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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

Any former Spheris employees employed elsewhere now and deliriously happy?

Posted By: Cindy M on 2008-02-24
In Reply to:

Would love to hear from you.  Seriously considering looking elsewhere.  Thanks much.


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Spheris gives PTO to part-time employees.
..
I work for Spheris, and I'm very happy there. sm
Good accounts, steady work (not counting the holiday slow-downs that all companies go thru), good support, and great people. I'm very happy there and would recommend them to anyone.
MQ will buy Spheris and set the captives free. Don't worry, be happy. MQ to the rescue.


Little snow globe from Spheris with "All around the world, Spheris
aa
Currently employed
Hi. I have been with then since 02/2006 and extremely happy with them. As of this past month, I actually became and employee instead of IC and will be getting insurance. Hope this helps.
I think 30-40K if employed

There are variables.  Is the person working 10-12 hours days and pretending they are working 8?  I know many who are.  If so, income should be considerably higher.  People with their own accounts can usually make 50-60K or more. 


For a 6-8 hour days, 5-day weeks, as an employee with experience, I don't think this job should ever pay less than $30,000.  It takes too much concentration, medical knowledge and complete isolation to pay any less.  Hospitals pay at least that and you are expected to take breaks, lunch, talk with other staff and physicians, get sick sometimes, have bad days and get bad authors sometimes, take vacations and generally be a human being.  Working from home, most of us hunker down and feel guilty if we have anything else we need to do, then making it up at all hours of the night or our supposed days off.   


 


Are you self-employed with your

If you are employed at
MQ, the reason people are making 8 to 10 cpl is probably because that is what they were hired in at when their company was bought. They probably have not had raises either.
I most certainly am self-employed

Obviously, you work as an employee.  Sure hope you got a raise to change from what you were hired at.  Again, not all of us can be that flexible to just change.  We do have a life.  Furthermore, anyone can dial in and listen to a dictation on the weekend if they need it that bad.  Just call the floor get the identifying numbers, call the number, plug in the identifying patient info and badda bing, you've got the dictation.  It used to happen all of the time at the hospital I worked at because they didn't want to wait on the outside MTSO that was soooooooooooo slow.  TAT was never met or hardly ever.


Are any IC Incorporated since they are self-employed?
Just wondering if any IC out there have set themselves up as a Corporation.  Being tax illiterate, it seems like I do not have many deductions when it comes time to file.  My DH is looking into opening a business to provide a service and someone with a similar service suggested to him to file for corporation to be able to receive more tax benefits and deductions.  My CPA over the last 10 years has never suggested it to me even though I ask him what I could I do for more deductions.  Is this possible?
The first rule of being self-employed is that

you set your own line rate.  However, we all know that NONE of the MTSOs hiring IC MTs allow us to set our own rate.  They "offer" a rate, and we accept if it's OK.


I worked for a real cheapo doctor when I first started out.  He paid hourly and kept riding my backside to type faster because he only wanted to pay for the actual time dictated instead of the time it took to transcribe.  More than once I told him that it takes an average of 3:1 typing to talking ratio to get it done.  It worked out to be $.03 per line.  I dropped him like a bad habit.  He bounced through a few other transcriptionists who all quit on him before he wound up having to pay to outsource to a service.


Ind 401K for self employed

There is a new type of retirement fund for self employed business people where you can put money in as both an employee ($15,000) and as a percentage of your profits as the business owner.  It is called an Ind 401K.  Here is a link...


http://www.troweprice.com/common/index3/0,3011,lnp%253D10264%2526cg%253D960%2526pgid%253D10057,00.html?scn=Low-cost_plans_with_&rfpgid=7622


I wanted to go with T. Rowe Price but they do not allow loans, so i decided to go with Oppenheimer.


Self-employed-need advice

I am a self-employed MT, trained by the office I have been contracted with for 9 yrs.  When I started, it was myself and an in-house Transcriptionist working for 4 physicians.  I gave a 24 hr TAT.  I had one 18-month-old child when I started, and was able to work around 6 hours a day.  I drove about 40 min to work and back, picked up tapes, working sometimes 6-7 days/week.  Since then, they have hired 2 more drs. and 3 NP's.  The in-house MT retired, but they did hire another MT who works at home.  I had another daughter, and a set of twins in those 9 yrs.  They have always known I try to work around my children's schedules.  As I am sure many of you do, I was getting up in the middle of the night working, working on and off throughout the day and at night.  The new MT and I are backed up now and we can't possibly get it all done.  It is more like 48-72 hr TAT.  They call all through the day asking me to stop what I am doing right then and search the tape, type the note and fax it ASAP.  I picked this profession to work around my children's schedules, not have to push them aside at every moment to cater to the office.  I do not have a certificate in MT, was just trained by this office.  I checked in to other places, but the pay is much less as I get paid 65 char/line including spaces at $.125/line.  The reason they pay so well is because they know I probably can't get on somewhere else with no certificate and no experience in any other field.  They want to make sure I stay there.  Also, the driving is ridiculous.  They refuse to get technology for telecommuting.  They refuse to hire someone else.  On top of that, I was just diagnosed with IST, and am on Toprol and not capable of working the hours I once did.  Is there anyone else out there who understands or has any advice?


yep, two. I'm self employed in three ventures. sm
1. I am a soapmaker at www.sarva.biz and, as of recent, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5120869

2. I am a yoga therapist in the style of www.pryt.com

And also studying to be a yoga teacher in another lineage.

Yes, I do all of this with bilateral CTS. I intend to specialize in yoga for CTS sufferers and am nearly there with my education.

Turn lemons into lemonade :-) It's those other things that motivate me to finish my MT work every day, and my MT work informs my yoga therapy so tremendously.
Happened to U but are you now employed,
x
Not good ones and so far I am still employed
x
Self Employed Question

Hi all. I am new to this board. I have a home based secretarial service and do both medical and legal. I have never worked for a big company, just attorneys and docs as well as sales profesionals with no secretary. I have always charged by the page, but I have a possible new client that wants me to bill her by the line. Is .12 per line reasonable or too little for medical? Are there any other home based self employed individuals who can offer advice on per line charges?


Thanks!


 


 


My friend has been employed by the ...sm
same hospital that hired her as a newbie. She has been there 10 years. She does good. She has her hourly wage plus incentive pay and benefits. She has one of the good jobs. They outsourced the rest of the MT work except radiology, which is what she does. They outsourced the radiology also a few years ago to an MTSO and she went to work for the MTSO who got the radiology account from her hospital. Well the doctors there in radiology at the hospital raised some cane and demanded the inhouse MTs be brought back. The work was bad from the MTSO MTs and they demanded their MTs back. She was lucky. That is what you call appreciative doctors who value the MTs who do their transcription.
Don't cap happy holiday season. Cap the others and Happy Holidays alone. nm
xxx
Self-employed even worse getting paycheck
Bill three doctors at the end of the month, and still waiting two weeks later, sometimes three. I even stay up all night and do a 12h turnaround time. You'd think they would see I was paid in a reasonable amount of time!
He can do it. If he is becoming self-employed, he can cut his child support
too if he does not make a profit for the first few years.

Better to be prepared.
When I was a W2 employee, hubby was self employed
and it was enough to cover his taxes and sometimes we got a refund.
MT week - did anyone employed with Diskriter get
anything for MT week??? Just curious - I didn't, but I see that they gave out an American Express gift cheque.
Taxes regarding self-employed = getting an accountant
Get yourself one, and he'll explain everything you need to know.
Try the National Association for the Self-Employed. SM
They have lots of options. 
I'm already employed. I feel my company has sent
a
ditto - am self-employed, 1-person
for local physicians.

There is no one else to have do them. I just type them and forget them as you did.
Medical Insurance for Self-Employed
Hi Everyone:   Does anyone know of an medical insurance that is a PPO Plan for me and spouse in Tenn that does not cost an arm and a leg?  I have 2 job offers, one is a company but cannot afford their insurance for both of us, so I will take out on me only and the other job offer is IC at 13 cents a line which is good for this area.  Help!!!!
TaxAct and TurboTax will work for self-employed.
No need to buy the expensive business versions of them either. I don't know about TaxCut, but I'm sure it's the same. No, you do not have to prepay your taxes quarterly either. The first year is considered a "trial run" meaning that you need to establish a base pay before they can establish a quarterly tax payment amount due. I've been self-employed for 10 years now and have never made quarterly tax payments because I've never owed.
Yes, they can quit their job, go self-employed or IC, and work under the table.
However, the courts aren't stupid. There is a worksheet the judge does based on the past several years' worth of taxes that XX is the amount this person is capable of making, so therefore XIX is their child support amount. It's legal and binding. There's no changing it by trying to scam the system. It is difficult to enforce but that's why our state has deadbeat parent laws. My friend's ex wound up in jail with liens against all of his property for not paying his child support.
You know who I see working at Walmart? People who may not be employed elsewhere.
Old people, under-educated people, etc. I doubt those workers were ever paid better elsewhere and they seem quite content with Walmart who gives them the dignity of a job. I know one lady in particular who seemed a little "off" and she was so happy to participate in retirement plan. My son worked at Walmart as a temporary pharmacy tech and also liked the 401K offered to even the lowest part time employee. I think Walmart is good for the poor and unfortunate people of the world and I know I have not walked away from Walmart thinking I had been cheated or people who worked there were unhappy. Same with Sam's Club.

Sorry for the open your mind. I actually did not mean that as an insult either. It's just that some people are so angry they refuse to listen to new ideas and the other side of the story.

I am sorry for the small business man but I am just as sorry for the MT whose job is going to be obsolete in the near future. The times are changing and we need to face it and deal with it. It is what it is.
Thankfully, self-employed so I don't have to deal with the likes of you.
What an arrogant bitchy know-it-all you think you are. You are laughable. I'm sooo beyond you. Later.
Your national is liable for SS and Medicare tax not you. They thinkyou are self employed. nm
:
NASE (National Assocation for Self Employed) has insurance sm

but not sure how expensive it is or how much it costs to join NASE.  Their website is www.nase.org.



Good luck!



My claim was denied b/c officially, I was still employed but we were out of work. Crazy. nm
nm
I look at the jobs posted and tons of MTs are applying. I am employed but not terribly pleased with

prefer OPs and have done MT work for about 16 years.  I have worked for MQ for 11 years for the Univ. of Pa. which they lost and now I am working for a small company in Michigan with just tons and tons of crap work.   I would like an IC job with OPs if possible. 


Yes, they have a lot of employees
and no offense but all newbies because anyone with a brain and has a pulse runs, and runs fast.
So what does this mean for HIS employees and how do you know this? sm
How did you get this information?  Is everything finalized and signed between Spheris and Heartland?  What happens to those of us who work at Heartland?  What's this mean to us?
What about all of the employees out there
who adhere to a regular committed work schedule only to find there is no work available for them?? Sandy--what about all of the people who are forced to work later and later (beyond their committed shift schedule) just to find work?? We ARE paid by production. It sounds like you are the princess in this scenario. You're speaking to a lot of experienced loyal MTs out there who KNOW that working from home is their only option because of all of the outsourcing over the last 10 years especially. It works both ways. I would think a Transcriptionist looking for work would find you a bit on the pristine side. All of us MTs want is just to work. I just left a national company because there was NO WORK for over a month. At least 30-40 other MTs left this company and went to a smaller company because of the work readily available to them. Take it down a notch, Sandy.
Only to employees
.
New employees on it?
I've only had that happen when new employees aren't following the account specs...and sometimes when it first does a new "upgrade" on the docs.
They don't have any employees, just ICs...sm
And I have been on that account longer than any other transcriptionists there. Usually they said what they do is take the jobs that come in on that account and divide them between the MTs. So I don't know. These docs have a bad habit of not dictating daily. Sometimes they will wait till they absolutely have to dictate and then BAM hit you with a load.
Heck, I did not say not to wish her a happy birthday! She deserves a happy birthday.
I was just saying her birthday was on Sunday!! :) Why does everyone always want to read something negative into everything on this board. I certainly did not mean anything negative by it! I was just makin' it known WHEN her birthday was!!
:)
Statutory employees too?
Is the new pay plan for statutory/IC employees too?  Cant you only switch to full time employee status twice a year, I think May and October or November.
statutory employees - MQ
When you have to take off, do you call in sick like you would a regular job?  In the past, I have and they have been quite unreasonable if I needed to take a day off for sick or personal reasons.  What upsets me is when there is no work, Im stuck, no work, oh well, but when I need to take off, I better be there, I better work or they have been quite nasty with me..What has been others response?  What have others done when they needed to take off?  Thanks for your response!
Do any Med-Quist employees
know whatever happened to Mark Forstein?  He used to be the president of Transcriptions, Ltd. before it was bought out by MedQuist.  He was Dave Cohen's cousin, I believe.
Go for it. HR needs to know if their employees are being "threatened". (sm)

They are having to offer huge bonuses to entice new employees, I don't think they would want their current employees walking because someone has no tact or ability to communicate with others. 


Hope things are better today for you all.


 


 


How do you MQ employees manage
to get in your 1200 lines in only 8 hours? I am having a dickens of a time, lots of ESLs, new account, etc. Just how do you do it? I figure it will take me 12 hours! Do you ask them to approve OT or what? I'm new at this, need to know. Have to have that insurance.
Any other SS employees not received their..
paycheck? I am not looking to start anything, just wondering if I am the only one who hasn't gotten paid yet?
The prison's employees
Pardon my ignorance. I'm still confused. What does the prison system have to do with transcription?  Why would the prison system hire transcriptionists to work in a facility as a transcriptionist??
For any Transcend employees (not ICs)..
Can you tell me if the hours are flexible at Transcend for full time employees?  I think instead of being an IC (I don't want to worry about taxes, being audited, etc.) I would like to be a full time employee; however, I'm in school too and need flexible hours and can't commit to a strict schedule - I need to be able to have more flexibility as my hours are different every semester.  Thanks for any help.