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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

Slave No Longer

Posted By: sickatheartmt on 2008-02-07
In Reply to: Watch out for SPi - Janet

Ditto to your post.  This new compensation plan is insane.  I am now having to work 12 hours a day instead of 8, while all the while making less $.  I probably make less than the greeters at Wal-Mart.  They expect us to be on standby during our scheduled shift, yet there is no work, and we are not compensated for this time with no work.  Now I have work at midnight and on weekends in order to get my quota, and end up working what should be paid as overtime.  I am going to call the labor board in my state because this cannot be legal.   I suggest we all do the same. 


Yes, they seem to have put in place a director of OPs that came from MQ, only to now be doing her damage at SPi.  I understand she is also busy putting into place managers from MQ, so it is obvious what her agenda is...to mimic MQ, so we know where the direction of SPi is going, and it seems to hold true with this new comp plan.


In a matter of 18 months, SPi has successfully turned what was once a well-respected, successful company with a talented team of MTs and mangers that was once Cymed and turned it into a cold, disorganized machine.  They have had to have have lost millions in revenue with all the clients and MTS who have quit them due to poor service and disorganization, including ongoing unresolved IT issues.  It's almost as if they want to fail!


Folks, it's tiime we all stand up for what is right and make someone pay attention. What is a transcription company without transcriptionists?  We are not slaves and we do have options.  If SPi wants to be another MQ, then let's let them have it and see where they end up in the court system.  


I have been in this profession long enough to know that you can be successful at whatever you do by working hard, treating people with respect, and never compromising your integrity, a virtue that is foreign to SPi.  I for one am sick for us all at the latest turn of events and am going to spend this time when there are no jobs available making the necessary calls and then submit my resignation.  


Let's all stand together and see how long this compensation plan works for them when there is no one to do the little work they have.   They may have people offshore who will do it for even less than the slave wages they are paying us, so I say let them have it and suffer the consequences when what business they have left walks out the door. 




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It's longer than the "standard" 65-char. line so will take you longer to make those lines!
m
Slave no more!
I recently left Spheris after 8 years. At this time last year, I loved my job there. Then we were all moved over to the new Cornerstone platform. I watched my paycheck fall $500+ per pay period. On top of having to learn the new platform, we also had a new SR engine. It is a complete joke. I sat in on many conference calls where we were told to just be glad we had a job in this economy. Guess what? This economy has not had any impact on the need for highly skilled, trained, acute care transcriptionists! I am now working for another company. I was given a huge sign-on bonus and have been told again and again how much my expertise, experience, and skills are appreciated. I feel valued and respected, something I never felt at Spheris. The platform is so easy and reminds me a lot of TWS, the old Spheris platform. The speech rec actually works the way it's supposed to.
When I gave my notice, my supervisor started to cry. She said that the upper management has been warned that they are going to keep losing their best talent - their biggest asset, and they do not seem to care. This was the 1st time in 7 years my supe ever said that she appreciated my work, and I was one of the highest producing MTs on her team! They are using MTs to train their speech rec engine, and not paying what they should be. The new platform relies on tagged ShortHand commands -and you will work twice as hard to make the pay you're used to getting.
Please do not buy into that garbage about how we should just take whatever little Spheris is willing to hand out and be happy with it. If you have experience, I strongly urge you to leave Spheris. I did, and it was the best decision I ever made. I now work for a company where almost every employee is a former MT. I don't want to say the name of the company as someone may think I'm a recruiter, which I'm not. I'm just an MT who is now happy to go to work every day instead of dreading it.
As an experienced MT, you have options. Don't ever believe that what we do is something that just anyone can do, or that we should just be happy to have jobs. There are companies out there that value their MTs and will compensate us what we deserve. I was told the company I went to would never pay me what I was making at Spheris, but when I asked for it, they gave it to me. If you have the skills and the quality - you hold the cards.
No. That's SLAVE CHANGE.
.
Ugh --- SLAVE wages. - (nm)
nm
slave wages
These companies really want a return to slavery for the worker. The sad thing is that if you need any income, you'll take it and there is desperation out there, which they are counting on.javascript:editor_insertHTML('text','');
Slave wages??? Not here,
Why are you earning slave wages? Maybe you should take a look at YOURSELF and what is holding YOU back! Probably easier to blame the big bad corrupt MTSO for your problems. I am not earning slave wages. I consider the $20 I make per hour to be decent. For 18 months of schooling, it's not that bad. My husband is a company executive and just took a 15% cut in pay. Hey, maybe he should organize a union for beaten down and repressed executives. Now there's an idea!
Hate to be a slave driver, but

Our apologies for letting her out.  She has no sense of humor.


you are working slave wages! Companies sm
were paying that wage in 1980 where I lived at and that was on the gross line not 65 character. I just got hired by a company today that their base rate is 8 cpl and goes higher for experience. You are getting ripped off for sure!
We're ALL earning slave wages. Our job should
You can make more money standing in the middle of highway construction zone with a 'slow' and 'stop' sign in your hand and your finger up your nose, than you can at even best-paying MTSO, these days.
Okay then, why did you jump in? sticking up for slave labor?
that's what it is
editing rates are 1.5 cents per line....can you say SLAVE WAGES??
 
If offshore owned, they want to play by their rules, treating MTs like slave labor, much like
:+
Hope you're enjoying those slave wages you're earning.
.
tons of work because no one wants to work for slave wages
think about it
It's been longer than that for me.
I tend to get stuck with a lot of terrible dictations most of the time, which I don't understand either, but maybe that has something to do with why I can't get a decent line count.  Every time I get on the system to work, there's always some horrible dictation skipped from earlier in the day just waiting for me.  Just got done with a dictation that was 9 minutes long, but took me over 30 minutes to type due to being inaudible in spots and just basically a horrible dictation overall.  I didn't even get 100 lines out of it either!! 
no longer there but.
Had trouble getting paid on time.
Not for much longer.
I knew going in they were not paying for headers and footers, but did not realize they were going to take the percentage off the total line count. The headers/footers only account for about 5 to 10 lines per report, so they have quite a little scam going.
Whatever, they are no longer there anyway. nm
:+
Not much longer to be an MT
Medical transcription is going the way of the dinosaurs.  Voice recognition is coming in fast now.  We will be editing for awhile until they perfect it and feed the corrected copies back into the VR engine to train it to understand all the docs.  I would give this field 5 more years maybe.  We all have to move on and find something else unfortunately:(
Longer than others for me
I think it took them a week and then I didn't even get a pass/fail but a link to go on to the next test, which seemed to be some kind of personality profile. By that time, I had hired on with another company that was my first choice.
No longer a CMT
I WAS a CMT for over 20 years, it never got me any more money, it cost me to re-certify, cost me to go to seminars for CEC's, I had one company I worked for tell me I could only go to the National Convention for 2 days and I would only be paid if I worked their booth for those two days, so what was the use of going if I was going to be stuck in a recruitment booth insead of learning at any of the seminars?  I still kept plugging away spending my time and money to keep that CMT behind my name.  Then my mom passed away, in all the work of getting her estate settled, condo sold, etc. I forgot to send in my fee and CEC's verification slips.  When I realized it had slipped my mind I called and wrote them a letter explaining the circumstances and that I had all the CEC's earned. Even offered to send a copy of the death cert.  Their reply....too bad...so sad pay again to take the certification Test.  NOT
The longer MQ MT is on DQS, the less lines

we get. There is no "getting used" to the program that is taking our line counts. Very familiar with DQS, have all normals/short cuts in place, very fast typist, and DQS "eats up lines". MedRite did not do that to us. Why do you think MQ changed to DQS ? -- so that the MT's would get more lines per hour ?   NOT !


Katie is no longer there either
x
If she's no longer there how will she see it? Ditto for
nm
You are a recruiter? Hopefully not for much longer.
x
This is exactly why I know longer send anything. nm
nm
4-6 weeks...sometimes longer
nm
was it last fall?, or maybe longer, whenever...
nm
I am. I even sent them an e-mail that I no longer
worked for them and they still send me the stuff from Corporate. I don't get any more from the PS though.
Since you no longer work there
But if you need to keep repeatedly posting about your bad experience there, go ahead, its a free country.  I was speaking of my current work volumes there, to another current employee.  My post was not addressed former employees, and I made no mention of the validity of your past experience, so I don't understand why you felt the need to respond to my post.  As you said, not everyone has the same experience, and I understand that...do you?
KC... It sounds like you are no longer there.
Could you tell me why?  Was the pay on time and comparable?
WMX - no longer get hx on jobs - sm
Is this so  we no longer can see who kicked back jobs and potentially report them if it is a repeat thing?  Not trying to start a fuss, just curious.
I have done transcription probably longer than
you have been on this earth, almost 40 years now. I think I know probably as much about transcribing as most here, worked for all different specialities, please don’t make me lose it tonight with your holier than thou message. Like you are the only little girlie here that can transcribe.
no you haven't done it longer than I have sm
been on the earth! I h ave done this for 32 years myself and alot older than 40. You don't have a clue about me. But you are giving yourself away very rapidly. Don't have a holier than thou message. Why did it hit such a nerve.

Don't make me los it tonight........hmmmmmm are you threatening me??? What you gonna do take my work away?????????

Good grief! Dont believe you have been doing it 40 years either or you wouldn't have the attitude about loving VR!
no you haven't done it longer than I have sm
been on the earth! I h ave done this for 32 years myself and alot older than 40. You don't have a clue about me. But you are giving yourself away very rapidly. Don't have a holier than thou message. Why did it hit such a nerve.

Don't make me los it tonight........hmmmmmm are you threatening me??? What you gonna do take my work away?????????

Good grief! Dont believe you have been doing it 40 years either or you wouldn't have the attitude about loving VR!
I have been doing this for over 35 years, longer than you
and my employer went to VR, a place where I had worked for 12 years at that time so it was either leave and find another job at age 50+ or fit in and thank goodness I decided to stay on. I make over $500 per week and I work part time, yes on VR. I read here people think others liking because of being newbies, slow at transcribing, MTSOs and the like but this is not me at all. Outsourced from my inhouse job, I was lucky to find the people who have the same hospital account and here I am, 19 years and counting for the same account. I am glad I learned VR when I did. So many are totally against when it seems most companies are now headed that way.
Are you 100% sure they no longer offshore anything?
I would have a hard time believing that, but I could be wrong, and it definitely would be a step in the right direction for at least ONE big huge company, hopefully others will follow suit.
it does seem that they are no longer regional
I really do hope that they are not selling themselves as a LOCAL company anymore. Sorry, but they can't have it both ways. The last time I heard, it took approximately 23 hours (counting changing planes, etc.) to get from NYC to Delhi.
I can no longer afford to do anything except
My gift-exchange days are over til i can find a REAL job. You know: one that actually pays you to do it.
link no longer valid - sorry
x
Debbie is no longer the owner.
The previous COO from Heartland is now the President and COO! Watch out! Major outsource lover...
Did, but no longer. Good company however.
Good luck. I was fairly productive, but more so now that I work the same 5 doctors day in an day out, not 100's of doctors. But, to each her own. Like I said, Medware is a good company.
Now try quoting someone who's been there longer than 2 weeks.
Extext is better than Merit or Meditech.
bet if she named the co she would no longer be a recruiter for them.
Some things you have to look at twice because you really don't believe what you read
Then why are you no longer there? Reliablity or something the company did? nm
nm
I've been there longer than that and I never heard ot it.
aa
do your legs feel longer

I am absolutely sure they have been pulled. There is no place that would pay that much above market rates. You are being diddled.


 


That has been going on for years. No longer a member.
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Will it be a 65-char. line or longer? nm
s
Keystrokes has been around longer, which I like, but Zylomed
is just clinic notes, and you can usually make a lot of expansions for those. Also, they only require 800 lines a day to get full time benefits and pay part of the insurance premium. Medquist requires 1200 lines a day for insurance, etc.
Company no longer uses ExText
Transcription Services of Illinois (TSI) no longer uses ExText (WordClient).