Home     Contact Us    
Main Board Job Seeker's Board Job Wanted Board Resume Bank Company Board Word Help Medquist New MTs Classifieds Offshore Concerns VR/Speech Recognition Tech Help Coding/Medical Billing
Gab Board Politics Comedy Stop Health Issues
ADVERTISEMENT




Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

Workers Compensation

Posted By: former insurance guru on 2006-06-22
In Reply to: WC does not cover CPS any longer. They sm - BTDT

I did workers' compensation claims in my pre MT life.  If MD says it is work related, should be no problem being covered.  Depending on what state you live in, there is probably a waiting period that you would not be paid for until you are off for a certain number of days.  State laws dictates the % you are paid of your average weekly wage based on a minimum and maximum rate.  Do not wait too long to get your CTS taken care of.  You could cause more problems with your hands if you wait too long. 


Complete Discussion Below: marks the location of current message within thread

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu


Other related messages found in our database

Workers'/Worker's Compensation or Workmen's Compensation
?
Workers Compensation
Have any of you who are employees of a national company ever had to file for WC due to hands that just won't work anymore?  I need to get carpal tunnel surgery but can't afford to make zero dollars while I'm off.  I don't want to start accumulating medical bills or alert my company until I've done my research.
Workers' Compensation and the ER
I thought the correct order of things would be for him to be seen regardless of where or how it happened, and the Workers' Compensation part handled after the fact. What would they have done if he'd been hurt more severely? I thought they'd (WC) reimburse whatever out-of-pocket expenses you have once the insurance claim is settled. The boss was definitely trying to set him up, which is disgusting. The funny part is that he actually gave your husband ammunition for an even more complicated lawsuit, should it come to that.
IC Workers Compensation
Having come from being a workers compensation claim represenatative in my prior life, unfortunately you do need to carry your own coverage as an IC. 
Unions may be good for workers short-term, but look what has happened to American car union workers.
They priced themselves out of the market while making an inferior product. Ford and GM are now junk bonds. I'm driving a Toyota. So if that's un-American just like shopping at a non-union store like Walmart, well you can talk to whoever is in charge of wages and taxes who have created this monster where even middle-class has very little extra money to support a union store where the employees are paid well and you pay the price in the product they sell. I can't afford it.
compensation

Hourly charge.


Editing Compensation
I'm an Editor located in the Midwest. I edit radiology as well as most other specialties. I am paid by the line and average well over $20/hour depending on the day and the difficulty of the account; however, I am an IC, so therefore have no benefits. I also provide extensive feedback and assist with training and testing of transcription applicants. I am paid separately for the training and testing responsibilities. I personally believe that paying by the hour is the best way to compensate an editor. Paying by the line rewards speed, not accuracy.
I think your compensation would be based on the...sm.
following:  Your level of experience, the time that you are able to commit to transcribing each day, your use of expanders, your baseline typing skills, your ability to utilize the software package utilized by the company, your ability to adapt, and you ability to negotiate your line rate.
I would ask for some compensation for the "try
aa
Unemployment compensation?
Is is possible to apply for unemployment, at least a partial check, since we are supposed to "produce" so many lines a pay period and the work is never ever there.  We promise them so why should they not pay?  Anyone ever done this and is it possible? 
Pathology Compensation
Can anyone tell me what the average compensation is for transcribing the gross only for pathology, by report, not lines?  Thanks so much for your assistance.
If you really are an IC, you set your rate of compensation.

The prospective client can then either pay what you're asking or find someone who is more in line with what they can afford or are willing to pay.


As long as I'm an IC and setting my own rate, VBC is not my line standard and I would not agree with any statement that it is the standard of the future.


VR compensation/2 wk period
It seems that we have to make that high productivity in voice recognition for two weeks straight. If for even ONE day in the two weeks, your productivity was not as high, it bumps your average back down to making way less money. For example, let's say you work hard to edit 350 lines (voice recog.) per hour for 6 or 7 days, but one day your productivity was only their minimum of 150 lines per hour- that reduces your two-week average. What am I missing? What are you doing to keep productivity really high for that two week average?
VR compensation/2 wk period
No, I have not been able to achieve 350 lines per hour with voice recognition, or anywhere near it. But at 150 lines per hour at 4 cents per line for editing voice recognition, that is $6.00 a hour pay, and so the minimum wage requirement kicks in, as I am an employee, and I make $6.55 per hour for 150 lines per hour. So, how do I double or triple my voice recognition editing production per 2-week period, to at LEAST 300 lines average per hour (or even more if possible) so I can make more money?
Thanks for clarifying the compensation plan. sm.

If it is just a matter of maintaining 98% accuracy with QA, then there is no problem.  My concerns were with changes in the structure of the payment method to the MT, MedQuist's interpretation of a line count, what constitutes a line, as MedQuist is no longer adhering AAMT's line count standard, etc. All of this would directly affect the MT.  Thanks again for all of your responses.


Geee compensation is wonderful!!

You should be eligible for unemployment compensation.
``
Compensation for Medical Transcriptionists

I just came across this on the AHDI site, what used to be AAMT, in an article with the above title: "It is a concern of AHDI that medical transcription professionals are often viewed by their employers and the clients they serve as keyboard specialists who have a familiarity with medical terminology which enables them to transcribe dictated reports for an originator's signature.  In contrast, it is the view of AHDI that keyboarding and transcription should not be confused. Medical transcription involves translation from oral to written in order to generate a record of a patient's healthcare documentation. AHDI views medical transcription as a medical language specialty which requires medical knowledge and understanding, sound judgment, deductive reasoning, and the ability to detect inconsistencies in medical dictation." You can read the rest here:


http://www.ahdionline.org/scriptcontent/rjobcomp.cfm


Are they actually going to fight for better wages, or is this just a ploy to get people to join?


Just sounds like more rules, what about compensation, PTO, raises across

does workman's compensation cover us for carpal tunnel? nm
x
Like most of the MQ workers lately.

One of my co-workers had a (sm)
similar situation, only it involved her entire family. She was adopted as an infant by these people and they never let her forget it. It finally got to the point that she told a dear friend that she was planning to cut off all contact because she couldn't see putting herself or her children through it anymore. That dear friend and his wife adopted her at the age of 40!!
Indian workers
I was obvious they were Indian workers from Indian..Every one of them that I talked to had an Indian accent..I have nothing wrong with American workers with accents..but I called at least eight people to get my internet account straightened out and all had Indian accents..Come on now, I cannot believe eight people are of Indian descent all working at the billing department of my internet account..If you are American of first descent and working IN America, more power to you..if the account is sent overseas, I have a major problem with that..and if you dont have a problem with that, contact me in a few years when our jobs are overseas.
MTs/factory workers
I'm sure many younger and maybe even older MTs might not agree with this, so if you do, I'll be pleasantly surprised. The "how many lines per hour can you do?" mentality so prevalent in medical transcription today is not a good thing for this profession. This belittles the professionalism of the job we do, a profession which requires immense medical knowledge and skill, a fact which, sadly, no one in hospital administration or other positions of management have a clue about and really don't want to know about, else they would have to monetarily compensate us for the professionals we really are. The sad fact is that like a frog being killed by slowly upping the temperature of the water in which he is immersed, without his being aware of the change in temperature, we have by an analagous method slowly but surely become no more than skilled factory workers. X-ray techs, nurses, physical therapists, and other professionals are not evaluated on the basis of the number of patients they take care of each day but on how well they take care of these patients, so why are we evaluated on the basis of how many lines of transcription we can do per hour or day rather than the quality and accuracy of the reports we transcribe? It used to be our responsibility as MTs to put the patient first, to give the appropriate time to research any questions we have regarding the physician's dictation on a particular patient and to make sure we get it right for the sake of the patient, but now it has become the focus of our profession to see many lines per hour we can transcribe. This mentality leads to just trying to produce lines rather than trying to transcribe accurate medical reports. It is my firm opinion that we should not be paid by the line but by the hour, and unfortuantely, AAMT has not been there to represent us in this very relevant issue. If we are so professional as they espouse, then why don't they try to get on track and reverse this trend? In my opinion, AAMT has failed us. They have been so focused on style issues, which are of far less significance than medical accuracy and have caused many of us to boil inside because of the attention given to these really mostly irrelevant issues, that the crux of our problems has escaped them. They have been in absentia and have not been focusing on the issue of getting health care facilities and transcription companies to recognize us for the professionals we are and elevating our pay scale to the level it should be. I have been an MT for over 20 years, so I've seen the negative changes as they've slowly but surely transpired through the years. Perhaps it's time for me to leave the profession altogether because I just can't deal with this "factory productivity" mentality.
MTs/factory workers

There are many ways of sifting the chaff from the wheat.  It doesn't take long to figure out those who are goofing off versus the ones who are researching to transcribe accurate medical reports.  There also other means of monitoring MTs at home if one feels the necessity to be monitored.  Also, there are ways to clock in and out on a pay-per-hour basis. One is via dial-up method and entering one's ID number into a designated system. 


As for being paid for the amount one does versus being paid hourly I would only ask, would you want someone rushing through your H&P, your child's H&P,  or the H&P or other report of any loved one just to get a certain number of lines a day, possibly listing an allergy to the wrong medication or listing the wrong extremity or wrong eye designated for a surgical procedure?  I have transcribed for many, many years and there have been innumerable times that I have had to correct mistakes by physicians who have dictated the wrong extremity, the wrong eye, the wrong medication, the wrong drug allergies, etc., etc.  I for one wouldn't want someone transcribing that I'm allergic to Namenda when I'm really allergic to Augmentin, and it's easy to see how these two medications could be misunderstood if the physician dictating isn't articulate enough, if the quality of the dictation system is poor, or if one is in just too big a hurry to produce lines to care.  I do pray if I am ever a patient in a hospital that the MT who does my report gets it right.  With such emphasis on line counts, it's no wonder we have patients who have had their only "good eye" or "good extremity" removed surgically.


Not true. And they pay their workers well &
http://www.snopes.com/business/alliance/costco.asp
problens with co-workers

Does anyone know of a good way to get my co-workers to be quiet?  I swear there is this one who if something sets her off we hear about it for the next 4 hours (no kidding).  Then others get involved and come into the office and try to say their piece.  It is so hard to concentrate and get a decent line count.  The quality of my work is suffering.  I got a report back the other day with some embarrassing typos in it.  I don't get paid hourly I get paid on production.  I need to make more than 1003 lines a day to make it worth my trip up there.  I was making 1300 lines a day when working from home but then they pulled me in house because they didn't like my internet connection.  Complaining to the supervisor  doesn't do any good as there was a girl that did that and it just made everyone mad and they talk ugly about her.  help!


Workers' comp for IC? Where to get?
I am an IC and have just been told I need to have WC Insurance. Where do I get it? Thanks for your help. suzq
Any MTs out there w/Workers' Comp. (sm)
eval transcription experience in Ortho, Neurology and/or Neurosurgery?   How many years' experience do you have, and for which state?  I'm wondering if it's a hard transition for someone with non-Workers' Comp Rad experience to transition to Ortho, etc. in WC.
ILLEGAL WORKERS
Good for you, glad your experience worked out. Mine didn't. I got a bid for our lawn, which is huge, from a local landscaper, it (the bid) was huge. Unbeknownst to me, my dh had ordered sod and had a delivery date. Someone called from the landscaper with a revised bid ($400.00 cheaper) and I said okay, and took it because the sod was on its way the following day, no cancellations allowed (it was a whop-load, like four truck trailers). I cold not afford to lose all that money. I took the bid, not knowing what else to do and low and behold a mass of people showed up with the truck and guess who they were? Right! I was totally out of my element and just backed up out of the way as huge machine things sent the sod rolling off the trucks and these guys all grabbed some and started rolling it out. Four hours later, the foreman from the landscape company showed up and these evidently were "his men" who showed up (complete with children and dogs and yes, they did want beverages, etc). These kids ran rampant all over the place with little to no supervision. Seems the foreman was stabbing his employer in the back and did this frequently. He is a citizen, but his workers are not. Most ended up being his relatives. Never again! This is my one personal experience with this and I know that it goes on all the time from a neighbor who is a contractor. So, I still blame illegals and people who foster illegals. They need to go home and leave us to ours. I was railroaded that day and others are too. Be careful who you talk to at landcaping companies.
This is what happens to workers when companies
If we just sit on our rears and let them, they'll happily keep on doing it. If all U.S. MTs (AND the editors who fix the Indians' stuff) were to stop work for just ONE week, do you think the offshores alone, without us to do the hard stuff and clean up their messes, could cut it and keep the hospitals happy? I think not. Food for thought.
The construction workers are not all

People in the construction business do require certain licenses.  They are not all uneducated making $30.00 an hour. 


New MTs should be on this board so they can get a reality check.  If you plan to stay in this field, just be cautioned that will not make more unless you transcribe more lines and put in more hours.  That's the bottom line and I'm speaking from 20 years of experience and I'm in my late 30s still raising two children along with my husband.


It's not the foreign workers who are at fault sm

The fault lies with the big US corporations who are the greedy SOBs that have outsourced the jobs so they can save billions over what they would pay workers in the US. 


So, to be rude to and cuss out these working people is not going to get us anywhere.  What we should do is boycott the corporations who are sending the work overseas.  Maybe if they lose enough business they will get smart to themselves and bring the jobs back to the US workers. 


But how many female construction workers??
nm
I was a workers' comp historian in a
hand surgeon's office for two years. He and the hand therapist always said that regular breaks from the keyboard were important to prevent overuse injuries. I saw many cases of permanent disability in computer users who overdid it, and it's not worth it.
Workers' comp can be interesting
depending on the doctor's speciality, but you could get bored very quickly if it's orthopedics. However, you'll never know if they don't send you any work. I would start looking again. Good luck.
question for statutory workers
What percentage would you recommend setting aside from each check to cover your taxes?  thanks.
Question for night workers.....

How do you get your sleep?  I generally get to bed around 3:00 a.m., and need at least 8 or 9 good hours of sleep in order to function the next day.  I set my alarm clock for 11:30, but generally am awake before I ever have to turn it off due to some kind of noise outside.  I sleep with my TV on low and a fan on.  Over the last year or so I have noticed more and more noise in the neighborhood, owners renting out their houses to young people who love LOUD music in their homes and cars, televisions loud enough I could be watching the movie if I could see their screen, things like that.  It used to be kids outside on weekends playing ball and what not, but now it is actually adults making all the noise, very unneccesary noise.  Do they think they don't have neighbors?  Or that the rest of us are as deaf as they are going to end up?  Why is it people just don't care anymore? 


I live in a house, not an apartment.  One of the reasons I bought a house is to escape the noise of the neighbors.  My question is, would any of you actually resort to calling the police on a neighbor if they were constantly disturbing your peace?  There is a noise ordinance where I live, and the police are great at taking care of it, it's just the feeling I would have of actually calling the police on a neighbor.  But at the same time, the neighbors are not respecting me, right? 


Last summer I did go door to door trying to see if people wanted to get together a neighborhood watch, told each person about my concerns with kids tearing down mail boxes, the noise, etc., so from that respect I gathered they all knew that people could hear their noise.  Not one person called to confirm they would be at the meeting, and it was cancelled.  Everyone just wants to do what they want to do.  I'm not going to resort to wearing ear plugs. What if the smoke alarm went off, or my emergency phone? 


I guess I'm just asking for opinions or similar stories to help me out.  Thanks for listening.


Transcriptions, you are saying, are unskilled workers?
I spent over a year training for this job. It took my total attention, I spent so much time in books be it the regular dictionary or medical books. I thought I could go right into transcribing because after all, I had worked in hospitals, medical offices and the like and if I were not a trained professional then, I do not know what it was. Very, very hard for me to understand the ESL physicians and most of the hospital dictators just that, training hospital. I was glad I kept it up but I in no way demean the profession I choose for myself but putting a slant on it like you have. I feel sorry for anyone thinking in this day and time they will be able to make a liveable salary because it would take more than 1 job to do that, a full and a part I would think. Our jobs started being outsourced and that is why the really lousy salaries now, I do not think has to do with being unskilled.
it is totally sad that garment workers
among others have already gone through this - I am not happy with any of it, but Chinese imports are starting to show some major problems that may end up costing us much more than they have saved us.  It is one thing to wear clothes from Taiwan - entirely another to have our medical records and personal information shipped to countries that are killing our soldiers and would (and have) use the information for monetary gain.  I try to buy local produce to support local farmers.  Why can't others do the same with us?  P.S.  I could make sure the T-shirts were made in America - there are a few places.
IC Workers Comp Ins. Required?
thought i posted this earlier, cant find it, sorry if its redundant.  Im an IC, have been for 8+ years with the same company in MASS.  I live in WV.  I was contacted last week and was told that the company had been audited and all IC's were required to have Workers Comp insurance.  the policy costs $655 a year.  anyone have this same requirement?  I have other insurance, Aetna major medical, additional accidental death and dismemberment, long-term disability through my husband's employer, AEP.  So, is it necessary for me to carry comp ins? 
Google domestic workers sue US
xx
Workers' comp insurance for IC

Does anyone know if there is a law in NY state that you have to have Workers' comp insurance as an IC?  I was told by one company that you do and they will not hire me until I have the insurance, but I also saw on this website


http://www.ins.state.ny.us/ogco2005/rg050315.htm that you only need insurance if you have employees, which I do not.  They company says that is incorrect.  Anyone have any idea?

 

Thanks

Unfortunately, this company has no shortage of workers.
I know they hired a few new grads after I turned down their offer. As long as someone will work for that, they have no incentive to raise rates. Companies now don't seem to care about experience and quality, only concerned with the $$$. They didn't care that I can transcribe 2000 lines a day with 99% accuracy. They would rather stick to their cpl and hire new grads. Well, good luck to them.
It's Workers' Comp - they changed it about five years ago, maybe more nm
:
Unions protected workers from exploitation
It seems me that had the unions had a watch dog group, abuse of that system would not have occurred. And there was abuse. A small percentage of people always seem to look for loop holes and then milk something good as long as they can until they ruin it for everybody.

But please, unions are good. If there were unions in Calif for the field workers, conditions would be improved and these unemployed workers across America who have lost their jobs to outsourcing could actually make a decent living at them without work that puts you into a chiropractors' office in ten years.

Of course, the price of food would have to go up or perhaps all of those filthy rich ranch owners would, instead, have to take a cut in income (now there is a possible answer).
BUt I like not being the boss and dealing with the headaches and I like having co-workers to help
:+
Evidently someone is satisfied. They have workers and are still in business. Don't YOU
:+
Question for traveling laptop workers

When staying in a hotel with a desk and internet connection to work, where do you put your keyboard?  Anyone have any suggestion for a portable table to use that is the right level.  The desks are too high.


Thanks!


Sorry, just don’t find the hard workers here you are talking about
Most of us have the good life and would not dream of doing the jobs Hispanics do. I used to work at least 2 jobs to have the kind of money I wanted and had more jobs than that at 1 time- hardly anyone wants to work like that. I think America has gotten soft in a lot of ways whether school systems, work ethics, children and too numerous to count ways. You can bet your bottom dollar if an American is standing out with a sign saying will work for food- ha! Try to get them to come work and see what happens. Your president needs to close the borders- until then I will get the best person I can to work for me, to do a good job and not grip the whole time nor sit down wiht the job half done.
shame on those greedy union workers sm
They just HAVE to eat every day now, don't they. Why the nerve of them...to think they want health care benefits and retirement pensions.

n the meantime,the poor CEOs and board members are going broke with no $$$ left to fuel their private jets so they can go beg for a tax payer bale out.