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Fuzzy math. A 40% cut in pay is not offset by a 40% increase

Posted By: ?? on 2005-08-14
In Reply to:

in production.  


To break even in this picture, you would have to have a much greater increase in production. IF you currently do 2000 lines a day at 8 cpl, and your new "blended" rate pays 4.8 cpl, you would have to do 3,334 lines to break even, or at least a 67% increase in production.  Do you all really think you can do it? 


 




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To offset the cost of
providing your own insurance, paying the extra half of the Social Security, having no sick days or PTO, etc., you have to make I believe at least a couple of cents more per line. If you could find a 'true' IC position that let you set your own schedule & paid enough extra per line, it might be worth it. Otherwise, I'd really recommend going with employee status...
Warm and fuzzy

You could probably find enough deserving people who  need help right under your nose.  The internet is full of people needing/asking for help.  Some are probably legit, some are probably scams.  Even in this backwoods community there are plenty of places people really needing help can go to get it.  My opinion is if someone is really in such dire straights, why haven't they sacrificed their computer and internet?  If they use same for working, there is work available so why not work instead of begging?  This community has fund raisers all the time to help needy people when their house burns, when they have unexpected medical bills and just about every other emergency that could arise.  But....to each his/her own.  It's your money. 


I'm pretty familiar with animal rescue groups too.  The only privately funded groups I know of are actually 501(c)3 corporations.  The private funding goes to pay a lawyer and the IRS to set it up, not cheap.  Then the rescue group can legally solicit donations and generally speaking, someone is paid an administrator salary (perfectly legal) from donations or fund raisers.  I know this because 6 months ago I worked with a lawyer who donated his time to help me.  This 501(c)3 is to raise money to restore an old grist mill.  There will be no salaries paid in this case...which you have to indicate in the 501(c)3 filing papers.  According to the IRS, they are running 6-8 months behind in processing applications.  The lawyer told me this was because so many people are going that route hoping to make a living.


 


How 'bout something to offset that bitter pill you swallowed?
?
Speak for yourself, Pink-Fuzzy-Slippered One.
*
I work with a rescue group so I get my share of fuzzy feelings
I financed a group to get it started, paying for the animal's care, vet bills, medicine and still do the financing. I also take my money and help others out. I just sent some money yesterday to a MT whose has a son who is in dire shape and she wants to go be with him. Not too long ago I read on here about a lady who needed help in buying a foot pedal. I sent her money for that so basically you don't know what you are saying when you say help others out. My mother said I did this from a very young age and I continue to do the same. I also take care of me, though. As far as a sugar daddy, never wanted one. I have a chef husband and a housekeeper. I work, travel, rescue animals, help others out when I want to. Priceless. End of conversation.
Do the math. How many MTs do you have that (sm)
are actual OSi employees? Also, how many of those MTs are you losing on a daily basis?
there would be math! sm
Just kidding!
do the math
I have another a/c with about 30 MDs over the period of the week. No one does 20-25 reports an hour on this one either except Sat/Sun when they are doing all chest & bone x-rays.

Perhaps some day I'll work for a place where 20-25 reports an hour can be done. For all the places I've worked that would amount to 400-500 lines/hr. perhaps even 600 in some instances.

The cardiology interventional I do on one a/c often run 100+ lines. You want to take $1.75-2.00 for that? LOL. What is that, let's see 0.0175 to .02 a line. A 40-line CT @ the low end of $0.07 line comes out to $2.80. 20-line US is $1.40. Get my drift here?

Don't tell me about how good you are at shortcuts. LOL. You should be making a decent salary with a minimum of these, and should be making the big $$ for being REALLY good at this and for being a fast typist. Not a decent salary for both.
How are you doing your math?
Are you assuming 1o words per line?
Math
1000 words x .11 cpl =$110
1000 words x .10 cpl =$100

Any more questions?
Let's do the math ...
I do work for a company that pays me half a cent more per line because I am a CMT. So every 3 years I have to spend about $300 (i.e., about $100 per year) to maintain that credential. I average around 15,000 lines per pay period. Multiply that by 0.005, and I am getting an extra $75 every 2 weeks (or $1950 per year) for being a CMT. In my case, it's well worth it.
Do the math
You say you did 2 test reports in under 10 minutes?

If you do 3 reports in 10 minutes = thats a whopping 2.10 every 30 minutes or 12.60 per hour.

4 every 10 minutes is 16.80...

etc.
math anyone??
What I do know is that 22% of each report is spaces, period. So I am not sure how 54 characters equates.

Any math whizzes out there?
Someone help me with my math...

Every 10 seconds of dictation is 15 lines.  If I make 100 minutes a day for radiology at 11/cpl, how much is that in 1 day?  Or is this equation incomplete?  ugh.


Are you using new math?

If you transcribe 2000 lpd you would earn $150 at 7.5 cpl/200 lph


$150 pd x 10 days in a pay period = $1500


$1500 x 2 paychecks a month = $3000 a month (most months have 21 or 22 work days in them)


Assuming you worked 8 hours a day for 20 days in a month, your hourly rate is $18.75 for every hour worked.


I get the impression this is clinic work not acute care.  It is harder to do 2000 lpd consistently on acute care, but not so with clinic after getting accustomed to the account.  I don't know anything about this company.  I'm just making an observation.


Well, I did the math for me

I make .075 cpl.  New ISR rate for me 0.46875 (less than 5 cpl).


11001 lines at my current rate = $1045.09


11001 lines at my new ISR rate = $735.69


Net LOSS per WEEK if my production doesn't change= $309.40


Provided of course, I can even GET that many lines to type.  I can't any more.  I have NSA as I type this.  There's not enough work NOW.  No matter how fast you get at ISR, if there's no work to type, you make NADA! 


Math ??? Not correct

16 hours a day at $50 dollars an hour times 6 days equals 4800 a week times 52 weeks equals 250,000 a year.   But if you take 16 hours times 6 days x 52 weeks equals 4992 hours which if you divide that by your 100 K = $20 per hour.  Not bad.  And if you make 250,000 but only have 100,000 after taxes why work that hard for less than 50% of the pay. 


I did the math a few weeks ago and it is (sm)

roughly a difference of 15.5% - I say 'roughly' because I did the count on Word and have been told Word does not give an accurate count - but used same program for the whole document and figured several ways....


I did the math about 3 months ago and it was
a 15.5% reduction for w/o spaces - this was done on 3 reports using Word and I've been told Word counts or does not count weird things that should be counted - but I figured the same 3 reports as one large document and checked it for a 65 line with spaces, w/o spaces, refigured again on a 55  character line with and w/o for both an MT rate of pay of say 10 cpl and also on a QA line rate of say 4 cpl and it all basically came back at approximately a 15.5% reduction.   I had been told before it was 17% and it might well be 17% figured on a different line counter program  - but if you do the math over a 2 week period or however long your pay period is - this can make a significant difference!!   Good luck.
Oops! Sorry can't do math..30%

Check out this math. LOL
Did you mean $5.50 per 1,000 words? If so, 1,000 words x 5 Keystrokes = 5,000 characters. 5,000 characters/65 cpl = 76.9 lines. $5.50/76.9 = just over $.07 cpl. It seems to be on par.
My math error, sorry. sm

But it is not for me, I don't want to do 2000 lines a day, 250 lines an hour,  for 7.5/lines for $150. bucks.  Burn out.  Nobody should have to work like that to make a living not with the junk dictation.


but ya all go ahead..


No my math is fine
Actually my math is fine, been working with industry standards a long time :)

average 10 words per line
AVERAGE

and i'm no longer an MTSO. just a grunt who's happy to be one
A pay increase.
:D
Ins. Increase
OK, you can panic or you can check into other things. Go ahead and call other companies and see what their insurance is costing the employee and the benefits it offers. This is going on in ALL insurance companies. Everyone and I do mean everyone I have talked to in the past 2 days about this has told me theirs has gone up, too. One of my friends who works for a very well known company pays over $108.00 a pay period for single coverage and basically the same benefits as my Aetna plan with TransTech. This is not some remote thing. Even my husband's insurance went up for all the plan options. He is now going to be paying $8.17 more a pay period than I am with Transtech for single employee only coverage. The cost of health care and medications are astronomical and they are having to pass this on down to the consumer. It's nothing new. It is time to wake up though. Inflation is not getting any better, only worse by the day. As for me, I will gladly work 45 more minutes a day to pay for the increase in my plan with TransTech. I would like to suggest a company though for those of you who have children and want a good insurance policy for them. My husband is ordered to provide health insurance for his daughter from his previous marriage and we took out a terrific policy on her with Midwestern Life of Tennessee. For a PPO plan that pays just like a group plan with your employer we pay $98.00 a month. This is for an 18-year-old female. Might be worth checking into. They will also take it directly from your checking account every month. They pay their claims well and on time and we've NEVER had a problem with them. Good luck to you all.
They would have to increase it by about 30% , that is
if they want to keep the MTs and want the MTs to type those spaces... LOL
Wow, sounds like someone's been doing their math homework.
I bet you grabbed your calculator immediately after you read her post and started punching in numbers. LOL! And you all talk about Happy OSi'er having too much time on her hands? You apparently have plenty of time on yours too. Get a life!
Correct my math if I am wrong....
I have calculated that 22% (on average) of a report is spaces (by manual count). So...if we have to cut out half of the spaces...that is an instant pay cut of 11%. OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!
Apparently they do not think we are capable of doing the math.
The math is there and it is not pretty!
I've never been good at doing the math... SM
Thanks for doing it for me.  The definitely is way too low.
RE: VR..anybody been able to make an increase in pay doing ME?
I more than doubled my production editing voice recognition drafts, and I am completely happy with the pay I receive for my efforts.
VR..anybody been able to make an increase in pay doing ME?
x
Webmedx MTs, 30% increase with ASR?
I keep hearing this is the productivity percentage an MT will see with ASR at Webmedx. What has your experience been?

Please share:

How long you've worked at Webmedx

How long you've been on ASR at Webmedx

If and how your production has changed (numbers/percentages if you have them)

I'd like to know how much of this promise of increased earnings is truth.

Thank you.
I think you might be wrong about a 30% increase sm
maybe a 30% decrease for ASR reports is correct. I don't know for sure though.
I got a significant increase when I

went to this company.  Pay is based on experience, like anywhere else.  You get adjustments based on quality score.  I got a raise the first quarter.  Regarding the negative comments about demographics, they were time consuming to me at first but CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE to eliminate a lot of the data entry on the unpaid screen.  I don't spend any more time on demogs now than I did at any other company. 


LPH and increase speed

As I mentioned before, I am struggling with speed.


I am curious what most people start out typing (LPH) and how quickly you increased to your max (many mentioned they are 200-300+) lph.  Anyone who will share on this?


I appreciate it!


That's a shame about the increase
excited to be getting to work for that company.  Keystrokes has a high plan too and are looking into it, but I've read that on here for over a year now.  I guess I have nothing nice to say, so I'd better be quiet.  Sometimes saying too many good things can jinx us!  
Try 9 for decrease and # for increase.
NM
Have you asked them about an increase for the
x
Can anyone help me increase my lines?? sm
I've read how some of you produce 250-300 or more lines per hour without VR.  I'm wondering if you have the same docs every day who say the same things over and over so you use alot of normals and shortcuts. I mostly type for 1 hospital, not that difficult of an account, use many shortcuts but can't seem to produce more than 175 lines per hr. I've been doing this for quite some time and am getting discouraged at the end of my shift.  Any tricks of the trade would be very much appreciated.
Should I ask for an increase or just be glad I have a job? sm

I know with the economy the way it is, I should probably just keep quiet and be thankful I have an income.  I realize there are many here that are without jobs and my heart goes out to you.


I have 18+ years of experience working in this field.  Six months ago I was hired by a national to cover a cardiology clinic account at .08 cpl.  I'd say at least 70% to 75% of the dictators are either ESL or mumbling/speedy Americans on a good day.  Today I have 100% ESLs!.  There are probably only two or three decent dictators in the whole lot if you can find one in the queue.  Turnover on this particular account has been so bad that cherry picking is actually permitted!


I've already applied for a other accounts within the company (that were advertized on various job boards) and haven't had any luck yet.  I probably won't get the opportunity to move because they can't keep this account covered.


With that being said, would it be unreasonable to ask for an increase to at least .09 to stay on this account?  The only other way I have a chance of making any money is to type for 10 hours a day.


Sorry I couldn't give you the short version! TIA!


VR does not necessarily increase
your speed. If you are making lots of corrections, then you will actually lose ground.
Dang - that's just a bit more than increase in
See link below for online calculator that lets you see what $x in a certain year should be worth today. I plugged in $14 and 1999, and it shows it would be worth $17.79 today.

That means that your 10 years of loyalty, seniority, accumulated knowledge about your platform and client sites, etc. are worth 21 cents.

Here's the calculator:
http://www.aier.org/research/worksheets-and-tools/cost-of-living-calculator
that s/b math, didn't mean to sound ugly.
 
Augusta Medical Transcription -- help me do the math (sm)

Augusta has a job advertised $1.25/thousand characters, 65 character line including headers and footers.  So, that's equal to a little over 8 cpl -- right?  I have never seen a company state pay in such a way. 


20% increase in production - haha!
haven't they been repeating over and over to you that you WILL see a 20% increase in production RIGHT AWAY!! after you conquer DQS then they're going to throw ASR at you and swear up and down that you'll have a 25% in production and they're going to cut your baseline rate by 20% to become a Medical Editor -- doesn't that sound just peachy!! i recalculated my last check with my MT work and my ME work and it came out to be $50 less because of the 20% decrease on my baseline rate for the honor of doing ME work (i have until 10/1/05 before the cut takes place). Oh, but you have your choice of doing 100% MT work and keeping your baseline rate, but guess what you'll be getting the docs that the voice recognition system can't do, therefore, you will probably see a 25% decrease in production. Heck, now as it is, the VR program can't pick up the little words like an, and, in, etc right and it's even leaving out very, very clear words that a very, very clear dictator is saying, so you figure how you're going to have a 25% increase on production when you're pecking nonstop on the keyboard like when you first started typing on a manual typewriter?? Tell me again, how grateful we're supposed to be for working at MQ? And, yes, I know I can go to MTJobs.com and find another job, but you know what, there's principles and if we just walk away from how we're being treated we're just going to be treated like that at another MQ-like company. Something needs to be done so they know that we don't appreciate being treated like someone with a 5th grade education.
What is the line rate for IC's, does it ever increase? nm
xx
promised rate increase
I have to 100% agree with your statement as I personally experienced just what you stated.
I think OP meant an 30% increase in productivitySM

I don't think the original poster meant a 30% increase in pay, but a 30% increase in productivity! 


Has anyone seen a line increase in the last 2 days?

Interesting, working the same but lines have increased by about 200 per day.


I did ask that, it would increase accuracy, productivity, TAT....sm
She took me off one of the two clinics so now I only have about 35 docs and maybe 10 specialities, but I believe this is only temporary since I am having trouble familiarizing.  I just get the impression that I am not up to par where I should be and I'm surprised, as I'm a quick study.  And to pour salt in it, my two QA people on our Messenger List notated next to their names yesterday that they were typing ___ and listed my account name.  These ladies only type when backed up.  So I think I'm bogging them down:(   I feel so inadequate, and for less than 8 cpl.  Oy.