I, too, work for MQ out of one of their CA offices - 7 years now. Steady workflow sm
Posted By: Dancin Shoes on 2005-09-05
In Reply to: I dont believe a word you are saying lady. - MQMT
I wouldn't say I don't run out of work, but maybe 3 times a year I do. Just depends. Around school time beginning I do. May pay is probably above average because the company I worked for that MQ bought paid really well.
I have had absolutely no problems with MQ, though the things I keep hearing and seeing do bother me that I belong to a co. like this. But personally, they've been too good to me.
I guess not all offices are the same, for sure!
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steady work...gearing up to start new account....but there was no work on Tues as it was a holiday
Be patient with your eyes open....
steady work
I have steady work during the week and don't need to work weekends, but my husband's job and paychecks have been hit by the economy, so I'm adding some weekend work at least through the end of the year to help make up for it.
I would go where you are sure you will have steady work all the time.
:
That was my point. There will never be any steady work for anyone with TAT at 1 hour
I'm certainly not going to be sitting at the computer 24/7 waiting for reports to trickle in. We are so stupid to be putting up with this. Why do we stay?
Been trying to find steady MT work for 8 months now, at least
At first, no one would even respond. A few months ago I decided to take ANYTHING from anyone who actually did respond.
I'm used to getting paid 10 cents a line for the past 12 years, but when I did get a bite from a company, I took it, even at 7 cents and 8 cents because at that point I was STARVING and worried about making my house payments and paying my utility bills!
Now do you know what the problem is? All three frickin companies have very little to NO WORK available. This is consistent.
Now, at 7 and 8 cents a line and barely squeezing out any work between three DIFFERENT companies (even though they KNOW I am available to do any and all work they have), I am just about as bad off as I was before finding these jobs.
I know nothing else and have no college education, BUT I do know my job backwards and forwards, research skills, terminology, pharmacology, anatomy and physiology and everything else that goes with being a good, experienced MT.
Do you think I am getting paid for this experience? No. Times are bad right now, but they've been bad for me for many, many months. I just don't know what I'm going to do anymore. I rue the day I went to school for this godawful so-called profession.
Every day wake up, raring to go, hopeful there will be SOME kind of work available, at least to make $80 or $100 a day, AT LEAST.
But every day I end up stressing out, worrying, continuously being broken down because even though I'm a hard worker and a darn good MT, I am treated like low-class scum by my creditors because all my bills are late & I can't pick up the phone anymore due to bill collectors on my back. Believe me, I paid all my bills on time every time when the work was abundant and I WANT to pay my bills, but good intentions don't pay the bills. Neither does little to no work at a lame 7 or 8 cents a line.
I also have little food in the fridge or pantry, and things are beginning to be shut off left and right.
I don't know...
It's just extremely frustrating and stressful. I can't live like this anymore but have no way out.
I need help finding a good company with steady work..sm
that pays a minimum of 10 cents a line. I have been an MT for 27 years and I take pride in my work. Things have changed at my current company and cherry pickers have taken over so I end up doing all the reports no one else wants to do. This takes me longer and my line count is suffering. I know there have to be good companies out there that pay well and need good employees. I have left my email address if anyone would like to offer me some hope and share names of companies. Please no flames, I am just an honest MT wanting an honest job with decent compensation. Thanks for any help.
My dad owns a dental lab - GOOD money, steady work, very tedious though
nm
How much do most people charge for doing IC work for doc offices, just
What program is good to use for line counting?
I was thinking 13/cents a line? Is that undercharging? I have to remember that I have to pay my overhead so even though 13 sounds high, I have to pay equipment, equipment, equipment.
help
They are and that is why we dont have work then. They bring in other offices and run your office out
of work because too many people are on the account then. Make sense. Nope.
Contact the unemployment offices of the state in which you work.
See Wikipedia "unemployment benefits" for an excellent discussion. To determine your eligibility, try contacting the unemployment offices of the state in which you work--start with the state to which your employer pays state income taxes on your wages. They should be able to point you in the right direction. Good luck to you.
Do you know any IC transcriptionists or friends who work in doctors' offices?
That is how I got started. A good friend worked for herself and had no coverage for vacations. I covered a vacation, then a day or two a week, which eventually worked into full time. I also did prn work for local offices.
It is mostly trial and error! Lots of foot work, go to their offices, ask for the OM and see if the
x
RMAs/CMAs usally work in physician offices as the office nurse.
x
Workflow
So, how's the workflow out there generally speaking? I'm going on my 2nd day with no work at all...how about you?
WorkFlow
I see all workflow according to the accounts I am scripted for. The only nice thing about that is that I now how the long the next available dictation is for time management purposes. I wish I did not see the rest of it because from what I can see, there is a lot of cherry picking going on. I hate this!
Amphion workflow
We keep running ourselves out of work! Why don't they stop hiring!
Any MTSOs out there use a server for their transcription workflow?
I am thinking about going internet with my service. Currently on a call in system and thinking about getting a computer company to set me up on a server and interface the call in system so I can have the transcriptionists work over the internet. If any MTSO currently uses this method, I would love to know if you find it efficient/easy to work with manage, etc. Is it worth investing money in? Thanks in advance.
Slow and Steady
I too do not name myself a typist. i have learned many moons ago it is not speed that gets you the clients - it is accuracy. I may do between 15-400 lines per hour depending on the client and format, etc. But because my accuracy is way up there I have not lack for work ever, and my clients know that a kind referral is always a pleasure. I have private clients and work for MTSO - and enjoying watching my lines go up and down on my time, at my pace.
I gauge my counts from day to day and know if I need to put in a bit more to make my bills. I do not worry about how others may or may not be making $45.00 an hour. I only believe what I make and know what I can earn. Line counts will pick up when you concern yourself more with accuracy and stop thinking about the numbers all the time.
Steady eddie
I like your attitude! :-)
agree with U steady eddie, and bet if they were paying (sm)
downtime - they'd THINK TWICE and hire appropriately!
Never did TrimSpa, etc. just talking about dieting in general. Slow and steady is preferred way
s
Finally steady money. whew. Applied and got job at Dept of Law Enforcement entering
They started me way above minimum because of my experience. I was shocked and happy all at the same time.
And of course I'm esctatic to not be wondering how much money I would be getting each pay check. Working on production in transcription now is like playing Russian Roulette.
There's good benes where I going, retirement, sick days, no games with my health insurance. I should have done this long ago.
Ten years ago work was being
I find this nothing new. It is just accelerating. I wouldn't recommend this field to anybody new, unless they are ready to eventually find something different.
Remember back in the 60s and 70s, the steel industry was oursourced to Japan. Now I think it is going to China. It never came back. Everything is being outsourced. We are losing (or have almost lost) our manufacturing industry. The jobs go to where they can pay a few dollars a day and get away with it, they don't have to pay taxes, no environmental protection, no worker rights, unemployment, social security, etc.
I don't know what will happen with this country if this trend continues. I hear politicians say the answer to outsourcing is Americans should go to college and get degrees and become doctors, lawyers, etc. These jobs are also being outsourced. They already are reading our x-rays in India by outsourced radiologists. Now I hear an insurance company is encouraging their customers to go to a foreign company for surgery. Go by a pair of pants. They are all made in China, it seems everything is.
This is those "fair" trade agreements our government has made. And don't blame just the Republicans and Bush, this started back with Cliniton. The Democrats and Republicans are equally guilty. I don't know what the answer is. The world is changing and that is a fact of life. My strategy is to just try and make sure my family is provided for.
Offices are different.
Your supervisor should be able to email you a rundown. My office has many different incentives, in fact, I have a hard time keeping track of them!
Why are all offices not ran the same?
x
After 25 years, nope. Just work. But I used to. nm
x
I work for a company in NY and they had to do this a few years ago. I think sm
that most will need to do this as the IRS does not think that MTs are eligible to be ICs.
The company that I work for had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines because of it all.
For insurance, for professional liability insurance, I was told that you have to be incorporated. I don't have a problem with this. If I hired someone to build an addition for me, I would want him/her to have insurance. Why should medical records be any different?
I actually make more as an employee. I still take my deductions as unreimbursed employee expenses (per my CPA), take home office expense and do not have to pay the 7+ % for SS match that the employer usually does.
I have work going back years - sm
others keep it a month or two. I have one doctor who sees patients on a yearly basis, I pull the previous report so I don't have to retype a lot of it, as he basically repeats the old one with a few changes, I'd have a lot more work to do otherwise. I have another account that constantly misplaces their work, I have to retrieve work from months earlier because they cannot find their copy. I can either pull it from my stash, or the MTSO has a FTP where we back up all our work just for this purpose, she keeps it all there going back years. I have no idea how often she cleans it out, but she hasn't in the almost 2 years I have been with her. On another note, I only keep the sound files for a month, then I dump them.
One of the Ohio offices
I'd rather not say which. Been there years.... it's gotten worse, not better!
How do you change offices?
?
it seems to be all offices, have you signed
up for IPAY? I have not gotten a check yet either, but there is a statement there for 09/02 which obviously is not a regular paycheck
incompetent offices
Geez Mandy, you must work for the same place I did before I left LOL.
Offices need not comply .. but
we find that most do for the continuity in care issues that any practitioner faces.
Well, I have 25 years experience also in all work types
and only do acute care with a line rate of 10.5 cpl M-F and 11 cpl on the weekends.
You can negotiate it a little harder, and you will get it depending on their needs, I guess.
It is MDI-Maryland.
Well in my company, nobody's work was checked for many years~!
x
I haven't missed a day of work in 10 years
I can't believe so many ICs do this, taking days off! It's unheard of to me.
I don't blame you for getting frustrated. Seems no one has a good work ethic these days.
Can anyone tell me how they like working for the NE Region of MQ as all offices in the NE are
going there one by one as the local offices close down. What are the people like to work for there and the QA people as far as feedback on things. Thanks
So they are consolidating offices, big deal.. it's a
c
I don't know about now, but they used to have local field offices. sm
A friend of mine had a problem, and she went in and talked face to face with a really nice person, who helped her through it. If you're close to an office, and if they still have them, that might be your best bet. Good luck.
Doctors' offices, not hospitals
Sounds like the OP is referring to doctors' offices and not hospitals. If we took the initiative and talked to local doctors in our area, perhaps they might be interested in having their work done in a more "personalized" fashion. We don't know unless we try.
I think the hospitals might be a "lost cause" in this regard because they are run by financial people and not the physicians themselves, but I think I will start making some appointments (which I need to do, anyway!) and query my physicians about who does their work. I think the office managers might brush me off, but I do not believe the physicians would.
I do agree with the OP that we all need to try to take back the medical transcription field ourselves and get it out of the hands of big business.
Small doctors' offices do!
My second job is for a small (3-physician) specialty office. I am paid by the hour at a nice hourly rate. I was also paid hourly when I worked in-house last year at a specialty practice. I got this job initially by asking the doctor personally who did their transcription when my daughter had a check-up appointment there.
Really, your best bet is to do some networking and research on local offices in your own community. A lot of small doctors' offices do not want to mess with big nationals and prefer a local dependable transcriptionist. As a poster below had suggested, offer to do a SMALL portion of their work for free on a trial basis.
I know what you mean about being burned out, though! I hope you find what you are looking for.
I think the MDs that care in their offices or clinics sm
keep their trans in-house. My personal MD does and overseas every last little detail and she is tough! The ones who dont want to mess with it go to a service and let the service take responsibility. So neither will care....IMHO
My experiences with home offices...
I used to have my office in the living room. It was really difficult for me and my family.
I moved it into the dining room ... again, was just a bad fit and crowded/cramped everything.
Finally I moved it to my bedroom. Now at first, I had my desk sitting out in the open and it became depressing. While I enjoyed the privacy and quiet (I could actually shut my door), it was all I saw when I was in my bedroom. That blank monitor staring at me, either making me feel guilty by not working more or making me dread going to work.
Soooo, then I got creative and I've been thrilled every since.
I pulled all of my clothes out of my closet and bought a beautiful armoire with drawers and a rod in the top to hang clothes. Beautiful asset to my bedroom.
I purchased a smaller but very nice desk and fit it right inside my closet. I have a lovely little lamp on my desk, streamlined all my paperwork to a minimum and put as much as I could live without (in tangible form) on the computer. Have a small vase I keep fresh but cheap flowers in. All I have is in the closet and I can close it up out of sight when I am done. I can store my books up on the shelf above plus I have a small CD player up there to play soft music while I work.
I did not want an ugly office chair anymore. I really liked my upholstered chair in my bedroom. So I had my son put rollers on it and now it is my chair. When I'm not working, I just turn it and angle it into the corner like it has always been...when I need to work, I just sit and slide right under my desk.
I could not be happier with this set up and it has been this way just over a year now.
I get copies of the schedule from the offices. sm
you are an IC, so you can call the shots. You can let them know that if you don't receive the work by a certain time, you will assume there is none, something of that sort. If you need a day off, give them advance notice and don't "ask" them for it, because you are an IC so you set your own schedule per IRS rules. You do not need their permission, per se. Obviously, we accommodate the docs as much as possible to keep the accounts, but only to a certain extent. We shouldn't be on call for them 24/7, either. They wouldn't wait all day for a patient that may or may not show (and sometimes even charge if the patient is a no-show!!) If you wait and wait for work, play their game and put it in writing that you will charge for your time -- and then DO it. A few extra charges on the old invoice will likely bring about a change. ;)
Even with the schedules provided, the docs can and do change them at the last minute, so there's no way you can ever know for sure, but at least you can have SOME idea what's going on if they provide them. The way I see it, if he tells you he will be out, then that's what you go by. Even if the staff can't verify it (strange, since most docs are highly reachable by staff), you've heard it straight from the horse's mouth so if you want to take that opportunity to have a day off, let the staff know you'll be off that day, period.
If the doc changes his mind and comes in that day, well, I'd still take the day off if I made plans. Keep that saying in mind that poor planning on their part does not constitute an emergency on your part. If they don't like it, then maybe they'll make better future efforts to keep you in the loop.
Whether hospitals or independent offices,
I'm speaking from experience.
I had the same thing with a client in Indiana - did their work for 5 years
Then someone from Connecticut stole the account - underbid me, and the work just kept getting slower and slower, and I asked questions of what was going on, and no answer. Finally the girl that USED to send the work to me called me and told me they were going with Mary's service, and I should be looking for something else, and that they had no intention of telling me because they were using me for stats, etc. (I didn't charge extra for stats, and she did).
So Mary, I know who you are, and I hope RP's dictation is driving you NUTS!
There I feel better.
Now! I work smarter - not harder. I learned through the years how to do this.
I have a pretty stress-free MT job and absolutely love it! Make good money and am enjoying life and my teenagers a bit more.
I realized that the job is not everything.
Best advice - work in-house a couple of years
You really do need hands-on experience in order to be able to do this at home. You will run into terms that you will have no idea how to look up - like "booj aw boo" would you know to look under bougie au boule? Or "terry onal craniotomy" would you know it is "pterional" or would you spends loads of time looking for "T" words? If you work face to face with experienced MTs, they can help you when you run into similar situations. I'm not being snooty, I am only pointing out real situations that you will be faced with and the reasons MTSOs insist that before an MT can work independently at home they have at least 2 years experience. I believe that most of us have worked in-house in the beginning to get to the point where we can do this efficiently at home. Once you do get that experience, though, stand back, the MTSOs will be beating down your door with job offers. Good luck and hang in there! Remember we all had to start somewhere. Best of luck to you!
Well I don't know anything with all my years experience because I only transcribe clinic work ..
Other than that, I see quite a few replies to your original message so hmmm
We have to work alternating T'giving, Xmas, and New Years. sm
Other holidays, Mem Day, Lab Day, 07/04, don't seem to have scheduling issues so they don't dictate which of those, but we have to work 3 of 6 holidays per year.
This year I took off July 4th, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving, and work Memorial Day, Xmas, and New Years. Next year I'll work T'giving but have Xmas adn New Year's off, and the other 3 I haven't decided yet. And, we have to choose all of this in February, which is difficult.
After working 2 years, I average 220-250 lph for clinic work.
nm
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