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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

Happened to U but are you now employed,

Posted By: better company, better situation? nm on 2007-12-22
In Reply to: Yes, it is just awful. Someone did the same to me last year. - NCQA

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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.
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.
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!



Any former Spheris employees employed elsewhere now and deliriously happy?
Would love to hear from you.  Seriously considering looking elsewhere.  Thanks much.
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. 


Go to MTChat and ask California self-employed MTs or do a SEARCH in LOCAL MTs for California. We ha
.
That happened to me, too.

I tried two different nationals and was bounced around from account to account on both of them.  One account would run out of work, the equipment would go down, or they needed help on another account.  Each account had pools of 100-500 doctors, so it was just ridiculous.  I couldn't use my expander hardly at all.  I couldn't make decent line counts because I could barely keep the account specs straight.  Then they'd dump me off QA in less than a week and start me on another account.


That's when I made the decision to either get out of MT entirely or only do it on my terms.  I'm working to make as much money as I can in as little time possible.  I'm not here to be a goody, goody, "go to" Girl Scout saving the supervisors' butts from staffing problems and elapsed TAT.  They didn't offer incentive or differential for taking on over and above.  Why should my paycheck suffer because they under or overstaff?


Anyway, I found my fit.  They scratch my back, so I'm very willing to scratch their backs.


what happened with them?
Curious.
has this happened to you?

I just started at a hospital, hospital work is new to me, but they're giving me a week to get my line count up to 160 lines an hour.  I've been there 60 days. My question is what company is good that trains you on-line that will help place you also with a company on-line.  I just need help learning hospital reports. I've been typing clinic for 7 years.  I think I'll lose this job.  I can't believe it!  Thanks for your help.


 


 


has this happened to you?
Thanks for your encouragement. I have a week left before they decide if they're keeping me. My insurance starts on the 1st of August. I've never gotten on my knees and pleaded for my job before but at the cost of insurance these days, I'll make sure I'm wearing long pants that day!
That's sad and I'm sorry that it happened.
It is a shame when parents cannot try to teach their children right and wrong in a way that is not harmful to them without fear of having the "book thrown at you" and being suspected of, or worse yet, accused of child abuse. There are so many children now who are abused and yet the abusers get away with it on some insane technicality. Why can't the system go after them and leave a mother alone who is simply trying to teach her child not to use profanities and vulgarities?
I also wish this had never happened, as I was
really looking forward to working for TransTech.  They have a lot to offer and Debbie Hood is a great trainer and would probably make an excellent supervisor.  However, tech support is a very important aspect of a company to me, as they literally hold your paycheck in their hands when you are experiencing technical problems.  I am certain the problem here was that I chose to use my own computer rather than the company computer and this caused more work/problems for the tech.  Had I used their computer, I would be working for them right now.  When the foot pedal they sent did not work, he instructed me to call dictaphone for assistance, rather than trying to work on the problem himself.  A question for you, Dano -- Do you use TransTech's computer or your own?
That's what happened here with (sm)
Camille, too, a group throwing a "hurricane party."  They all died when the apartment complex blew away.
No, actually what happened was
the hook that her MQ chapstick was on got attached to the lawchair. She had it on her back pocket.
Never happened to me before
in my many years here. In August we always counted on the work slowing down a little bit as that seems to be the vacation month for much of my account - but - we never had the company do a big hire just before this occurred in July as was done to us this year. July is when our doctors generally tried to catch up before going away and bombared us with work, so if it ran a tad out of TAT (to use the current phrase for it), it didn't matter to anyone client or management. It was called being reasonable and practical.
Sorry that happened to you. :( But

they need the reports in the charts. Were you hired to be "trained" or to work?


Feedback is great, it's how we all learn. But that's not the purpose of having you there - the purpose is to get the work done.


I promise, having been on both sides of the fence, MTSO and client, that it was not one bad report that got you tossed. It was enough of them that they couldn't have it happen again - and it may not have all been your reports, remember.


Again, sorry this happened to you, but yes, it IS your fault, not that you could help it. I'm sure you did the best work you could, with your limited experience. Chin up, there are other places out there. Just learn from what happened.


Happened to me.
I took a pregnancy test and it said negitive. I took one a week later and there was a very light line (almost invisable). I went to the clinic and got a test there, which was positive. I would definatly go to your doctor and get a test.
What happened to me...sm
I thought I had the flu...had only been off BC for 2 months after doc told me it could take a year to become pregnant and we wanted kids sooner rather than later and it was flu season and it was a hard one that year. Thought nothing of it but it got worse and worse and everyone got over it but me after a couple of weeks. My now hubby suggested being preggers, I laughed as were planning our wedding. After 2 more weeks of being sick did a test, negative..after another week went to the doc and nope, not preggers...another week passes, another test done by them and suddenly I am almost 6 weeks pregnant. I left that office in such shock you could not beleive it! The chalked it up to first pregnancy and it just took me longer to build up enough hormone to test positive and in the middle of flu season, being that sick really didn't mean much at all when your periods were never all that regular to begin with. Soooo, you could be or might not be. See a doc, if their test is negative and still have doubts a week later, go back for a blood test.
oh yes it happened to me...
1st 3 tests neg and the last 4 positive. I had been on depo shots for about 7-8 yrs and they said that it would take at least 2-3 months before I might start to ovulate, If I'm lucky.  I wasn't having periods but I knew something was up.  the only symptom I had was severe sensitivity to smells.  I had to leave the video store because of someones perfume. went straight to the store and bought tests and they were negative. (took 1 that night, then again 2 weeks later, then 1 wk later) all 3 neg but I still felt like something wasn't right, but like you said, you start to think you're crazy.  a while after that I was going to a party and thought "what the he**, just to be superduper safe before drinking, try again".  bamm - positive.  I was in shock so I took another, and another. I was just over 3 months pregnant.   the tests were all from the same box (I bought the most you can get expecting to have fertility problems from being on the shot so long).... the doc office couldn't explain first how I got so lucky considering my history and second why it took so long for the hormones to show up.    wait a while and take another!
If it really happened she would have said something.
She can't prove anything so why bother? It never happened.
Happened to me.... sm

and I definitely lost 50% of my work to EMR.  Also, they will be adding VR to this system in 6 months, which reduces my serve to just editing.  What they want to pay for editing, I can go to work at McDonald's and make more an hour....


 


 


 


Here is how it happened for me.
I sent out flyers and brochures with business cards. I did not really have a lot of luck with that. What finally landed me my first client was just by calling local MD offices. I got a lot of "No we don't need a transcriptionist" before I actually got someone who told me that their office did not need one, but they knew of an office who did. I would start by calling your own family doctor and asking them. If not luck there, just pick up the yellow pages and call. As far as the system, a lot of local offices still use tapes and that may be a good way to start on your own. Does not require a huge investment on your part, other than a transcribing unit, which you can usually buy at a local office supply store, such as Staples. Good luck to you. It is difficult getting started, but once you land one client, and if that clients likes your work, word gets around fast. I started with one client and 3 years later I have multiple accounts and now 8 transcriptionists working with me.
It happened to me . . .
I was really stupid and one year I didn't file. They really get you for that. I didn't hear anything from them for years and the penalites and interest just piled up. It took years but I'm finally done.
so sorry this happened to you
but there are other causes for pulmonary hypertension, and if phentermine caused pulmonary hypertension they would have taken it off the market just as they did Pondimin.
This happened to me.
He was able to look at my op note to confirm no nerves were cut. He said that they were stretched/damaged from the procedure and to give them time to heal. He said that since nerve cells grow so slowly, it could take up to a year for the feeling to return. I took several months, but I eventually got all my feeling back.