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Yes. I think a lot of my problem is staying focused. It's hard.(sm)

Posted By: txtt on 2007-05-31
In Reply to: Same here. (sm) - TTMT

Starting tomorrow morning, I am going to really try to keep my behind in my chair and stay off these boards.  I could improve my counts a lot too, I'm sure.


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The CEO was focused ... on himself!
When I was at Spheris, I remember a lot of broadcast email from the now-departed CEO. It was all of the form of I hired so-and-so and am now completing my management team. That was wonderful, I guess, for him -- but I don't ever remember a single email that indicated he understood what MTs daily lives were like or that he understood the MT job. So, I wish him well in his new life, and I hope his successor is focused on the workers -- those who make his job possible.
I don't understand - are you still in Focused Review? sm
Error reports - you mean they are sending you feedback for your mistakes? or you are still formally being reviewed?
I work there and have never heard of someone being reviewed for a full couple of weeks.
There's a lot more staying than going,
and plenty that have come back after finding the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence after all. They are good to me! and i make more $ than ever elsewhere.
Why are you staying?
You obviously hate it. You are spewing venom everywhere. So why are you still there?
I'm Staying at TT. (sm)

I went into this job KNOWING I was not getting paid for headers and footers. I don't know any company that does pay for them, so it's no big deal to me.


I am also disappointed in the insurance hikes and am waiting to hear something, BUT the costs are still LOWER than the insurance I have now and with very low deductibles. I would only be saving $100 a month by going with TT's insurance as it stands now, but a $500 deductible is way better than $2000 we have now.


BTW, I also must foot the bill for this insurance. I am not sole provider for my family but pretty close to it, at least for 6 months out of the year. I don't think the grass is greener anywhere else and I'm staying.


Too many MTs look for the perfect job. There is no such animal. So, all you guys that are leaving just because of the above 2 reasons, go right ahead. It just means more work and $$ for me, and I appreciate it.


Yup, I am staying put
at TT! 
I'm staying...sm
I've decided to stick it out.  I know they said we would keep our same accounts, but I also know that those words are just that, words, and aren't guaranteed.  I will stay for now, but am keeping my options open just in case they decide to switch me to a crappy account where I cannot understand a single doc.  I just got used to these docs and would like to stay with them (and, they aren't the greatest, but at least I'm used to how they dictate and can understand them now).
Why I am staying with MDI
I have one of those high-ESL dial-up accounts, too. When I first started, I did not think I would ever round the learning curve, but I did and now can easily do more than 1200 lines per day. Be patient with yourself. Bayscribe is a wonderful platform that is elegant in its simplicity and is easy to use. The liaisons are really wonderful people and the QA are intelligent and kind people. Tech support is great, though I seldom need them. I have been in this business for many years (was an MTSO for a while and handled huge hospitals for the State of California before the state went belly-up) and I can honestly say I have never worked for a company that has the integrity and goodness MDI does. Hang in there! I am betting it will get better for you. Again, be patient with yourself. MDI is extremely picky about whom they hire and if you have made it onto the team, you doubtless have the right stuff.
I would recommend staying away from
That is all they do, lie and run out of work! Have you tried Keystrokes? I think they might be hiring. I do not know much about them but it might be something to consider.
" plan on staying right where I am and see it through the end"
Well, you do have staying power.  
Staying at home
Hi: Our children are grown and gone and I still choose to stay at home. I like the flexibility that I have working as an IC. I like making as much or as little as I would like to. I like being off when my husband is so that we can spend time together, go see our children, travel. I even take my laptop with me when going to see kids so that I can work if I am scheduled. I could not do that working in an office environment. I agree with the other poster. You take the good with the bad. You pick your battles. Also, after working at home for so long, I'm not sure I'm a candidate for working in an office environment! That would mean wearing a bra every day! Hope you find the answers you are looking for.
Well we aren't staying
a very large portion of the MQ staff is leaving, the majority of which as I can guestimate have been with MQ for many, many years, made them what they are. I myself have 12 years in with MQ and am done in 3 weeks.  Don't get snotty with us...
The reason for staying
The reason I continued to work for D&L was not because I was making it rich, they never paid any of us well after years of working for them, most of us were still at starting wages of .06 cents a line.  I worked for them because along with about 12+ girls we were trained and brought into them through an individual, knowing nothing else.  When asked for references, D&L refused to give them, we were stuck and unable to move on because of no records of our work history.  I did not work for the Big Account that they lost and nor did most of the girls that I know, but they are still not getting paid and desperate to move on.  Most of us live out in the country area and do not have access to big city accounts.  We just have had a difficult time moving on.  That is why we put up with the constant cons of where our checks were.  D&L is in big trouble and for anyone that is out there still working for them, keep all of your work records and when applying for jobs, just tell them the truth.  Hopefully, some of these companies will give us a chance.  If you have a lot of work to do for D&L and they still have not paid you, GET OUT NOW.  File your complaint with State Labor board, filing with check fraud will only work if you have a bad check.  They have been making up all insufficient funds checks because they know that is a criminal offence.  They keep changing banks, and that is concerning.  Good LUCK to all of you, this has really been a tough few weeks for all of us.
I NEVER said I was staying or would never leave -
but my wanting to pursue other companies has nothing to do with the holiday pay policy (since I'm PT, I don't even qualify). I'm just saying, if you want to log on, get your work done, and get a steady paycheck, OSi can be that place for you - it has been for me for the past 2 years.
Vonage residential - staying away from anything
x
Is there really an advantage to staying local? Most

It doesn't seem there's any more guarantee of stable work from local MTSOs than the national ones.


If you do want to stay local but work at home, also try Southern Transcription Services, located in Taylorsville, I think.  They have a good reputation. Google them for their web site. 


right; and I did not quit my old job, ended up staying with my old job.
nm
And how would you like staying at the office 10, 12, 14 or more hours trying to get in 8!!
I for one have probably vented enough about this subject, which is the very reason I got laid off from my previous job (because I was challenging this treatment).  I do not think it is legal, but when I asked to have a third party brought in on the matter I was laid off.  It is awful to make an MT feel like THEY are not doing their job if they are not meeting minimum requirements when it is the company who is causing it in the first place due to mismanagement.  And FYI to you management people out there, we do have a separate life besides sitting in front of the computer for hours on end.  Just because we are at home does not mean we are necessarily available after our **shift.** How would you like to have to go back to your office night after night after your workday?
Saw on paper that pay was only 6 - 8.5 cpl. Is that what you guys will be starting at, or staying
m
The Ops could be staying in-house with the rest of the work being done by MW. nm
s
Last week we were staying caught up with TAT so I guess
you could consider it a slow week, this week we are out of TAT again, so things are back to normal. 
Seems like the good ones are staying a long time
I know many who have been there 2, 3, and some 4 years. Volumes are up right now, and we've had several new accounts go live in the last couple of months as well.
Not staying back in the dark ages
VR is definitely the thing of the future and I am already there, which most of the others on here, like it or not, will be before long. I can just see it now, the ones going kicking and screaming, or like the 1 about a month ago, jumped ship because of VR, got another job and OMG, the new job immediately went to VR. I am keeping up with the latest technology, I will welcome others as they have to switch.
Same theme, staying at home with the kids
This is just the most idiotic thing to write. I joined up with this profession before mothers only went into it so they could wear PJs and stay at home with Jr. That is a sorry reason to go into this job in the first place. I don’t find my job grueling, never have. Apparently you must be in the wrong place because your spouting off is wrongly placed. Discrimination against women and children. Please spare me from this. I am going to throw up in a minute.
LOL!! DVD player for staying more than one week!!!GOOD Grief!!!
Must be really awful!!!
This is the thing that concerns me about this field. Pay is staying the same not increasing!

Every OTHER medical field, nursing, therapists, techs, etc. are all experiencing the yearly salaries going up.  Transcription compensation is not increasing. 


While they may increase the RATES the ability to make the more money is not there because of VR, taking away the header allowances, more difficult accounts, more ESLs, stricter QA, etc., etc. slow platforms that require information inserted that you don't get paid for and anything else that lowers your salary.  If hospitals are looking to slash their transcription budget, they are going to pass that onto the service and the service will pass that onto to the employee. 


I know transcriptionists that were making 45-50K in 1987 working 40 hours and now they are making 35K and often times working more than 40 hours to make that lower amount.  Or I hear people say I can make the same money but I must work much harder and longer hours.  I think wow...you have to work harder and longer to make what you made in the 1980s. 


Other occupations have gotten consistent raises without the need for more hours and I don't think employees would put with up it.  Imagine a well qualified R.N. being offered a 1987 salary?  The hospital would have a hard time hiring nurses.  But the transcription service environment is so competative if they can offer the work cheaper and cheaper while guaranting accuracy they will get that contract.  So in order to stay in business they have to find a way to pay the Transcriptionist the least amount of money to see their profits which they need to stay in business. 


Of course if transcription is all you know and you don't to work in an office or get a job at Starbucks you keep going and accept the pay because we really have no control.  You have to work with what they offer you. 


9 months and it is not worth staying a year to get the BIG .002 cent raise.
Working for OSi will burn you out quick!
I DID give my notice, but got talked into staying "until the new accounts came on." nm
nm
Did you ever consider staying with them part time? I dont know if I should leave altogether or not.
And other days I just want to throw in the towel totally. Ugggg.. this MT business!
Hard to say...
In my experience, one minute of dictation is roughly equivalent to 10 lines of transcription, so, approximately 180 minutes of dictation, and figuring an average length of a report at around 3 minutes, that's probably around 60 reports.
Hard to say
what the situation is.  It is fairly common to have times here and there where there is no work in this business due to many different things.  The company may have over hired and don't have enough work.  Do you work on clinic or acute care.  If clinic and you work on only one account, is it possible a doctor is out of town?  There could be many different reasons, although I think it is somewhat strange that they can predict that there will be no work at all for you for several days (this might make me a little suspicious).  Might not hurt to try to find another part-time position to fill in the gaps.         
it is hard
to say that our profession is not going to exist. I see a high demand for experienced MTs. If you look on the occupational outlook handbook, it even says that there is going to be greater than average demand for MTs. I copied and pasted below what it says.

Contracting out transcription work overseas and advancements in speech recognition technology are not expected to significantly reduce the need for well-trained medical transcriptionists. Outsourcing transcription work abroad—to countries such as India, Pakistan, Philippines, and the Caribbean—has grown more popular as transmitting confidential health information over the Internet has become more secure; however, the demand for overseas transcription services is expected only to supplement the demand for well-trained domestic medical transcriptionists. In addition, reports transcribed by overseas medical transcription services usually require editing for accuracy by domestic medical transcriptionists before they meet domestic quality standards. Speech-recognition technology allows physicians and other health professionals to dictate medical reports to a computer that immediately creates an electronic document. In spite of the advances in this technology, the software has been slow to grasp and analyze the human voice and the English language, and the medical vernacular with all its diversity. As a result, there will continue to be a need for skilled medical transcriptionists to identify and appropriately edit the inevitable errors created by speech recognition systems, and to create a final document.



JLG hard?
If you thought the JLG phone test was hard, you are in for a rude awakening in the MT field. They are standard questions you would know if you have any experience.
Trying hard
I'm trying to like Amphion, but the platform is awful.  If I could ever get the chance to type, I could really get a good line count, but the filling in the DI screen and constant looking up physicians is killing me.  I kept track over one hour, and I had to look up 14 doctors' names and numbers and cc them.  And this is going into a separate window and then coming back to the chart, not using just a keystroke to look them up.  I love the dictators.  They're very clear, and the supervisors are adequate, not overly helpful, but pretty nice.  Right now, I'm struggling to make $10 an hour.
Yes, hard at first but
you get used to it. I dropped 2 cents a line, but the company part of the taxes worked out equally. At least I don't have to pay in the quarterly taxes anymore! Not as much freedom but if you are with a good company it helps.
Not that hard
I do the acute care on 2 accounts. What I find with Keystrokes is the accounts I do are not 50/50 ESL. I don't mind ESLs but something is fishy with other companies I have worked for when I get over 50% ESL. I am not making a good living. I can't do it with 90% ESLs and I have 17 years experience.

I am now making a GOOD living and enjoy going to work every day. I have ESLs but they are the average ESLs, not every other dictation and the accent so thick I despair.

I have some hard dictators but I am making a good living and I haven't for over 5 years. I am also not the fastest typist but I am picky, and I am still making a good living. I work on Ex-Text and the Control I is not blocked. That being the case I can check constantly if I want. I am averagin between 1500 and 1700 lines if I turn the TV off, concentrate and work. Like I said, I am not the fastest typist, but I can live with those lines.
Don't be too hard on yourself, we
spend a lot of time researching words/equipment, looking up CC docs, checking old reports to get proper dictation, etc. You have to figure that in.
It really is hard to believe...
I have been gone now for at least a month, and I cant believe how unaffected my life has been. I mean, I wouldnt leave MQ because I was afraid that I would have to start all over again and worry more about income, etc., etc. Well, stupid me, I shoulda, shoulda, ad. infinitum...
Hard to believe.
nm
not hard
The test was just a general test but beware. I took it along with two friends of mine and they told all of us we failed (we took it for QA/QC) and offered us by line VR jobs instead of hourly.  Then a month later, got called back for an interview for QA, then the next week told they hired somebody else.  Then I got an email asking if I was still interested in a position. I didn't even bother to answer.  There's got to be a reason they are always hiring for every position.
I tried really hard to believe this, but SM

I'm still trying to get past why anyone there would spend all that time and energy doing something like this when they could have just let you go.  They don't have to have cause to let you go.  


Before you call me a cheerleader for All Type, know that I have my own not-so-pleasant experience with them.  I just don't believe they (or any company) has the amount of time to do something like this.  Bottom line.  If you are as good as you say you are, then you should be employed by the beginning of next week.  Don't waste any more time on this, just apply to some companies. 


What is so hard to think out?
OP said people letting work go VR WITHOUT correcting it because otherwise they would be DOCKED. Again, I would not work at any place that wanted to dock my money and secondly you are not much of an MT to just let any and all mistakes go thru so you can make the $$. Oh, by the way hubby NEVER tells me or else.
It is hard!

My first two children, who are 11 months apart, made it very difficult to work at home.  They are 8 and 9 now... and they are SO easy now... because they play with their neighborhood kids a lot and dont really bother me much.  however, I just had a baby and she is very demanding, of course, like all babies are.  You cant neglect them.... so you have to squeeze in your time here and there... Sometimes I do 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there, as much as I can throughout the day.  Then when my hsuband is home I will work a pretty long stretch... I also work at night to finish up my work for the day.  It is hard, very hard.  I feel like I am working ALL the time... Because even when you are not working, it is hanging over your head and you end up being stressed, wondering if you will be able to get the work done on time. 


My first two children will always remember their childhood as their mom working all the time.. because that is how it feels.


My husband goes to work, puts in his nine hours and comes home and it is all over... 


If I could afford day care they would definitely be enrolled. 


Hard to believe . . .
I believe you hit the proverbial nail on the head there when you asked if Larry deliberately minimized the percentage to be deceptive . . .
Hard to get a job now, only very low sm
paying companies hiring.
Been with Keystrokes staying with Keystrokes

I was there for the promises and guess what Keystrokes is making good on those promises. 


I get vacation time, 401K, and even AFLAC.  My pay is great, always on time as well as accurate. 


I have my main account and have been given back up accounts for which I have been fully trained and am comfortable typing on.  I have great leads, great tech support and plenty of work.


Am I biased???  Yes I am biased.  I am grateful everyday that I was given the opportunity to work for Keystrokes and their team.  I am grateful that my company's owner is a fellow Transcriptionist that goes home at the end of the day and works like the rest of us so she knows what a hard job I have and I know that she is working to make things better for me because unlike other companies I have worked for she understands what it is I do.


Please accept my apologies that you were unhappy with Keystrokes and chose to move on before all of the promises came to fruition but don't begrudge those of us that stayed loyal and are now reaping the benefits of a GREAT COMPANY WITH GREAT BENEFITS, LOTS OF WORK AND THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THERE ARE MANY MORE GREAT THINGS TO COME!


I just want to say Thank you Lee, Jeff, Becky, Karyn, Martha, Annette, Paul and everybody else in the office for all that you do.


It's going to be hard to believe this since they've already
Or they'll change it again once it suits their purpose. 
Think long and hard.

Do you want to work for a company that doesn't pay any down time for a platform that goes down almost every day? Even when it's working, it has significant sound quality problems.  Do you want to wait an entire year before getting even one minute of PTO?  Account instructions that are pages and pages long, very confusing and poorly written?  Do you want to do VR or transcribe?  Did they mention their goal of getting most if not all accounts on voice recognition, and then they're going to pay you roughly half of what they promised you now?


A higher line rate is only good if you can get lines, don't run out of work and work a platform that's Transcriptionist friendly and doesn't go down every other hour.  Unfortunately, you're not going to find those things at Transcend.  Maybe they're hiring you to replace me because I couldn't take it any longer and accepted a job offer for what seemed like less money, but I feel I'll wind up making more if I don't have to deal with all the problems I just mentioned.


They pay every other Friday. How hard is that
duh!
A LITTLE hard to understand????
Did you ever figure out how much you would have been paid on the report you just edited and ALMOST COMPLETELY RETYPED compared to your editing pay????
Why is it so hard to get speed
with that company, are they on a slow system or something?