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When paid hourly, we still had a minimum daily line count

Posted By: which was higher the more we made. nm on 2007-06-21
In Reply to: The big companies are cheating you? - They are providing you with health insurance

;lkj


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I like what I have...Hourly PLUS incentive after a very easy to reach minimum line count.
x
New England, 16.50/hr, 8 cents a line after minimum line count..
full benefits available with general contribution by the hospital before you start paying for them, retirement, 403b, all benefits, and working at home as an employee, BUT, you have to live local to the hospital.
How did you count lines before the PC, or were you paid hourly then? nm


daily required line count

 


Does anyone know the going rate right now for daily line quota? 


Question about daily line count

How many lines do most of you get per day?  How long did it take you to get there?  Is it realistic to think I could get 1500 lines a day? 


I did transcription from 1996-2001 and then took a break off.  I have recently started back and am a little rusty,  but am enjoying the work as I did before. 


Thanks for your input!


You don't get paid an hourly rate you get paid by line - sm
so because of how you are paid (not an hourly rate) you don't get OT, especially if you are an IC.
Is it harder to reach your daily line count on acute care or clinic?
nm
Before you get too excited, most hourly QA jobs have a line count quota too.
so if you had trouble getting quota as an MT, it could be that you might not make it as a QA either.
Paid hourly, req'd 1000 lines, anything over 1101 was 0.04 cents a line

//


You're expected quota depends on whether you are paid hourly or per line. SM

I'm paid hourly and I was told the requirement was 50 or more reports per day.  I've never worked QA per line, but I'm sure their line quota is pretty high, at least 2000 or better per day, as you get credit for every line in every report you QA.


Hope this was the answer you were looking for.


Learn what you speak of. Paid line count
x
Check your line count and what you are getting paid for. Don't trust what they SAY you are gettin
:P
You need to watch your line count. I was working for them and got reports that had line count of 0
You need to watch your line count. I was working for them and got reports that had line count of 0 in them. They did not pay for templates, they would deduct the template even if it was not used and deleted. I notified them and said they could not change it.

So I asked to be put on another account and they refused. I quit.

I was also promised they would have an incentive plan going into place if you type a certain # of lines. Two years went by and nothing.

I was really disappointed in OSI.

They also offered to pay half on joint AAMT, which they failed to do.

I am glad I am no longer there.
yes, daily, but get paid lines for it. nm
nm
If you could get paid hourly...sm
If you could get paid hourly, no incentive, just straight pay, what would you want to get paid?  We are in transition right now where I work and we are trying to come up with a new pay scale and one of the possibilities is no incentive, just straight hourly pay.  What do you think would be a reasonable hourly rate to suggest?  Thanks!
If you are paid hourly, you obviously are not an IC. sm
As a regular employee, you may have to keep strict hours. This is just part of the package. Sometimes you can find a company that will allow you to flex your schedule as an employee, but most will not.

Only working as an independent contractor can you have true flexibility. In my experience, an employer can ask you to set the hours you will be working, but if you have to work other hours instead, the company has no control over this. All they can do is not give you any more work. That is the limit of their control. There are companies that try to enforce hours on their ICs, but this is not legal.

You should look for a job as an IC, if you want true flexibility. However, be aware that there will usually be no benefits such as insurance, vacation, etc.

If someone else has a different experience as an IC, hopefully they will let us know. Good luck to you.
I think most QA are paid hourly. nm
.
Anyone paid hourly?
I've been doing transcription for about a year and a half.  I do radiology work and love it.  The company I work for will only pay hourly for radiology.  The only way to get paid production is to do clinic work (not my favorite).  My pay is terribly low - only $8.50!  I was wondering what others are paid when paid hourly.  Also, if you can suggest any good companies to do radiology work for I would appreciate that.
Since you are paid hourly,

I'm not so sure a raise would be in order.  If you are working OT, you should be getting OT wages and fairly compensated.


Setting up templates and such is a good skill, but lots of regular secretaries can do that who can't do transcription, so maybe you are actually being overpaid if you are getting a transcriptionist's hourly wage for secretarial work. 


It is good that you are willing to be flexible and take on a different project, but I'm not sure if you should get a raise for that.  Maybe a bonus, but not a raise. 


paid hourly isn't much better
I've been at my current editing job for 3 years and I've always been paid hourly, but I only get paid for the hours spent actually editing. I don't get paid to download any of the voice files that I must have in order to do my job. If my boss needs me to look up an old file and send it to her, I don't get paid for that. If she wants me to give feedback on how a Transcriptionist is doing - that's on my own time as well.

On my invoices, I have to break each day's time down by how much was spent on which doctor's editing -- I can't include anything else.
Paid production/hourly

To those of you who are paid production (other than MQ) - are you limited to working 39 hours a week? I don't understand being paid by the line, yet being treated as an hourly worker. Just curious as to whether this is the norm at other places. 


are you paid by production or hourly?
nm
Are there any hourly paid jobs as an MT?
I was wondering if anyone knew of a company that paid hourly pay.  I am kind of getting tired of grinding my fingers to the bone to make a living .  Thanks for your help. sm
Take the character count divded by 65 and that will give you your line count.
x
Minimum line production?
What is the standard for minimum line production for most outsourcing vendors?  
minimum line counts
Irish, I have been an MT for 20 years, both as an IC for other companies and in business for myself. The truth is that these companies make a LOT of money. They have figured out what a good fast experienced MT working feverishly a full 8 hours a day, can produce, and then they set that as the "minimum", offering the lowest pay. If you ever want to make what you are worth, you will have to get your own equipment or use a service that provides that, and get your own account(s), just what you can handle on your own. Price it about double what you are used to making and do a good job. MTs are way undervalued, and it is getting worse. A really experienced MT can now do SR for half the pay, and it takes even more skill, just less keyboard stroking. That's the truth about this business.
Good luck.
Are you paid hourly? If so, I'm surprised they allow you to work with such little ones.
 r
I get paid hourly $18.00. The hospital I work at don't believe sm
in production because of the error rate, blanks, etc. just to make money. I am sooooooooooooooooooooooo happy.
That's harsh. Hardly anybody is paid hourly in this field
It's all production pay. It's not theft to get your line quota in and knock off for the day. Why should the fast ones be penalized for being good? Why should they have to do more work than the others? You can't fire somebody for meeting their contracted production in a timely manner.
Working at Home/Getting Paid Hourly

I sent in this info to an MT head hunter:


I am looking for a work-at-home MT position that is employee-based, not independent contractor, paying hourly instead of per line or per page, where I could work Tuesday through Friday, 32 hours a week, no weekends, no nights or holidays.


I was told this was a "TALL ORDER," and that I would never be able to find it.  I don't think that I am asking for too much, and that there has to be an MT company out there that is willing to pay highly skilled and experienced MTs what they are worth.  I know there are plenty of MTs out there who say, "Oh, if you work hard enough, you can make just as much per line as by hour,"   but it's been my experience, having worked three MT jobs from home, that that would entail cranking out btetween 1,500-2,000 lines per day...provided there is work available and provided you are getting paid more than 0.12 per line  I've been working 12 YEARS as an MT, but most companies still want to pay me between 0.05-0.12 cents per line.  FIVE CENTS A LINE FOR AN MT WITH 12 YEARS IN THE BUSINESS.  What is wrong with this picture???????? 


If there is a company willing to pay an experienced MT at least $16+ per hour to work at home, please e-mail me!


Re: Working At Home/Getting Paid Hourly
Perhaps. Don't get me wrong, I like where I work and how much I'm making, and this company acdtually has two MTs working at home; however, they are not offering this option to any other MTs at this time, if ever. The at-home MTs from this company are getting paid per hour and have full benefits, but that's only because they've been working in-house at the company for many years. *Sigh*....
Working at Home/Getting Paid Hourly
Sounds like nice work if ya can get it. :) I wouldn't mind picking up tapes, provided that the pick up/drop-off site wasn't too far.
Working at Home/Getting Paid Hourly
THAT SUCKS. You should be making FAR more than 9 cents a line. UGH. And there are still companies offering experienced MTs 5 cents a line.
then you should be paid hourly somewhere and leave the lines to those
who take it more seriously. I used to do it in 6 hours...six straight. you can call that two 2 hour breaks daily - I called it done for the day early. and I did not do it sitting in diapers with a straw from my mouth to the frig, I stretched the legs as often as necessary.

Guess what? Every day I pushed myself, when I relaxed back to my normal 'comfortable pace' again, I found my line counts had increased! That much more just got easy and I just gave myself a raise.

normals? of course. shortcuts? a ton.
What to you think mass production is? Keeps the QA soores high, too. If you knew your stuff outside of terminology, you would know it is a waxing/waning speed the whole time, and you would know how to utilize the software and platforms to max. Those little games pay off to your advantage come payday. Sit and type? Not by your standards or definition. They really need to cover this in the schools.

If you do not want to work on yourself, then you need to be hourly somewhere because you won't be able to handle it. In production, it is your type of woe-is-me I'm just the messenger stance that tends to get get in our way when turnaround slips.

And that, my friend, is why overhiring was created. The same ones that would or could not pull their weight - would or could not pitch in extra to keep the darn account in contract.

I wouldn't knock those to think of it as more than a second income but a living, and regard themselves as more than a secretary but a professional. Oh, and what makes you think we DON'T have lives? We manage quite well - ALL OF IT.





Depends on whether you are paid hourly or on production.

If you are paid on production, then I wouldn't even spend five minutes researching a physicians name because it's the MTSOs responsibility to make sure have up to date physician lists available to you.  Nothing irks me more than starting a new job with an MTSO who expects you to hit the ground running, but gives you very little to start with!


If you are paid hourly, then I would spend up to 10 minutes trying to figure something out.


I get paid hourly and I work at home
They expect me to work 7-1/2 hours a day and I do, but they do let me spread it out over the course of the day. I work four hours in the morning, two in the afternoon and the other one and a half in the evening. I can leave and go to an appointment and make that time up in the evenings also. But then again, when I don't have any work I still get paid.
Hospital job is "work-at-home" paid hourly
Thank you for well wishes.
Nope. We get paid production too. Unfortunately, hourly QA is out the door.
They are fewer and farther between than you could imagine. AND, for those of us who have been fortunate enough to be paid production (I'm one of the unfortunate CBay editors who was fired just before Christmas.)
QA, $3000/mo hourly so get some overtime too, bennies paid, no complaints. nm
x
We paid hourly with incentive for high production. So she's making money when she's just
sitting there.  I don't know if it is a habit or not because this is the first time I've really had to work with her for any length of time.  I usually only work a couple of hours a day with her when our shifts overlap.  I think I'm definitely going to ask the girl I'm filling in for what she thinks about her.
Question on required daily line quotas
I am trying to determine what is considered a reasonable and average daily line quota for straight transcription.  Would anyone be able to tell me what is required at your particular job?  I'm inclined to think 1,200 65 character lines per day is a fair one for full time work - but I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts.  Thanks for any help! 
HOURLY VS LINE

I disagree with the hourly rate.  I like to know that I get paid for the amount that I produce.  It would really be hard to regulate an hourly scale.  If you feel bad now how would you feel knowing that someone is goofing off or typing slower or whatever and getting the same rate of pay that you get?   I have a couple of subs and I know about how long it takes to do one of the psych reports but how could I know what that person is doing.   I really think that the hospitals/accounts would have a problem with this especially with us working at home.    Also how could we clock in and out at an hourly rate.  I am a pretty trusting person and trustworthy but there are times I stop and take a break and go to this board, etc.  That is why they went to the per line charge. 


And yes, I can do 2500 lines per day. For one account last month I had them keep track of the errors that they found and it was 5 out of 10,.973 lines for that month.  So I feel I do a good job but if I were to go to hourly I would lose money as with this account it takes me about 30 to 35 hours a month with delivery, printing, etc. to make $1100  to 1200 a month.   They would not pay me $35 to 40 an hour. 


 


Hourly or Per Line?
I personally would be willing to go back to an hourly rate and be a company employee again. I know I will never make the $22/hour I made in the 1980s. However, my daughter is a receptionist in a surgeon's office and she makes over $18/hour. I would like to believe that we would make at least an hourly wage comparable to that.

I know I would be willing to settle for $15 to $18 an hour if I was on the company payroll and getting benefits as the OP is.

Wonder if the local physicians think they are getting ripped off by the per line rate and would consider switching to an hourly employee on their payroll? I would like to think that. These are just some of my thoughts on the subject.
Hourly vs. per line
Hourly pay is better if you can get it, because you never know what kind of transcript you'll run into or number of corrections you have to do. OTOH, even though I am paid hourly to do QA I tell myself my "base rate" is 3-4 cpl and I monitor the number of lines per hour I average, just to keep myself on track and keep myself from wasting my and my employer's time on wild goose chases (I tend to be highly obsessive about finding obscure terms, and the Internet has no end!).

I would never accept less than 3 cpl for QA or editing, and would certainly try to secure more than that. JMO.
Nothing. Never take line rate for editing. Take hourly only.
You will never make any money by the line editing if you are doing true editing.
QA Pay Preference -- hourly versus per line? SM

I've been offered two QA jobs; one that pays $15 per hour and one that pays 4 cpl.  I'm told that I can make more than $15 per hour on production because you get credit for all lines in a report, even if you make only one correction.  So I figured that to make the equivalent of $15 per hour, I would have to QA 3000 lines a day.  So here's my question, is 3000 lines of QA in an 8 hour day feasible and is it possible to do more lines than that in an 8 hour day?


Both offer employee status, benefits, etc.  Benefit plans are pretty much exactly the same down to the same health insurance company. 


How are they paying their in-house transcriptionists? Hourly or by the line?

.


That still is not a paid line rate. If your base is $0.10 per line, it will be $0.08 cpl.
Considering other companies pay 4 or 5 cents per line for VR - you are still making out.

Question about what is PAID for a line and what is BILLED for a line
Does the MTSO actually bill for headers, footers, and other things the transcriptionists are not paid for?  I worked for a company a while back and their copy of what each Transcriptionist typed the day before and our copy was a lot different, about 30% different.  Their copy was the billing copy. So, double their enhanced amount and subtract our 9 cents a line, it comes to a bigger profit than what I thought.   
Doesn't matter, IF you are not paid an hourly wage, i.e. a set amount no matter - sm
how much or how little you type, say $12.00/hour, you do not get OT. As someone mentioned here, certain jobs are exempt, and as most of us are paid a flat rate of .08 cpl or .09 or .10, whatever it is, that is all we get regardless of how many hours under or over 40 hours we go. If you want OT then go get an in-house job or get a job doing something else.
Line Count...
Does anyone know if the Word 2000 line counter is generally the same as what most MT companies go by? I'm trying to see how I do being paid by lines as opposed to report.