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At the hospital, I did - only not 39 hours, 40. But I was a paid SM

Posted By: Becky on 2005-12-18
In Reply to: Paid production/hourly - Esme

employee (production only) with benefits. It was always kind of an iffy thing as far as labor laws went, as I was considered an employee, but we did it nonetheless for the whole 2 years I worked there...until the day I did 3000 lines and was chastised because "other people need to work too" meaning the 4 in-house people who sat there on their tails and yakked all day.


Yep, I bailed. :-)


 




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The testing at the hospital I work for takes 2 hours. How else would they sm
know that you are a qualified transcriptionist?
How many hours a day do you work? Are you still paid per gross line?

Not saying I don't believe you.  One has to consider too that you have 20 years of experience, that makes a BIG difference in production.  I'm about four times faster now than I was when I first started out.  Newbies need to consider this too when contemplating MT as a career.


ICs at our hospital were paid $1.50/minute for the first
Does that help?
I have more than paid for VR. I achieve 1200 lines in 3 hours. No need to hate sm
the MT to use technology to its full capability. Do you think a company cares if you type everything no. The bottom line is you have to get you line count.
Quit after 2 years. If I wanted to work 8 hours a day, I would have stayed in the hospital. Seemed
to be working all day long just to make a decent living.  Although, I wanted to be home with my kids until the baby was at least 5, had to breakdown and return to working outside the home, to make ends meet. Just to stressfull trying to make a good living with the rates they are paying now. 
I get paid hourly $18.00. The hospital I work at don't believe sm
in production because of the error rate, blanks, etc. just to make money. I am sooooooooooooooooooooooo happy.
Hospital job is "work-at-home" paid hourly
Thank you for well wishes.
Will I not get paid if the hospital isn't reimbursed with Medicare/Medicaid?
I was told by a coworker that California is in so much debt that I may not get a paycheck if CA goes bankrupt because the hospital I work for will not be getting subsidized any longer....

could this be true?
I also want a living wage for MTs. Don't mind hard work and longer hours, just want to be paid
:+
Made 60K last year working 50 hours a week being paid on gross line
nm
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. 


For QA consulting I'm paid per hour; QA instructing (college) paid salary, QA editing paid per li
I am an IC and work for two different MTSOs as well as instruct at a business college.
For us slow pkes---my best would be 3 hours, worst 6 hours - just depends on the dictator ,
I have to look up (i.e. Dr. names, addresses)...I have to do a lot of that and it majorly slows me down, without all that and good not too horrible dicators, in 1 hour I can do anywhere from 15-20 minutes of dictation.
But in transcription, if you are good at what you do, you can do 8 hours of work in 4 hours. So eit

you slice it, both companies will still get 8 hours worth of work out of you.


That is the problem I've been having lately being an MT.  Companies want to pay us on production and they set minimum productivity standards, but want us timed in for 8 hours a day.  My thinking is, if they want 8 hours of work out of me, pay me hourly with production incentive.  If they want to pay me on production and tell how much I have to produce in an 8 hour period, then when I hit that mark, I should be able to call it a day even if I've only worked 4 hours.


Seems these companies want it both ways and it is simply not fair to us MTs.  JMO, tho.


If it's my fav doc with lots of shortcuts, 1-1/2 hours to 2 hours max
x
I see, we sit at the keyboard for 40 hours and then throw on 20 more hours
Is this how you do it? Me? I got a PT job so that if my FT job didn't have enough work to meet my needs financially, the two jobs together would.

They hired me to work a specific shift and that is what I am working. If they want me to type after I clock out, then I will happily do so.
I must say, I work long hours, sometimes 12-14 hours a day.
I thought it was important to mention that. However many hours it takes to get the work done is what I do. Some days 12 hours, other days 6 hours and sometimes 14 hours. So, I guess there really is no easy answer.
I do 2000 lines in 6 hours - so maybe 3 hours - nm
x
typing 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week
is TOUGH.
on my wrists I mean.
and not getting any benefits... and for a salary of less than 30K? not really worth it...
if mt paid 9, editor paid 4 or 5...how can company charge 14 and make it..sm

I know the going rate in our area is 14 cents per line.  As MTs most companies here pay us 8 or 9 cents a line.  Now add in the Editor rate at 4 or 5 per line..you are paying OUT more than you can charge a line.  How would companies stay in biz?


Unless all work is sent by the company overseas at pennies per line, this would not pay for a company.


just curious how this works out


But how much are the US EDs gonna be paid? Typically this work is paid at 2-3 cpl. nm
:+
You don't get paid an hourly rate you get paid by line - sm
so because of how you are paid (not an hourly rate) you don't get OT, especially if you are an IC.
I would move on. I think it is so unfair not to be paid for spaces! I think we should get paid

per keystroke, but that'll never happen.  I just think that these national companies are going to keep finding ways to cheat us.  I found a job working for a hospital as an employee, paid hourly plus incentive, and they let us expand everything!  Somebody's gonna have to kill me to make me give up this job.  I will never go back to the national's again.


I feel for you though.  I know that for us MTs those good jobs are few and far between and some have little choice but to work for the nationals.  I just happened to luck into the job I have now.  I just applied at the right time. 


Good luck to you whatever you decide.


If those companies paid a fair wage, and paid more
all came out equal, people wouldn't feel the need to try to make up the deficit by going for the good stuff. I actually prefer the harder, juicier reports. But I can't make a living doing only that, because the pay is not commensurate with the difficulty. So even though I prefer not to, sometimes I have to pick up some of the easier, more boring 'line-o-matic' reports just to make ends meet. Tell your MTSO to make it work their while, and MTs will stop taking all the easy work away that you obviously would prefer to keep for yourself.
You wont show UE being paid because it is employer paid -
the employee will never have to pay this.
What you "should" be paid and what you "are" paid

sadly are two very different things.  Good luck on demanding more..because someone else will just come along and take it for what they offer and they know it. 


10$ late if invoice is not paid within 10 days. At day 15 work stops until invoice is paid. Hardly
xx
Hospital. I wish I'd never left my hospital job.
They'll only take me back if I start off working nights and weekends again at the bottom of the totem pole.
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.
That was PT at EACH. Isn't PT up to 32-35 hours?
She could be working 70 hours a week to make that kind of dough.  Ergh, not me, no how, no way, uh uh.  I'm happy with the 35 hours total that I've been putting in lately.
hours
Contracted to work 8 hrs M-F but I usually do more, may be 1.5 after baby is sleep. If I have to work on Friday nights I can make my personal quota in 5.5 hours.
12,000 AND 40 hours
No, 12,000 not enough. Must do 40 hours to be full time.
About 6.5 to 7.5 hours. (nm)
.
40 hours?
I got a letter from my office but it stated the 12,000 lines or 10 or 6 for staturatory. It stressed lines, not hours, Massachusetts office, great supervisor.
About 6 hours from me-- they are way out there! - thanks for the tip
x
Here, here! But it won't take us 8 hours

but 14 hours to get a decent line count.


Hours

If you are an employee and have a schedule to work, then you should work all of your hours. Generally services don't hire you to do so many lines per day (although you will always have a minimum goal), but to work 40 hours/week as a full time employee. One of the biggest problems is those who agree to a schedule and then just decide they don't have to work it. If you can get your "quota" in 6 hours, what will be expected is that you simply are able to do more work on that day.


And BTW, never any such thing as a dumb question! :)


PT here, do 25 hours over Fri, Sat and Sun.
nm
7-1/2 to 8 hours
I work 7 1/2 to 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, make 5000 a month.
About 12 hours . . . (sm)

That broke down to 1881 lines in my usual overnight shift (I've done 1950 before but usually average more like 1200-1400/shift), then far less productive the rest of the day as I had both children home (daughter homeschools; son was sick).


Thank you all for being so very encouraging.    I didn't expect that . . . I've seen other posts about production where the OP got hammered for bragging.


My method is normals; I save a copy of practically every report I transcribe (no patient info, just the body).  Even if I only do the same dictator twice, I save a lot of lines on headings, especially since my primary account has highly formatted headings.  While I love Instant Text and have been using Expanders for 12 years, I believe the combination of normals and expanders produces far greater productivity.


Think the service will notice?  I love them dearly, but they've been in a sparse-communication mode of late.


1600 lines/day is great!  The service I work for says their top MTs average 1300-1400/day.


12 hours
is a LONG day transcribing - more power to ya!  I keep mine about 6-7 hours and that works for me!
usually 24-48 hours but not....N/M
#
Already did - hours ago - did you get it? *l*..nm

in 3-1/2 hours: 500 first job/90 second =
.
If you have the hours they have to pay you for them, it is
the law.  You can call the Labor Board and they will gladly get your money for you.  Be sure and keep good documentation in case they protest. 
few hours?
The trainer was supposed to call at 8 a.m. to get me set up and started. I, of course, was all nervous while waiting. He finally called around 9 and announced he hadn't had his muffin yet and would call me back. I didn't bother to answer the phone after that.
28 hours???

Never takes me more than two to three but then I have everything gathered and ready to put in.  Even the first time I used TT it only took 3 hours or so.  And now shorter since it downloads last years info.   But give yourself 4-5 hours on a Sunday afternoon.   I usually do it, let it sit, and then recheck it before sending it in.


 


 


5 hours per day???
You are going to be driving 5 hours per day?  How many miles?    After a week you can afford to buy them digital hand helds and do it that way.  I go to three different spots for pick up and delivery - 5 accounts, and it takes me 45 minutes -- an hour if I stop and chat a lot and I think that is excessive sometimes.  How many hours of dictation will you get for that amount of driving?   When are you going to be typing or are you the one that asked about transcribing in a car?  I don't think that you can charge enough to make it worth your while.   At $20 to $30 per hour that is an extra $100 to $150 per day and if they want to pay that much extra per month, $2200 then they have a lot of money to spare.  If they have 6 to 8 hours of typing you will be putting in a 13 hour day and you will be tired after all that driving and it is just ridiculous -- have them go digital and you can show them you can save them literally thousands per month.   Good luck. 
IC and set hours
The one big problem with being an IC and having your hours dictated to you is that the IRS can come back on you and disallow your home office deductions - because if you are working set hours - in the eyes of the IRS you are an employee - this happened to me once, so I referred the IRS to my "employer." He did not appreciate this - but he was told that if he wanted to keep me then he would have to allow me to work my own schedule not his. So, thankfully, he changed his tune (I don't think he wanted a headache from the IRS) and it was a nice 10-year relationship. I have had to mention this in almost every interview I have had since, though, when hours were brought up - and even the nationals act like they didn't know this law - it's in the 20 laws of the IC put out by the IRS.
hours
Most of the time work many more hours than paid and very little given in return.
I do, but I put in a lot of hours. nm
nm