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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

if I remember correctly, isn't that Spheris' India department?

Posted By: emptyMT on 2005-12-03
In Reply to: Anyone know anything about Cbay at all in Maryland. Do they only send their work to India. - MTPA

Supposedly over 4000 employees, JUST for that India account, according to Advance Health Magazine...


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Around $300-$350 for both of you, if I remember correctly -
I've only been there 1-1/2 months. You have to wait 3 months before you're eligible for insurance, but your PTO they say you can use anytime. I'm so surprised how fast it adds up. I already have about $200 PTO.

Hope that helps. Good luck.
If I remember correctly, the pay is about 3-5 cpl and
they use a system I was unfamiliar with. I declined their offer.

But hey, if it suits you, go for it.
In their defense, if I remember correctly, their name
was very similar to at least 1 other and possibly 2 other transcription companies.  I don't know if that was the reason for the change or not. 
It DID have a spellchecker, but a really poor one, if I remember correctly. nm
s
Nope, but if I remember correctly you have to do a physical and all that jazz wherever you are.

This was back in 2005 when Diskriter first landed the Florida hospital.  I worked there and had to actually take a three page form to my doctor to fill out.  I had to pay for my own urine drug screen and TB test administered for a local lab and provide the lab with a postage paid envelope to mail the results directly to the hospital in Florida.


I put up a fuss because I thought all that was a little much for a remote MT position, especially when you consider that I would probably never set foot inside the facility so who cared if I passed my physical and got a TB test?


I can certainly remember Edix and the change to Spheris....
Hi Miss Willy..I certainly remember the Edix days. I LOVED Edix and haven't found a company that truly yet matches what they were and how much they appreciated their MTs. I stayed through the switch, unfortunately, and then left just a little bit later. Spherix really was not the best place to be. Maybe it was because of the changes, but I really disliked it and had to get away. Probably should be grateful that we are both out of there, because they are a global company now.
SPHERIS IS IN INDIA!!
Spheris is now offshoring to India for sure. They have an office there. I think it is a shame that they cannot treat the US MTs with the respect that they deserve, leaving us to wonder how to feed our family and pay the bills and the next thing you know...WHAM!! you find out they are in India!! WHAT A LOSER COMPANY!!!
Just went to look at Spheris India and it seems they

Spheris, India, etc. sm
They have really stepped up sending the work to India. I noted it slowly happening last year. At first, when you asked where a certain account went, they would lie to you and then find out later it went to India. As the year went on, they really became blatant with it. I quit in December because I couldn't make a living on the crap I was having to work on and sometimes, I was lucky to get the crap!

I'm sure the major changes will include a pay cut. They're good for that. Worked there for 6 years and there was at least 3 big pay cuts across the board, not including losing the good accounts.

I left them a scathing exit survey and they still sent me a letter wanting me to be rehired!
does this have something to do with Spheris India? nm
xxx
Please notice the OP was SPHERIS INDIA and NOT
On the US Spheris' web site for application of an MT position, notice this at the bottom of the page:

***Spheris adheres to the requirements above as we strive to maintain consistency and fair hiring practices***

If you bother loading in all the Flash players on Spheris India, you will see THAT is where the age restrictions are given.

No intelligent person could ever believe the US side would blantly violate US hiring laws as to put such a restriction on the US company's web site.

I have nothing to do with the company. I am just amazed at what people will contrive others into believing by not paying attention or investigating the issue at hand.
cbay is spheris' India company...
claim they have over 4000 employees, but the MTs are in India...

that was reported in the advance health magazine.
Spheris India. See Message Inside.





Coimbatore has the potential to become one of the largest Medical Transcription (MT) centres outside the US due to the advantages of a large number of student population and health care knowledge available in the city, according to Mr Suresh Nair, CEO and Managing Director, Spheris India Pvt Ltd, Bangalore, and President, the Indian Medical Transcription Industry Association (IMTIA).

The Industry, which now largely depends on business from the health care institutions in the US, could also expect to secure greater business from the hospitals in India in the coming years as the health insurance business that drives the growth of the MT industry is set to gain greater acceptance among the people here, he said.

Addressing the media here, he said the MT industry in India currently employs around 20,000 people and compared with other BPO activities such as call centre jobs, the attrition rate in MT sector was less. The size of the business generated by the MT industry annually in India was estimated at $250 million that was a fraction of the global MT industry's business volume of $12 billion. In India, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi were prominent centres for the MT industry but now the business is seen shifting to smaller cities such as Pune, Kochi and Coimbatore. The industry is witnessing a 50 per cent annual growth in the country.

He said though the US health care sector generated the largest volume of business for the MT industry in India, other countries such as Australia, the UK, West Asia and Singapore offered good potential. He said more than 50 per cent of the medical transcription work was done inhouse by hospitals in the US and this offered more opportunity for growth.

Mr Nair clarified that the medical transcription work was moving from the US to India not because of any cost advantage but because of the growing shortage in the availability of medical transcription personnel in the US. There was an estimated 10 per cent annual decline in transcriptionists capacity every year in the US because of retirement and inadequate number of new recruits joining the profession there.

He said it was estimated that India requires addition of 10,000 transcriptionists every year to cope with the demand. Apart from the Philippines that had traditionally competed with India for this work, others such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan have joined the race to get their share of the outsourcing pie. There are signs of South American nations and countries in the West Indies setting up capabilities in this field.






He said there has been a gradual migration of companies in the industry from larger cities such as Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad to smaller cities such as Pune, Coimbatore and Kochi in the last two or three years. In the last twelve months, three or four MT companies have moved to Coimbatore from Bangalore. Powered by the growth in broadband connectivity, there was also growing trend of transcriptionists working from home that offered tremendous employment potential to women.

Mr Nair expected Coimbatore to have 5,000 medical transciptionists in the next 18 months. Asked about the safeguards the MT companies have put in place to get their fee for the work done from clients abroad and to pay their employees here promptly, Mr T.P. Prabhakaran, CEO of Pradot Technologies Private Ltd, Bangalore, which also has a unit here, said the companies entered into contracts directly with the hospitals and also obtained part of the payment in advance. The MT companies have established their presence in the business and have strong relationship with their clients.

Mr Nair said a trained MT could earn up to Rs 10,000-Rs 12,000 a month, and this could go up to Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 after two years of experience.




© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu Business Line


Spheris sends most work to India. SM
They are most certainly NOT a company to work for, if you are a single mom.
Article in local paper about Spheris and outsourcing to India
Franklin-based Spheris Near Top of Medical Transcription Business
BY SHARON H. FITZGERALD

In today’s world of Palm Pilots and voice-recognition software, you might think the need for medical transcriptionists is waning. You would be wrong. Franklin-based Spheris employs more than 5,000 medical transcriptionists worldwide and is looking to hire more as its service to more than 200,000 physicians at health systems, hospitals and doctor groups continues to grow.

The world is changing because the demand for electronic medical records … is very high. Certainly there are some technologies being tried and adopted, such as speech-recognition technology or systems where the physician is required to key in his or her own information. Those are still in their infancy and hold some promise in the distant future. But for right now the work-flow habits of physicians and hospitals and the need to see many more patients and process them more efficiently is driving the demand for what we do to its highest levels, explains Harry Shaw, Spheris investor relations.

In July, Spheris was named No. 7 among the nation’s fastest-growing healthcare information technology companies. The designation was by the publication Healthcare Informatics, which also ranked Spheris 28th for total revenue. The company is the second largest in the medical transcription industry.

Spheris’ growth is in no small measure due to its December 2004 acquisition of HealthScribe (also known briefly as Avicis), which was No. 3 in the field. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, Spheris gained a workforce of more than 1,800 transcriptionists. About 1,500 of those employees work at a centralized facility in Bangalore, India. Thus, says Shaw, the transaction gave Spheris a much-needed global perspective.

To service this increased demand that’s out there, having enough medical transcriptionists to do the work is a real challenge to the industry in general. One way to tackle that increased demand is to tap the resources that are available globally, he says. One of the neat things about having an operation based in India is that a lot of dictation is done at the end of the day after hours. So we get a lot of volume that comes in late in the evening, and if you follow the sun, that’s the morning time for India. They’re just starting their business day, so we can route a lot of volume that we get late in the day to India when transcriptionists are just coming to work.

Shaw says the fact that Spheris owns its international facility and employs its workers rather than subcontracting differentiates the company from similar businesses. In addition, all Spheris’ medical transcriptionists in the United States are either full-time or part-time employees of the company.

With more than 3,500 employees and additional sites in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Sterling, Va., Spheris depends on high-tech global systems to quickly turnaround client transcription. Here’s how the technology works: Spheris provides clients with a server and whatever voice-capture system the client prefers. That might be a hand-held device or it might be a phone number the client calls. Shaw says fulfillment shops ensure that the client — as well as transcriptionists — have the hardware and software necessary to do the job. Following a patient encounter, physicians and other healthcare providers dictate details such as patient history, diagnosis and medications prescribed. The voice files are sent to a data center in either Franklin, St. Petersburg or Sterling, then passed out to transcriptionists.

The technology play is critical for a company of our size, and it’s one of the advantages that we offer in terms of cost savings, he says. He acknowledges, however, the continued existence of sneaker net, with some physicians continuing to speak into a tape recorder; then tapes are picked up at the office for delivery to Spheris.

Most of Spheris’ U.S. transcriptionists work out of their homes, where they usually receive digitized voice files over the Internet. Spheris offers the client a variety of templates, or the client may have its own format. Turnaround time is 12 to 24 hours, Shaw says, although stat service is available.

As it is known today, Spheris is the result of a small Franklin company called Total eMed, which purchased the much larger EDiX from IDX Systems in June 2003. The resulting company was branded as Spheris. In November 2004, the company completed a recapitalization in which two private equity investors, Warburg Pincus and Soros Private Equity (now known as TowerBrook Capital Partners), acquired ownership. The management team, led by President and CEO Steven E. Simpson, also invested and continues to lead company operations.

Asked if an IPO is in Spheris’ future, Shaw says the company will take a cautious approach to that. We want to make sure that we stay disciplined around the acquisition of HealthScribe, making sure that we’re fully integrating all aspects of that. … We do have a growth strategy in mind, and that certainly is an option down the road.
LOL, I have to laugh, as I just lost my acct to Spheris Global (India). nm
xxx
I hated it there, they sent good accts to India (spheris global). nm
xxx
how horrible but Acusis/DRC outsources to India, just what Spheris will do with that easy account. n
,
sorry, I mean not the HR director, not department. A recruiter is usually under sm
the HR department, but is not the director unless it is a company that is so small there is only one person doing everything. If you did a chart, there would be the HR department headed by an HR director who is responsible for the administrative things in HR, not recruiting. Most directors really are not good recruiters. Most directors are also lacking in the people skills, but they are knowledgeable in all aspects of human resource law.

Sorry to say department above. I was thinking one way, typing another.
go to the department of labor web site
and check out their TAA and ATAA page --Trade Adjustment Asisstance Program and Worker Adjustment and retraining and notification act. Congress was talking about extending benefits for people who have lost their jobs due to offshoring. My heart goes out to your all.
I have forwarded all responses to HR Department. sm
Hopefully they are doing THEIR part and contactnig people. If you dont mind, e-mail me and let me know who you are and I'll try to light a fire under them!
Department B transcription services

Has anyone ever heard of a company called Department B or older name PM&R?? I have an interview scheduled for Tuesday but I was just wondering if anyone knew anything on this company.


 


Renee


My son applied for a department store once, sm
and they asked him all kinds of psychologic questions - it was just weird.
send this to your insurance department for their
policy book. Why would you put this on this board?
I worked in QA Department for the Q about 12 years ago. sm
The last straw for me was an MT who consistently typed preformed instead of performed. She refused to change or just didn't care to go over her feedback. Manager would do nothing about it because she too worked 3rd shift. I will never go back to doing QA again. I make more money as a Transcriptionist anyway.
Contact the labor department.
They will investigate and fine them for not paying in employment taxes, etc., as by having to ask for time off, vacation, etc., that means you are an employee and not an IC.
That's a bit misleading. It is NOT just the IT department. The techs sm

who allocate the dictation files to you nothing to do with IT.  If you have a computer issue, they will get someone from IT for you, but Marie and the rest are not part of that department.  The ENTIRE COMPANY is based in India.  Yes, they hire American MTs, but the company is in India, and they at one point even lied to the MTs and said work was slow due to Christmas (this was in the middle/latter part of January), then one of the techs admitted they had outsourced to an Indian MT company. 


They are not the worst company to work for -- the pay is decent and on time -- although I never cared for the way the work was allocated and I absolutely DESPISE the fact that they are now lying and misrepresenting themselves in their ads saying they are based in Kentucky.  There is a residential HOUSE in Kentucky owned by the Indian owner.  Why not just be upfront about it in their ads?


Letter from Department of Labor
Has anyone received a letter from the Department of Labor from the state where your employer is located, indicating they are investigating the company regarding various contract laws?  I work for a wonderful company and can't imagine why they would be investigated, unless this is another way to squeeze out medical transcription companies and send everything to India to reduce healthcare costs. 
Go to the Department of Labor website

 


It is fully explanatory there.  It does not apply to at-home MTs unless they have 50 employees working within a 75-mile radius of them.


I have called the police department already..sm
I am not playing.  They faxed me the paperwork and I am giving her until Friday for a cashier's check OR money order is in my hands, she is in trouble!  LIES LIES LIES that is all she has done.
What people seem to misunderstand is that a recruiter is not the HR department. They are the sm
recruiter. HR director or department head deals with the rules of human resources, benefits, numbers, etc. Recruiter is the KEY person, the one people-oriented individual, the one who talks and gets to know the prospective employee, the one who tests and usually the one who checks the references. That person hires the people. It is the job of the recruiter in any company to hire the individual and THEN to forward paperwork to the department that needs the MT. Now, as a recruiter, I follow through within three (3) days' time to see that all the necessary contact with that individual and department has been made and if it has not been made, I put the crunch to that department head to step on it. We are dealing with people who need a job and have quit their job supposedly to work for us. No one can afford a lapse in employment unless they want a week off in between, which sometimes they do.

Too many people seem to think HR is the recruiter, but in a company with a true chain of command, that usually is not the case.

I don't know how this company operates in that area, but most of the companies I know that are in growth put an HR dept in place, have a director, and 1 or 2 recruiters. The recruiters hire. The individual departments are responsible for getting those people up and running BUT because I know how important it is to get people started and started on time and because sometimes I feel that no one can do the job as well as me (sadly), I have to follow up to make sure those people are not forgotten.

This is worrisome to me that I feel this way, but unfortunately I have come across companies that have let this happen and I do put a fire underneath the departments and it is successful.
Interview with in-hospital transcription department
and wondering what the rate is for in-house.  Ten years ago when I was an in-house transcriptionist, I was paid 13.00 an hour and 5 cpl for everything over 500 lines per day.  Just wondering how the setup is now or if that has changed.  I live in Alabama and the hospital I have an interview with, will eventually transition their MTs to working from home. 
Ortho department has testing, the others do not at this time. nm
nm
HR Department at Keystrokes is a director, a clerk/secretary sm
and a recruiter. The director is new but only does the legal stuff and is working on the benefits package, etc. The clerk is doing the paperwork. The recruiter is doing the recruiting, interviewing, checking references, passing hire info on. The pieces are in place now and you just validated what has just been put in place. I know there is talk of a second recruiter, one for radiology and one for medical records, but I think this is still in the baby stages. The HR Director heads the department but will not recruit.
Yes, turn them in to the Department of Labor and Industry for nonpayment.
Try the BBB or FTC for unfair labor practices. Send them a certified letter demanding payment or you'll sue in small claims court.
I thought exactly the same thing! Tech department must be lacking
x
I wrote to their HR department, which is the only contact I could find for them, last week, but no r
x
The formal QA department is new only started last August. Before that, it was up to the lead MT'
to do QA. That obviously did not work for them and they started a QA department.

Ortho has only done formal QA reviews.

Radiology does QA reviews but internally and only comes to the MT's if there is a problem, otherwise tells them they are doing well.


No complaints at all. Platform is super MT friendly. Great QA department.
Very happy at Medware.
Am I seeing correctly, already doing VR and
they are cutting your pay from an already low to a lower rate??
Yes, you read it correctly - sm
The platform is fairly basic.

They have made some huge improvements in it since I started editing on it but there is still some room to improve.

As with any other program, you can expect a learning curve so it's really about finding a way to make it work for you.

I have been seeing some improvement in my production (baby steps) but it would be really nice if I was at least making what I was before with just transcribing. I'm not, in case that wasn't clear.

Not to put the entire blame on the platform, I need to readjust my thinking and approach to getting my work done. It's different.

I have been very happy with Transcend for a long time. They are listening, even if sometimes they don't appear to be. It just takes a little time for them to figure out what needs to be changed in order for us (MLSs) to get our jobs done faster and easier.

Like I said, I'm trying to be patient because the last platform switch (when we went to VoiceScribe) was kind of a mess for about a year before it was really working smoothly but it turned out pretty darn good too. I still have hope for editing on this BT platform.
Spell correctly.
Maybe their line rate was low because you couldn't type well. It is atrocious
or get paid correctly. nm
x
Not paid correctly

One of the companies I have worked for for almost a year has never paid me correctly. Sometimes, it is only by a few dollars, but others, it is quite a bit. I asked them about it a few months ago and was told something like all the work you do doesn't always get over to us. I didn't really understand this, but for some reason, just blew it off at the time. Well, my last check was a little over $100 short from what the system said it should have been. When I tried to confront them about it, they won't answer my emails or the person I need to talk to is always out of the office or not able to talk. This just really makes me mad and just wanted to know if anyone else has had this problem.


Yes, CORRECTLY. Redundant.
nm
If I am understanding you correctly,
companies have no business wanting an accurate report?? There is nothing wrong with requiring 98% quality in a report. If you are a good MT, it doesn't matter how long or short the report is, it will be accurate and meet the standards for you company or facility, that is, if you want to keep a job anywhere.
If I recall correctly...
We ran out of work once while I was on that account, and they paid for no work downtime at an hourly rate.  If anyone is really interested, I would speak with the recruiter because I believe they do pay for no work available and technical downtime.
you said it correctly. In this business sm
you work when the work is there or you don't work. Its a part of the job. I never liked the weekends either but hubby and I worked around them and adjusted things so one of us was always with the kids.

Sounds like MTs now want tons of money, the 9-5 shift and nothing to enter their little world. That is great but it is not the profession. I wouldn't expect a nurse or a doctor to say they don't want to work weekends or any other medical professional so what makes us any better? If the work is there at odd hours and you work on production then you work when the work si there or don't work!
India, Michael. The MT world is going to India. Wonder why? nm
!
If you need benefits, you chose correctly.
z
Funny, I missed that one. At least she used it correctly once, LOL. nm
s