little keyboard icon down in the task bar moves around from 1 place and goes into another spot in the task bar and before it does it, it makes a little musical note. crazzzzy!

Ruining the medical transcription field [2008-11-26]
What I have seen is Medquist ruining the career of Medical Transcription. I have been in medical transcription going on 35 years and they literally make me sick at my stomach with what they are doing to medical transcriptionists and their career. They bought all of the small companies, have one large one and from what I see, are not going to keep it much longer. Employes can't work for 4 cents a line and make a living. Medquist should lose everything they have. THe only reason they ahve what they do have are the people who have worked their butts off to get them where they are and then they treat them terribly with this last episode of only 60% on voice recognition. I would really like to meet the person who came up with the facts, and I mean facts that voice recognition is faster, because it certainly is not 40% faster, maybe 10% at the most. You are Medquist and management who came up with all of these terrible decisions for these employes who have worked so hard need to have their pay cut 40% and see how they like it. I am so glad I got out over a year ago. Was the best move I ever made and enjoy working for a company who actually treats me like a medical Transcriptionist for what I know and who I am.

wow [2008-11-26]
Advantage, you really need a life.......there are more things in life than sitting here razing people because of their opinion. MQ is not the best place in the world to work, but if you would care to look around you, the economy is not doing very well and I would just be thankful to have a paycheck if my life was as obviously miserable as yours..........Yes, I am happy working and making enough money to feed my kids. Have a good day!

It is just making less experienced [2008-11-25]
or newbies feel inadequate, as if they will never reach that goal. Shame on MQ for starting this to begin with. They can take the challenge and expectations and shove them, I like my arms and fingers better than that.

could i get fired? [2008-11-25]
if i wrotewhoever it was that sent us thatlatest e-mail? i really want these people to know just how criminal their actions are, or at the very least so utterly heartless. when i first started working here, i was bringing home between $800 and $900. today's paycheck was $468!!! so even if my average high paycheck was $760 or so, i am averaging a loss of at least $600/month. its a good thing my son is grown andi amno longer really the single mom i used to be and now only have to worry about feeding myself, because if that were the case, we'd be out on the street living in a box. i just don't see how they can get away with doing everything they possibly can to lower our wages and then have the nerve to tell us we should worker harder. its really difficult to work harder when you already work as hard as you can AND you are so depressed you can barely function. happy employees make productive employees. these people are beyond stupid.

Yep, I am too in the cesspool. [2008-11-25]
for yesterday, today, and Wednesday. I am scheduled to work Thanksgiving afternoon/evening.THAT SUCKS. I will be eating my Thanksgiving meal at mydesk and then will get tired after stuffing myself andI betI will be working in the cesspool all night. IT JUST SUCKS.

I am with you [2008-11-25]
My family asks me every year, are you going to come visit? I answer, no, I am scheduled to work and I need the extra money. Then there is no work and I have to sit home listening to my kids and DH gripe at me because we stayed home. Not like I have ever asked and been approved for a holiday off since I started working for this company.