A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Don't be afraid. - SusieMT

Posted: Feb 20, 2013

Article about MT abuse by the industry. I was nauseated after reading this. I absolutely love my job, not the industry.

"Part of the problem as I see it is that medical transcription has become a commodity, paid on production, with little or no acknowledgement of the wealth of knowledge a transcriptionist must have in order to perform the work."

"Medical transcriptionists need to stop being afraid of what will happen to them if they speak up, and start thinking about what is happening to them because they aren’t speaking up."

http://www.mtexchange.com/medical-transcription-exchange/medical-transcriptionists-file-class-action-suit-over-wages-and-overtime/

We should all print out that article and tape it to our - bathroom mirrors, so we can read it - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
every morning before we start work.

Whatever so-called "perks" there are to working at home, whether it be the pink fuzzy slippers, the infant at your breast, the cat on your lap and the dog under the desk, the closet full of sweatshirts instead of office attire, or whatever floats our respective boats, absolutely NONE of those tiny little "comforts" is worth the CRUSHING POVERTY most of us face in exchange for home-based work.

I used to think there was freedom in working at home. That lasted only until I got my first MTSO paycheck. And from there, it just continued to get worse and worse.

The naysayers and the MTSOs can throw every excuse there is at us as to why, for some reason, our training, experience, intellect, knowledge, investment in OUR OWN EQUIPMENT & REFERENCE RESOURCES, long hours, and hard, hard WORK somehow doesn't translate into the same kind of compensation we received when we did the same (though LESS!) work in-house, but no matter how they try to rephrase it, it still makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.

The one thing that's making their abuses possible is our separation from our higher-ups and our peers. The rah-rah MT people can call it "freedom" all they want, but it's nothing less than stifling, confidence-sucking, dependence-inducing I-S-O-L-A-T-I-O-N.

- Meerkat =^..^=

Thank you - Bear

[ In Reply To ..]
for posting this article. We need to stick together. I have declined offers for 3 CPL and bad hours even for an IC!!! Why do we let them do this to us? Let's stand up for ourselves!!!

You have got that right. MTSOs were the demise - of this profession in my opinion (sm)

[ In Reply To ..]
I was just fine working on-site hourly with no quotas to meet and kept the work caught up.

Technology kicked in and I worked from home for the same facility and kept the work caught up.

The next thing I knew, they went and outsourced and expected me to train my replacement. No thanks.

I went IC full-time and have never looked back but the accounts I had were all lost to EMR and at this point I have to contract with an MTSO as I don't have any startup money for a business since the decrease in salary.

We don't need the MTSO but somehow the greedy MTs who started them and started paying subcontractors subrates of pay have gotten rich off the backs of hard working MTs who were just dying to work from home.

Doesn't seem like such a good idea now does it?

This is all my opinion of course, but realize that working from home is not the end all be all. Sure, it's convenient and I like being here for my school-aged kids but I've never worked this hard, ever.....

God Bless us all in this field!

Perhaps it was my own greed that contributed to this. I was faster sm - Old MT

[ In Reply To ..]
than anyone else in the department and I wanted to be paid on production rather than hourly. I resented being paid the same wages as those sitting there plodding along doing half the amount of work I did. Fast forward, and with times of no work, decreasing line rates, and VR paid with pitiful line rates, and of course I long for the days of an hourly wage, although honestly I still make a decent living ... so far. I suppose I was short-sighted, never dreaming that the future would be like this.

I can relate - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
I wrote the post you responded to, and I too was the above average transcriptionist with production and didn't milk the work. However, I was the one offered work by the physicians because they new I was an over achiever and very ambitious.

EMR came along and there went those accounts.

I never once hired a subcontractor at a cut rate. Never. I wouldn't do that to someone. If they were willing to help me if I was drowning, then I would have paid them full boat and never make a red cent of their hard work.

Greed? yes/no/maybe...

If it was an account I couldn't service myself, then it would have been a shared account with rates shared as equals, not below me. Equal to me.

Maybe that's why I'm still doing fine now because I wasn't greedy.

Being paid more production didn't matter to me when I was still on-site, as I was paid vacation days, my birthday, sick time, all holidays paid and if I did work it I got time and a half and a different day off, I got health benefits (reasonably priced), life insurance, dental, vision, 401K matched... All gone, gone, gone due to outsourcing to greedy MTSOs who pay their MTs cut rate and offer nothing in the way of benefits like the kind I had swiftly taken away in an instant with no warning.

More pay for production? Not worth it. It only made me work harder/longer hours because I knew I had to save that money for when I got sick or needed time off.

I wound up working myself to death taking on more and more and more until I lost it all to EMR.

I work really hard now because of the low line rates so I have to transcribe more lines to make a buck.

I totally get what you're saying. The only advice I could offer would be if I could turn back time and do it different, I'D HAVE SLOWED THE HELL DOWN! LOL

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