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yes, pay by production reminds me of slave labor on an assembly line, with pitiful

Posted By: monkey on my back on 2005-08-18
In Reply to: lines/pay - cruising

payback. Apparently, these nationals get away with this because we're willing to sell ourselves so cheaply  to work at home.  It's like having a constant monkey on your back to make production, with so many variables thrown in each day that it's just nothing but stress. And, what if you are having a bad day, not feeling up to snuff? NO CAN DO, or your paycheck reflects it. I mean, everyone has off/slow days now and then, but we're expected to work in constant high gear for fear of the loss in income. I live in a rural area, with in-house MT jobs scarce, which is why I'm doing this, but if there WERE an opening in a hospital, I'd run for it. 


 




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7 or even 7.5 cpl is slave labor

I had a company offer me 7.5 cents recently and I said no, perservered it out, and found a great company that pays 10 cents a line and they actually care about their MTs, not treat them like a number.   Hold out for what you deserve to be paid and don't compromise.  A company paying 7 cents is looking for slave labor.    


Slave labor
... sounds like someone is on their high horse in a third world country and expects American MTs to get with the slave labor mentality!
Slave labor, I agree
His $10 bid was probably from China (or the company which MT's are not allowed to talk about here anymore).
I just answered the insurance post. I don't know if they have slave labor or not. nm
nm
Well what is slave labor? Unpaid? Do these people willing report to work unpaid?
Sounds like they may work for a certain national MT company with a private board on MT Stars. Now that's slave labor. Walmart is a walk in the park compared to the national MT company with the private board.
6 cents a line is not competitive imo. More like slave wages.
x
DNS and line production

>>>I have wondered if Dragon Naturally Speaking for Medical Transcription is a way to increase overall line count.


1.  It takes several months to reach a good production level.
2.  You need to listen to the dictator *AND* dictate at the exact same time. However, if the dictator is one what requires a lot of mental editing, you're better off using the keyboard.


>>>I seriously want to know how is it that some MTs can type up to 2000 lines a day!  That is phenomenal!  Is there a secret?  Please share!


I used to transcribe 250 lph (gross lines) back in the days of using a typewriter (no Expanders and time spent erasing carbons), plus I was only typing around 90 wpm, which isn't all that wonderful. So, my suggestions are:


1.  Stay focused.
2.  Make the best use of your Expander as you can.
3.  Don't treat the BOS like a bible.


None - pay is on production - per line. nm
x
Minimum line production?
What is the standard for minimum line production for most outsourcing vendors?  
For anyone you has an LCD monitor do they come assembled or how much assembly is needed. I am
getting one next week and am not very good at assembling things.
Labor Stats from Dept of Labor for MT inside

This is quite interesting...it is too long to post here but I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the statistics.  Thanks!


 


tp://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:eGxrU1X5lOEJ:www.bls.gov/oco/ocos271.htm+how+much+to+become+certified+Medical+Transcription&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us


I think all state labor laws are pretty much in line with the federal laws as far as PTO SM

among other things.  Basically, federal law states that an employer is not required to offer paid time off or paid holidays.  An employer doesn't have to pay you for time not worked.  It states quite clearly that PTO is an agreement between the employer and employee upon hire.  So, if you have an agreement with your employer stating you accrue PTO and get certain Holidays off with pay, then upon termination or resignation, you are entitled to any unused time you have accrued.  However, since not mandated by any state or federal laws, if an employer refuses to pay you for any unused PTO, you will have to take legal action, likely in small claims court.  You will probably eventually win, but you have to decide is it worth all the trouble and legal fees?


When you actually get right down to it, labor laws really don't do much for the working class.  We are not guaranteed anything except minimum wage and a safe work environment.


pitiful
Yes my secondary job is working for a radiologist I have known for years. He pays me 14 an hour for transcription and coding. I thought that was low for the area he works in but I am beginning to think not. He is wanting to throw more work my way and I may just take it considering the wages that are posted lately.
so right! It is so pitiful what excuses
are being made for this so-called "leader."  Don't understand what it is about the stupidest, murderous, lack of vision president we have ever had that gets such "rave reviews" from people.  I see nothing in this administration that will get us out of this mess he made, no leadership, no statesmenship, no understanding of other peoples in the world, a complete lack of foresight! 
You're Pitiful!!

  What child would want someone as bitter and hateful as YOU for a mother???  You need to see a psychiatrist STAT!! 


I for one raised my two sons by myself after their father left me when I was pregnant with the youngest. Sure, it turned out that I had married a loser, but I sure didn't ask for anyone's pity.


Just how does your husband put up with you.....or is he just as hateful as YOU are??  I just don't understand your attitude. You seem to get your rocks off by hurting and attacking other people. Why don't you just leave this board and go bother somebody else? 


As for the OP, it sounds like you got a major raw deal. I think the recruiter made a major mistake by interviewing and making an offer to you before you had completed the second half of the testing. I hope you can rescind your resignation unless you absolutely hate your current job. Good luck!!! 


Example of pitiful plight
I) Here is a perfect example of what I am talking about: For the billing period of 10/16 to 10/30, payable net 30 days on 11/30, with a contract that says payments go to ICs on 5th and 20th, my check did not arrive until 12/22, which would be 18 days late from the expected date of 12/5. Now, the only saving grace was that since they said it would be mailed on Monday 12/19, that did not happen, so they offered to make a direct deposit (which was helpful). And the check due 12/20 (for billing period of 11/1 to 11/15) is not here either. That might take another 2-3 weeks, for all I know.

II) How can they do this to people during the holidays? I would think that if I am upset, then the other ICs must be also. There might be a mass exodus of steaming ICs out there.

III) One of your posts made mention the MTSO should have a sufficient line of credit to cover their ICs. I suspect that they DID, as in USED TO, but may not anymore, which makes me wonder what happened on that score. Used it too many times? Took too long to pay it back?

IV) And I suspect the line rate may be somewhat substandard at 8 cents per line, (65) for acute care basic four. From what I have been reading, the range of 9-11 cpl seems more the norm lately. I realize that the hospitals, clinics and doctor's offices probably do not pay as well as they used to, and many MTSOs are outbid by a lower price (and gasp, offshoring). Is that your information as well?

Who could pay their bills with this kind of payment history. Every check has been late since I started with them in April. I have many years of experience. I had planned to buy a house. How can I do that with this type of situation going on?
It may be pitiful but consider how much experienced MTs are
making. Not much more. 8 to 9 cents per line, maybe 10 if you agree to transcribe heavy ESL. Yeah, it's sickening, but then service owners have to edit newbies reports and still show a profit margin without losing their shirt. It's a quandry.
Such negativity....how pitiful. Too bad you can't...
be happy for someone once in a while. Well, misery loves company, guess that's why you all stick together. It is a 'tude honey...a GOOD one...not one that wallows in self-pity. If a job doesn't fill your monetary needs get a different one, find a differnt line of work. No one said this life was easy or fair...you go around once, why be so miserable? Yeah, I have a great DH who provides for me, something wrong with that? Kind of feel sorry for you!
Not pitiful..... more important things in life

I have an A.A. in Liberal Arts, a B.A. in Health and Physical Education and a M.S. in Exercise Science.  After my son was born I hated the thought of leaving him and letting someone else raise him.   Could not bear the thought of someone else telling me that he said his first words or took his first step.  I left my job at a local high school as a certified athletic trainer and started doing MT.  Fortunately, I am not the primary breadwinner in the family but this was the best decision I EVER made.  Get to make $$ but more importantly I can raise my kids. 


 


Pitiful actually but I only work part-time..sm
I work part time for the same place and same account I started as a newbie 1-1/2 years ago. I cannot find a job with more work because I either don't have 2 years exp or I don't have acute care exp. I have sent numerous resumes. So far now I am destined to make very little income while gaining the exp I need for a better job. Thank God my husband has a good job.

1. Approximately $600.

2. This is just one job only part time sometimes as little as 11 hours a week. On a good week 20 hours. Haven't seen 20 hours in a while.

3. Rate is .075 cpl.

4. About $2500 for food and bills and gas.

5. I would be $1,900 short of enough to make it if it wasn't for husband. :( All I can do is keep trying and maybe in 6 more months when I have the 2 year exp. someone will actually hire me. Believe me I have applied at SO many places.
Slave Wages
I dont know who you work for but I make about $25-30 per hour. I work two jobs and 10-12 hours a day and on weekends and I make between $6000 and $7000 per month. I know that is excessive for hours but I am trying to pay off my house, car, etc and I am spoiling my 3 kids rotten!!

I type radiology, which I believe is the easiest and fastest to learn and type.
Yep, it IS just one little detail, the fact that you are slave to them, but when they
x
If you think you are working for slave wages now...

Medical transcription is not your field.  We work for slave wages and have to compete with offshore transcriptionists who work for next to nothing. 


You will need to have an extensive medical knowledge, be willing to constantly purchase new equipment and reference books, and for all of that you get paid worse than a Wal-Mart greeter.  Wages consistently have been going down, not up. 


If you have a bachelor's degree, I would look into other fields if I were you. 


The only way I would recommend this field to someone is if they are handicapped or have an ill child or something that forces them to work from home.  Aside from that, I wouldn't recommend it. 


Again, if you make yourself a slave to them they will never respect you.
and that will give her a nudge towards "independence" instead of being dependent on you and not appreciating it.

Your heart is in the right place but sometimes good-intentioned people like yourself unknowingly make themselves appear to be a doormat and can't figure out why they get treated as such.
Reply: THere are not enough MTs willing to work for slave
p
gotta love your ID "MQ Slave" says it all.
Tooooo funny.  My daughter stopped in the other day and headed right to my office.  She said, "OH MY GAWD!  MOM'S IN THE KITCHEN!" 
Sleeping all day long while my little fantasy slave does my lines LOL :-)
Wow... you vacuum every day? Dang, I'd never even get 50 lines done a day if I did that. I maintain and clean seriously on my one day off, but... hats off to you, sister!
can you stand on your feet all day, be abused by better than thou customers, work for slave wages?

That reminds me of a new doc who sm
came on when I worked for the hospital. He wanted to impress everyone, too, with his dictation.Nothing was ever shorter than 20 minutes. One year later, his DC summaries were 30 seconds total and only after he was suspended for not dictating at all!  So, they do change, sometimes not for the better.
by the looks of him, he reminds me of --sm
pee wee herman! yuk. Since he already has some very wide gaps in his story, I am beginning to wonder if he is just looking for his 15 minutes of fame. I hope he is the one, but now I have my doubts. time will tell.
Reminds me again of having

The American workers took forever, did not show up when they were supposed to, used my bathroom, and demanded beverages (not water).  They wanted Pepsi.  All they did was complain about the heat and also broke the filter so my husband had to go buy a new one.  The cursed, brought their kids with them to play on the swingset in my backyard because they didn't have a sitter. 


The landscapers who were Mexican, were quick and I mean quick, worked hard, showed up when they were supposed to, never asked to use the bathroom, and never demanded beverages.  They brought their own.  I offered beverages, they declined.  They never curves, and their kids were left at home.  They finished the job, it was wonderful, and we recommended this particular landscaping company all over time.  I might add, they bid the job at half of the price of the 2-3 American landscaping companies we had come out.  Now, who do you blame? 


JMH born and raised in America O.


Reminds me of
Hey, there's great stuff in there.  Love Erma too! 
That reminds me of my dad
He said you NEVER ask anyone their salary, and if anyone had the nerve to ask you about yours, you had every right to lie to them! Tell them anything you wanted - the more obvious the lie, the better.

Ha! That reminds me
when I first starting hearing about Lipitor. I would always think of a boy's action figure and cartoon saying in a deep voice, "I am Lipitor!".
Reminds me of my "pet".
I kept feeling a little tickle on my leg.  I figured it was one of my stray hairs or the fringe from the blanket that's across my chair.  I looked down to find a huge nasty spider on my leg.  I screamed and slapped at it.  My shriek scared the heck out of the kids and made the dog go hide under the bed.
Your dog story reminds me of one of those
Amazing pet stories on Animal planet, about pets that end up adopting people and they actually turn out to do something extraordinary, it seems like she is there for a reason and even if you say you don't have much space, your love and attachement is obviously providing her with more than she had.....oh I'm a sucker on these cases.
Kellie just reminds me of....
yet another Baywatch cookie cutter stringy Barbie doll looking blonde.  Katherine is truly a beautiful young woman.  Maybe it's me, but I just don't find that bleach blonde look very distinctive.  They all look alike to me.  And yes, she's either a very good actress or dumb as a box of hair.  Okay, I can understand being from a place where people don't eat a certain kind of food as a rule "SAL-mon", but to have never heard of a fish called a salmon?  Exactly what rock has she been living under?
Ah, so! Poor doc. Reminds me of one of my...sm
docs who butchers the English language. I called him on repeatedly spelling a term incorrectly (course rather than coarse) and he relied "I was a pre-vet major, not an English major!"

Sorry about the misunderstanding!
Reminds me of systems
I've worked on that used Citrix; not being computer savvy, I don't know if they called it a Citrix server or what, but apparently it was a company that they used for some part of the process, and it was not compatible with the software. They I think they had to switch to some other company to speed things up.

That should be about as clear as mud. Sorry.
This reminds me of a story.

My son has scoliosis and on one of our visits to the orthopedist, he was dictating while we were in the room. At one point, he grabbed the films in the same hand as his recorder to throw them up on the light wall. I just said, "Do you realize that your transcription did not hear anything you said while that x-ray was in your hand?" He just gave me a blank kind of look so I explained that I was an MT and said that if he was having a lot of blanks in his dictation when it was returned, that might be the reason why.


I never heard whether or not it made a difference for the MT or not--he wasn't such as good orthopedist, either, so we changed practices after that.


that reminds me: I had to share my
workstation with a girl on days; she had very long hard nails (admit to being green with envy here!) and it wasn't long before she only only wore off the letters, she managed to poke holes through the keys! I demanded a new keyboard because of safety concerns due to shock hazard.
Oh yeah, that reminds me....
Well over 20 years of this work has also left me hard of hearing! :D
It really is, isn't it? Reminds me of ShamWow

"Who is it?" --- Reminds me of a joke ...
one of the oldest around:

The man leaves his apartment. His parrot is in inside. While he is gone, the plumber arrives. He knocks on the door. The bird answers, "Who is it?" "It's the plumber; I've come to fix the sink." No reply. The plumber knocks louder. "Whoooo is it?" the bird asks. In a little irritated voice, "It's the PLUMBER, I've come to fix the sink!". No reply. The plumber BANGS on the door. "Whooooo is it?" the bird asks calmly. "IT'S THE PLUMBERRRRR, I'VE COME TO FIX THE SINK" the plumber screams. No reply. The plumber, in his fit of rage, falls to the floor dead with a heart attack. The man who lives in the apartment returns. He finds the plumber dead at the door. He opens the door and says, "Who is it?" "It's the plumber. He's come to fix the sink" the bird says.

LLMAAAOOOO

ROFL Your post reminds me...SM
Not too long ago, I had my last nerve plucked out by my two boys, teenagers, when they were griping for me asking for a little bit of help around the house. Not much, mind you. Just a little. Their nastiness just got the best of me. Good thing too, though!

I turned off the AC vents in their rooms, made a list of 20 jobs around the house I wanted done, sent them to their rooms with the lists and started cooking...cooking their favorite dinner. I told them they had to stay in their rooms, doors shut, and would have no AC nor any food until they decided they could shut up and get those 20 jobs done. No food, no comforts of lying on the couch, watching TV, in cool air -- all of which I provide -- until they got the work done and without one nasty word about it.

Took about an hour and their warm bedrooms and stomachs growling at the smell of dinner had them out of their rooms and got it done!
Reminds me of a friend who worked
for an attorney. He used to fire her regularly cuz he had a nasty temper. One day he goes of the office and she wasn't there. He called her at home and yelled at her because she wasn't at work and couldn't understand why she did what she was told to do.
This reminds me of a chat room at AOL! LOL nm

reminds me of "don't get your panties
x
Yep, reminds me of a friend of mine
who lost her job as a travel agent (due to technology, Expedia, Cheap Tickets, etc.) and refuses to work for less than $35,000 a year. Says it's "beneath her."

Well she has no other skills, and is uneducated except for a 6-month travel course at a community college, so how could anyone expect to call the salary shots in that situation?

I agree. You gotta do what you gotta do. Sometimes life hits you hard, but it's up to you to accept it or start over with an education.

If you choose not to "accept" a job that pays less, even temporarily, that's your problem, not the government's.
Reminds me of my late father-in-law....
He totally controlled the money (he figured he earned it all, so why not) and doled out "household money" to my MIL like Ricky and Lucy Ricardo did.  This continued until he died 18 MO ago, so I'm not talking about a by-gone time.  Meanwhile, up until he quit smoking, he was buying 3 to 4 packs a day plus stopping at the bar every day on the way home from work.  He never did stop drinking and I can only imagine the money he spent on that over their 40 yr marriage, while she's trying to run the house on her "allowance" and she could never take a dime out without his permission beyond the money he gave her.  Sheeesh (eyes rolling).  Thank God it didn't rub off on their son or I'd be a single woman by now.
That word just reminds me of Napoleon
Dynamite. LUCKY! Thanks for the laugh whether intentional or not. That word will never be the same for me after that movie. Tee hee.