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Please follow the posts...I wasn't speaking to you.

Posted By: mt on 2008-10-06
In Reply to: Why is it - Shannon

Save your fight for the ONE that was arguing.


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If you are speaking of the posts down below...
If you are making reference to the posts down below, no, we are not talking about Ascend.  I have never worked for Ascend, so I can't shed any light for you. 
Prior posts say you need a C-phone & 2nd line, and that they follow BOS II guidelines very
s
I removed the posts after speaking directly to the owner of the company. If
you have questions or concerns you need to take it up with her.  There is one specific person causing most of this grief.  I have CHOSEN to remove the posts, I was not forced to. 
I wasn't complaining. I just found the posts below sm

a bit concerning.   Personally, if I do what I call power hours where I make myself just sit in the chair and focus only on typing for an hour, I can do 300 lines or more an hour, so I do not really have an issue with ExText.  Of course, maybe I could be doing even more ... who knows.


I do agree that it is always best to ask the powers that be when you have an issue -- only way to get an answer.


Do you follow along with the mouse? I follow allow with my right arrow, the cursor going over the
words...I mean what do you do with the mouse exactly? I know that is a weird question, but I am still not getting it...haha! It could be a difference in platforms for sure,because my mouse is completely worthless to me in VR. I used EXText.
That wasn't my experience there. I wasn't on that kind of all-inclusive acct, either. nm
s
I think they do, but must follow
nm
Follow up
There were many reasons why it took longer than 8 hours to do 1150 lines.  One reason was because of the difficult dictators.  The US MTs get the majority of the bad dictators.  India gets many of the good accounts.  This is a fact!!  The other reason is because they have this little thing called OLC.  You see, they do not like anything to go to QA.  So they have you ask other MTs to pull the job # in to listen to your blanks for you to see if they can get it.  Not only is this extremely time consuming for the MT, but it is very time consuming for other MTs, thus making it difficult for everyone to get their line count in in 8 hours.  There was hardly anyone there that could do it consistently in 8 hours on a day to day basis.  There was also much referencing for doctors names and addresses that was very time consuming, and that you don't get paid for, but you could not leave it blank without searching like in three different places for it.  How time consuming is that....One would think a large company like that could come up with a better solution than that for their MTs. Maybe a better datatbase, do ya think??!!  There are very many reasons this company goes through MTs like they do.  Their turnover rate is VERY high.  I personally met my goals everyday.  Somedays it took longer than others, but the pay was not worth it.  Give yourself a raise!!!  My all time favorite.  Excuse me, but even MacDonald's gives raises to their employees for doing a good job, that little thing called RECOGNITION, and they don't expect them to sell more burgers to get it....Most companies base their raise on hard work, dependability, quality of work being done, and when a company has top notch employees that know their work and are doing a great job, and pays another person whom just started the same wage (whom quality or quantity is not there yet) that is just not fair.  Where is the incentive to be dependable, and to go out of your way to go that extra mile to make sure that job is done just precise.  Another thing about this company is that they expect you jump around on different accounts just about every day.  Emails that come through saying this account is out of turn and you need to pull so many jobs from this other account in.  Well, again, it is hard to get your line count in in 8 hours when you are jumping all over having to other accounts and having to read pages of account specifics before you can even get started.  They expect way too much for giving way toooo little.  Compensate fairly and one does not mind going that exta mile for a company who shows you they appreciate it.  If one does not mind working a ton of a hours for a low wage, then this company if for you.  I think it is just degrading for all MTs out there to have any one MT sacrifice their hard earned skills and work for a company who treats their workers in this way!!  We are skilled individuals and many work for less than what kids make at their part time jobs because they are willing to do it to stay at home and work.  We need to demand a wage that we are worth.  Afterall, most MTS either have schooling behind them or lots of years of experience.   Isn't that worth getting paid what you are worth??  Just because we stay at home should not mean we have to get paid peanuts.  What are you saving the employer, office space, equipment, electricity, and all the other things they must provide to have employees work in their office.  We save them that money.  So why should we get paid less!!  Quite the opposite, I think.  I certainly am not trying to keep anyone from getting a job.  The only thing I wish to gain is to see this industry take a turn and have us very skilled individuals who are important enough to come up with a document that could play a part in a person's life, be compensated fairly!!  Aren't we all worth that much!!??
Follow up - sm

I decided against Webmedx.  I passed the test and was offered a position but declined.  After studying the incentive program, I don't think I would be making any more than I do for Medquist.  The starting line rate was too low.  They try to push the incentive program, but it just doesn't seem that good.


So, I guess I'm sticking with MQ for now. 


I'm planning to get out of transcription.  I have tested and gotten offers from a few companies, but none of them seem vastly different than Medquist, unfortunately.  


I already have a few online businesses and hopefully will be able to work on them full time some time in the next year or 2. 


 


Follow up
My husband called the company in Oregon (there really is a legitimate company with that name). They said it is a scam, someone is using their identity to get people to open checking accounts. This scam is using the employee names and e-mail addresses but somehow it is routed to the scam artists. The legit company gave my husband the FBI information so he could report it.
follow up
today (saturday)I have had 106 lines ALL day and I'm 5 hours into my shift. that help any? seriously, you will NOT make ANY money here...keep looking! your best bet is steer clear of any service, get on directly with a dr.'s office or hospital, that's where any decent income is...
Anyone know any follow up...
on what happened to that transcription company or on the Pakistani girl doing the transcription?
Follow up with them....(sm)
I'd send a follow-up email or call. TT is definitely worth pursuing. They've been swamped lately with resumes and there's always the possibility they didn't receive yours for some reason.

IMHO, TT is right up there with the cream of the crop, so by all means follow-up on your resume.


I am going to follow through on TTS. sm
I think I emailed you, and if you don't respond, I completely understand. I am going to follow through with the labor board on this one. I saved every email and correspondence from them, so on that end I should be good. I'm sure the current TTS'er will go yelling up the ladder, but it really doesn't matter because I don't think this is something they can backtrack on. I'll keep y'all posted. If anyone wants to join in, feel free to contact me.
Posts from April said everyone gets 8.5 cpl/newbie or experienced. Recent posts said
s
You are welcome for my speaking up
When you allow anger or dissatisfaction to control you for this length of time, you are not a healthy person. Please, for your health, mentally and physically, just let go and move on. I have had plenty of negative experiences in my life, but if I were to allow them to control me the way this negativity seems to control you...well, there are lock down facilities that would be happy to sedate you! Get a l-i-f-e!
Speaking of QA
I had spelled a Midwestern town Fond du Lac. Lost a whole point on my QA because of it. The Zip code book was wrong they had Fond Du Lac, but QA went by the Zip Code Book. Don't you just feel like we have to walk on water all the time?
Speaking of D & L....
Anything new on them? Seems pretty quiet on these boards the last week or so. They must be getting it together.
Only speaking for myself
But I've found Transcend to be a very good company in many ways. Being paid on time, staff is helpful. I initially had some issues with not getting any feedback but that's been squared away. I'm on the Meditech part and this is quite archaic as is the hospital system I'm working on but so what, it works. I have plenty of work and have only run out on the holidays but you will Anywhere you work. All in all its been a pretty good experience and I'm more than happy I switched from MQ to here. Oh yeah, and the pay is better than most I've found depending on your experience of course. Be ready to ask the recruiter lots of questions and take notes.

All you can do is try it and see.

Good Luck :D
Speaking for myself
I think it's one of those things that happens in a split second without being consciously aware of-- like spelling a word but getting an extra letter in it; some part of my brain hears 5 Keystrokes instead of 4, or I might only hear 6 keystrokes when there should be 7. It isn't anything that I try to do; it just happens. I assume it's the same way as in music you can 'feel' when you've not got the notes to an unfamiliar melody you're playing from sheet music just right. It just happens, and is part of what my family and I jokingly call me typing while the force is with me.
Speaking for myself
I believe a living wage, and not a wage that I will get rich from or even be comfortable from, is a minimum of 9 cents a line, and I don't even live in a high cost of living area. Frankly, I don't know how the people NY and CA do it these days...I was able to 15 years ago easy, no more.

I believe I'm worth at least a penny a line more than that, but accept the harsh reality that I will not see that unless I set up my own service.

The 9 cents I mentioned above is harder to earn than ever- one of the side effects of VR is that the money-making dictators, the ones that enabled us to make up for the crappy ones, are now on VR, so there is no balance in what we type.

Call me greedy, but I think a skilled transcriptionist, the ones who are able to type the crud that's left after all the Dr. Smiths and Dr. Johnsons have gone to VR, deserve at least 11 cents a line, taking into account what it would cost for one VR person and 2 editors to produce the same report a lot faster.
Speaking up
I'll happily name a company. I work for Transcend. Yes, the evil Transcend. And despite all the absolute negativity I read on this board regarding them, I am very happy there. I make a very, very good line rate, make a comfortable living, have a wonderful ROM and TL, and usually have plenty of work. On the few occasions the work has been low I have simply asked to be cross-trained on a new account or a new platform and have been accommodated.

I fully believe that you get back what you put in. I know that change in scary and that a lot of people are facing some huge changes right now. I was part of a merger recently too, and I was very anxious and scared. But at least TRY to make a go of it. Change is not always a bad thing. All the negativity that people spout off here is not helping anything, not changing anything, only making people angry and causing them to feel sorry for themselves and hate anyone who is making a successful go of it. I think it's very, very sad.

thank you for speaking up

We need more people like you who will champion us. 


 


No follow-ups? Now I'm worried. How about this,
forget about the DEP question.  What is a good company to apply for SE/IC status, preferrably one who will supply the equipment needed - or not.
Did you call them and follow up? sm

I would just give them a quick call and double check - make sure that your test materials were received etc.  I know that they reply to everyone who has tested with them. 


Follow up to your post
That is 14,000 lines a pay period  -- and MOST, if not all services have some degree of ESL's.  Not trying to sound snotty here, but if you are so concerned about ESLs, why are you in medical transcription in the first place?
So call them. Follow up. nm
x
Just to follow up. Some dear one,
another MT, posted on the Main Board, I believe, about our job as MTs; how hard it really is, how much knowledge we need to do this job, and may I add, cannot do this job just fresh off the street.  Why are we not valued by the people who hire us!?  Doesn't make sense. Then during the interview, you're asked, *Do you have any questions?*  Well, yeah, but am I going to get the truth, or just what you think I want to hear?  So I just don't ask anymore.  Just had an interview the other day, was kind of excited at the time, sounded good, but now I have that nagging feeling that maybe I'm better off where I am working now.  To my thinking, it's a roll of the dice....as someone once told me *You pays your money and yous take a chance.*  LOL  But really, I wish you well in this dog eat dog mentality of the MT business.
Follow up to MedWare
I believe in order to be eligible for 401K you must be there a year. If Christmas and Thanksgiving fall on your regular scheduled workdays, you are required to work them!! I personally will not work for Medware or any other National company ever again...they only abuse the experienced MT with indecent pay for years of experience, not enough workflow for someone needing to do 2000 lines a day, and too many accounts to switch back and forth between. That is only my opinion, and possibly I had a bad experience...but I gave it 3 months and I feel that is more than enough time to get a good feel for a company. Good luck to you!
cannot follow directions

This is the kind of scatter-brained MT I would definitely NOT hire.  The original message was regarding the inadvisability of alerting a potential employer about one's previous complaints regarding other companies by exchanging E-mails from the same site as the derogatory posts.  This second individual gets up on her hind legs and gets all righteously indignant about behaviors that are obviously not acceptable in ANY profession.  This reveals a lack of concentration and unsuitability for my professional group of employees. 


  


Wish more companies would follow. sm.
Since cherry picking is lying, stealing and cheating. 
More so than an IC position. And they have to follow
their own policies in order to let you go if you're not a new hire...otherwise, you could have recourse against the company.

ICs have utterly zero protection.

Futurenet does not follow through on anything
8
Follow BOS guidelines.
xx
Although not all companies follow BOS (sm)
guidelines due to client specifics, etc.  It is usually safe to transcribe as BOS compliant for testing purposes.  Even though the company may not follow it when hired, you would be expected to know it and it just eliminates the whole confusion of how to transcribe on a test.
FOLLOW-UP LETTER
I took a test for a company on 1 week ago, Sept 24.  I know I nailed it.  Still haven't heard anything.  How do I write a follow-up email to see if I can get any info on my status?  Any help is appreciated!  Thanks.
Simply trying to follow along here.
So what is the real concern in security here? I work with Escription and nothing is stored in my computer, download and upload each report to the company.  Most infringements are most likely occurring only by an MT who does not understand and practice confidentiality or HIPAA guidelines in this case mentioned originally.  We have been warned for years an MT can lose a job by any infraction, but this is a perfect example of that happening after the damage is done. 
Yes, I have. She is very busy but I would follow up. sm
If you were contacted for an interview, I would definitely follow up on it. You could have slipped through the cracks with the holidays. They have a large account coming up that they are trying to staff and I could only imagine how many responses those job postings receive to weed through. Your resume obviouly stood out to get contacted for an interview. Definitely follow up on your original contact for an interview. I am extremely pleased thus far.
I say follow your instincts.

I'm a big believer in following my instincts about stuff like that.  I have had a couple of jobs both in and out of this industry where I pretty much knew after the first week that I had made a mistake and this was not going to be a good situation.


There are companies out there that give you QA feedback and help you and want to make you better.  There are also companies that don't allow cherry picking and have mechanisms in place to avoid scenarios such as the one you described.


If that were me and I felt the way that you do, I'd be looking elsewhere.


Do follow up, they will love it if you
nm
Follow-up questions
To the poster who eats chocolate-covered cherries whilst editing ESL dictators... Are you serious? Is your VR program really so good that you can sit there without your hands on the keyboard constantly?

To the poster who asked if I was serious. Yes, I'm dead serious. The reason I'm even asking is because I can't fathom any other way that the VR fan club people are making money doing VR. I can't bring myself to do that (edit carelessly or incompletely in order to increase my speed), and I AM very well aware that MY initials are at the bottom of every report I edit. But I can't figure out how VR editors are able to claim they make just as much money per hour doing VR as they did doing transcription, then they go on to claim that they were transcriptionists for 30+ years and quite fast, too. It doesn't add up for me that way at all. I have been a Transcriptionist for 20+ years and spent a year doing QA also. I'm not a slouch at either transcription or proofreading, but at 200 LPH, I am well aware that I'm also not the fastest one out there either. So, partly, I'm wondering if perhaps the QA standards are laxer for VR reports than they are for MT reports, similar to how QA standards themselves evolve over time.

To all who have responded: Thank you. And can you really EDIT at a LPH rate that ends up with you making as much $$ per hour as your TRANSCRIPTION LPH rate? Like I said, I would have to EDIT 335 LPH just to break even with my typing rate, and I have yet to figure out how to do that effectively without compromising the quality of the final reports.

VR has been one big giant PAYCUT to me, and I'm frustrated. Thank you all for allowing me to vent without calling me a whiner!
Yes please - WMX follow suit!
We need more work.
I'm not sure I exactly follow the logic
To me it's much easier to remember that I get paid every other Friday, and if I didn't get paid last Friday, I will this week. Perhaps it's my advancing age, but I have an easier time remembering that if I watched Project Runway last night, it might be payday today than remembering the current date and calculating when the 15th or 30th is unless it's a 31 day month (it takes time to run through 30 days has November, April, June and September...) As far as consistency in pay, assuming the work has been there and I've fulfilled my obligation, it's easier for me to figure 10 (or whatever) days in a pay period than it is to look at a calender and figure how many actual work days there are between the 16th and 30th (or 31st or 28th). Plus, a lot of us have specific days off that we take care of things. Some of us really do live paycheck to paycheck, so shopping by necessity has to wait until the eagle flies. If you paycheck comes on a Tuesday, conceivably it might be rough being able to get away to do that shopping with the hours we're forced to spend in front of the computer these days.

Of course, everybody is different and I think it's also a lot in what you get used to. If you're used to getting a paycheck every 2 weeks, it's tough to suddenly have to extend that out over anywhere from a 1 to several days.

NOTE: I wish they'd stop calling that button QUICK reply because I sure as heck can't do that.
Sorry, this is Warminster MQ I am speaking about.
:
Speaking of taxes...

when paying self-employment tax, does that include unemployment taxes?  I was thinking of filing since it looks like finding another job may take a long time. 


Please share what you are speaking of.
Sale to whom?
Speaking as a recruiter, an MT myself as are many
I know who are recruiters, dealing with attitudes like yours makes me feel like this entire job is thankless! What the heck am I working for to do a good job? Huh? I go out of my way to be helpful to the MTs that I interview and test and to respond to their questions as best as I know how to respond. The answers I give are the ones that are given to me by my employer so I am as truthful as they are to me and I know other recruiters who also try to do their darndest to be as honest as we can.

So WHO GETS THE BAD RAP? The recruiter apparently if our company does not give us truthful answers so basically I do not feel much like being a recruiter anymore. I am personally offended at the attitude of the MTs towards the recruiters because I have to tell you that being a recruiter takes a good 10-15 hours a day of work as well as it is a 7 day a week job. I HAVE to abide by YOUR schedule MT. If you cannot interview during the day, I have to interview you at night, on weekends, or whenever I can get you.

I am plain sick of this thankless job and it is my desire to get back into training (oh, but wait--I believe you label trainers as not being very good don't you?...or maybe I will go QA full time...oh but wait, I believe QA is your dreaded enemy!). So, what is a recruiter to do? I personally have learned the programs that an MT uses for my company just so I an answer the questions that the MTs have about the program.

I am sick of the attitudes on this board and on others as far as recruiters go. It is never the fault of anyone but the recruiter apparently because you are the most narrow-minded thankless people I have ever come in contact with and if it were not too late to change fields, I would run as far from this profession as I could.
speaking of their own servers.....
anyone have a problem with Dictaphone while working on ExText adding up lines sloooooooowly as in they don't start to show for 3 - 4 hours and then trickle in???
Speaking of radiology, does there seem
Thank you in advance for any information you may have.
Second QA person here speaking up.
With my current company the finished reports are available to the MT - we cannot leave personal feedback - every company has different systems and different ways of processing the work - I wish I could leave feedback for particular MTs - and I know when I was an MT and had a question working with one particular company I never saw completed reports - this is a company problem - not QA or MT problem in most instances.
speaking of ethics

Can someone tell me how they would handle a situation in which the TASP you are typing on is also an MTSO. I was told initially they were not a transcription company, and later found out (thank you internet) they are indeed.  I would like to keep competition close, but that is pushing it.