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Approximately how long does it take to transcribe

Posted By: 1 hour's worth of dictation on 2007-02-26
In Reply to:

Trying to figure something out but I don't know how long 60 minutes of dictation would take on average.  Any info appreciated.  TIA


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How long does it take you to transcribe...
a 60 minute tape?  And this would be a well spoken english speaking doctor too. I am wondering if I am of the norm or not.    It takes me about 5+ hours with some short breaks in between. 
how long before you transcribe accurately?

Just wanted to know how long it took some of you out there before you were off of QA? I am talking about when you were fresh out of school, just starting your first job. I know that everyone is different, but I am curious about how the average person does.


I am almost a month into my first job and still on QA. Most dictators I do well on (all clinic/office notes) and I have even got quite a few with 100% accuracy. A couple of them make me feel like I don't know anything.


So what's the consensus?


how long to transcribe 60 minutes dictation
I've always heard this used as a standard - Transcription equals 2-3 times longer than the dictation.  Lots of factors such as clear sound, clear dictation, formatting of typed work - going in and out of jobs, typing speed, use of expanders, etc.  but its a pretty good rule to go by.  So 60 minutes would take 2-3 hours to type.
Does anyone use a cell phone for their long distance to transcribe? I am just
wondering if this would work since a lot of plans have free long distance now. I'm assuming there must be some kind of adapter out there to connect your cell phone to your PC or laptop. I am wondering if anyone has tried this and how it worked out. Thanks!
You can figure approximately a 4:1
transcription to dictation ratio on average.  There are many factors, as you know, typing speed, terminology, number of speakers, quality of dictation, etc.  I read somewhere that 10 minutes of dictation averages approximately 100 lines.  Again, it depends on the above factors.
I'm in the SE and I make approximately $30.00/
hour, sometimes less.  I am an employee and have some benefits, no insurance.  If you are paid on production there are various factors that can increase your income.  If paid hourly the rate is about $14.00, with benefits in my area, but production is a whole other story. 
Out of the approximately 100,000 MTs nationwide...
what percent do you think even frequent boards like this one? I've heard estimates of around 10%, which would be approx. 10,000 MTs, so that sounds to be a generous estimate even.

The fact that so few of us are actually online on sites like this, along with the fact that the organization that should have represented us in these regards all along, AAMT/AHDI, has turned out to be beyond worthless, makes any attempts at organization more difficult than herding cats. So many of us are remote and separate, and obviously not well represented by a decent professional organization, making any ''unionizing'' type proposals impossible, IMO, unfortunately.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos271.htm#outlook
Shapin...QA...approximately 1000/mo
x
I noticed this too! Costs me approximately
$50.00 more for the usual items such as health and beauty aids, cleaning supplies, paper products. Cost of living is going up and our salaries are not.

India's MTs are living very well, according to a friendly gal working for AOL out of Bombay.

I don't know what I am going to do. I got cable t.v. for the winter and feel like I am living extravagantly. There is so much I need. Even keeping my car warrantly valid requires a $500.00 tune up which is hard to budget for.

One thing I do not have is credit card debt.
5-10 hours per week, approximately $78K...sm
send the work out, send the work back, put out fires, bill the clients, pay the IC's, make everybody happy...mind you, I feel I've earned it. Many was the night I was up until 12 typing my brains out and many the time I've gone in and done proposals only to get shot down.  I could make A LOT more if I typed the accounts too - but I'm happy with what I make with the little time I put in. I'd rather have my freedom than the money right now, I guess. Plus I'm keeping 5 or 6 other people employed.
I calculate approximately $13/hour.

I can do approximately 1200-1300 per day...
When I am in the "zone" I can get 1400-1500.
It costs approximately $275 a month. I do have family to cook for, but
that has not been a problem at all. After the first 3 days, I have been fully satisfied on the program, and I am one who has NEVER been able to diet for more than a day or 2. I cook whatever they want which is mostly what I can eat too for my lean and green; beef/chicken/pork/fish and veggies, but I skip the potatoes, bread, and all starchy foods.

To afford the program, I cut way back on buying junk food and soda. Everyone is eating much healthier around here and neither my family nor me feel in the least deprived.

All I can really tell you is it is working for me like nothing has in the past and it's been worth every penny.
approximately how many minutes dict. equals 1000 lines?sm
When I worked in-house, I pure typed all day (8 hrs) 1/2hr lunch..2 10-min breaks and we were applauded for 70-100 minutes (we weren't paid by line but by hour). We didn't have Expanders and such..no normals..just typed. I don't know how many lines I produced, but 100 minutes dictation was a lot of work. Now it seems everybody looks at 1000 lpd as low normal.
$.06 gross line / .70 = approximately $.0857 cents per 65 character line.

A gross line is anything on a line versus 65 gross characters per net line the other way.  You make more money working for the gross line than for the 65 gross character line, as long as the line rate's OK.


approximately a liter to liter and a half of stool

How would you transcribe this?


I hate Instant Text. It is expensive, long long learning
curve, and too much distraction for me.
How long should I wait after applying for a position before I follow-up. It has been as long as two
without hearing from some.  Just wondering if I should send an e-mail to follow-up to see if they received my resume or not.  I don't want to offend anyone but feel two weeks should be long enough for someone to at least acknowledge my resume and that I have applied for a position.  Right now I would accept anything even a note saying no thanks.  Any advice would be appreciated.  I haven't had to apply for a job for the past 10 years so I am a bit rusty at this.  Thanks again for any advice. 
Congrats! How long have you been a MLS and how long did you study for the test!

Please see message. I have three daughters with long, long hair.
I also have long hair down to my waist and my three girls have hair that long too. My daughter brought them home from school last year. I was devestated and grossed out!!!! I have never had to deal with lice. Anyway, we did the treatments and two of my girls broke out in a severe rash with the OTC stuff. Their little heads were so sore!! I thought I was being meticulous with eggs, only to find them hatching again down the road. A nurse at the pediatricians office suggested I try oil to suffocate them since my girls were allergic to the lice solution. I bought a huge bottle of veggie oil and dumped it on all three heads, plus my own. I then wrapped the heads in platic wrap and then a towel. I left this on for 30 minutes. It takes a while to wash out the oil, but we never, ever had the lice or eggs again!!! If you try this, make sure you put on an old shirt and put a towel around your shoulders. Obviously we were desperate, but we all have such long hair and very thick hair so I was willing to try anything. And I figured there was no chemicals involved so that was pretty safe. And it sure did help my littles ones since their scalps were pretty raw from the solution. Hope this helps and Good luck!
It's been a long, long time since I've used a C-phone, sm
but I do think jobs can be paused.
I had a problem with this for a long, long time sm
I have always worked days, like from 6-3. Over the last few years, it didn't matter how much sleep I got, I became real groggy between 7 and 11. Really shoots the day. Talked to my doctor and he said my blood pressure pills were the culprit but he refused to change me to another brand or dosage since I have multiple aneurysms (2 in the brain). My BP has been stable for a long time and he wants to "keep it on the low side". I tried taking them before I went to bed instead of early in the morning, but then I had headaches all day. So, I am changing to a night shift for a few months so I can sleep when those pills kick in and so far it is working pretty good. I stay mostly awake during my shift and die when I hit the bed from 6 am to 10 am, then I lay down again later in the afternoon for 2-3 hours. I still get 6-7 hours of sleep, it's just split up during the day, plus I am mostly awake now when I sit down to type. I don't have to deal with the heat in my office, either. It tends to warm up real fast in here with the south sun on the house and 2 pc's running all day, even with the air conditioner on.
Way back when, a long, long time
ago and in a galaxy far, far away, I had my own accounts also and some years cleared $75,000.  Yes it can be done, but you need to have your own accounts.  Also lots of delivery, and other duties involved.  I work for a large national now and make much less, but I got tired of accountants, having to deal with hardware problems, deadlines, driving deliveries, printing, printers, etc.  So I decided to simplify my taxes and stay home and just type.  Don't have to worry about computers either, because the company will just send me a new one. 
Long, long files. Seemed like they'd never end! I'd never go back to VA again. nm
s
I've been doing this a long, long time...

I used to make $70,000 and up a year and did so for most of the late 80s and 90s (one girl used to make six figures a year working 7 days a week!)  Because we were making more money than the supervisors and Medical Records Directors in hospitals, they began to switch to transcription services which were sprouting up all over the place.  Plus AAMT came into existence and even though in the beginning it claimed it was to fight for transcriptionists (although assured us it was NOT a union), they eventually morphed into an organization that was more management friendly.  They developed the "guidelines" and the 65-char line.  That was the beginning of the end for those high-end wages.  Then all those mickey mouse transcription schools popped up, and now outsourcing overseas.  YES, we're complaining. 


Been in this biz a long, long time, 30+ years and....sm
I love/loved MTing. However, things have changed so much during these years. The job definitely gets easier; don't have to look up much, can decipher ESLs much easier, in other words, you get pretty comfortable with things and you have confidence in yourself. The more experience you have the easier the job, but....

I actually made more money 10 years ago!! We didn't have speech recognition and you actually got paid for headers/footers, demographics, carbon copies, etc., you got paid for what you did fairly; today, I am not so sure.

You will feel burned out at times, but that passes and you find you like your job again.

Good luck to you!!
transcribe it
there is no reason not to. You are a "professional" which presumes the information will remain confidential no matter who it is. I happen to live in a small town where everyone knows everyone else and half the town is related. Nothing would ever get typed if that was a consideration.
I tried to transcribe one of those

*mask* things once (and ONLY once).  What a crock!  It's like trying to transcribe an auctioneer.  I always wondered how the accuracy couldn't suffer with this method.  (I guess I was right, considering the government is now using it.)  They make less money because there isn't much skill involved in doing it that way.  Legitimate court reporters go to school for quite some time and have to learn what's basically another form of shorthand.  (It's been years, and I might be wrong, but I believe, for example, the letters PB=N (or something like that.  LOL). 


I was around when the court reporters in my area went from straight dictation to *the computer.*  In fact, I did editing/scoping work for one court reporter who bought the new system, way back when the technology first became available.  (She also bought my computer for me to do her work and anything else I wanted to do on it, and part of her *offer* was that after two years, I would own the computer outright!)  It's a whole different world than transcribing.  I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now.  It's easier for the court reporter, who can pull his or her notes right up on the screen when something doesn't make sense and see where the *typo* was and figure out what it actually should have been.  So in order to be an Editor for a court reporter today, you basically not only have to know how to read their notes, but knowing how to read their TYPOS is the important thing.  This particular court reporter had the wisdom to know when her notes weren't that good, and rather than give me a very sloppy transcript to edit, she'd dictate it instead.  She was a great person, and I miss her a lot.


Scoping/editing for a court reporter is a great field to get into if that's your cup of tea.  If you're a typist, it's real difficult to get the "rhythm" that you can get when transcribing, and that's what I don't like about it.  (Very same thing with VR in medical transcription today.)  However, after doing this kind of work for 20 years, I might wake up tomorrow with carpal tunnel and might be forced to pursue it.


One thing about court reporters, from my own personal experience in my area:  They are the most generous, easy-going, NICEST people I've ever encountered, considering the enormous amount of stress they're always exposed to.  Back in the 1980s, I remember reading stats on suicide rates, and court reporters and DENTISTS were right at the top of the list!!


Do you transcribe too? How much are you
required to transcribe per day/pay period? What are your responsibilities.

Sorry for all the questions, but I think one of the biggest problems in this industry is lack of consistency. If the positions were the same, we could compare apples to apples, in terms of hiring and applying :)
How many of you transcribe while
using your telephone line as in you're 'on the phone' the whole time you work?  How does that work out for you both with your phone usage but also with unlimited LD.  Could you recommend any unlimited LD plans that are good?  Our local one isn't that great as far as a high price, so I'm looking around.  Thanks for any help!
I transcribe ...
IMEs, Consults, Re-exams, Followups, Treatment notes,etc.

I am located in Texas, but I work directly for a doctor in Florida and then I transcribe for a small MTSO out of New York also doing chiropractic.
Why don't you just transcribe it?
Get creative - and type ... the patient...peeing, peeing, peeing, more peeing... is a 38-year-old

sorry i could not resist

transcribe from CD

Is there a way to transcribe a church audio lecture from CD?  It is a .cda file.  I have "associated" the .cda with Start/Stop and ExpressScribe, but I still have no control with my foot pedal.  any suggestions? 


Thanks, Debbie


This is how I do it. I transcribe

a minimum of 2000 lines per day x5 days a week for 8 hours a day, making 9 cpl which equals out to $180 per day. That comes out to $900 per week or $46,800 per year. That is just at 2000 lines per day. This is w/o shift differential and line differential added in. We get a bonus for going over a certain number of lines per pay period and we get a shift differential for working 2nd and 3rd shifts, which then works out to over 10 cpl. Transcribing 2000 lines per day works out to 250 lines per hour. W/o using an expander, I probably type about 100 words per minute and with my Expander it is a lot more. My pay stub shows how many lines per hour I average each paycheck. This week it was over 300 lph. I use my expander to its fullest. I have macros for everything and anything you can think of. I do radiology, oncology, and ER transcription - lots of phrases said over and over. I do not cherrypick. I cannot see what report or doctor I am going to get, the chart just pops up and I type it. Some days are all good docs, lots of days they are horrible but in this profession you take the good with the bad.


Everybody's work habit is different. Focus on what you can do instead of what person A or person B can do. When I first started I set goals for myself. I wanted to be typing 1000 lines by so and so date in 8 hours. When I reached that goal I made the goal higher by 100, 250 and then 500 lines. To me, it's all in the attitude you have for work. I look forward to work each day because every day there is something new to be learned.



This sits over my desk: Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." - John Wooden 


 


Does anyone use Transcribe+
that you can use Dragon naturally with? Starting the new platform and just wondering? TIA
You know ... just transcribe (nm)
what you hear!

I transcribe
250 to 300 lines an hour, is it possible to edit voice rec up in the 600 lines per hour to make an equivocal line rate to transcribing?
I don’t even know if I could transcribe
without my expanders. I have basically typed so long using them it would really be hard.
Sorry, but our job is to transcribe
what is dictated. If you leave out a word, you did not transcribe what was dictated. Where I work, leaving out a word is considered a "major" error, but it is "discounted" if it does not change the meaning, however, it was left out, therefore transcription was not correct. Not sure what you mean when you talk about deleting paragraphs. Our job is to be as accurate as possible for patient safety, if nothing else. Audits are needed.
Well, at least we don't have to transcribe Elvish (yet?)

I don't think fat people should be able to transcribe either.
They have personality problems that may lead to selling info about famous people just to get more food. They also munch while they type and they are slower in getting the work out. I think there should be a weight test throughout the year to ensure MTs don't gain weight sitting at their computer.
MANDATED to transcribe?
By who? Harvey the rabbit?


Correct way to transcribe

Can someone please tell me the correct way to transcribe 10 to the fifth E. coli.


Thank you very much for your help.


Transcribe it and keep quiet. sm
We're professionals. We do our job and we keep any info learned to ourselves. I've even typed reports on family members. Never disclose any info you learn as a part of your job.
I transcribe anywhere from 25 to 40 per hour. sm
However, on one account which is mostly MRIs, CTs and ultrasounds, I only do 20-22 per hour. Expanders, expanders, expanders.
Every day I transcribe an op report on someone who is REALLY having a bad day, sm
and no prospects at having any kind of a happy life.

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, especially when you're feeling down. And never lose faith as you're supposed to be learning something from this, and God really is looking after you.

I'm sorry things aren't going well. My very best advice,again, is for you to be positive--look at the ever-present bright side--COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, and never, ever lose faith.
I used to transcribe for a county (sm)
agency where they interview sexually abused children. I can't describe all the emotions that ran through me while listening to them try to bare their little souls to complete strangers.
The hospital I transcribe for uses it. I know
about Smartype.  I HAVE Smartype, but I've never tried to use it with ExText. 
I PRAY that you NEVER transcribe my
Your attitude is scary!  You think we don't need knowledge or skills and are just "hamsters on a wheel?"  Believe me, I QA work for people with your attitude and it shows.  I pray to God that someone who thinks like YOU, never, ever touches my medical records!!!!  Maybe you should look for a different career option.
Do you transcribe on Word with that?
Thank you!
To MTs who transcribe via tape- SM

I found great, low-cost software that allows you to convert tapes to digital files (MP3, WAV, WMA, etc.).  Check out www.dak.com !  Your PC needs a sound card and a line-in connection (usually next to your line out to plug in your headset or speakers), as well as a tape player and an actual line that plugs from your PC line-in to your tape player.  Think they call that line a male-to-male or male-to-female or something like that (got my line from www.martelelectronics.com).  Use Dak to convert your music cassettes, too.  Hope this helps!


P.S., I'm an MT, not from DAK