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Best advice...make her pay you up front before sm

Posted By: cindylouwho on 2009-06-03
In Reply to: I'd say, "Pay me first for what I've done so far, and - then let's talk." nm

you will even considering working another second longer, and then when she pays you RUN....


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I've learned that it is exactly that - a store front. Or maybe just a front. nm
,
Good advice, and advice that I'm giving real thought to ...

If I had known that they offshored before I accepted employment with them I never would have gone there to work.  I've been here long enough now though to not want to lose my benefits. 


Still ... making a DECENT PAYCHECK and making a living without being stressed out over the type of work that I'm doing is just as important as good benefits. 


They do tell you up front that they have a lot of ESL. At least they don't lie about it like mos
nm
I have it in front of me and it says
39 hours working 150 lph gets health insurance, 401K and PTO and soemthing called EAP (employee assistance plan-help with family situations?) 39 hours at 100 lph gets 401 K, PTO and EAP Part-time 24 hours with 100 lph gets 401K and PTO and EAP. 16 hours with 100 lph gets 401K, EAP. 8 hours with 100 lph gets 401K and EAP. You need a manual to understand this manual. hahaha. So you see how the lph plays into the benefits now, not just hours but lines per hour. you can work 39 hours and if you can't get 150 lph done you don't get health insurance.
LOL, I have always said I will die in front
x
I also ask up front if they do VR. sm
Haven't done it yet and I am not going to. I will get out of the business before I will do VR. There are still companies that dont do it and some of them I don't believe ever will.
So sorry about this, yes, they should have been up front with you about what was going on, but (sm)
the norm seems to be to keep quiet until everything is finalized, and then let the ball drop.  They should have had the decency to at least make a phone call, that was a nasty way to treat someone.  I would tell you to come with my company, but we have work shortages too, so I don't think it would help you.  Good luck, again!
Look, if you want up-front responses SM
from people, you need to be more up-front about who you are, what company you are hiring for, etc.
That was kind of them to tell you up front
instead of trying to sugar coat it like some do.
Why not ask for this IN WRITING up front?... SM
However, most of what you get in writing from MTSOs is (have you ever read a rental lease drawn up by LL/mgmt?) almost always in THEIR favor, whether it's an IC contract or employee agreement.  Ever notice how they hedge on where it comes to pay rate?  Mine states only compensation.... on an agreed-upon rate. Still, you could probably negotiate items that are important to you and not negotiable, like in your case, no typing, specific pay rate, hours, schedules.  If they refuse to state these in writing, don't count on being able to negotiate them later.
I was not told that up front . . .
that was the first excuse I got when asking about my check. I have been in this business a long time and this is the first and only time this has happened. Sometimes you can do everything right, but still get ripped off by unscrupulous people.
Perhaps sometimes, but so far these people have ALWAYS been up front with me. (sm)
I also have to admit that today I have had relatively few of those dictators that make you cringe, much less than what I usually get and I have to wonder if perhaps some people were not taking heed to the warning.
Be up front with the company.

I never had OP experience when I was with a hospital and was scared of them. When I went for a national job,  I told the company I was lacking in OPs.   When I felt a bit e comfortable with all the other acute care that I never had experience with (ophthamology, cancer, etc.), I asked to have a few ops downloaded to me to try them.


Now I don't turn down a single job and believe me, there are a few like the above I don't get too often, but when I do, I just take my time with them and try not to leave blanks. Sooner or later, they will all fall into place just like acute care; i.e., it will take a long time to get through the first few reports, but it's well worth it. I now like doing OPs and am happy when they download first in my queue.



If they'd tell us up front what is in store for us, they would
save us all a lot of time. Is it too much to ask to have an idea of the type of audio, dictation, the details that can make or break the enjoyment of a job? After 25 years, I have paid my dues and would like to have an account that is enjoyable, gives me an income I can live on and a management team that doesn't use the drill sargeant approach. What is up with all the rude attitudes? Maybe the account they acquired should either be dropped or charged more if no one wants to transcribe their work. That, in turn, would snap lazy inconsiderate dictators out of their mode of let the MT figure it out/look it up. While they rake in the money because time is money and when I am not typing in a report, folks, i am not making any money. The day I meet a woman/man who does this job as a hobby, I'll rethink my stand.
Front end VR is a mess
A radiology group went that way and they had to hire more IT people and one more MT to fix it. Not as successful as one would think. EMR point and click takes 20 minutes versus a few seconds to dictate. Plus more IT people.
They are an offshore company with a front in the US.
 
They are actually in India, have a store front
location in MA, not Maryland.
Tell me about it. A doc I see, his front desk secretary's (sm)
duties include: answering the phone, which barely rings, and surfing the net. That's the easiest $14.00 per hour job I've seen. We're busting our butts for pennies and she's doing practically nothing. Are we insane? What is it with us? Why do we allow ourselves to accept these insulting ridiculously low wages?
Yep, all quiet on the SS Management Front here...

They can't refute the truth about the company, can they? 


'cricket noises' ...  all quiet from J&R... 


AVOID THIS COMPANY.  THE END.


Many MTSOs state right up front
now when you apply that they are an At-Will Employer. In other words, they don't have to have a rhyme or reason for cutting you off at any given time or place.

So, you take the job knowing that you could be history at their whim even if you did your job very well.

Of course, management are all secure in their positions.

Could it get much worse???


Front end speech not so great either
I used to work for a rad group that went to front end speech. The lead MT is a good friend of mine still. They mostly have inside MTs who transcribe and edit. Some of the docs absolutely refuse to use it and then others tolerate it. The real crux of the issue in this particular instance is that they got rid of their 3 outside MTs and kept all of their in-house to edit the mess but had to increase their IT staff by 5. So now the docs who bypass edit must spend more time making sure the machine is picking up their exact words (which they miss a lot. For instance, the machine can't seem to change degenerate into degenerative no matter how many times they correct it) so bottom line here is the docs must spend more time being concerned with the report and they must pay more for the pleasure!
where i live, everybody is jumping in front of
trains right and left, at an average of about 1-2 per day. that sure tells you where our heads are at in this country, huh? at least here, they cover you up afterward and dont go publishing the gory details. but maybe if we all hadnt been so screwed these past few years, it wouldnt be coming down to this.

and now the commuter trains are always late.
jumping in front of trains
and now the commuter trains are always late.

you are hilarious! i nearly choked on my coffee when i read this!
On the front page of my morning paper
http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/214991
but what did that original message allow you to "know" up front?
like they failed to mention some employer contribution to HI, what KIND of insurance it is and all the other types of benefits they offer.

I always get minute details when chosing an employer, especially when it comes to HI (example: Is this a PPO/HMO/major med with huge deductible?) All sorts of questions were left unanswered when compared to looking at benefits on ads from other MTSOs.

JMO
Nearly all the offshore companies have front offices in the U.S. sm
Sometimes their actually hotel rooms.  They use international phone numbers and purchase a phone # in the U.S.  In point of fact, clients many times don't even know they are dealing with an offshore company.  The owner of this website has done extensive reseach and knows who offshores and who doesn't.  It isn't that hard to figure out when you start connecting the dots, i.e., visit the website and there is no place for MTs to apply. Almost all U.S. based companies have a place to apply.  Notice that all the offices, including those in other states, all have the same address and phone number.  And notice if you call that 24/7 phone number you always get a voice mail.  There are lots of ways to tell.   The offshoring companies are getting more sophisticated about how they work things.  And some hospitals are getting more persistent about not contracting with services who are offshore.  It's a shill game. Dishonest and deceitful. 
We should all start asking up front "If you are paying under 9 cpl for 10+ yrs exp. you better te

Heck no, it is not okay. But do you think they are going to start being up front and honest just
;P
Tell your employer up front that you just want to work "whenever"!!
and see how far that gets you.  I've worked for a few medium to large transcription companies, and NOT ONE of them said I could work whenever I felt like it.  I started with each one knowing what shift/days off I was required to work, and that's what I did.  I have negotiated changes in hours and, when I moved to the new hours, I worked those as required.  Donnez-moi un break, s'il vous plait.
A 7.8 in Oregon would of been front-page news, and we'd
So nope, no quake-a-rooni up there. According to USGS, the only ones up there in the past week have been a mag. 1-2, so small as to only be felt by seismographs.
a "store-front" office -- like ACUSIS?
.
I read $20 million, over $16 mil cash up front
In other words, serious dough.  I'd think a wee bonus to us 500 galley slaves might be in order.  Had many of us not been told ''MDI does not send work overseas, Dorothy would never do that'' when we were hired, I doubt we would feel so betrayed. 
I've witnessed front-end VR in action...sm
First hand.  It was extremely impressive.  Talked to the docs that use it.  There are lots of companies and software packages out there so perhaps it varies a lot. 
Definitely watch your back and your side and your front. The main one is still there

that stabs everyone in the back.  I left there a long time ago but so many have been used and stabbed.


 


The reason for the stabbing is TOTAL LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM.  When I was there, they had a wonderful QA staff. I worked QA on salary (not enough salary but on salary).  Many unethical things went on and many knew it, some didn't.  I could not work for a company that was that unethical with the backstabbing and the plans.  Many have left, many come, many gone.  I would not work for them for anything.  There are some companies out there that are good. This is NOT one of them.


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.


 


 


Thank you all!!!! So the general consensus is that my idea of being up front and honest and
telling them I would love the job but have some concerns about the amount of work and level of experience (being on my own) is not really a good idea.  I was just thinking that maybe they may possibly think of splitting the position into two if they did not end up finding one transcriptionist......???  Anyway, thank you again.  I wish I was more confident, but I really do not want to get into a situation where I am way in over my head.  
It is an Indian run company with a store front office in the US. If you are
working without a contract you're asking for trouble.  They have no obligation to pay you if there is no contract. 
I'll take a guess and say TransTech as they tell you up front you don't get headers/footers an
b
I would rather know what they expect up front. I love working there. Breath of fresh air sm
I was with the Q for 12 years and started with Keystrokes a year ago tomorrow. I am fast and accurate and had no problems with their requirements.

They are definitely worth taking a look at. I make more money with them (at 0.09 per line now) than I did with MQ at 0.11 per line. Better accounts, no huge pool, plenty of work.

They are growing every year, every month it seems and do not lose accounts.

I am glad I made the switch.

If you do not like what they tell you upfront, try somewhere else. I liked having the information without having the ask 50 million questions and not knowing what to expect.
That is why I left. I spent days sitting in front of the computer, checking for
work every 5 minutes (or less) for 8+ hours trying to get work. On my days off I used to work 12+ hour days to make up lines, but then they hired people for Friday-Monday work and then there wasn't extra work to make up lines. I would get up at 3 or 4 a.m. and try to get work. I gave it a good try, frequently asked STM for more work, went over her head. They didn't seem to care, meanwhile I'm taking $300 to $400/month out of savings to cover my bills.
My only contact with them was rude. The front office person or whomever schedules interviews is rude
This was about a year ago but I set up an interview and either I was supposed to call them or they were to call me at a certain time but I totally spaced off the time change. The lady went off on me and told me that they had no interest in me because I couldn't call on time etc. Rude. There is no way I would ever work for someone like that.
I doubt you will make enough money in 5 hours a week to make
nm
I make 4 cents a line, work part and make
over $500 a week on part.
Great post! I make 0.085 at Keystrokes and make more than at any sm
other company in the last 5 years. Why? Because there is always work for me. I love starting work each day, knowing that the company I work for appreciates me and has plenty of work. Transtech and Keystrokes sound very similar; those of us that work for either can count our blessings that we are not part of the cesspool or huge corporate mess that makes up the biggest few companies. We do not have to worry about our jobs getting sent overseas and we see a future in this business!!!
Yeah, but we don't make what docs make. nm
nm
bit of advice - sm
I have worked in many hospitals over many years, and after a bit of trial and error, I have found that this approach has always worked in my favor -

I STOPPED sending resumes to HR departments. Why? Because I would inevitably end up with a computer generated letter "thanking me for the resume ... on file ... should a position come up ... blah blah blah." I would contact the hospital and say I am responding to the position that is open, what do you mean you don't have a position??? The response would be "Oh, well someone should get in contact with you soon then."

By the time an HR department got off their butt to start calling in people for the position, chances are the transcription department was into overtime and overtime meant loss of $$ and next thing you know, it was being outsourced.

So I cut out the HR department, and would find out the name of the head of medical records and send my resume to that person. The person would either go to HR and say "contact this person for an interview" or would contact me themselves and set up the interview.

I would even send a resume to the head of medical records even if there was no opening because you never know. Hospitals may have onsite transcriptionists as well as outsourcing. But if the hospital realizes that there is the possibility of another Transcriptionist right in the area, they may be able to utilize me. Hence, I would get a phone call.

It's just a bit of advice - don't always rely on the website for transcription positions.

my advice is ask MQ for more than that...
if you have the experience and are 'seasoned' you should start out at least at 9 or 9.5. be firm. they must need MTs. if they say they do not pay that much say you are sorry to hear it but you have other offers, and everybody is paying at least 9 now...(IF you are as good as you say and you tested and passed, etc.)

men do this- they push back a little...

even if they simply will not give you more than say 8.5, they will at least know you are not stupid. if you take it at 8.5, tell them you want a review in the near future and expect to make more than that...

geeze, I started at 9.5 there a year ago...?

if you are good, demand to get paid what you deserve.
Thanks for the advice - sm
It's not a lot of money, but since I was courteous enough to send the equipment back immediately, I just don't understand why they aren't paying me. I am not going to drop it though.

Thanks again!
K
Here's my advice sm
If you are on your own and don't have a spouse or a second source of income, this isn't the job. You've really got to have some backup with Webmedx. This is not the company where you'll be on one or two accounts and have all the work you can do. This is scraping for every bit of work you can get some days and bouncing around on lots of accounts.

However, the benefits are very good. I'm not sure if they take them away, though, if you can't make your lines. Surely not if there's no work, but if there is work and you have trouble, don't know.

IF you have benefits through a spouse, I would go elsewhere and be an IC. I would not be here if I didn't need the benefits.

Good luck making a decision!
I appreciate the advice, but would like something a

see my advice
If you have been working for someone else, take a document, do the word count and the line count and see what you would need to charge per word to equal what you want per line.    I also worked for someone that did that and lost a lot in letters and consults as I charge by gross line.  She paid 1 cent per word also.  In medical there are more longer words than shorter one.  I would not do it for less that 2.5  to 3 cents per word as I just looked at one of my documents and it would have taken probably 3.25 per word to make what I did off of that document.  Good luck.  With words no spaces are counted.