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Everything audio I was sent was horrible..

Posted By: people were nice though on 2008-06-01
In Reply to: Oracle? - Would anyone happen to know what type of

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the audio is horrible on the new system....
I had my husband listen to a little bit of one of the doctors and even he said it sounded like mush. I bought an expensive pair of noise cancelling headphones and it is still terrible. I can handle the software, but the audio is another thing. I am ready to resign. Grrrrr.
Horrible, horrible, horrible place. Unlike the other poster
I actually worked there.   Sound quality is horrendous.  The account I had was the worst ESL I've ever had and I do 85% ESL so I have no problems doing ESL.   Frequent management turnover.   When I was doing QA the work was so bad that I pretty much had to redo every report.  I hear about how well they pay, but they don't pay that well and certainly not enough to compensate for all the other stuff. 
Worked there 2 years ago..horrible, horrible, horrible.
Would totally avoid them at all costs.
SoftScript is the worst - horrible accounts, horrible management, don't go there! nm
nm
horrible, horrible contact person! Worst experience ever. SM
Turned it down because of the arrogance and attitude.

That was not long ago. Ads run every 2 - 3 months.
Horrible accounts, horrible sound quality, etc
The only time SoftScript would not be wonderful is if you aren't doing your job. They are an extremely professional company. Sounds like someone may not have lived up to their standards.
Horrible, horrible place. Lots in the archives.
 
Horrible company, horrible dictators, ESL
at its absolute worst, sound quality horrible.  The MTs I did QA for were horrendous.  They made up words, obviously didn't use a spellchecker, couldn't get the hang of something as simple as copying and pasting Preop diagnoses to postop diagnoses and would type same again and again.  QA manager would send out updates for new drugs, equipment and have things misspelled, frequently got e-mails that evidently were sent because someone wanted to feel important, absolutely no useful information, management problems, lots and lots of turnover, including management.    The CEO has no clue about transcription and is in it for the money.  After talking with him you feel like you need a shower. 
Horrible platform. Horrible communication.
Horrible people who say one thing and then when you do what they say, they get mad and act ugly.

Enough of a bone?
audio
I just left them for the second and final time due to extremely bad audio files.  I was assured this second go-round that the problem had been corrected but was not.  I spent the biggest part of the first week - lasted about 3 days - trying to hear dictators, mainly ESL.  The people I dealt with were terrific; benefits are some of the best; audio extremely poor.  I figured no money could be made under those circumstances.
AUDIO HOURS
Can anyone give me any idea what to charge for an audio hour of transcription and how much time this equals out to? I was offered a freelance job of 30 hours of audio hours for TAT of 2 days and have never done this before.  It is television production work. Thanks for any help!!!!
There is no way to do 30 audio hours

I can usually transcribe 1 hour of dictation, my easy stuff, in 1-1/2 to 2 hours.  Even if you have really easy stuff to do, on the low end it would probably take at least 60 hours to transcribe, and mayve 90!  Geez..even if you could transcribe it in real time...taking only 30 hours to transcribe those 30 hours, you'd be putting in 2 15 hour days to do it.  Realistically, for 30 hours of dictation you would 60-90 hours of work.


How's the audio quality with TT? nm
x
Patti - about audio
Thanks for your input. I haven't taken the job yet, as I wanted to get some advice from others. Of course, the sample test he had me take was extremely clear! The calm before the storm! He said he would pay me $50 per audio hour. I'm thinking, if it takes me over 2 hours to do an audio hour, it probably isn't worth it. Maybe I'll just have to try it first and tell him up front what my plan is. Do you think $50 sounds fair?
Really bad audio and account--sm
Was a verbatim account and really bad dictators, lots of heavy ESL. So, yes.  Very hard to make good line counts under those working conditions.
medgarde audio
I was wondering if anyone else has ever applied to medgarde and had trouble playing the sound files?! I have been trying to get it to play for a day, and I updated the media player... I'm just curious if anyone else had this problem and what they did to fix it.
I have had zero problems with ESL/audio quality/whatever. TT is the best so far for me.
nm 
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!
Good luck with audio
I have done seminars/speakers, etc and never again unless I listen to the tapes or whatever first.   It all depends on where they put the microphone and their euipment. I got stuck doing a seminar and found out it was all about building a chip in a computer and had all orientals at the seminar  - worse nightmare that there was.  You would have to see how many lines you would get in an hour worth of the audio to figure out a fair price -- not in an hour of typing for you but the audio and the difficulty.   I had 10 tapes from a 2  day seminar  -- 60 minute tapes not all were filled on each side and their bill was well over 1200.  Had another on the use of animal with sexually abused children for therapy, 8 to 10 hours of audio and that one was also over $1000.  But I charged by line.  It took about 4 hours to do each hour of audio when it was good recordings and up to 5 to 6 when poor.  We did average about $25 per hour when typing but adding in the QA and listening again to make sure we did not miss anything brought it down to under $20.  So then it would be a charge of about $80 per audio hour -- rough estimate.  Again too many variables and I would not charge or be paid that way. 
Posts here say you need about $2 per audio minute to
p
You'd do better to bill by the audio minute; I'd bill $0.75 per minute of audio.
x
I agree on the audio. Not sure what causes their problems with this. nm
:
DocQ audio from keyboard
CTRL + SPACEBAR to toggle on and off for play, CTRL + comma and CTRL + period for rewind and fast forward. Once you've tried it for a half a shift, you'll never want to see your footpedal again!
Unless your audio can speed up more than mine
I would say the person (people) telling you 3x as much as straight are just outright lying. I think I mentioned my speed, high also but never have tripled on VR and I keep my audio at full speed, cannot do more than the audio allows. I am very satisfied in the long run with Escription. I had so many straight reports yesterday, usually do the op notes but mostly discharge summaries on the weekends sometimes and so many ESLs, I could have pulled my hair out. What is strange, sometimes a particular dictator on VR and sometimes not? Don’t get that but wish all were. Good luck!
A wav pedal for the audio transcription part....(sm)

I honestly don't know if you NEED one or not...there may have been manual 'play/pause' buttons you could click on with a mouse, but I cannot remember for sure, so don't quote me on that.  Reference books are definitely handy...I had to break open my AAMT rule book for a couple of things I wasn't 100% sure on, and even had to pull out my old dusty Dorland's that I've been using as a foot rest for some obsure thing I couldn't get a definitive answer off the 'net from. 


Like I said, I enjoyed taking the test because I've honestly never tested before.   I've only been doing transcription for 5 years now, and it was always with the same company, and still have oodles to learn.  The part I enjoyed most though was the actual sample transcriptions.  Fun to hear other voices and accents and type up material I never got exposed to before.


Just give it a shot!  After you finish a 'block' of testing, it asks you if you want to stop and come back to it later or keep going.  When you first sign up for the testing, it assigns you a log-in and password, solely for that purpose that if you need to take a break or plain ol' stop, you have that option. 


I shoulda asked the interviewer how I did.  No part of the test said anything like, 'Sorry, but you stink and you can go away now.'  I guess if you pass one part it feels you are good to go onto the next?  No idea honestly. 


Go on...just do it. 


The two ladies that I talked to, both before and after testing, were very nice and I'm sure it's a great company.  I just knew where I really wanted to be is all. 



I work for the DSG-2 side. One account has some bad audio sm
some of the time-not all.  Otherwise I am happy where I am.  I cannot speak for the other side which has different accounts. 
Sick and tired of poor audio quality (sm)

that seems to get worse and worse as the days go by?  Remember when we were told that switching from tapes to digital would make all the difference in the world with regard to clarity and our production?   Remember when we were paid more and had plenty of work?  Remember when there was no working on Sundays or holidays? 


Why is EVERYTHING MT going to the dumpster?


Why do these MTSOs accept reports dictated on cell phones?  Can't they write in their contracts that cell phone dictation is not clear and it can also be intercepted by others and therefore unacceptable?  Why don't the QA personnel who read our flagged comments about awful audio pass this information on to the client so that it can be fixed?  It's getting worse and worse.


Back in the days when I had my own accounts, one of my dictators asked me to please tell him as soon as his equipment malfunctioned (in those days, it was batteries running low or a tape that needed to be tossed and replaced).  He said there was no need for the MT to suffer with poor audio reports when there is a simple fix.  So, what's the difference here when the idiots dictate on cell phones?  Or there is a hospital phone with a short in it?  Why can't these things be fixed?   


My plea:  If you are a QA person or MTSO getting repeated complaints about specific dictators' dictations being garbled or unclear, won't you please notify, and keep notifying the client until they are brought up to par.  How about sticking up for the MTs for a change rather than protecting the client all the time!?  In the end you are protecting everyone, including the poor patients whose reports are being dictated and transcribed. 


I'm tired of MTs taking all the blame for this industry's downfall.  If MTSOs and clients demand 2-hour turn-around time, how about improving the technology to make your unending demands more attainable?  It's 2006.  There is no excuse for the garbage I have to listen to day after day.  No excuse at all. 


 


Wasn't just fast, the audio quality (re-recording)
2
DocQ, hmmm, how to play audio from keyboard??
Can you share.  Didn't know, worked on platform twice and nobody ever said this.???  Can you share?
I can't believe how horrible this all is.
I never thought it was decent of MQ to prevent you from seeing your line count after each and every chart like all other programs and companies I've worked for. I guess this explains it! - it really makes me sick at heart to think they are that criminal, that they are deliberately cheating us. All those cheery notes from our supervisors - thanks a lot guys for helping the company pick our pockets and lower the standards for the entire industry. Before you know it every national will be doing the same thing and we will never be paid fairly by any of them! Whatever happened to fair labor practices anyway? Are all big businesses staffed with nothing but unpricipled dirty greedy backstabbing cheats?

Sorry for going off but man, thinking of all I've sacrificed over the years and the extra above-the-norm effort I've put in to keep my line counts high and accounts within TAT - and for what? To find this out is like a real sock in the kisser.


QA is horrible
They WILL nitpick you to death. I have over 20 years experience and got an 88 on my QA and it was COMMAS....some places they took them out, some they put in. There is ONE person who has final QA say and even the team leader I had would warn about how ridiculous it is. The QA varies from account to account as well. They say they go by AAMT but they don't. The old DOS platform sucks big time. You get 40 pounds of books to look through with hundreds of pages of doctors to go through. If you take the time to find something in the manual, you lose lines and you lose money. If you don't take the time to look and put a blank, they take of a percentage for that. There isn't even a way to look for a doctor when you are in the text typing!! The spellcheck leaves a lot to be desired.

Expect to be given 3 accounts at once and have to switch back and forth frequently between them and of course memorize all the QA differences between them. You will find that the QA booklet they give has gross errors in it, and even if you document the errors, such as a medication spelling, they say they "do it their way." Expect loads of ESLs and of course you get dinged for blanks for those as well, no matter how difficult the dictator is. I have never ever seen a company work so hard at taking money from you like they do. They swear they pay hourly...well good luck. Out of 8 people I knew from training, 7 quit.
Horrible, Horrible, Horrible
accounts, support, managment etc.
Horrible pay!!
They offered me 6 cpl for acute care and 7 cpl for clinic work!! Of course, I refused.
They were horrible, not there. S/l I'm as bad as they are.
 
horrible horrible
honestly, it was one of the most awful experiences of my career. Details aren't even needed .. just stay away. Mean supervisors, stupid old DOS and dial up work. Backstabbing and that's just the beginning. DON'T DO IT .. there are better companies out there.
Horrible ESL
So if you don't LOVE ESL, you might want to rethink. The company itself was a great one but the accounts were horrid.
a bit low?........that's horrible pay!
nm
horrible
horrible horrible horrible!!!  Stay far far away!!!  Nasty management attitude!
That's horrible....
Wow...I was offered a job there a few months back, but I ended up turning them down for another company. Looks like I made the right decision! I also live about 2 hours away from where my family gets together every Thanksgiving, so there is no way I would work there if they are that inflexible with major holidays! That's awful!
They are right! it is HORRIBLE!
Even before I left last winter, the platform was having a lot of technical problems. I was constantly having the platform come up with random errors, freeze up, and it wouldn't save my report like it was supposed to. One time I lost a 5 page psych evaluation report and had to start from scratch. When I called tech support, they didn't give me the time of day and just said, Oh well, guess you'll just have to start over. I wouldn't recommend this company to my worst enemy! You will have zero job security! I'm glad I decided to get out when I did!
HORRIBLE! RUN AWAY!
I worked for Cymed for a year, which was bought out by SPi a little over a year ago. SPi treats their MTs HORRIBLY! No, they do not pay for spaces, and they were always screwing up on my paychecks, and I was never able to get a hold of anyone, either by phone or e-mail, to correct them. The managers, from my experience, were by very, very rude and unhelpful, and the QA was very inconsistent. I finally quit back in February and went to another company, a smaller one that does not outsource at all, and I am sooooo much happier! SPI was one of the worst companies I have ever worked for. In fact, they were in jeopardy of losing many big hospital accounts right before I left due to poor quality and TAT issues, including the 2 accounts that I worked on, and I heard that a few months after I left, they did actually lose several accounts, heavily outsourced a lot of other accounts, and had a lot of lay offs of MTs and QA staff. This is one company that you should avoid like the plague!
Ugh! Horrible!
This is a Phillipine company. They are DEFINITELY a company to avoid. I used to work for CyMed, which was brought out by SPI a little over a year ago. As soon as SPI took over, tons of MTs left, including me. There is just way too much wrong with this company to list them all here. Check the archives.
HORRIBLE!
It would take way too long to list all of the reasons why they are so horrible. I would run as fast as possible from this company!
Also, having IM on all day was horrible. I got nothing done. nm
nm
Yep, a horrible day. Thank you!

I appreciate your note very much! I was having a horrible day. Life is so stressful and our industry so affected, we're all running stressed, scared of losing our jobs, and it's a horrible thing. Many have been taken advantage of and are fearful of that happening and guarded in employers. I understand all this. I am an MT and have been there. I lost two MTs last weekend, one because she was going through a divorce and another who had taken on more work than she could manage (3 accounts). People are human - it happens.  I didn't want to ask my gals who work the other weekends or weekdays to have to work more than they normally do because I don't want to burn them out.  I'm a small service - eight MTs. I try to run things without MTs dumping on one another, taking advantage, flaking out, watching out for their jobs being protected - because if quality or TAT fails, their jobs are in jeopardy and it's not fair to those busting their butts.  I've had some MTs who got fired because they flaked off or did poor work post negative comments and there's nothing I can do about that. They were upset and venting. I would be careful on the internet and I would check references. I got stung for $4K at Charter and it's horrible. I would talk with folks who work for them - not believe the ones they fired - to get a feel for them. I feel a commitment to protect the jobs of my gals and treat them well - if I let things deteriorate, I place them at risk, something I can't do. 


On the 45 day payment, yes, I get paid 30 days from time work's done. In the info I sent, I said that if this were a hardship, I could try to pay and absorb this to help during this first pay period.  After that it's every other week and it depends when someone starts but if they start at the beginning of a pay period, the wait could be that long. I want to be honest and upfront with folks. No surprises with your income. Most of the gals who work weekends have other jobs and this is supplemental - some it's a problem for - some it's not - just depends. I do what I can to help because I understand when you need to survive!


 


Lastly, yes I have an embroidery business. Because I've found the psych transcription to be heavy after 20 years, I like to maintain balance by doing happy creative things - quilting, sewing, crafting....I create machine embroidery designs & sell them online. I had to use that webspace because I don't have webspace for PsychTrans. 


I'm a small stable business. I don't advertise. All of my clients have been by referral and word of mouth. I prefer stable over alot of turnover...both in MTs and clients. Better for everyone.


So there you have it - who I am and what's what. I appreciate the hard work that all of you do, like me. We've been hit hard over the past decade and I know the sacrifice you're all taking. I wish you all every success!


Why would they? It's horrible here now SM
with more and more of our work being VR.  I'm glad I didn't say I only wanted to straight type because if I did, I'd probably have no work.
Some are okay, some are beyond horrible. Even
with samples I don't know what they are saying. 
How HORRIBLE!! n/m

I'm considering TRS now. What was your horrible experience?
n.m.
This company is horrible and you'd be better

off not taking a position with them.   There are issues with their line counts with MTs being cheated - this is in addition to horrible management, horrible dictators, horrible QA people ......


She is trying to keep them. IT is horrible, they will all quit
and will get a big pay cut for the first 6-12 months they try to use it because it is so difficult to figure out.