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productivity...long message sm

Posted By: flybye on 2008-10-07
In Reply to: Ahhhh! Okay...work as an employee at home with - shortcake

Wow, congrats on 10 years of experience, a great schedule, rare interruptions and very good work habits! Sounds like you should have no problem being more productive! It also sounds like you just need to work smarter not harder. Let Word do more of the work for you--use simple macros (page setups and jumps), autotext (templates and normals), autocorrect (long strings of text, single words with suffixes, special function codes e.g. semicolon and the ALT+ keys), autoformat (quick bold/underline), try to stay away from the mouse (use KB shortcuts), resist the temptation to go back to fix typos on the fly (but remember to spellcheck!), take a quick break every hour to stretch and drink water, set two timers--one for how long you plan to transcribe before your next break and the other to limit your referencing time or Internet playtime--5-10 minutes max? (i use CoolTimer freeware), set payroll/weekly/daily goals, temp save frequently, proof 1x, leave blanks if you must (you have nothing to prove and nothing to gain by dwelling on the difficult!) Hope this helps! =)


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What if I want to leave a Long message?

high road, low road. we'll both get there!


Sorry, message too long, see inside
I meant instead of saying quit, or something equally ridiculous without addressing what she said, to prove what she said was untrue. It can't be done, it is all true. I am not flaming, but I have been there, done that, and am equally tired of reading from management, you're going to love this...., and then find out it equal $200-300 less a month. Just facts lady.
Thanks for the kind words. See my Very Long Message

I've been in the profession a long time and I was actually surprised that I could not do the ESL and some of the other Docs at FN.  I've written twice about FN on this board, and I tried to give some of the positives, there were plenty of those too.  When I see how the MTs at some of the big nationals have to punch in and punch out, can't flex their time at the keyboard, have to use up PTO when there's no work available, get switched around without notice, I think FN is probably a whole other, superior culture to work in.  Experience is valued, consistency and regular production is appreciated, the line count as I have said in an earlier post is always correct, the checks are on time (so didn't really need direct deposit once I got used to waiting the few days it took to cut the checks.  My direct supervisor seemed to make assumptions about some situations without asking my version of who said what when, and that was a sore point with me.  They do assess a small monetary charge when certain mistakes are made, per employee handbook this is supposed to kick in after 90 days of employment, but I got my first official notice in my first month, while I was still learning the ropes. I did get quite a few calls about jobs that I never had in my queue being missing, when I never had them in the first place, resulting in having to do them and send them right away.  I kept daily written logs so I knew that I did not have these jobs in my queue. 


The quota is 1200 lines a day times 10 in the pay period to qualify for employee status and benefits, and there were quite a few days with no work available for the full 6-8 hours it would have taken to do the 1200 at my skill level,  and I never could get a straight answer about health insurance although it was a condition agreed upon when I was hired. 


I was sorry to leave, because although I really was unhappy with the quantity and quality of the dictation I hated to just give up.  Should say the sound quality was superb, it was just the actual Docs mumbling, snorting, whatever, that made doing the work so hard, and the general attitude seemed to be to just get used to it. 


My thought on the matter would be that I felt that it might have worked out and I might have stayed with FN because of the 90 percent great people, but only if it had been possible to work in-house for a while or at least to have instant message to some of the QA people so I could ask the questions BEFORE I had to send the report in, rather than getting a marked up report, or as more usual, just an e-mail with the missing words after the audio of the report was long gone.  I don't know about you but I am best at building my knowledge of any Doc's dictating style if I can research in my books, then on the net, then inquire of the QA in charge of my account, all BEFORE sending in a report, instead it went the other way around and I often had to send in what looked like it was not my best work, but in reality was my best effort. 


They DO load their LARGE program on your computer, and although I purchased a new XP computer with all the bells and whistles for the job, the platform had many wrinkles in it, seemed to cause problems with importing the demographics, and did lock up on 3 or 4 occasions, causing a 1/2 day loss of work. 


Well that's a long post all right, hope you'll forgive me if you've made it this far, but I decided I should put down all the bad AND the good in one post to see if it helps some people make up their mind.  I'm well aware that it may have been my problem all along and that I was just not suited to the particular matchup of company, platform, and accounts. 


Good luck to everyone searching, it is a frightening and tiring process.  Hope it works out great for you wherever you decide to work. 


Current Transcender - long message
First of all, I'm not management, which is why I am posting my name. This way no one can say I am anything but an MLS.

October 5th was my 9 year anniversary with Transcend and I'm still here.

I don't post here often but I get really tired of reading anonymous blatherings about how horrible a company Transcend is to work for.

Is it the best company out there? Probably but I honestly don't know. They have been good to me for 9 years and that's all I can attest to.

Maybe I have just been very lucky to have the account managers and team leads that I have had in the last 9 years.

I see people posting about how many companies they have worked for and I am really not impressed. Instead of their transcription skills, it seems that these people are honing their testing and interviewing skills with all the job hopping they do. How can you really decide if a place is a good fit or not if you don't give it more than a couple of months?

There have been ups and downs with Transcend for sure. My curiosity gets the best of me though and I ride it out to see what happens next. I'm still here so I guess that would mean the changes, though sometimes really hard to swallow, have worked out just fine.

They pay us on time every pay period, the tech support is great, the teams are great, and they pay just as well, if not better than anyone else out there for straight transcribing and VR.

The flexibility they give us is great. They are understanding and sympathetic when our lives are twisting and turning.

Since May, I have lost 5 family members and close family friends. Talk about an emotional roller coaster.

I even dropped everything and drove to Las Cruces, New Mexico from Washington state straight through with my sister and daughter-in-law to be with my dad as he was dying in August. My managers knew my dad was ill but I literally called them from the road when I left. Karin and Linda both told me to not give it a second thought, GO and be with my dad. A lot of places won't tell you that. If you don't have the PTO, you stay put or suffer the consequences.

My production has suffered greatly, then bounces back, then I am slammed with another death. Instead of reprimand I have had support.

Probably a little more information than you needed to know but this has been my experience with Transcend.

Maybe if people were a little more honest with each other ALL of us would be better off. Good or bad experience, let them post their names.

J

I feel for you. (long message inside)
I just recently left a job where I was getting paid hourly plus production to make a lot less. It sounds absolutely crazy, I know, but I was a stressed out basketcase. They got a new operations manager not long after I was hired who was not happy about them paying a few of us hourly. They hired a couple of people for each shift and paid them hourly because the account had a lot of downtime and very short TATs on their jobs. Bogging people down with a secondary was causing the work to go out of TAT too much, so they finally decided to try the hourly plus production thing. It was working great. We were happy, the client was happy, and all the work was getting done on time. Anyway, the new operations manager was absolutely horrible and started doing all kinds of stuff that made me feel like the hourly was going to be taken away any minute. Without that, the company didn't have enough to stay for. Each day you were hearing about more stuff happening/changing. The communication was horrible.

Anyway, my point is that you can't always go by money. No or low stress is worth a lot of money to me. I know the bills have to be paid, but your health and well being are more important than any amount of money. It was very hard for me to decide on which company to go with because I had several offers. I prayed about it and took a leap of faith that I was making the right choice this time. Only time will tell, but I feel very positive about it.

Things that should be considered in addition to pay rate per line are: Cost of insurance, paid time off, schedule offered, does the company outsource (an important issue for me), what the minimum quota is, is overtime offered/expected, and is quality as important as quantity to them. The company offering a higher line rate may cost a lot more per month/pay period for insurance, which could end up balancing out the 2 cpl. Who offers the best PTO? To me, the PTO offered says a lot about how the company treats their employees. If they expect the push, push, push for high production but never want to pay for their employees to have well-deserved time off -- I don't want to work for them. I don't like being treated like a number that doesn't have a life away from the computer. Will you be expected to work a lot of overtime or will it be on a voluntary basis? Which one offers a schedule that works best for your lifestyle. I hated working every weekend, and while it was hard, I found a company that was willing to offer me a daytime M-F shift.

Anyway, just some of my thoughts that I hope will help you in your decision. I wish you the best of luck. God bless!

Sorry this turned out to be so long. LOL I actually stopped myself and could have said a lot more - believe it or not!
I'm just curious how long that lasts for you? Usually if I get a "no studies" message, sm
I have work again within the hour. I don't get how so many of y'all are out of work all the time.
Productivity
I work on Bayscribe and do 2000 lines per day routinely, sometimes 2500. I know many MTs who do this on various platforms. I think it has more to do with years of experience than with platform used (although I must admit I loathe DQS). Please don't worry, your productivity will increase over time.
Productivity of MedRite
Anyone experienced with MedRite?  Is this productive for the MT or time-consuming.  Thanks
Softscript productivity, etc.
I was looking on here to see if anyone had any suggestions about improving productivity with Softscript.  I have been there 3 months and am now literally working 12 hours a day because of the things that have been mentioned; the time spent looking up account specifics and physician names, or trying to get a question answered.  There are a few good people there though, and I was hoping with the addition of Brenda Hurley maybe things will get better.  I am an ex-MQ'r and the biggest advantage I see with SoftScript is that they do not change your accounts from week to week.  I have had the same 2 for 3 months.  I have 13 years experience and they did give me a little better wage, but NOTHING CLOSE to the 12 cpl I got with the first MSTO I signed on with many, many years ago.  I'm afraid those days are gone. 
escription productivity
How well eScription works for you has a little to do with how efficiently you navigate around in the report and a lot to do with the dictators and how well the program types up the report in the first place (meaning, does the report need few corrections or a lot?). This depends on how well it was trained on the account in the first place. If it was trained on the account by a relatively small group of good MTs then it should work pretty good. Productivitiy also has a lot to do with the dictators themselves. If you have a super slow talking doctor that you could type as fast as listening to, then that will hurt your VR productivity. If you have a doctor that jumps around a lot and confuses the program, that will hurt your VR productivity. If you have a clear doctor who speaks fast and eScription spits out a pretty clean report, then that will help your VR productivity. How well eScription does with any particular accent of any particular doctor depends a lot on how well it was trained in the first place by the MTs. If the MTs were able to understand the doctor and give a solid report then the program will learn well and probably do well. If not... well, you get the idea.
productivity takes time

start with easy stuff


a history of   aho


ti  there is


tin there is no


tine there is no evidence


tineo there is no evidence of


neo no evidence of


grno grossly normal


geo gross evidence of


radh  radiograph


 


MT Productivity of system used by Wedmedx

MTs currently working with Webmedx, please respond on your productivity with the Webmedx system.  I would greatly appreciate your response. 


Also, would like response on sound quality.


Thank you very much.


Hard to get your hours in and keep productivity up
To get a decent line count, you have to clock out when you're not transcribing. That means clock out for EVERYTHING not transcribing.

The result is you're writing/responding to email off the clock, studying account specifics off the clock, etc.--in other words, doing a lot of work off the clock.

This keeps your line count okay, but it also makes for a very long day. It's a real catch-22. If you get a good lph, you probably didn't make the hours or put in way more than your required hours to get there. If you made the hours, you probably didn't make the lph.

Sound quality varies. Have some lousier ESLs with Webmedx than a lot of places.

Software is good, aimed toward MT productivity, but for the reasons mentioned above, this may be a moot point anyway.

Look at the archives. It's interesting to see the wave of interest over various companies. Seems Webmedx is rising in interest once again. Take a look at the opinions a while back, though. You'll get a clearer picture if you don't just go with whomever is popular at the moment.
How 's productivity working in this compnay?
xxxxx
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.
Here's the productivity tools site

https://secure.bayscribe.com/expander/


I wish I could help you with transferring the expander, but I can't.  MIne doesn't work in Bayscribe (I use Stedman's Smartype) so I type it in Word and then cut and paste into Bayscribe.


Good luck with your expander!


Question re: your amazing productivity
I have read a couple of posts now which stated that working with Chartscript decreased their productivity tremendously. In all my years as in the biz, Chartscript is all I've ever used and it makes me wonder if that is contributing to my lack of productivity. Also, I am interested as to where you can work to make the type of line count you have - I think I'd throw myself a party every day if I reached levels such as that!!
How is MW's MeriT program as far as productivity goes? just curious

easy to learn, but not good for productivity
.
How can a message be confidential if it posted on a public message board? nm

sm small message or see message...geesh..nm
x
please don't put nm or call yourself nm if you have a message - nm means no message -sm

nm means no message.   sm means see message.   if you call yourself nm, then people might not click to read the rest of your post. 


just trying to help.


ps. if the money is there, why does that particular person's balance say zero?


No problem :) No matter how long, it is too long for me - I am broke the day after payday. Kids wi
do that to you!

I know that they have worked very hard to make sure that checks are never late and I can say that in the past two years, I have had one problem (2 days late) and in the past 18 months, they have all been on payday and perfect.

I know that there are a lot of hard feelings in MT in general. I also know firsthand (and I am not mgmt) how hard KS has worked to get things going good.

I would not want to walk in an MTSO's shoes for any amount of money, but that's just me. I like to finish my work for the day, forget about work when not working and get paid on payday. I never want the other things that go with mgmt or owning a company of any kind :)
They definitely rip you off with your line count. Figured this out long ago and quit long ago
x
I can't give you the name of the message board, but it is not a free message board (HINT). There
Monitor, I hope this post is okay.
What really sucks is that I looked for a LONG, long time -sm
before joining DRC - wanted a highly reputable, not-too-big co. that was LOCAL, and that treated its MTs humanely. I'm very happy with DRC & had planned to stay with them permanently.
But that could be Leave a Message or Little Message! LOL
nm
Congrats! :) SM = see message. NM (no message)

Long, long history of not paying...and
similar posts have been made here in the past few months. Everyone thinks they will be different, and then they end up coming back here to warn others that they don't pay.
but those were long, long lines for
most of the reports. You could make more with a 65-character line count.
please see message
I was told that they do outsource a very low number of jobs, but I have yet to find very many who don't now.  At least they're honest about it.  They have different platforms for different accounts, and the one I'm working on pays for spaces, headers, footers, etc., and I really like it. They are hiring right now.
Please see message-----
I am a radiology transcriptionist who has worked at a hospital for the past 5 years.  Due to medical reasons I can no longer make that commute every day and I'm looking for an at home job.  Reading through all the posts here is so discouraging.  If so many of you who have worked at home for years don't know who to trust, how do I ever stand a chance?  I haven't applied to any companies yet.  I'm hoping some of you who do radiology and are happy (or at least not miserable) can give me some guidance.  Thank you.
See Message
I think it is the same few people doing all the complaining. They all sound very similar.

I wouldn't worry about too much of it.

Start with the big nationals and see if you like them. If you don't, go with smaller nations, then MTSOs, etc.
My message

I just went through all the posts and read them about Keystrokes.  I am an ex-employee of KS.  I want to know why some of these MTs are being so degraded like they are by current KS employees.  There are 2 different types of negative posters.  There is the disgruntled employee who likes to stir the pot.  Then there is the ex-employee who had real issues and problems with a company and posts their experiences and opinions about such.  I see many ex-KSers posting about just that.  Their experiences.  The things that they know best about KS, the things that happened personally to them while working there.  Then I see current KSers being combative in their words, degrading, very unprofessional and I am shocked. 


A Keystrokes employee, maybe management, has come on here and publically named quite a few names as the owner's of these negative posts.  Naming names publically without any knowledge or proof that is the person that they are naming.  There is no evidence based on any one of these posts that points unwaveringly that it is any of these people whose names have been flamed.  No one at Keystrokes can possibly know who they belong to based on the content of the post, as many, many ex-KSers have had the same complaints over the years.  It is simply impossible.  I find this very unprofessional and unethical. 


Lee has posted on this forum many times, lashing out, being nice, getting on her "soapbox."  But I am quite sure given the history that she has also posted on here without placing her name with the post.  I know that a current KSer has stated that Lee always posts her name with her post so that everyone knows it is hers.  But as any simpleton would know, you could post anon just as easily.  I want to know why any current KSer, or anyone else for that matter, would be surprised to think that people are considering Lee as the owner of some of these current posts since we have all seen how Keystrokes maintains a history of flaming people publically in a dirty, under-handed way.  It is too far a stretch to imagine that she could post hurtful things, untruthful things without leaving her name? 


I am sure that there are a lot of MTs that have a good experience at KS and can understand their wanting to defend their company.  But this does not take away from the very real fact that many have had some terrible issues with this company.  It is evident in the pattern that has long since been set.  There are too many MTs that state the same complaints over too long of a period of time.  No amount of good publicity can deflect from this truth.


I do know that if I so happen to see my name publically expressed on this forum by anyone at KS in response to any of these posts, there will be some serious repercussions for KS.  I think that this needs to stop immediately and the staff and MTs at KS need to buckle down and cool off and remember what it is exactly that they are doing. 


See Message

This was the worst company that I have worked for in 30 years! Their platform is horrible! If you want to talk to Indians every day, then go work for them! This was not the company for me,


I could barely make 1300 lines per day, and I was on 4 accounts! Supervisor was like talking to a brick wall, I don't think she has ever transcribed a day in her life.


I tried to make it work, I really did, but when it came down to it, I have become acustomed to making enought money to afford bread and milk and wasn't going to be able to working at Heartland!  


See message--I put nm, but there was one
But the new platform SUCKS, and you can't edit 40% more lines on the new platform.  I would guess on average maybe 20% more lines, but definitely not 40% on an every-day basis--only when there are a couple of the better dictators on.  And even if I could, I would have liked to know ahead of time
DQS. (no message)
nm
see message -
I did not start working because I was NEVER TRAINED...how can you start working on an account and not have any training? I'm good, but not psychic for IDs and account specifics! What I'm leaving out is all the calls to the office and emails to the office, the cursing and tearing out of my hair trying to find a job again after accepting this position. I spoke directly with Lee - she hired me, and I felt she was someone I could work with....never more wrong in my life. Please don't start accusing ME of leaving something out when your company left ME out in the cold.
P.S. to see message
P.S. - by the way, all these messages will soon disappear as soon as someone tells the office, and they will have them all taken off so future job seekers will not see these warnings....just watch, happens all the time.
See Message
I have been in that situation and here is what I did..

I called the hospital to inquire of their transcription service they use, told them my situation, and they gave me the name of the company they are with as well as the person to contact and the contact number.

You should ask if there was a problem with quality or if there were any quality issues, just to be sure that was not the reason for it going with another service.

If that was the reason, they may be reluctant to give you any information.

Good luck!

In my case, it was $$$$ and they needed a full EMR, which the service I was with could not provide. They were very happy with the quality, and actually were pretty eager to get me to go with the new company.

Best of luck and I hope it works out for you.
see message
Try Oracle (OTI).  They hire part-time, and everyone they hire is an IC.  Very nice people.  There is a lot of work all the time, and the pay is good too.
See message not nm....nm
nm
Thanks (no message)

NO!!...no message
nm
See message.

I worked for Medquist in California, so I can't speak for you where you are working.  You are an MT right?  Medquist is currently offering huge sign on bonuses to try to attract qualified people.  They are begging for people, so I think if you are half way good they are going to try every way possible to keep you with them.  I think they need people badly.  Have you been doing this a long time?  There are just so many advertisements for MTs that believe me be you will get a job right away if you are willing to work for little.  That is the unfortunate fact of it as far as I can tell.  I am slowly rooting around, sifting through all the bull shit, trying to find a place that pays well and has a little integrity, i.e., provides medical insurance for a not too many lines and is not just a bunch of uncaring liars who want to waste my time.  I just quit MQ about two weeks ago after being at the same company for the better part of a decade, even if they were not always MQ.  I took a huge pay cut.  I was being paid by the gross line and they had me buy a computer and then started counting the lines differently.  I do not know how they were counting them.  I had no way to verify it and I was just so pissed off I couldn't stand to work for them any longer.  I think you need to go to the drug store and pick up some Benadryl (its harmless and it will make you sleepy) get a good night's sleep and if you are still nervous about losing your job at MQ start looking around and comparing.  You'll be just fine and you will like working at home a whole lot better than putting on make up, getting dressed, fighting traffic, etc., to get into the office.  Good luck and good night.


message to jlw
If you would like to email me privately i can answer any questions you may have.  I curently work for DSG and unfortunately sometimes on this board all you get are disgruntled employees.  cortni414@ameritech.net
see message
Try M2ComSys.
see message
We are not trying to be sneaky. An ad had gone on a website about four months ago, and even though it stated no recruiters, no services and no freelancers - guess what? TONS AND TONS AND TONS of what we asked NOT TO respond, did respond.

We are located in the northeast part of the United States. I know that when people hear northeast they automatically think SNOW!! But actually our winters are very mild here.
Yes (see message)
The VR must be the good thing about it because they also can use it for transcription and it's a lousy transcription program.
See message.

I didn't say it was a difficult program to use.  It isn't difficult.  It's just erratic.  I never know when it's going to be working or not working, and the voice quality is terrible.


It can't hold a candle to Voice Wave as far as sound quality.  BeyondTXT sound quality is terrible.


Please see message
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/MTstars/message/4

It looks like it was just posted this summer. It's the second ad down on the page.