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

Am I the only one struggling with my job? - needsabreak

Posted: Feb 23, 2012

I started with a new company 2 months ago. I've never done speech editing until now. The headers are confusing but I make lots of notes, try every day to do this right. I'll think I've done a good job but the next day, there's my reports showing mistakes. I'll have multiple reports with A's but it only takes 1 or 2 C reports to bring down my average. I'm not new at this, 30 years experience but I'm having second thoughts about continuing as a MT. I keep waiting for the 90 days to be up and see if I'm fired. I've never been under so much stress in my life. Anyone else or am I alone in this?

Are you Re-Reading After Editing/typing - Old MT Too

[ In Reply To ..]
Are you going over everything a second time with the voice. I show way more errors on ASR, stuff I would never in a million years make if I was typing the stupid thing. SO, for accuracy, I listen against the voice a second time, and there they are and I can fix them. It's the only way for me to maintain accuracy.

Problem with ASR is (well, one thing, anyway), the ear is prejudiced, so you just go right over it. Time and time again throughout my career, I was told to never give the QA person a sounds-like, and now here they are shoving them in our face day after day.

Sorry to sound bitter, but if you want to survive with good quality, you'll need to do it as perfect as you can the first time (don't say, "I'll catch it on the 2nd proof), then go back over it inch by inch with the voice.

You have to recognize ASR for what it is - and it exists only to allow MTSOs to cut your pay

[ In Reply To ..]
MTs should refuse to use it......I know, good luck!

It's a pain in the tail to re-route your brain - jh

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It does get easier, but you will never make the money you used to thats for sure...

That's an understatement. - needsabreak

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I can already tell my pay will continue to go down. How I long for the days BEFORE internet when I could easily clear $1200 to $1400 working 40 hours per week. I'm barely breaking over $9/hour and that's on a good day. Not to mention these QAs - one marks you for something, the next changes that - no consistency. I even had a supervisor say "oh, that mark off was excessive, I wouldn't have done that" Well then someone go over this with these QAs. They are the ones determining your pay. For this lousy pay and all the headaches that come with it, I'm seriously thinking of looking for a totally different job.

VR - tiredofit

[ In Reply To ..]
I empathize with you. I am new, too, with VR work, but I'll be darned if I'm going to listen to the voice a second time given what they are paying me for this! I know that is not a good way to keep a job, but their expectations are getting ridiculous. Why not just make editors a flat rate per hour. I mean, we are editors after all.

Uh...I realize I'm not being helpful. Those are good suggestions every else gave you! I really do think you will continue to improve!

I'm with you. - needsabreak

[ In Reply To ..]
I will listen to a long job to make sure I didn't miss anything but I will not sit here for 4 cpl and relisten to this crap. Yes - pay us hourly wages and I'll listen to the report 5 times if that's what you want. I won't grumble about looking extra crap up for ya either, which I believe is medical records department's job, not mine.

Amen! Plus it's so BORING! - HateVR

[ In Reply To ..]
Editing VR drafts is about as exciting as watching paint dry. I would rather have a root canal than sit there, bored out of my mind!

One little trick that I came up with to help eliminate the boredom was striking the keys in a rhythmic pattern as if typing on a piano. Even my body movements were into it as if performing a concerto. My coworkers cracked up when they saw it but could appreciate where it came from, and one even started doing it herself. Desperate times...

Needsabreak, I'm really sorry you're having - this experience. For another side to

[ In Reply To ..]
this issue, I do better at editing than transcribing--when ASR is doing its job properly--and enjoy it more.

I appreciate that I can just breeze over text, looking for issues the machine can't handle. I enjoy that the machine is doing the grunt work of Typing. Each. Word. Out. By. The. Many. Thousands. Each. Day. My time and knowledge are wasted on that mechanical work now that there's a machine to handle it. I'm far more efficient and thus able to support the care of many more patients than before.

I'm guessing you're in a new-job trough where you've taken in too much stuff at once and are jamming up, actually slowing down in addition to making more mistakes. Not helped at all by your real need to be fast. I've been there. In the meantime, headers are just headers and you've been doing them for 30 years. Give yourself some time to get through this phase.

When you're out of the bumfuzzled stage and pretty much back to normal emotionally, you still won't be building up to good speed until you are able to do those headers, and much else, through muscle memory--no stopping to think about it or looking up instructions, no longer looking up names, seldom stopping to figure out terms.

That's just the same as for transcribing, but more so. As I pointed out in another thread, a fast person may scan text (without stopping) at 1200 lph or more, as opposed to transcribing 250 lph; perhaps 800 lph versus 175 for a slower person. Thus, every pause in editing to look up a name, or whatever, costs an editor MANY more lost lines. Leaving the issue of underpayment out of it and just looking at the work itself, success lies in cutting out the pauses as much as possible, and that can only come as familiarity with the work grows.

BTW, I agree that we should be paid at least partly on an hourly basis. The way it is now, even a simple change of account can be devastating financially. Changing the whole nature of the work as you are doing...!

VR - debeavoir

[ In Reply To ..]
This was a great post, thank you!

Thank you - your post made me feel a little better. - needsabreak

[ In Reply To ..]
Yes, I'm with a new company 2 months now. Have never done speech editing before and it's kicking my butt. I understand I'll never make the $$ I used to but geeze, seems a lot of work for crappy pay. But I'll give this a fair trial and see if things get better.

Good for you, Needsabreak. Hope this week's on the upslope. - ForAnotherSide

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x

Sounds like the company you work for.... - NN

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Needs to take you off QA. If you have that many years of experience, there is no reason for them to be going over your work like that with a fine tooth comb.

I'm sure your smart enough to forward a report to QA if it's something you're not sure about. I would probably be sending out resumes and once something decent comes along give my notice.

I suppose if I sat around and did QA all day I could find something wrong with even the most experienced/knowledgable MT.

Some of the QA folks have a tendency to take things a bit too far. It's like either you can do the job or you can't and with your amount of experience, I'm sure you are more than capable of doing a good job.

Don't let them weigh on your self-esteem like that.

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