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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

but what percentage of hospitals allow that?

Posted By: Snow Bunny on 2005-11-07
In Reply to: 40K - I agree

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This is a bit out of date:   http://www.bls.gov/oco/pdf/ocos271.pdf




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Yeah, but hospitals are already largely using VR in hospitals. (nm)
(nm)
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. 
Percentage of ESL dictators
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.
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?
Most hospitals have ......

contracted their work out to the national service, a practice I hope comes full circle eventually and hospitals reopen their own departments in the name of confidentiality and quality control.  I only know of 2 hospitals out of about 8 in my area that have their own department (I work for one of them).  It is by far the best MT job there is, or that I have ever had.  I am at home, but a regular employee.  The hospital is only 20 min from my house (we have to live local).  I have worked for the big nationals and saw nothing but a decline in pay.  Now I get regular raises, good hourly pay, production incentive pay, benefits, and vacation time.  I wish more MTs could find my situation.  I have hopes for the future once the industry figures out that they are cutting off their nose in spite of their face.


Do All Hospitals
In Tennessee pay that well? I have been considering moving to Tennessee to try to get away from the hurricanes.
VA Hospitals

I did the VA Hospital dictation here in Portland and it was all contracted out to companies, no employees.   But you might contact your local VA Hospital but if it is as an employee 95% chance you will have to go into work and not do it at home, if it is at home it will be as an IC and no benefits.    Just what I know about it.  If you think your ESL's are bad at a regular hospital, this is worse as there is a lot of ESL's there on their rotation and they could care less how they dictate as they are only there for 6 to 8 weeks.   Changes that often.   


 


The hospitals are not going to get
dial into.  They'd be better off hiring MTs and paying benefits than doing that.  And if you dial directly into the hospital, instead of into the MTSO's dictation system, then the MTSO has no say in 800 lines.  The truth is, hospitals usually do not want to just turn all of their dictation over to a service and they certainly aren't going to pay for long distance incoming calls in addition to what they pay the service.
just sometimes it is the hospitals...
they are actually told to hold back dictation at times, due to costs. sometimes the hospitals sneak around and try other services, or voice recognition.

in the future, there will not even be any voice dictation...just templates where information is added, like data entry...
Not that many hospitals.......
still have their own dept.  That's how Medquist and Spheris and all those huge nationals exist... They have whole hospital accounts.  Out of the 3 large hospitals in my vicinity, only 1 still has their own department.  I trolled their website for months before I found an opening, but I eventually got in.  Some  hospitals don't have their MTs at home, mine does.  It all depends.  Most hospitals have a website, so fine the one you're interested in and check out their job opportunities, and then check it almost every day and if they do have a dept, they'll eventually have an opening.
Well - believe it. Hospitals pay that. I can tell you
at least hospitals in the Philadelphia area pay up to 24 cpl. MQ charges 23 cpl. I have one small department of a hospital at 17 cpl. It is out there - pull your head out of the sand and go looking.
I wonder if hospitals know
There are American transcription companies opening up here in the US that actually work for companies in India?  I had a job offer from an American company and they let it slip that they were actually getting paid by Focus Infomatics.   I thought about this and what an idea!  You open up a company in the states, the facilities think they are getting American work, then you actually have the work done overseas.....hmmmmm
hospitals

do hospitals now go by minutes instead of lines in regards to productivity?  if so, what is the usual they are asking for an 8 hour day? 


thanx!


All hospitals are different. Concerning
your "past," if it has been exspunged from your record, then basically it never happened. This happened to my BFs son and his attorney told him that since his record was exspunged, nothing ever took place, so he does not have to mention it on any job application. You might want to call your local court house or your attorney on that particular question.

I would say go ahead and apply. Good luck.
All hospitals are different. when I sm
first started, ERs did their own stuff too. But as the years went on, ER combined with the MR departments and was considered part of acute care. It is not as detailed but you get some of the same language in an abbreviated from by doing ERs, even some OP reports. I don't like ERs either though simply because the docs are usually in a hurry and they are motor mouths. I do think though that MTs now should consider ERs as part of acute care especially if they don't like ERs.

Some MT companies do split them up though and hire folks for just ERs.
SM hospitals
It's been years since I have heard of any hospital that has ANYbody working in-house.
What hospitals?? I'm soooo there


No, even the hospitals don't want to hire new MTs.
Doctors don't want to hire newbies.  In office, at home, it doesn't matter.  It's not about being a stay at home mommy, as you are so assuming and generalizing yourself.  Everyone wants to hire experienced workers, but nobody is willing to train them.  As I said, every other industry in the country trains their workers.  MT seems to be the only one where people are expected to walk into it knowing everything.  It's not an assumption; it's an observation.  Just because my experience and observations are different than yours does not make me wrong.  You're not the know all, end all to the MT world.  I do have business management experience and education, so don't dismiss my observation as lacking just because it doesn't match yours.
Hospitals being sued
Seems to me the hospitals must not be very worried about being sued or they would require fluency in the English language as a pre-requisite for staff privileges.  Secondly, any doctor who doesn't read what he signs pretty much deserves what he gets.   Transcriptionists make mistakes....so do doctors.  Thirdly, maybe hospitals should re-think how their work is contracted out.  Far fewer problems when transcription was done in house.
i am sure you are aware that there are still hospitals out there
that have not yet adopted these rules. I type for one major hospital that still wants the patient's name typed in the report. Another still wants cc instead of mL. Had this person tested and changed it to the "correct" form, who is to say that she wouldn't have gotten marked off for changed verbatim. Nervous MT2, hang in there, and if you test again make sure you ask up front whether they want you to follow BOS or type it verbatim that way you know ahead of time.
My nearby hospitals pay around $10 as well (sm)
I make 22-25$/hr at home. I live in an area where average pay is low, but likewise cost of living is reasonable.
I miss the hospitals too.
But things are so different there now that the online companies exist. It changed the way transcription is handled in most places. When I went back to working for a hospital last year, the supervisor wanted a certain amount of lines per day versus minutes per day like the old days. It was an outrageous number and with no Expander or medical speller or anything.


Hospitals oursourcing
HIPPA is all about smoke and mirrors, designed to keep the masses feeling "secure." If the powers that be were concerned about privacy and the state of the world, they would have built that provision right in there from the beginning, but powerful special interest groups designed HIPPA and left out this all important factor. I personally know hospitals that directly outsource overseas, and maybe, just maybe it may have to do with the fact that the owners (doctors) are foreigners living in this country and have colleagues in India. Wheh I questioned an administration about HIPPA and what they were doing, I was told, "Not to worry, they take the same precautions and follow protocols we do here for HIPPA." I say, yeah, but who can see from here what potential dangers lurk overseas, especially with so much concern of volatility in those areas of the world. Terrorists live in India, Pakistan, the Phillipines, etc. and all it would take is a nasty vendetta against our nation and POFF!!! There goes our medical records! Now we have to be concerned that the United Nations may take over the supervision of the internet!!
Nationals: Sometimes the hospitals have their own MTs sm
and pull the MTSO off the account when work is low to keep the hospital employees busy.  This probably happens more often than one might think these days.  IMHO
You have 911. There are local hospitals
with free nurse referral lines. That's just for starters.

You just take the cake for stupidity with your original question and now your silly offended replies.
Hospitals Using Outsourcing
Really not so unusual for all hospitals in one city to contract out transcription. Little Rock, AR for example where I used to live, did just that, save for one hospital (Baptist), so I moved east to Memphis, because I could not stand working out of my home to land a hospital job to work in. Cost-cutting measures you know.
that would be because MDs/hospitals adore.nm
.
in hospitals it seems always ASAP - SM
I work rad (employee) in a hospital, and they are always ALWAYS working to improve TAT. From the time the exam is done to complete dictation, they want 3-4 hours. That means if your doc delays the dictation, they want transcription NOW because the doc took so long.

However, in the situation you describe, checking back in 1-2 hours should not matter that much. You should just let them know the deal - they probably know how that radiologist is as much (or better) than you. Maybe they/he could call or email when he is done?

My hospital has a contract with a sister hospital to do their radiology - they have radiologists that do this exact same thing. We told them when our staffing is available. If they do not dictate during that time, then their reports are delayed -- no question. they have to deal with it.

Doing it yourself, your situation is different, of course, but hopefully they would work with you to let you know when the work is available so that you don't have to be "on call" for them.

As far as line rates, I can't say an average. I have another rad account that I do at $.15/line, but this is 3 days a week for a mobile service (TAT is 1-3 DAYS here...) I would charge more if they needed it "now", especially if they wouldn't work with me as to when "now" might be!

Long answer - hope it helps.
Feel free to email with any more questions if you want.
Hospitals in town
I hear sometimes that there are still hospitals doing their dictations with their own transcriptionists, and I'm lucky that I found one through their website... but wondering, just how do you find out who does the hospitals in your city? No one ever advertises in the newspapers anymore and most hospital websites have nothing about transcription. I live in a pretty big city with lots of hospitals and clinics and outpatient surgeries. Surely they're not all outsourced to the Big Greedies.
rural hospitals
If this is an extra job I would certainly make it worth my while. I worked at small hosp. for 5 yrs that did not want to work us from home. Kept saying they could not but I knew better. Eventually I went off on my own and have been home since. We had 3 FT. They hired 2 in my place and 1 PT for wknds. I type at night now to catch them up. They still had 1 PT and 4 FT, but I charge them 15 cpl. I clear in 5-8 hours what they all 4 do in 1 day, literally. Still did not want to put me or others at home. Want me to drive 45 miles 1 way to type, after I've pulled my reg. 8. Now what I do, whether they know it or not, I dial up on my C-phone into thier system and type at home, save it to disc (they monitor email + HIPPA) drive over for about an hour and transfer work into thier system. So if they have a phone in line you might check with them about on call stuff being typed at home, especially if this is stat work. It will certainly get back to them quicker. This is just fear of the unknown. This same hosp. has now, instead of firing those not doing work and hiring a good worker or paying them OT will pay me double the amount. They have also moved the weekend girl to FT and are letting a file clerk/PT IC do the weekend x-rays and still want me to help. That's 5 full time typist and 2 PT for a 43 bed hosp. Thier may reason was not to put thier network on home computers, which they all ready do. Won't give me network access but have given it to the weekend girl. Plus they are paying a consultant out the wazoo to tell them why this is not working!

If you are going to be on call, make sure you have set days or hours that you will be on call and that you are compensated. Don't let them just pay you for the work you do. Your time is worth money also. In other words don't sit home all day 3 nights a week waiting for a phone call and get paid for 1 hours. I have done this in the past where I worked and was on call on weekends for x-rays. There might be 1 or 21 or none. I got paid by the hour. If there were none I got paid for 1 hour for showing up. Ask an x-ray tech or someone who gets on call pay. They get a flat rate for being on call and then they get paid for the individual call.
Try hospitals and/or clinics-
I don't know about other places but in at least 3 of the major hospitals in my area they have people work both in house and at home. Everyone works in house to begin with and has to prove themselves before going home. Some people (like me) just prefer working in house, so it works out.
Why would hospitals have a list of
transcription companies, doesn't make sense.    If you want your own clients you should come up with a brochure to send to local doctors/clinics.    A doctor may ask in medical records who does their medical transcription, but it isn't the roll of the hospital to provide them with a list of providers. 
Children's hospitals!
I have only been transcribing for about a year now and I am on an account for a children's hospital.  I can not find half the words, nor understand the ESL doctors.  Does anyone has any pointers, or know of a good website or book?  Thanks guys!
Are any of those re-hiring hospitals in
?
Community hospitals
Hi. I just recently got outsourced by my local community hospital which I had worked for for 8 years, the third hospital where I've lost my job to outsourcing.

We were paid hourly from $9-$15 hourly. We had to have a minimum line count of 135 an hour based on a 7-hour day, so 980 63-character lines a day was exceeding standard, worked every 4th weekend and rotated holidays. I loved it. Then they outsourced to Spryance and most of the work in the entire Dayton Ohio area went overseas. There are only a few transcriptionists left working for the hospitals.