Percentage of ESL dictators
Posted By: hillbillymt on 2006-12-08
In Reply to: What do you wish you had asked before taking your job? - MT
Have been lied to on 2 jobs now and it is about to give me a nervous breakdown wondering how in the heck I am going to pay my bills with so many ESLs. They tell me 35% or 50%.....90% or more is about right. I'm looking for a non-MT job after almost 10 years as an MT.
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Not always. Tongue stumblers. New dictators. Speedy and lazy dictators.
D
?? Bad dictators are bad dictators regardless of their mother language.
wonder when people will just get over it and do what they can and move on.
Percentage?
Can anyone estimate a percentage of letters/words straight typed versus expander? I am quite sure no one type 100% expansions, but I am hoping some of you can give a good estimate.
I make lots of them but am wondering what your ratios are.
Thanks for your feedback! 
You can only take a percentage of
things related around the home if you have an office. I take 7% off of anything around the house, but not 100%. I take 50% for the internet. I do take my office supplies off, but only a percentage, I do use my printer for things other than work. Having a home office and taking deductions is a red flag for the IRS.
You can only write off the percentage actually used...
for work. Who uses 40% of the space in their house??? I write off 10-15%. You also must use that work area for work only. Come audit time (and it eventually may happen), you will need to show a floorplan of your house and what area is for work exclusively. If you're writing off 40% you will be in deep doo-doo. 
but what percentage of hospitals allow that?
From what I've been reading ... the home-based service MT is averaging 8 cpl, for those dictators which make you run screaming from the room. And, I don't forsee things improving. Then again, some are lucky enough to make a line rate worthy of their skills, without worry about the dictators from Hades.
This is a bit out of date: http://www.bls.gov/oco/pdf/ocos271.pdf
Percentage of loss.
Line pay it's about 15% if my calculations are correct and as far as vacation/holiday pay, it's about 27%. So sorry for you.
Some companies just take a percentage
of each report to compensate for headers and footers, not what those headers and footers actually are. The same thing happens to me at my company.
What percentage for state and fed? nm
x
Yes, renters can write off percentage (sm)
of apartment/house used for work. In the area where it reads, "rents," you can write off percentage of house used.
Brother is a tax attorney and helped me out with this. I used to pay a fortune, but no more! On top of that, if you are claiming under $25,000.00 they don't even check for small businesses anymore.
Just trying to help. You sound like a tax man! A tax man will say the same thing, you can't write off this, you can't write off that, but if you read the IRS publications there are a lot of things you can write off. They don't want to end up in tax court, want to run through your return and get it done. They don't care if you pay a fortune. If you have receipts for everything what are they going to do? The IRS is not going to bother with our piddly incomes. 
How is the error percentage calculated? nm
nm
I do all ER and only a small percentage are gruesome. sm
The bulk of them are minor car accidents, asthma attacks, chest pains, bug bites, high blood sugar, household injuries, rashes, babies with fevers....and on and on and on. I thought they were easy to learn and get used to because so much was so similar, docs use the same formats for dictating. The charts flow pretty quickly and I make good money on them.
What would be a late fee or percentage suggested?
I think your idea is excellent. Other companies do this. Why can't ICs? Of course we can. But how do you decide on the late fee amount? Certain percentage after a certain number of days. What is the usual company procedure on this? Does anyone know.
You pay your home state tax, whatever percentage that is. You can claim
deductions for anything associated to your job....i.e., a percentage of your utilities, expenses such as supplies needed to do your job, etc. Save all receipts for any of those items that you purchase related to the job, and I think the 1099 would be sufficient.
As far as I know you can earn up to a certain amount - you cannot exceed a certain percentage of the
salary you were making when you took your disability. I do not think it is uncommon to work as you could certainly not make it on disability alone.
What percentage productivity gain do you get with InstanText?
Am thinking of switching. I currently get 400% productivity with SH8 (it types 3 characters for every 1 I type). Can anyone out there get similar figures with InstanText?
So MQ explains how they arrived at the increased production percentage for ASR.
It appears to be a good study with what was excluded. However, don't tell me about the opportunity for increased financial gain with this so called wonderful increased production of 30% when you decrease my pay by 20%. The only financial gain I can see in all this is in the profit margin for the company.
Own accounts, line charge, MTSO percentage
I think you might have posted this same question about a week ago. I take anywhere from 20 to 30% on an account from my IC's that covers my being the QA, the accountant, the customer service rep, the go between and the relief transcriptionist. I really think you MTSO is being more than fair. Stop and think if and when you get your own accounts, would you only keep 25% if someone was typing for you? Sometimes it is hardly worth my time to keep the accounts for the IC's as the time I spend on those accounts I accounts I could be typing and earning $30 to $40 instead of the $10 to $12 that I get when someone else types it. Remember when you have your own accounts there is no one to cover for you when you are sick, your child is sick, you go on vacation, holidays, etc. There is always a flip side to the coin. I do wish you luck but there is more into doing your own accounts than you realize.
It is irrelevant what percentage the service takes of 'your' earnings...sm
what matters is: is it worth it to you to work for that rate? On some accounts, my IC's might make only 50% of what I charge the client, on others they might be paid 80%. For one physician, I might charge 12 cents a line - if another calls, says they are in a jam and desperate to get their backlog done, I might bid it at 14. But if you are satisifed with say 8.5 cents a line, it doesn't matter if your MTSO charges them 9.5 or 19.5.
As far as line rates to physicians, again, it depends on what the market will bear. You could call local physician offices and tell them you are an independent MT service and you are getting price ranges for the locality, and ask the OM what they are paying. That would give you an idea of what is competitive. In West Virginia, they might be charging 18 cents per line, in Chicagoland they might be charging 11.
The line rate
You're probably right. Plus we're losing our percentage of good people by .... (sm)
allowing every loser from every 3rd world country on the planet to just stroll on into our country, some legally, most illegally, and take advantage of the social services all us hard working little gerbils pay for by having money taken out of our pay every month. But I don't think we're all lazy. Just the ones on permanent welfare driving around town in brand-new Cadillac Escalades. Saw one just today on the Bayshore Fwy. Brand-new black Escalade with expensive spinner wheels, with 5 or 6 Mexicans in it. Well, who knows - maybe they stole it and it was on its way to a chop-shop. Smart-and-hungry people aren't always hard-working and honest.
Screen Resolution/Font/Screen Percentage
My eyes are tired all the time. I usually have my monitor set at 800 x 600 pixels and use Bookman at 10 font in Word at 111% in the normal layout. What might be a better viewing screen setting to use?
how are they going to get used to all the dictators
if your source says they cherry pick and only do American dictators? Sounds like never. But you knew that.
PS: Are you absolutely sure your source has your best interest in mind with this detailed ratting on another person regarding Indian cherry picking doing non-Indian work?
Dictators who keep....
 
I'm having a bad day with dictators and got this in my
email. It cracked me up. It's a typo in a medical brief that a lawyer filed for a continuance. The typo is on the 2nd page.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0916051disk1.html
I have had dictators like that!
when most dictators were from the USA. nm
x
bad dictators sm
I can take an ESL more than I can take an American who speaks fast just to show off to his buddies or because he has a hot date and is dictating from his car or worse yet, if you can't understand him, he has an excuse why his report is incorrect, he can blame you for it. They do it, believe me, and they are the ones who should be shot down. Give me an ESL any day who says thank you very much and is trying hard to learn the language. Some of these fast-talking big shots could care less about us. I had one guy who could fit 15 discharge summaries on one side of a 15 minute tape and everyone would send him to me because I was the outside service. When he was spoken to, he just threw his head back and laughed. Ignorant!
dictators
don't you just love it when you have to turn up the volume to hear what the doctor is saying and then in the middle of the dictation he finally puts his mouth to the mic/phone, blasting your ears; so you turn it down then by the end of the report you have to turn it back up.......no wonder I have ringing in my ears sometime
Bad dictators
Chewing gum very loudly, blowing bubbles while dictating, drinking something and then chewing on the ice....all in the average day lately. Don't these people stop to think that someone has to listen to this? That they are chomping incessantly into someone's ears. No common sense. Maybe once, someone in authority should remind them that these are legal documents and need to be transcribed as accurately as possible, so no chewing, drinking, talking while yawning, etc.
Bad dictators
I have got to one-up y'all... there is a woman doctor in our group who actually takes her dictaphone INTO THE BATHROOM with her and, yes, that's right, uses the potty right while she's dictating...
ESL dictators
Maybe the ESL docs, knowing that the Transcriptionist must be having a difficult time with the language barrier, should hire an English speaking person to do their dictations. It would free up their time for being a doctor and seeing patient's, give a more accurate transcription, and a better quality report. Wha'cha think???
ESL dictators
Seems many MTs have this complaint. We should be told the correct percentage of ESL dictators BEFORE accepting a job. Imagine all the money a company would save by going over details with each new applicant honestly and thoroughly in the beginning instead of making the job sound good and then have a disappointed new employee, who will quit and the company will have to advertise and hire again. Advertising and training on a computer system is costly, including the time involved etc. The more a company can do to retain its employees, the more money it will save in the long run. Also, pay based on production, not quality of work, is counter productive. Imagine if each Transcriptionist was paid a salary and did quality work and no QA people were needed, except to pull random reports of new employees during the first 30-60 days or so. I feel there is too much QA and not enough emphasis put on quality reports from the beginning. Many transcriptionists feel, the QA people will fill in my blanks, yet they may be able to find the word/words themselves if production was not such a huge factor. But too many employees are trying to meet a line count. With a salary, you can establish a budget and know what to expect in your paycheck. I've transcribed for 25 years. I love my work. Since outsourcing and pay by production have been instituted, I feel pride in transcribing has suffered. Give an employee a job they can feel great about, benefits, and treat them with honesty, fairness, and respect and they will be glad to work for that kind of company. Hopefully, there are companies out there like this It's up to us to find the good companies.
Of note, 10 years ago transcriptionists were being paid around 10-11 cpl and $3.50-$4.00 a page. What happened, outsourcing!! We used to get a higher salary than coders, but not now. We need to keep our work in the USA.
Bad Dictators
I had my share of bad dictators this afternoon too! Is it full moon? I am sure I had your doctor's wife. LOL Can we band together and chart a bus to deliver them to the firing squad?? LOL At least maybe would could let the air out of the tires on their golf carts! Do these people listen to how bad they are???????
Dictators
OH PULEEEEZE spare me the whispering, breathy female docs who sound like they could talk all night on a phone sex line. I don't care what you sound like on the phone. Just TALK lady - spit it out. Am I mad or what? Gads I'm sick of these bimbos.
bad dictators
You ever wonder that when the powers that be become aware that you are making lines on low volume work days, they somehow sneak all the worse dictators your way? I have had bad dictators, none of them in sequential order, and am no where close to my lph this morning.
Dictators
 I could send you a lighter! Seriously, I have considered sending a voice copy to them to play after the fact, a day or two later, so they could see what they could understand of what they said!
BAD Dictators
Oh, you're not alone. They all must have spring fever or something. I have had more dead air than dictation on reports lately. If this keeps up the pay should not be by the line, but by the minutes listened to.
To all the dictators out there
SLOW DOWN! This is not a race. I cannot stand it when these dictators talk so fast that you cannot understand them. You know who you are, especially the cardiac dictators!!!!
Thanks for letting me vent. I get frustrated when my production goes in the toilet!
bad dictators
My huge pet peeve when it comes to dictators is them stopping to flip through the chart and not pushing the pause button. I mean I am just sitting there listening to dead air, wasting money while they find what they are looking for before they start talking again. How RUDE. I think all doctors should take Dictation 101 as part of their medical training before they get licensed. Speak clearly in complete sentences, speak at a fairly fast pace, and for heaven's sake.......hit the pause button if you have to stop dictating.
Bad dictators
IMHO, these are all due to the HIM department folks not training the docs properly. I worked at one hospital long enough to find out that the HIM department heads have total control over what type of dictation behavior is accepted, including the reports that are outsourced. It seems that, if the HIM departments for the various hospitals that outsource to us, or the office managers for the various doctors, would just care about what type of dictation we are getting, they would go out of their way to do something about it. I know they have plenty of time, cause these are the very ones who have no problem picking apart reports and complaining about missing commas!!
Bad dictators
Now my pet peeve.......dictators who say "go back and change" or "forget that last paragraph". You are essentially typing 2 reports and being compensated for only 1. Had 1 report today where CRNP did that 16 times.
Any suggestions welcome!
dictators
If MTs did the kind of job some dictators do they would be fired.
When dictators take a long time shuffling papers I just hold down my foot pedal down while awaiting the next words and check my email or read a paragraph in a book or do some upper body stretching exercises.
Recently I had a doc dictating over the barking of a dog. I wonder where he was? Or where the dog was? 
What is it with these dictators..sm
They'll ...um and ...uh and ...er all through the patient history..wasting more and more of the MT's time than necessary .. with the occasional 30-45 second pause between each item to paper-shuffle (on OUR time). But when it comes to the MEDS and LABS, which are the mainstay of an H&P or consult, as other doctors will base patient care on the meds the patient is already taking or present lab results, they'll race through them at 78 rpm so as not to be understood or able to be transcribed without rewinding 4 or 5 times. Just because they can race-read medications or labs doesn't mean we can type them just as fast... I guess accuracy in these areas takes back seat. (Who cares where the patient moved here from or went to school?)
bad dictators
I think the shoe should be on the other foot. The doctors have absolutely no respect for what we do - we should be the ones giving THEM feedback - They will be the first ones to speak up if there is an error on the report when in fact, it is entirely their fault. We are intelligent, professional MTs, not magicians !!!!
The dictators that....
Have a pager sitting right beside the microphone and it continuously goes off, a shrill BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP right in my ear and they don't bother silencing it, turning it off, merely MOVING it away from the mic so that my ears are still intact, they just let it beep and keep on talking away.
What are your favorite dictators?
I like the ones who right when they begin dictating, turn around and speak directly into their armpit. Or how about the ones who carry on a complete conversation in English to the nurse next to them, then when they start dictating they sound like one of those auction guys who have had a few drinks?
Favorite dictators
I have one guy, who really seems nice, thank's you each time at the end of the report, apologises if he has to correct something he said, long reports, BUT, he usually dictates at home, while cooking,bathing the kids and NOW, we must have a new dog because we are deciding to train it while dictating .
It's a verbat account so I really should have put in all the "sits, stays, good dog..would have made a fortune.
BUT (again), if it were'nt for the fact that the ER he works in is over 140 miles away, I'd have been in the ER, requesting him, to treat me for my ruptured ear drum, when he must have forgot the doggie treats and this dog started barking, loud, blew my eardrums out, had to crank the volume wayyyyyyyyy down, could NOT hear him, except for the good dog's and sit, I'll play later
SS dictators and LINES.
I HAD a problem with Softscript period. Heard their sever is down again. Look out, line count will be changing again. Horrible communication. Horrible dictators. Never pain on time, NEVER. Dictators from hexx.
dictators on the phone
I agree--I have mentioned this endless times to my supervisor about dictators being on the cell phone, the worse that I have had was a dr at a baseball game, doing dictation on his cell phone, you could hear the other parents in the background cheering--sounded like a little league game and yes I did tell my supervisor and yes it is MQ and of yes, nothing was done
I love the ones that are on their cell phones and then drive thru a tunnel or put the top down
Fast dictators
When are these ******** doctors going to figure out that by dictating 100 miles per hour they are NOT going to get an accurate accounting of their patient encounter???? I feel like I'm being set up to fail. I don't care how much experience we transcriptionists have, if you're going to dictate a three page report if 1.5 minutes, SOMETHING is going to get missed or screwed up. I hope that extra three minutes they saved themselves throughout their busy day is worth it when the patient's chart gets the wrong data and somewhere down the line a big mistake is made. I've had a terrible morning, struggling with Mr. All-Important who dictates vital signs as one long rambling of numbers, never in the same order (one time it will be weight first, then pulse, blood pressure, respirations and the next time it will be blood pressure first, then weight, then respirations, then pulse) -- I've had it!!!!! I've got so many blanks in this batch of reports that I'm embarrased to turn them in.
Thanks for letting me vent. I'm not a bad transcriptionist.
I am so sick of ESL dictators!
 What a lousy day! I am sick to death of getting 100 different doctors a day and maybe one of them speak English. Makes for a very long frustrating day.
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