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I work on Escription VR and if you cannot make minimum wage, then

Posted By: VR person on 2009-06-10
In Reply to: VR - happymt

something is really wrong with either you or your system. I make a very good salary on VR. It can be done even at 4 cpl and that is what I am paid. I have occasional straight but 90%+ is all VR. I do not understand people saying minimum wage- that is only 6 or 7 dollars an hour, ridiculous to work for that in this kind of profession.


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I know waiters and waitresses make less than minimum wage
but when you add their tips it should come up to at least minimum. I know they figure it that way anyway. What other jobs don't pay minimum?
Unskilled labor doesn't make much more than minimum wage anywhere.
How they can afford to work for minimum wage or purchase health insurance is a whole different issue. I don't want to subsidize unskilled workers benefits by paying higher prices at Walmart or anywhere else. And my dear poster, that's what it comes down to. If you force any company to pay "benefits" (health insurance is not an entitlement) the consumer will absorb the cost or the business will fail. Same with minimum wage going up or taxes. The prices go up to cover the business expenses. I go to Walmart for bargains. If I don't get bargains because the prices are high, I don't shop there. Walmart knows they need to keep prices low and they cannot afford to subsidize unskilled workers health insurance. My company doesn't and I understand the reason.
Minimum wage requirements when there's no work, perhaps?
Looks like the Q is having to pony up minimum wage to a lot of MTs when there is NJA and this, I believe, is the highest in CA. Interestingly, CA-based employees of the Q seem to get NJA less frequently than other regions.

Their pay is way low and you work like a dog to make minimum lines.
x
minimum wage is Fed
I know some cities/counties and I guess states have their minimum wage requirement to allow a business to operate. I know some cities in NJ (where I live now) won't allow a business to operate unless they pay minimum around $9/hour. But minimum wage is a Federal standard and is set at $6.XX an hour - that is for all 52 states.

And it is illegal for anyone to pay less. Actually, I found out that if you are working for someone on a production basis and it comes out to less than Fed. min. wage, you can actually file a complaint and recoup wages.
Minimum wage in NY now $6.75 hr - sm
Working at Burger King is looking better all the time!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/nyregion/01minimum.html
At least minimum wage
I worked inhouse for a company.  We did not have to be there at any certain time, but we did clock in and out to show how many hours we were there.  This was, as the other poster said, to make sure we made at least minimum wage.  Also, they figured this by the pay period, not by the day. 
Not around here you can't. Minimum wage. sm
I live in the midwest in a rural community. Wages are lower.
IC and minimum wage
I have read on the forum where an IC should make minimum wage. Is this no matter what her line count pay equals?  I am new to being an IC and have just accepted a position with a service.  Is this true with every service?  Do they have to pay you minimum wage?  Also, if the service is not in the state where you live does this make a difference?  I just figured you were paid for what you produced.
minimum wage
7.00 an hour would only require you to type about 90 lines an hour. Let's say minimum wage is $10 an hour, that would only be 130 lines an hour - I do that in 15 minutes even with my ESL doctors... I say if you are only making minimum wage, this is probably not the field for you to be in.
Less than minimum wage
AND a bad platform, and you are staying? There are jobs out there for way better pay, but you have to start looking! With your four years experience, definitely do not settle for 7 cpl!

I have months when I clear $1500 and I have months when I clear $2000....the difference is ME. Over the past 8 years I have learned to work smarter, more efficiently, and that it is a necessity to have the tools to work with. What good is it if I become an expert swimmer but I'm stuck in a bathtub? If my company's platform would not let me do better, then I'd be testing for other jobs. You are the only one who can do a thing about your income situation.
minimum wage
Walmart pays minimum wage with infinitesimal increases over time. Work schedules are constantly changed to keep the employees off balance. The work is extremely exhausting and at least in our local area, they have a very hard time attracting employees, so there are some real tough scary characters working there. Across the street at Target, it's a different story. Employees are well-groomed, happy, and eager to help the customers. The stores are always immaculate, and you never have to negotiate around towering stacks of boxed unshelved merchandise like at Walmart, which has turned into a filthy mess most of the time. Considering that Target's pay scale is not much more than minimum wage, we can assume that there are cultural differences in that company that provide a better quality of life for their employees. If you have a choice in your local area, go for Target.
How much is it? answer is less than minimum wage.

You don't wanna go there. Why would you take minimum wage to
work with the public all day at minimum wage or maybe a little more than minimum wage, leave your family for hours and hours at a time, and use basically none of the skills that you obviously have as an MT.

I find it a bit offensive that you would compare working at Burger King as being a better career than being an MT. I, for one, have worked long and hard on becoming an MT and am learning something new every single day.

Sounds like you need to work for a company who appreciates you and will pay you well. They are out there. You just need to look.
Minimum wage for down time? sm
Was wondering if anyone has any information about being compensated for downtime - specifically how the department of labor views the complete lack of compensation from these companies? How do they get away with expecting you to work a set schedule, logging in, and then just sitting there? I don't know of any other job - employee status - where this would be tolerated. And, this "flex" thing...how many of us can continually log in throughout the day, on a whim? Many of us work 2 jobs, have kids, other obligations, etc. Wondering what my fellow MTs have to say about fair compensation and what they have found out? I think running out of work weekly, if not daily, and then having to work crazy hours just to get some minimum lines in is not only nuts, it could be in violation of some laws here. I think we are at least owed minimum wage if there is no work. Any opinions? I am going to research this.
Not every state's minimum wage is the same.
Ohio's is $7.00 now and some states higher than that. I don't understand why a job that requires reasonable skills would need to be paying no better than "state minimum wage".
making minimum wage

I may just be crazy here, but I do not see how anybody could possibly just make minimum wage on this job.  At 8 cents a line, that would be only typing less than 75 lines an hour, and even at 5 cents a line it would be less than 130 lines an hour. 


Do people really and truly sit down and type for an hour and only make 5.85 an hour? 


I am making more than minimum wage.
NJ is $7.15. I average between $13 and $15 an hour, sometimes more, but each hour I work yields a different line amount depending on the type of account I am on. I switch between 4 different accounts. As long as I can produce the same amount of lines everyday I am happy. Sounds like you are to, so not sure why you are concerned if people are making minimum wage in this field or not. Why do you care?
Can't enforce minimum wage for ICs.
based on my skillset, not the skillset of other MTs. That could actually lower my rate. I have never accepted any low rates and never will. I'll find another line of work before I'll accept 7 cpl rates. If that's what a place offers, they get no more of my time, period. Yes, I'm a very patient person and went through many bum interviews before finding the right fit, but it's worth it not to compromise.

Besides that issue, I agree with you 100% about AHDI being a crock. I don't care what other health care professionals they choose to represent as long as they take MTs off their list entirely.
making minimum wage..
Most of the time the company's minimum requirements for your shift would equal at least minimum wage, so if you don't meet your line count and therefore are making less than minimum wage and they have to pay you the difference, they probably are not going to keep you as an employee -- at least I would not think so.
If a state has a minimum wage, how can a company (not MT) pay
that companies have to at least pay minimum wage?
CorTmedical - never heard of em, but they need to hear about the minimum wage ... - nm

minimum wage laws cover employees only - nm
x
Minimum Wage, as I read this tears began to well in my eyes ...

You, like some of the other posters, reflect a clear understanding of the downward trend this industry has taken over the last few years and the mindset of those who caused it.  You mention so many experiences that resonate with my own.  Most notably, I like you, put all of my eggs into this one basket, foolishly believing that this wonderland profession that I had found would last forever.  It was a perfect fit for my skills, abilities, and work preference.  I was able to make an excellent living and felt that somehow I was making a meaningful contribution to the care of each patient whose chart came to life under my fingers. 


It is amazing to me how each year the profession requires more and more knowledge from us, more skill, more ability, more dedication, more resources ... and in direct correlation to what is demanded from us our pay is cut more and more and without apology.  I mentioned in another post that I remember when I first got into MT'g some 20+ years ago hearing the Powers That Be constantly resentfully complaining that we made too much money and were no more than glorified typists.  Who could have known that one day they would finally all band together and make an industry-wide collective effort to correct what they felt was an unacceptable dynamic? 


It seems that everyone directly and indirectly involved in the process of transcription is valued and compensated well for their contribution to the process -- everybody except us --  the ones who actually make the final work product a reality. 


Thank you for your contribution to this thread. 


Also work on eScription. Make more. Easier on wrists. sm
It's editing work, and the reason I personally make more is that I'm a slow typist but a fast reader and "punctuator." The eScription software is very easy to learn.
That's the only way to make a decent wage --

The result of MTs' efforts to make a living wage are (sm)
And of COURSE we don't want less - we DO want more. That goes without saying. But you see - the type of verbal attack that you and other "Debbie Downers" like you launch every time an MT says, "Wait a minute... maybe there IS something we can do is so typical of the type of thinking that holds not just MTs, but women in general back. I have already checked and made sure my doc's MTSO doesn't offshore. If that changes, my ins. (which is just your average, run-of-the-mill HMO) STILL allows me to go to other providers. If you "don't have many options", have you ever wondered WHY? Could it be that you keep SETTLING for less and less? And could it be that other MTs, when they read the gloom and doom in your post, will think THEY have to settle, too?

As for pulling other endeavors out of other nations, hey - there are quite a few that I think others would LOVE to see pulled out. Such as tech help for just about everything from your PC to your cellphone being sent to places where they can't understand what you're trying to tell them, and vice versa. I have a friend with a Masters degree in software engineering who is working menial jobs right now in order to pay the rent, while he looks for a job in his field that is a full-time, benefitted position, rather than as a part-time IC with no benefits. He says even the part-time jobs are getting hard to find because so many employers are sending EVERYTHING out, including part time.



The old, "Go ahead and try! Why don't you quit MT? Oh, boy - more work for ME!" song and dance may fly for a while, but why sit back and seemingly enjoy watching your profession go extinct, when eventually it WILL affect you, too? Do you really want to sit there all day as an "editor" and stare at work typed by other entities? How boring is that? Where is any ounce of creatitivity? At least when you transcribe, you are producing something of value, and can take pride in it. And at a lousy 3-to-6 cents a line, where is the pride in speech-rec or editing work?




I will stay in Podunk and make a living wage if you will take it to a blog. sm
Is that concept so hard to understand?  I you cannot understand that simple idea, maybe that is why the lot of you don't have the sense to do something about your situation other than just whine.  Take it to a blog, where maybe between you will be able to help yourselves.  Or better yet, think of it this way,,,  take it to a blog and then you won't have to navigate around the other posts to whine to each other.
I don't work for them but I think they can get away with paying less than min wage
becuase you are an IC and not an employee.

If you're an employee then, yes, I'd say you'd have a leg to stand on but if they have min line/production requirements then more than likely those min requirements would equal out to at least min wage so it would still fall back on you. These MTSOs are usually pretty savvy about getting around legal issues.
I work long hours and keep distractions to a minimum sm
and very, very luckily was assigned an account that was an excellent fit.   I'm pretty sure you all won't believe me anyway and I'm not sure why I bothered to respond  but my "secret" is just hard work and dumb luck.  Plus I do Radiology and for me that is a big part of the equation.  
I work on Escription platform and the adapter didnt work for me. I tried it on my laptop though
and the foot pedal would just not play correctly with the adapter. I think others have tried it and done it but it just didnt work for me.
Your MTs will find it hard to make any money with eScription.

Used to work at a place that measured productivity by minutes. Minimum requirement was 90 min. SM

in an 8.5 hour day or 7.5 productive hours (minus 30 minutes for lunch and two 15 min. breaks).  Don't know if that helps.  Also I've heard that it will take the average productive MT twice as long to type as to dictate, i.e. a 5 minute job will take an MT 10 minutes to type without interruptions.  So figure 90 minutes of dictation is going to take at least three hours to type and probably a little longer if you figure in interruptions like phone calls, kids, etc. 


For me, I would probably say 120-130 minutes would equal an 8 hour day.


Don't know if I've helped, but I hope so. 


For most companies how many hours may part time employees work. What is the minimum and maximum
usually.
I also want a living wage for MTs. Don't mind hard work and longer hours, just want to be paid
:+
I work for an agency, type for a major hospital - no hourly wage - just production. nm
x
No, don't work for Escription
no message.
You most definitely work for eScription . . .
Why not stop BSing us with that crap about doing 600 lines per hour? Everyone here knows that is not possible. You should be ashamed of yourself for luring us in, trying to convince us we will make more money with Edit Script. How can you sleep at night?
I work on Escription and will tell you what I know
You are told you will increase your line count x10 or so. That is not the case. My line count on straight wen from around 2000 or more a day to now approximately 3000 per day (some people do more) but that is all my audio on Escription allows me to do. I have worked for some time on this platform and if you had all the same people working, maybe it might learn but mine never improves too much. There is a lot of editing each and every day. Your pay goes down quite a bit. The pay is usually 4 cents and some places are going even lower than that at 3. something for VR. Some of the people who were on with me at first did not stay, did not like at all. I do not think it will ever replace transcriptionists because it can really mess up sentences, laughing, coughing, background noise will make it throw in words not there, plus it leaves out a lot of things. I would not think most are getting rich on VR now. If I could and younger, probably would accept a job like you mentioned, something involving nursing. I think that would be an excellent job choice because MTing is steadily going downhill. I hope this information is helpful.
I work for a comapny (not escription) who uses
I have done very poorly with line count. The VR is agonizing. I spend an inordinate amount of time making corrections to the reports done by VR at 3.5 cpl...so you are right...I'd have to do close to 5000 lines to make $150.00. Quite sad. Additionally, I at times have to insert normals, which with this system is time consuming.

Even when I type in this software, I'm having a good day if I can get 200 lines per hour at .07cpl. I am testing for other companies. I will starve on these wages.
I want to work on escription program
what companies use it? TIA
I also work on eScription and LOVE it.
.
How do you may Escription and dial up work?

Are there any MTs/VR MTs out there using Escription with dial up?  If so, please tell me how to get it to work becuase I have Escription on my computer, but I cannot get the first dictation downloaded.  If there is a setting somewhere that I need to change for my dial up connection please tell me.  I am begging.


Thanks so much


Escription and dial up..Will it work?

How do you make Escription and dial up work together?  I have a slow connection and I can get short dictations but no long ones.  Does anyone have any advice for me? 


tx


Escription and dial up..Will it work?
What type of system are you working with. Editscript and satellite or dialup are not always the best combination.
Does Escription work with Vista?

Is there anyone out there doing VR on the Escription/EditScript software and using it with the new Vista operating system?  I am just curious if they work well together.


Thanks


Escription- saving work

Hi,


 I was wondering if anyone out there who uses Escription can tell me if there is a way to save a document that is not yet completed?  Last night we had a planned power down to test the generator (we have one every month) and another MT and I were still in the middle of documents.  We just closed down figuring that it would do the autosave but it didn't save anything. My supervisor tells me it only does the save when the computer crashes or the power goes out. When we had Chartscript we could put the document on hold, but with Escription is it either upload it unfinished or lose it?  Is there any way to save an unfinshed report?


Thanks


Does Smartype work w/ Escription
Just wondering.  Thanks
I work on eScription and love it.
With the part-time position I have using eScription, straight transcription I average about $27-$28 an hour and with VR I can average up to about $34-$35 an hour. It did take me a little time and concerted effort to get there, though. I had to learn to keep up with the dictation and I have to really pay close attention but even with difficult dictators, I still do as well or better with VR than straight transcription.

I get 10 cpl for transcription and 5 cpl for VR.

So hooking the 9-pin to a USB adapter will still allow it to work with Escription?
That was my only concern.  I knew about adapters but didn't know if the pedal would still be compatible with Escription.  I know my USB pedal is not and my employer had to send me a 9-pin pedal. 
Also LOVE LOVE ESCRIPTION and make good money but...
Can I ask how you sit there for 8 hours. Lately, I'm having a motivation problem. When I focus, I can rack up the lines, but lately, I get so easily distracted. My mind wanders and I struggle to get my lines. Any tips on how you stay productive who do you work for?? I work for Transcend.