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I have been asked to transcribe some training material for my brother-in-law.  He puts together training manuals for addiction medicine counselors and has a lot of things that he needs transcribed into Word.  (They are on tapes, VHS, DVD, etc., but he is going to put them all in a wav file format for me to transcribe.)  He wants to pay me the normal going rate.

He wants to know how I would charge (word, line, job, etc.).  I have decided to do 65 character lines including spaces, but need to know how much per line would be appropriate.

I don't know if this makes a difference, but he's in Minnesota.  I am leaning toward 14 cents per line, but wonder if that is too much?

Please let me know what you think.

Chickadee

No rate is given, but the pay rate is listed as the taker getting paid by the word, five characters (no lines) constitutes a word.  What would be the going rate for those 5 words?  Any help appreciated.  Thanks.

Did anyone ever work three jobs just to try to make it as an MT?  I have an office job during the day (NOT MT) work and I work as an IC and I just got a job working part time for another national.  Until my speed work catches up with my accuracy what I'm I suppose to do?  I'm so tired and so frustrated and i refuse to quit as I enjoy the MT work but I'm so tired...

Does anyone who has experience have any advice?

Any information on this company. It is odd not to find absolutely nothing.  I have searched the internet and googled many times.  They sound real good, but do not want to get burned again. 

Thanks

Hi

I am looking into working from home. Have already run into a few scams. Does anyone have any advice ? Dont have much money to invest either.

Thank you lola

A company contacted me last week about a job.  I replied and said I would like to test.  I was supposed to test today.  I was supposed to E-mail the lady today about testing which I did early this a.m.  I sat here all darn day long and I have heard nothing.  I blew off my day off from my part-time gig to sit here and wait around for a test that never happened.  These companies want work back in perfect form ASAP yet they cannot keep an appointment/promise!  Ugh!

I have no clue what is involved in being an independent contractor. My situation is that I took early retirement and cannot earn more than $900 a month gross and that is not going to work for me. Even part time is going to be more than that. Is there any way my husband could be the contractor and pay the taxes and claim the income and I could be his "employee"? Or is that not legal or what? What do you have to do? Do you have to get a tax ID number or how does independent contracting work? And if I have to get a wave pedal or C-phone, where and how much? I always worked at home but for a hospital system that set everything up for me. Gosh I hate to be so stupid.....  Any companies I need to stay FAR away from? LOL.

Thanks everyone for your advice and support.

I was a little surprise this morning when the neighbor guy knocked on my door.  I was expecting to be read the riot act or something but got just the opposite.

Turns out that the guy is the girls father but the woman who I assumed was her mother is actually the aunt (father's sister).  His wife died in a car accident 3 months before they moved here.  The girl was in the car with her mother and younger brother.  Dad was out of town on business and it took them almost two full days to find him because the girl was in shock and refused to speak for almost a month after.  Both her mother and her baby brother (3 years old) died in the accident.  The aunt is living there to help him with the daughter he said the girl has had severe psychological problems since the accident. 

He was very apologetic for going off the deep end yesterday and that he normally is a rational man.  I really felt bad for the guy.

He also told me that he appreciated us letting his daughter come over and play before but would understand if she was not welcome back.  Said that his daughter completely withdrew from her friends at her old school and she is still in grief counseling twice a week.  Playing with my kids was the first time since the accident that she had made any effort at socializing. 

I never would have suspected that she had been traumatized this way.  She was quiet and didn't say much about her family but gave no indication that this had happened. 

The guy was here long enough to basically pour out his life history and I truly felt sorry for him and even more for his daughter. 

I'm still going to be very watchful for now but there's room for a second chance after him having made the effort to clear the air and explain things.  I think I will just sit on this for a few days and then invite the three of them over for dinner in a few days and try to start over.

I may be a sucker I know.   I would rather have a friendly relationship with my neighbors and if we can do this, well, it would be better for everyone.

I was wondering if they would work or not.  Also, how many use a satellite or wireless connection for work?  How good is it? 

Thinking of moving to an area where I cannot get DSL or cable.  Also need a new PC and here a netbook is about the only thing I can buy right off without having to wait weeks to get it. TIA

I've been an IC for eight years and have always charged 11.5 cents per 65 character line.  Lately I've been getting doctors calling me; I tell them my rate, and they poo-poo it!

Had a large cardiology account I was doing for two years and did a great job, so the doctors and OM told me and I know my stuff well enough to know I did a GREAT JOB for them.   I was billing them $3900.00 per month.  One of the docs all of a sudden decided I was earning too much and offered me a flat rate of $3,000.00 per month for an all you can type scenario.  I told him I couldn't and wouldn't do that period, so they replaced me with a service who is now charging them 9.5 per line!!!

I'm fed up with these cheap skate doctors.  Any of you experience this lately.  Do you feel that 11.5 is too much to charge a line?  Next these docs will want us to transcribe just for the honor of doing it!

I'm so fed up and getting sick and tired of doctors offices calling me obviously looking for something for nothing!  The first thing out of their mouths is, "What's your line rate?????"  It's like they don't care about anything else; i.e., accuracy, quality, education, etc., etc. 

Thanks for letting me vent!

I am working on a platform called Scribe.  Does anyone know how to find their line counts in this program? Thanks

The doctor said:   "He denies bloody or cloudy urine, pain with urination and vaginal bleeding."

I crack up laughing and quote this to my husband, stating the patient's gender.

And his response was, "I hope so."
(think about it)  

');

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Roman numerals - Posted By: Romey

Someone posted a whole document they recieved from their workplace on the correct way to use Roman numerals versus regular numbers and staging of cancers, I meant to to make a copy, but forgot, could you please repost this, Forever Thankful. 

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Pathology Compensation - Posted By: Tess

Can anyone tell me what the average compensation is for transcribing the gross only for pathology, by report, not lines?  Thanks so much for your assistance.

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Do any of you have AT&T? - Posted By: Ticked with internet service

I have had cell, land and internet with them- was told I had to have land phone in order to have my internet (this was some years back but told that). I called today because was charged for long distance - I asked them years ago to take off long distance as did not want. The charge was $4 something today- they told me that came with my package - if I took that off would delete a $5 savings on my cell phone plus $5 on my land- told them really did not need land but had to have- they say no- now I can have what they call stand alone service- I get a reduced rate on my land phone but GET THIS, NO SERVICE. You pay for something but cannot use. What kind of malarky is this? I hope that internet service via satellites is on the horizon.

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Anyone using a Kodak M753 (sm) - Posted By: Anon

digital camera?  Thinking about this as a gift and welcome all opinions.

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To those who are in bad marriages - Posted By: .

I have been in this business for a long time as a supervisor. I have heard more than a few gruff remarks from MTs spouses while talking to the MTs on the phone - but yesterday took the cake. I was talking to an MT whose husband said something to her (yelling) while she was on the phone. I then hear a very loud smack and hear the phone crashing to the floor - then the call was disconnected.

I am an older person (40s) who has never been married. I have dated some men over the years who I felt did not treat me the way I deserved to be treated (after a while) so I dumped them. I have a very low tolerance for crap. I simply refuse to put up with it.

I really feel sorry for women who allow themselves to be abused and disrespected by their spouses and significant others. The young lady who I mentioned above did call me later - she was okay. But will she be okay the next time?

Why do women put up with this type of thing? I get lonely sometimes, but I'm happy. I would not trade peace for anything in the world. No man is worth being miserable. I will never understand it.

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Can someone help me out? - Posted By: MtLingo

Okay, I have been an MT for 9 years, just haven't really needed to apply for jobs or anything and I am very confused at the new ways the pay is described.  Can someone help me out.  I realize that you can be paid with or without spaces, but what does it mean when you are told you get pad for "BLACK KEYS ONLY".  All of my keys are black, including spacebar????  Also, what does "GROSS LINE" mean?  Thank you so much:-)

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Protrans - Posted By: chilly

Any info on Protrans in Nevada?  PLEASE!!

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C-Phone Manual - Posted By: Megan

Does anyone have a CPhone manual?  I have found where I can buy one but I was hoping that someone might have one here they might email me..  Money is on the tight side.

Am just now getting back into transcription after a short period away from it and I can't remember all the darn programming and keys..  LOL

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All Dictaphone EXSpeech users, do you have advice.. - Posted By: HELP!

on how to increase line counts? Can we all list a few "tricks of the trade" here or things that have helped you? Been on EXText for years but fairly new on EXSpeech (now on EXEditor), but I know I am probably not using the system to its full potential. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated!

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Do any of you wear gloves while - Posted By: transcribing?

And if so, what kind?

My hands get very cold while I type, which makes them stiff and therefore makes it harder for me to type.

Have any of you found that wearing a thin pair of gloves maybe with just the fingertips cut out helps this at all?

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earning ENOUGH as an IC - Posted By: jojoTHEmt

Hello all ... I'm considering leaving my hospital job to work from home f/t.  But if i work for a national, as an IC, it seems I'll be luck to make $20 an hour.  I'd have to work like a dog, all day long, to earn $150 bucks.   And of course that has no benefits in that wage !

My ques is - how do you guys who work f/t from home for transcription services - do it ?  How do you make enough $$ to pay all the bills, and then some?  do you work p/t and do this as a supplement ?

It just seems it will be very, very hard to make what I earn now at the hospital.  Thanks! JoJo - New Jersey

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Pimpin yo ride - Posted By: msbeanctr

It you had it to do again (being a teen with a hooty of your choice) what ridge would you pimp out.  I am a child of the 70-80s so mine would be an 82 IROC camaro.   Rim it out and the sparkly black paint.  Mild tint.

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math people, please help me--sm - Posted By: Debra

Current pay  0.1122 cpl    $18.54 vacation/holiday pay.

Company bought.  Am now being offered 0.095 cpl and $13.50.  What is the percentage of my loss?  Am so upset about this cannot think.

 

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What color is the background of your screen for - Posted By: work? Mine is white, but it's too bright. nm

nm

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paying for spaces question, sm - Posted By: roadrunner

when the company says you get paid for spaces, shouldn't that mean all spaces you type? where i work, we get paid for spaces; however, i noticed recently that in our system when viewing old reports for questions that all the double spaces was changed to single spaces. i am talking about like two spaces between each sentence. i know the system is changing it as i also looked up reports that i, myself, typed and i always double space. not really sure if they are counted in our line counts or not as the system does our line counts, but i am gonna try to play with it and see if i can figure it out.

my question is, is this standard to change the double spaces to single spaces? i am thinking maybe the acct requires that but our specifics say to double space in between sentences. sounds to me like a way to cheat us out of some line count; what do you think?

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SharpHearing - Posted By: Thelma

Needing info about www.sharphearingtec.com; the organization is

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Template line count subtracts from my pay (sm) - Posted By: Beth

When companies use a template line count, but I have to remove some of the nonapplicable part of the template, it actually REDUCES my line count! Please share any experiences you have had with this problem. I can't believe this! How have you MT's out there solved this? Any tips? This is ridiculous.

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Stedman's software issues - Posted By: Lynn Loving

Over a year ago I had to wipe my computer out and reinstall software but I didn't reinstall my Stedman's Plus Spellchecker 2004. I went to do it this week because I have a need and it isn't working. I used Microsoft office XP professional, version 2002.

Does anyone know any tricks to kick start this into working. My husband mentioned that sometimes service pack 3 is an issue for new software.

I also am having an issue getting Quick Look Electronic Drug Index 2006 to work also. What a pain. Thanks for any help.

Lynn

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For Tech Support (or anyone else that knows!) sm - Posted By: MSMT

I want to save my autocorrect entries so that when "tech support" starts monkeying around with the platform they don't delete them all like they did.  How do I do that?  I can't get them to save in Extext.  Thanks!

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I can't believe I missed Dancing with the Stars last night. - Posted By: Drew fan

Fill me in.  How did my favorite Drew do?  ( I don't want to hear anything too bad about Drew.)  What about the others.  HELP!  I need a rerun.

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How long will it take to start making money as an MT? - Posted By: Elena

I'm new to this career. Have only been working for 6 months or so. Does anyone have any advice for a newbie? How do you make a decent living on 6 cpl? Any advice for increasing speed? Thanks.

MB

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