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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

i have 19 years experience and still type 220+ lines/hour

Posted By: cherrypicker on 2005-07-16
In Reply to: to the comments about cherrypickers making $$ - cherrypicker

without having to cherrypick. That's just what we do when we get into a backlog. That way, we never have to outsource ... thank God ... and we won't lose our jobs to India ... even BETTER!


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How many lines per hour do you type? (sm)
I am curious how many lines per hour my fellow transcriptionists are able to accomplish?  I used to be able to do 250-300 or so per hour, but the last company I worked for I could never break 200. 
Can YOU really type 3000 lines an hour?!

That right there is an incredible feat of fingerin'! 


Meditech didn't work with my particular short cut program and the lag time was absolutely unbearable, not to mention all the demographic screens to wade through before getting to actually type the report.  I absolutely hate using "F" keys, which leads to more finger fatigue, and the Meditech I used was full of them.  Honestly though, I can't remember if it was "Magic" or the other version of Meditech, as it's been at least a couple of years now. 


I do know, however, that I was able to produce 1500/lines per 8-hour day as a matter of course with one word-based program and with Meditech, it dropped down into the 900 range.  It was financially and mentally devastating for me, but again, my experience.


I just type 250-275 lines per hour and transcribe about 6 to 6.5 hours a day.

I am a seasoned MT who back in the day 2000 lines was nothing to achieve.  I sat for 8 straight hours, barring potty breaks and 30-minute lunch.  But now that I am pushing 50, I can hardly stay in the chair 2 hours at a time.  I have set my goal at 1600 lines per day as that is what my employer pays 9.5 cpl for.  If I drop below that, my cpl drops also.   In addition, I have a backup up IC position with another company (to compensate when I run out of work on my FT job)  that pays 10 cpl.  I type 2 hours  on that account  (usually at night) and get 600 lines per day.  Fabulous account, fabulous "internet software" everything is right at your fingertips, and they count spaces, headers and footers.   Actually both jobs count spaces.


My advice to anyone wanting to get more lines- first and foremost priorty is check out the software the company uses.  If it is not user-friendly... forget it.  There was this one company who paid 10 cpl, and I could hardly get 500 lines in a 2-hour period.  They said they counted spaces, but it was hard to tell, and they surely did not count footers or headers.


I routinely type over 300 lines an hour, so even if I could do 300 LPH in VR, I would be taking a hu
x
how many lines per day and per hour do most companies expect/want you to type for full time? thanks
lll
20 years, 300 lines per hour, & still rockin' ;)

From someone who's still considered a top producer compared to the "'young'uns" at my company:  The best thing I've found is keeping your hand off of the danged mouse and using hot keys instead!  Most people are taught to use the mouse for everything with Word and most other WP programs and they have no idea that hot keys are available for just about every function. You're taking food off of your table (or gas out of your tank, or whatever gets your attention) every time you take your hands off of the keys.  Also, if you're using your calculator keypad to insert numbers (like lab values), please, please, PLEASE learn to utilize the numbers above the letters on your keyboard.  These seem like very simple, small steps, but they really do add up in the long run. 


On job board. Some goof posted 11:50 hour for 2 years experience

I have 13 years experience and just started a hospital job working from home making $16 an hour

and with a really good incentive plan.  I live in the Kansas City area.  $10 seems like a low starting point even with only two years experience which is the usual benchmark for hospital MT jobs. 


It's been my experience that the low end of the pay scale for hospital employed MTs was around $12 an hour.  Also, it's been my experience that the pay offered is usually based on years of experience and how well you perform on the transcription test.


I would say if their pay is that low, they should at least be making it up with incentive and it doesn't sound like they are.


JMO


Yes at PHNS-- this was a few years ago....was paid initially on how many lines you averaged an hour
the highest you could get was .085 which is what I averaged, however they restructured and it plummetted to .07.....you could get .085 again but you had to really work your butt off (something like +1500 a day).  I was PT so I was only doing 500 lines or so a day, at most 1000, so it basically sucked after that.  Plus the company totally changed, they started to outsource to the Phillappines, work dried up big time and we fought over the lousy crumbs.  Many of us left and moved onto to better things though!
3-1/2 years experience, type cardio only on clinic account, and make 9 cpl nm
nm
I have 17 years acute care experience and don't make 1200 lines in 6 hours. sm
I work for a company that is VERY picky about their work, 100% QA everything.  I have been with them over a year, and have to go back and listen to my work a second time while proofing.  I only make 160-170 lines an hour, but the pay is good for that, and I have learned so much in the year that I can go to work anywhere without problems.  For me it is worth the extra time to put in the few extra hours a week to have really top QA.  There is room for all types in this business, the really fast ones, and the slower ones who work differently, you just have to find your place.  Ideally, we should all type 200 lines an hour and have 99%+ QA, but I don't thank too many of us make it.  Good luck to you.
Depends on the pay and account. My lowest average is $15.52 an hour (roughly 182.6 lines an hour) w
;'
1850 lines per 8 hour shift. 15.00 hour - no real requirement
x
At 200 lines a day for 6 cents, you are making $1.20 a day or 0.15 hour for an 8 hour day!!!--cm
Did you mean 2,000? Even then you would only be making $1.50 if you work 8 hours a day.
Do you need to have 2 years full time experience or just 2 years' experience? nm
..
I did 400 lines in an hour once sm

working for HS and was put on an account for just a while.  This was a surgery center with colonoscopies and ophthalmologic procedures.  There were normals out the *&#)@ and 400 an hour was very easy.  I ended up quiting HS due to the fact they took that account and gave it to a girl that had been caught cherrypicking..  The work was "sporadic" and later found out why...she was taking the best dictators with the most canned text and grabbing them before anyone else. 


So, it can be done, but I think only with extensive use of normals and expanders. 


lines per hour
what is the average amt of lines per hour that MTs type, approx?
Are you really only getting 100 lines an hour?
That's not good. I think I'd rather go to McDonald's and work then instead of sitting at home for that or less. I couldn't survive on that. Sorry for you.
100 lines at .07 is $7.00 an hour, not $14 - nm
x
lines an hour
I would say that a good average to shoot for an hour would be 200-250. 140 would be on the low average side.
MORE LINES PER HOUR.

Okay, I have a doctors account and he is an ESL, but I have been been on his account for a few month and have no problem understanding him.  His files are all usually fairly short 1-2 minutes, and I have lots of normals for him.  I just cant seem to pull in many lines per hour on him.  I feel like I zoom through them, but I am always amazed to see what I am pulling for lines after an hours work.  Do you think my problem could be the short files?  Is it easier to pull in more lines on longer dictations, since you dont have to keep switching to the next dictation?  He does talk SLOW as well. 


Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer.


lines per hour

Evidently you are only averaging about 100 lines per hour, if I can't do 300 lines per hour it isn't worth my time.  Especially if you are using templates, expanders, etc. you need to up towards 200 to 300 llines per hour.   So that is not a fast typist to me.


 


 


LINES PER HOUR
Most companies are looking for people who do 1200 lines per 8-hour shift, which is the equivalent of 150 lines per hour.  A line is usually equal to 65 characters, therefore 150 lines is equal to 9750 characters. 
lines per hour
anybody work for a company that does not allow you to count your own lines?
lines/hour
On a repetitive account I had in the past for two years, I was able to type 175 lines per hour, was simple account where I knew what the doctors were going to say before they said and had it typed before they said it....was 65 characters including spaces..but, all good things come to an end, and now am on an account where no matter what, I cannot get more than 125 lines per hour, it also happens to be one that is 70 characters per line with spaces which does not help. Would have to agree withl the other responses on this one...lots of depending factors involved.
Lines Per Hour

I hope someone can help me on this one.  I have a neighbor whom I've known for about a year and she has been doing transcription for about 5 years--I've been doing it for 8.  I can type about 95 wpm and average about 350 lph.  However, she says that she is able to do about 600-800 lph with the help of her expansion software (no voice recognition).  I don't want to insult her intelligence by asking to see her paycheck, but is this high of a line count even possible??


She and I both work for small transcription companies (not the same ones), so we both have the advantage of having our own accounts that we share with no one else (same dictators all day, every day).  Because of this, I know that we do share the ability to get higher line counts than most.  (And no voice recognition.)


I have not yet installed my expansion software that I have had for months, so I've only been using what is built into Microsoft Word.  My neighbor was trying to convince me how important it is that I start using one immediately.  I agree that I need to start using it, but I just find it really hard to believe that she can hit anywhere near 800 lines per hour!


Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon?  Is it possible?  Should I now set my goals a little higher??


LINES PER HOUR
Is she using word or typing into hospital software?  I do have a radiology account which counts even blank lines, so it is possible for me to get upwards of 600 lph on this account (with my own Expanders - of which, I have many).  I also type in word on another account (get paid report) but dont think I could ever do more than 3 or 400 lph.  I have 30+ years in the business.
Lines per hour
I am really confused that if there are so many transcriptionists  out there doing this many lines (I average about 250 lph and have been doing this a long time) why most companies only require 1200 a day, they could hire all of you doing 400-800 lph and have to pay a lot less people.  Are there really that many transcribing the high lph?
Lines per hour
I transcribe using eScription.  I do an average of 600 lines editing an hour and 350 lines of actual transcription an hour.  I get paid separately for lines edited and for lines transcribed.  Using different VR platforms results in lots of variables as one can imagine.  I think it also depends on how one accepts change - not only the individual Transcriptionist but also management in relaxing their style guide issues to conform to eScription's.
700 lines per hour...
Someone told me today that she could do 700 lph. Has anyone ever done this? I'm curious.
lines per hour
Our company is looking at a new system.  Right now I do editing and actual transcribing.  We have a very very old speech recognition system, so I know with the update, my lines will improve, but the company selling told the place I work that we should be up to 4000 lines per day per transcriptionist.  I don't think I can even read fast enough for that if it was all editing!  Are the new speech recognition programs that much better or am I that stupid!  Or...is the company doing a hard sell that is not realistic?  Thanks for any input.
530+ lines per hour. Is this possible?
So I was reading the MT forum at Indeed and came across this post.  The person claims 6 of his/her MTs routinely transcribe 4300+ lines per day.  Assuming an 8-hour day, this would be 537 lph.  Is that even possible doing straight transcription?  I tend to agree with the other posters on that forum that that has to be a lie or gross exaggeration, but just curious what everyone here thought.  What is the highest line count one could hope for with straight transcription (not VR).  I have been aiming for 300 lph, but now wondering if it is possible to do more eventually.
That's 352 lines per hour (SM)
If the penny per line additional is added to ALL lines typed, not just the portion over the bonus level.

And no, the most I've ever typed is about 300 LPH, but not consistently. 250 LPH back in the old days when I think I was getting paid for demographics, headers and footers. These days it's more like 200 LPH on a good night.
500-600 lines per hour
Has anyone ever done 500-600 lines per hour. I worked at a company and there were a couple of girls who claimed they did 500-600 lines per hour using the ShortHand 8 program. I have the Shorthand 8 program but I still can't do that. The company was always promoting these girls and the Shorthand 8 program and they made all the regular MTs feel like crap.
Oh, or even lines per hour?
NM
How much can you type in an hour....

Hi, I'm sure this has been touched upon before, but here is my question.  I work for a large acute care hospital at home that requires 60,000 characters (60-character line) per day, doing basic 4 with all-in-all good dictators.  I have worked there for 13 years.  I recently acquired two IC accounts, one neurology and one child psychiatrist (both excellent dictators).  I also got hired on by a national company that doesn't have a line quota and are flexible with the hours I type.  I am wanting to know how much you all can type (character/line count) per hour.  I am trying to plan my day of typing by how much time to spend on each account.  I feel there are days that I just can't get anywhere.  I use ShortHand word expander.  I'm just looking for a baseline to go by here.  Thanks for ya'lls help here.


 


 


Lines per hour - I just do NOT get these figures. PLEASE tell me how you hit these #s
Okay. I have been doing this for 25 years, and am a CMT. I rarely have to reference anything - even meds. If I do, I can find my answer in 30 seconds max.  I type on a super platform, have a great expander and spell check, and type really, really fast - averaging 120 wpm last time I tested.  I have a great account, though I use NO normals or standards.  I simply cannot - accounts are verbatim to the word, and nothing is repeat dictation.  Even Op reports, which are my specialty, all MUST be typed from scratch. I average 200 lines per hour - maybe 250 at best.  I am great at this except obviously not making 1000 lines in 3 hours.  There must be some detail that you guys are leaving out, which, if it makes me feel like mud, must really dash the hopes of those new to the profession.  Is it that you all use normals or standards or copy and paste your own stuff to boost up those line counts? Otherwise, how on earth do you hit those numbers? I'm asking sincerely, cause I used to be SO happy hitting 1200 lines after a 6 to 7 hour shift, but now I feel like a total failure.  I'd rather do this in 3 hours, or I'd rather hit 2000 in the 6 hours.  Is it the macros and standards and normals and all?  I think that MUST be the key, in which case I won't feel bad, because my account simply won't allow that! Thanks for any tips!
figure your lines per hour
You need to figure out how many lines per hour you are doing now or able to do. As poster below says, 250 lines per hour times .08 cents per line equals 20$ an hour. I don't know if that is realistic for radiology reports or not (250 lines per hour). Aren't most of them short? You don't get paid for the time it takes to download, upload, etc. Also DQS does not pay for demo info, footers, headers and seems like that would be a big cut if you work on a lot of short reports. So it would depend on if they paid for that stuff or not.

To figure how many lines you do currently, copy and paste a typical report (or several reports) into Word and go to tools and do a character count. You need to figure out if your Word program is counting spaces or not. Take a short report and manually count characters AND spaces. Then copy into Word and see what the count is there. If the count is way short of your manual count, your Word program is only counting characters not spaces. If so, to figure characters AND spaces, take your word count and add 22% by calculator and that would be the total character and space count. (I have tried this and it always comes out perfectly to the line count I receive from MQ and to my manual count.)

Now take your total characters and spaces, divide by 65 (the length of a 'line') and you have how many lines are in the report. If you do this with several reports, and you know about how many reports you do in a day, you can get a pretty good idea of how many lines per hour you are doing.

Are you pulling out your hair yet? It is really pretty easy to figure, but hard to explain in a note. Sorry.

P.S. Isn't 8 cpl a little low? I do clinic notes as a newbie and receive 7 cpl. seems like you could do better than 8 cpl.
platform and lines per hour

I'm working on a Windows-based Meditech platform and routinely get 450-500 lines an hour using Shorthand, and then on two other Windows-based platforms (Misys and Radplus) I get about 400-450 lines per hour. 


how many lines per hour/day/week do you do?? NM
???
I average 300 lines per hour
for acute care, mostly OP notes, 65/char line, which would be 19,500 characters per hour.      
lines per minute/hour?
I'm typing approximately 250 lines an hour of transcription.  I'm not sure about dictation though.  I am curious how much the going rate for a Transcriptionist by the line is these days.  If anybody could help with this info, please do so!
600 lines per hour with Escription
How do you do that? Do you have the same docs each time that say the same thing every time? I have been using this for a year and the best I can do is 287 lph.
Most of the ads tell you this, but minimum is usually 150 lines per hour. nm
s
lines/hour standards (sm)

What would you say is the "industry standard" for line counts in an 8-hour work day?   Where do some of the companies want you to be?   150 lines per hour?  200 lines per hour?   More? Less?


Just curious since I've been out of the loop for a while.   Thanks.


You would have to do a lot of lines per hour at that rate. sm
I don't think that is a living wage, no matter how fast you can transcribe. And if you transcribe more than 300 lph you should be making more per line.
So you consistently do 520 lines an hour??
nm
Editing - lines per hour
Thank you for your responses.

Eva - to clarify on the editing, we currently pay our transcriptionists per line on the entire batch of files they edit (not VR files) transcribed by our ICs. Some ICs are on "blanks only" status as we are confident that their content is correct and only need help with the blanks. Some of our ICs are on "full read" status to pick up random grammatical errors or other quirky things they ICs miss. And our trainees, of course, are on "full listen, full read" status. I think this would be the status most in line with VR files as we know there are way too many inaccuracies with VR at this point.

I personally have used VR to try to get a feel for the challenges we are going to be facing and have trained the system rather minimally using the Medical version of Dragon. I have found it to be probably 95% accurate with the exception of patient names and a few words. However, I know I have trained it more extensively than most of our doctors are going to.

I appreciate your input.

I am still curious, however, if most ICs that do editing for transcribed work (not VR) are being paid for entire batches of files, or just on individual files they edit or fill in blanks for, and am still looking for averages for edited lines per hour. Any ideas?
Lines per hour editing
Thank you! That's exactly what I'm looking for. Actually that's right in line with what I was thinking - 500-600 lines per hour.

We pay our editors hourly but are looking at finding a per line rate that is comparable to an average hourly rate of $15-18 per hour. At 0.03 per line, that would be about right.
Think you are thinking lines per hour. I
am normally in the 250-300 range per hour.
1000 lines per hour?
Has someone been fibbing to you? Realistic is 400-500, high might be 600 or so. Never got 1000 in the years I have been doing it.