Having done both (now an IC), here is how

it works for the most part, although there will be those exceptions.  Say your schedule is 8 am to 4 pm.  If you take a half-hour lunch, you will end at 4:30 pm.  The law requires that you get two 15-minute breaks during an 8-hour day as an employee, no ifs, ands, or buts, and those breaks do not constitute that you have to add that time also onto your shift.  The 30-minute lunch break, or 1-hour lunch break, is not paid, so you do have to add that time onto your hours (8-4:30 or 8-5).

Of course, there are those MTSOs that allow you to be finished when you have met your line count.  Others do not, meaning you will work your entire scheduled shift.  Others will let allow you to work through your lunch break, thus allowing an 8-4 shift.  I would ask for sure.  You don't want any surprises. 

I would much rather work as an IC these days.  In the old days, employee status worked well, but to be honest, today you are nothing more than a number working a shift if there is work to even be done, and if you don't make your required lines each day, you will be required to do be available until you do.  Some end up working 12-13 hours a day fighting for every job that comes up or have to give it up altogether because there is no work, then lose their benefits because they don't meet line requirements.  Even worse, the pay keeps going down, down, and down, but the requirements of the job keep going up, up, and up.  Who in the heck wants to keep up with the account specs for 4 or 5 different accounts which are all different, factoring in the MTSOs guidelines, and then follow the BOS?   It's enough to cut your production over half remembering and referring to some companies' 200+ pages of account specs when you are transcribing 4 or 5 different accounts.

Good luck in whatever way you decide.  It may work for you.  On the other hand, you may find, as I did, that you are totally stiffled and feel enslaved by others under employee status.  I take pride in meeting TAT and giving quality work, but I want to do that work on my schedule, not someone else's.  When there is a change in the way MTSOs negotiate their contracts (meaning MTs don't cover 24/7, 365 anymore than the MTSO owners themselves), when they respect the MT and the fact that we are humans with families just like them, when they value us enough to pay us a livable wage, when they can show clients that to do it the right way is the best way and produces the highest quality patient documentation, not what has always been done at the facility by untrained people, when we are recognized as professionals and not typists, then I'll consider employee status again, but not until then. 

If I wanted to be in bondage, I'd move to Egypt.  Just my humble opinion. 

• Question for employees of MTSOs - sm
  • Having done both (now an IC), here is how - sm
    • thanks. - sm

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