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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

$18 an hour but I work inhouse in a hospital.

Posted By: nm on 2007-05-16
In Reply to: hourly - aln

nm


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Around here, it's $9.99 per hour with inhouse for the first 6-12 months.
I'd still take it, but I'm not sure how the cost of living is where you are.
Try working inhouse at a local clinic or hospital.
That's what many MTs end up having to do to get their foot in the door & gain experience. IMO, that's the best way to start anyway since you have experienced people nearby to ask for help because those first few months can be very difficult. Good luck!

P.S. Agree with the other posters below that you need to specify you have your certificate in MT, not referring to yourself as a Certified MT which is a completely different thing and can only be obtained after a few years of experience & testing with AHDI. However, that brings up another topic... many MTs choose not to become certified now that AHDI has sold us out & encourages offshoring of our work. I've been doing this nearly 20 years and only once have ever been asked if I had my CMT, so it's pretty much irrelevant anyway. As long as you have experience & test well, that's what they care about.
i am an inhouse hospital transcriptionist who works at home
I am an in house hospital transcription who works at home. I get 19.00 an hour plus incentive pay which is 7 cents a line after 1,000 lines. and 7.5 cents after 1,500 lines.
inhouse work

I am thinking about going inhouse to work for a family practice group.  What is the going rate per hour or per line?  I have 10+ years experience.  It would be working for 2 family practice physicians 25 or so hours per week.  Because I have only done IC the last few years, I don't know what to charge when taxes are taken out. 


Please advise what a reasonable hourly/line rate is .  I am not sure at this point.


Thanks


 


Going to work inhouse again
Well, you would have someone to talk to besides your dogs and you might just enjoy the comaradie of other MTs. On the opposite side of the coin, it may just end up being a very competitive, cold and unfriendly place. You could try it and and prove yourself to to be a valuable MT and perhaps they would send you home to work like a lot of hospitals do now if in fact you would rather do that. If you find your home to be a comfort zone and enjoy your dogs, you may just not like working inhouse. It's your call and good luck
I am going to work inhouse again -
I just took a part time inhouse position to supplement my at home income because I am so short... and this is not the first pay period so I am in trouble.

The inhouse position is only part time, but at least I know it is enough to pay my house payment. It is also a lot less per hour, but I want some guarantees so I can stop worrying so much.
I would love to work inhouse, but...
those jobs are getting scarce. I would like to know how all us newbies are supposed to start in-house when those jobs have all been outsourced.
$10 an hour?? at a hospital ...
doing transcription ????
I now work for an MTSO, but when I was inhouse we did tend
to send the difficult dictators out (our supervisor did this). That is just part of working for an outside service. We do not get to pick and choose we get what they choose to send.
You're right. Unfortunately, in some areas inhouse work is
I keep hoping some sort of changes in U.S. laws may come to the rescue before it's too late, and the whole industry becomes offshore and automated. Because if that happens, there will be less and less reason to want to entrust one's care to an HMO.
If you cant get a job inhouse, go to a local company and work in their house.
A lot of people who I went to school (college) with ended up working for a local company to Jackson, MS, MidSouth Transcription. They worked with you and got you ....further trained shall we say. We had school, real college courses, so we were very well-trained (had to take an anatomy and physiology class that was the same as the premed students) - we knew a LOT but Ms. Torri got us employable. Try a local transcription company for a while. It will help, I promise.
Philadelphia - $25 per hour at a large teaching hospital. nm
x
Hospital MTs around my neck of the woods make $24 per hour +. sm
The jobs are out there, you have to find them.
Dad was in the hospital an hour away from NYC having a stent put in. Heard the news on the way
s
I think I misstated it - the at home people live within an hour of the hospital - sm
this is what the hospital is absolutely positively trying to avoid - having people all over the country doing the job. If the equipment breaks, if there are meetings, etc. - these cannot be done with transcriptionists all of the country.
I have 13 years experience and just started a hospital job working from home making $16 an hour

and with a really good incentive plan.  I live in the Kansas City area.  $10 seems like a low starting point even with only two years experience which is the usual benchmark for hospital MT jobs. 


It's been my experience that the low end of the pay scale for hospital employed MTs was around $12 an hour.  Also, it's been my experience that the pay offered is usually based on years of experience and how well you perform on the transcription test.


I would say if their pay is that low, they should at least be making it up with incentive and it doesn't sound like they are.


JMO


Work for 1 hour, then count your lines of the completed work - sm
either check you total characters in word (with spaces) then total them all up and divide by 65, and you get your total lines per hour. 10,000/65 is 153 lines. Or if you have a line counting program us that to figure you count, either way will work quite well. Maybe do it a few times and then figure an average over 3 hours or something like that, it will vary with the ease/difficulty of the work you are doing.
Have a hospital I work for and they consistently change work types and do line counts. (sm)
Management just doesn't understand in order to crank out the work you need to be proficient by typing the same accounts. Go figure, they just don't get it ??
the hospital I work for already has started to implement this and lessen our work
I see it every single day... they are going to EMR... meaning the doctors simply use a template already in the computer and check boxes or something... The doctor's office i GO TO actually does this too. This is why it creates tech jobs to create those templates and takes AWAY MT jobs because the doctor is no longer dictating, they are just pushing little buttons or checking boxes straight into the computer.

Personally I still think that is more time than the doc wants to take but whatever, i dont see how generic charts are good, what happened to detailed information...

But this is definitely how i see it going along. Maybe not everywhere, but plenty of places are going to go to this, it's all about saving money now isn't it???


my take is that she worked inhouse, not at home, and now wants to find out how to work at home. nm
x
Most in-house hospital jobs allow only 30 minutes for lunch! So I wouldn't call an hour lunch
"rigid."  If you are an employee, there are rules, set schedules, etc. that you have to expect. 
If you work for a hospital - how come no one from the hospital
called you?? Were they in the dark, as well?? How sad, that no one in your hospital communicates with the at home staff.
Depends on what kind of hospital? Large urban hospital or small community hospital? SM

Also, is it a large teaching hospital? If so you have to consider there will be A LOT of different residents dictating, usually a lot of ESLs at teaching hospitals, and the residents rotate out and new ones rotate in every summer. So you can't expect to get the same dictators and build up your macros because the dictators change all the time.


I would say 9 cpl would be a pretty good offer for a small to medium community hospital where you will be doing the same dictators on a daily basis.  But for bigger, urban or teaching hospitals I would want at least 12 to 15 cpl. 


Would you do all that work for 12.50 an hour?
x
Off hour work shift
"posted by wouldn't have it any other way". Thank you so much for your post! I work a similar shift for similar reasons. I don't start until 8 p.m. most nights so like you my kids are in bed before I head off to work and I don't feel gulity taking time away from them. I do work one long day on Sunday to catch up, but I start at noon so we are all still able to attend church together and my husband usually plans a daddy fun day with them that afternoon. I WISH I had done this when my kids were even smaller as I breast fed and still worked off hours so I didn't have then in daycare, but I had to pump at work and my husband had to give them bottles when I was gone.

I agree it can be tiring, but you get in a routine, and honestly do you know any mom stay-at-home or out-of-the-house worker who isn't tired?

Being there 24x7 for your kids that is dedication! :)
Off hour work shift
I should probably add that while I am working I am dedicated 100% as my office is downstairs and I work with my door closed and locked. My husband is upstairs with the children and gets up with them if they get up before I am done with my shift. So, I don't feel guilty neglecting work either because I don't. :)
If MTs want to work 10+ hour days
...more power to them.  Not me - I'm gettin' tired of this.  They're lucky if they get 6 hours out of me.  I worked 10+ hours a day and weekends when I first started.  Now, I could care less.  I may not perform 1200+ lines a day, but I have excellent QA. 
I work 4 ten-hour shifts...

Sat thru Tues. My DH is on a rotating 12-hour 3 on/4 off shift and we have at least 2 days off together. I love it; I start at 4 am but I am done at 230 and have all day to do what I want and rarely run out of work.


I think it's better to work by the hour than the line.
By-the-line SOUNDS good, but there's no control over what accounts you'll get, or how accurate the line-counting software they have is, etc. You may start out on an easy account, but as you pick up speed on it and start to make money, they'll switch you to a harder one. And when you pick up speed on that one, you'll get another harder one. And so on and so on. Benefits probably won't be as good at home, either. The only thing that's better about home is not having to deal face-to-face with management. But at least you have the security of knowing your paycheck is going to be the same each time, and won't dwindle down to less-than-nothing if you have a bad day, or a bunch of bad dictators, or no work. And you mentioned a RAISE. That's something most of at-home people will never see in our careers with any company. The only way we seem to be able increase the cpl is if we change companies. But then you still end up on that treadmill of being given work that you may do well, but you can't make money doing. They get ya coming and going.
I work for a hospital and can do in less (sm)
than 8 hours (65-char line).  Are you sure you mean per week?
Actually, I do work for a hospital now
and there are 8 of us who work from home. BUT, they have begun to do things the way the "services" do (NAMELY MQ). They stopped counting our spaces, and so forth, because it is "the trend".

Even the hospital MTs are not as safe as they used to be. We are the only hospital left in my area that has not outsourced yet, and anytime we complain about our pay being reduced (which has been several times in the past five years), we are threatened with outsourcing.

So, it probably is a good idea to start thinking of a change.
I do work for a hospital
that is the position that will be going fulltime. It is 28 hours a week now. I work at home for this very large Level 1 trauma hospital right now doing radiology. I have insurance, I have short term disability through them. I have one national as a sideline, and another local clinic as a sideline.
Well then don't come work for my hospital because...
if you type something for one of your co-workers, you have violated the confidentiality agreement signed when you were hired.  I've typed celebrity reports too when I worked for a national, that's different.  If it were the other way around would you like a casual acquaintance to know all your business?  I wouldn't.  I have the same respect that I would want.  There's 23 other MTs in my hospital.  I don't NEED to type a medical report on my children's elementary school principal (happened a few months ago).  So, get off your attitude.
I work in a hospital and sometimes we have had - (s/m)
"blanket" messages on our blackboard - or in memos - meant for one or two, even those of us who work our tails off have to read it and feel chastised. It's very demoralizing. Next time I get one of those nasty memos or emails, I intend to tell the boss that if he thinks I'm so lazy, then he can just pry his fat arse out of his genuine leather easy-chair, turn off the computer games he plays all day long, and type the #*%<)!@% work himself.
I work in a hospital
in a city with a population of like 4000 people, it is only a 23-bed hospital and I started working here a year and 1/2 ago. I make a little over $12/hr. For this area, this is great pay for any kind of job if you don't have a bachelor's degree. My mom is an LPN/office manager in a clinic owned by the hopstial and she is only making like $4/hr more than I am.
The hospital I work for will
Well some people can get away with it, others get dropped.  Why I am looking elsewhere. 
I did work for a hospital that used one of those.

They called it a 'CryptoCard' and it was about the size of a credit card.  You needed it to log onto their system--whatever number was displayed was the log-in number you were to use at that time.  It always changed....security precautions.  I never paid for it, but had to return it when the company lost that account....dumb bastids...was a great account.



the hospital I work for does that too.
They call it a Biometric Screening. When you enroll you have all the lab work done that you need.Glucose, lipids, TSH, triglycerides, etc. You also get a reduction in your health insurance premiums per pay period. Depending on what you participate in, you can also get up to $300 back at the end of the program.They have smoking cessation incentives, exercise incentives, etc. It runs from September to September. Pays usually in January, or midway through. You also get discounts on different classes that are offered, ie pilates, yoga, circuit, etc. For a reduction in my health insurance, I think it is well worth it. And I haven't heard of anybody being popped for drugs of abuse or anything like that.
When I used to work for the hospital, the ones of
us with equipment at home contracted with the hospital and worked our "second job" for the hospital to do the work when we were behind. You might ask them about that.
Hospital work
From someone who worked in a hospital first and then worked at home, sometimes in a hospital you end up doing other duties like correcting someone's else's reports because they are not there that day, or are working another shift, re-printing reports, sometimes the nursing floors or even physician calls with problems with the report (usually they are irate and blame any and every problem on transcription).   You have meetings which interfere with your ability to transcribe.  You have to be on alert for Department of Health visits.   I could go on and on.  Your line count sufferes.  Unless you get paid by the hour and get paid well, it is more trouble than it is worth.
hospital work
I got most of my first work experience at a hospital when i had no idea what i was doing. They never gave me any feedback or nothing and was there 2 and a half years. And I got paid for not knowing what i was doing. I had only had a few courses of medical terminology and they hired me in. It was a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Hospitals today though are more competitive, (my experience was over 25 years ago). So you might learn more stepping stones by working at the hospital. (i drove over 55 miles to that hospital job just to get experience in the field).
going to the hospital won't work sm
thought because we as MTs sign contracts etc etc when we work for these companies. If we go behind the company back and approach the hospitals/facilities, we can be in all kinds of legal troubles with the company itself. The rest I agree with but people have got to stick together.

Kind of goes back to 30 years ago and the big unions huh? People stuck together they got things done and working conditions improved. People busted the unions and you see what has happened over the years.

Coming from a HUGE union state (Michigan---that ought to get a few riled), I have seen what has happened when the unions are "busted." I also now live in a southern state and see what goes on here when there are no unions and folks don't stick together.

There has got to be a solution for this and I for one am willing to sign on to whatever it takes to get the job done.
As in hospital work,
discharge summaries, operative reports, consultations and history and physical.
Even to start with, $14.00 an hour is lousy pay for ANY MT work...NM
?
Maybe all this hiring with no work has something to do with the proposed 1 hour TAT?
Wasn't that kind of TAT mentioned in a company email?
That was my point. There will never be any steady work for anyone with TAT at 1 hour
I'm certainly not going to be sitting at the computer 24/7 waiting for reports to trickle in. We are so stupid to be putting up with this. Why do we stay?
Why do you say $20/hr? I work for a national, and at 11 cpl, 300 lines per hour, sm

that's $33/hour.  I'm not driving a Lexus or anything, but I'm comfortable.  Generally speaking, find a mid-sized national, big enough to have enough work for you all of the time, yet small enough to care and realize that quality work deserves quality pay.


They are out there.  Good luck!


Hired to work 40 hour week, 9-5 and then...
Then your computer goes down or you have a doctor's appt or a responsibility taking you away from the keyboard. The other two MTs on your acct have to work like crazy to keep up with a 3 MT work load and they do so like champs. Then, back you come and grab work off your schedule. This means the two MTs who covered you while you were off are not going to be compensated for working strenuously but instead, end up sharing their shifts work with you.

This is soooo frustrating.
Nationals with 10- to 12-hour window to work 8 hrs?

I did a search in the archives, but the info I found was a little outdated. Thanks for any help you can provide.


6-hour day, weekend work by choice, sm
optional access to group health ins even if I have to pay total premium, a company that understands what "IC" really means, a company that refuses to offshore US transcription, pay by gross line, pay based on quality and experience and no less than 9 cpl, but most of all,
CLEAR DICTATION!!



I wouldn't work as an MT for a lousy $7.50 an hour OR
.