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

Had a thought today - thoughtful

Posted: Jun 28, 2013

As I was working this afternoon I got to thinking about somethings...first and foremost is the state of our profession. We are are paid mere pennies to transform physician "gobbeldygook" into a written document. We are expected to adhere to strict schedules, make NO mistakes! And produce high volume. Our benefits are a joke when we can afford them. If there is no work, we do not get paid yet are reqired to hang around waiting for it for free. Most of us have not had a raise in years. A majority of EXPERIENCED MTs have seen repeated pay CUTS. We have to be part pharmacist, part nurse, part doctor, part multilingual interpreter (some of the things we hear are not in any RECOGNIZED language), and we have to have an inner grammar natzi. I am currently working 2 jobs and still not able to make ends meet. It irritates the absolute TAR out of me that my boss/company owner and president recently went on a cruise with several office staff members when thenatnhome MTs who work for her haven't had a raise in years notbto mention thenfact That Some haven't had a full paycheck in years. Makes me wonder what would happen if wenall just said to heck with it one day.

I know that with outsourcing overseas there are alternatives to "us" but if they had to depend on that for all their work things wouldnlook a lot different. Would banding together be useful? Not sure but it certainly can't make things much worse. Maybe the time is right for a union? I don't expect to get rich but lord it would be nice not To have wonder where the grocery money is coming from. Ok. Vent over.

Completely agree (sm) - Rose

[ In Reply To ..]
I've been doing this over 20 years and never in my life have I been paid so little and treated with such disrespect while having to sell my blood to pay the electric bill to keep on working.

I think those of us still working are the ones with many years/decades of experience who provide excellent quality. However, I think our numbers are dwindling and we are seeing more newbies entering with the false hopes they were sold when they enrolled in the training program. The training and QA needs for these new grads will cost the MTSOs quite a bit more, and I don't think the new grads will be willing to stick around to make less than minimum wage any more than we will when they realize they can make more with a newspaper route. If my suspicions are correct, I think most MTSOs are doomed. Perhaps the two big ones will survive.

One think I would love to see happen is an MT/ME Co-op. If the MTSOs are charging up to .20 CPL, and we could get the right team of management, IT, MT/MEs to form a co-op, large enough to be competitive with TAT, we would all be a lot better off.

I agree also - Hard cold facts

[ In Reply To ..]
I love my job very much, but I am making less than I used to when I first started with them. I try and go as fast as I can on VR, but if I go too fast I make mistakes, but if I don't go fast enough of course I don't make hardly anything.

But overall, I will take the downfall compared to having to wake up when it's still dark out, shower, iron clothes, put on makeup, get in a car, commute 1/2 hour or more, office politics, mandatory coffee funds, lunch funds, birthday funds, etc, etc.

What you wrote is very true, except I don't know if my supervisor goes on vacations. I'm sure she does, but she also works hard for her money too, so of course it's not my place to judge when where or how many vacations she takes, but no, I can't afford a vacation. Last vacation I had was in 2006. Now I'm just struggling to make ends meet, but I'm the only one who can change that. Right now I don't want to because I love my job.

Banding together would not to a thing, and I would never participate in it. Here's why. If I don't work there is someone else who will take my work in a heartbeat. What would you expect to accomplish by banding together? It's really silly when you think about it..."banding together"? Are you talking about a strike? How long do you expect to band? Can you really afford to band? I can't. My mortgage, electric, phone, etc are not going to let me skip a payment because I want to band.

If you are going to start another discussion about unions you need to read down the board. Probably 30% on the conversations are MTs who start conversations about unions. Unions are not the answer and I would never join a union. Unions are why detroit is a ghost town. Unions don't do anything except take your dues money. We would be slaves to them. If they decide to go on strike, guess what, you have to go on strike. Never mind that you have bills and need to eat and if you go on strike you don't get paid. We all don't have money sitting in the bank to fall back on. Seriously though, I would urge you to go back through the board and read all the posts about people who keep talking about unions and their responses. It's been talked about many times and you can see that there are more against than for it and they explain better than I can why it's not going to happen.

But I'm sure feeling the financial pain of this job. It's a sinking feeling to have to work so much and still not get paid what I used to. I knew I should have studied computer repair, database management, or programming.

Thinking thoughts - Thoughtful

[ In Reply To ..]
I don't mean to suggest that we actually get and walk off the job. It just irks the H*** out of me that our industry is like it is. I love my job, I love the flexibility I have working from home and that I don't have to squash myself into control top pantyhose and heels and paint my face every day. I can work in my PJs.

That does not mean I think it is okay for the powers-that-be to take advantage of the faceless employees they have scattered around the country by demanding that they learn more, DO more, do it faster and more accurately AND do it for less pay than the kid who bags the groceries you struggle so hard to pay for.

Mandatory coffee funds? - Anonymous

[ In Reply To ..]
I have worked on site for over 30 years at facilities large and small and never have I heard of a "voluntary coffee fund." If it was a small facility, the employer paid for the coffee, and in the larger facilities, it came out of the department budget. We are all familiar with office politics. but I've never participated in a lunch fund and do not even know what that was. Actually, any office fund that I was asked to donate to was voluntary. Don't you shower anyway? I'm lucky that I have a short commute and for me being around people and being kept in the loop was worth the trade off of having to get up and go to an off site office. If this makes you feel better, many people struggle with finances. Computer repair people don't make big bucks, and you'd be surprised how many database managers and programmers are out of work now. I'm in a non-MT job because I got laid off when my facility outsourced and I took a pay cut but I am very thankful to have a job at all. Thanks for sharing.

I stand corrected. I think it was 3 am I was writing this and was tired - didnt mean mandatory coffee

[ In Reply To ..]
I just meant coffee funds, bday funds, this, that, this that. When I was working at a hospital we put in money for the b-day funds so they could get a cake each b-day and I also contributed money to a coffee fund (not mandatory of course). Also, it wasn't a lunch fund, it's just they always wanted to go out to eat. Of course you are free to join them or not. I usually sat in the kitchen area with my PB&J sandwich, baggie of corn hips and water while they all went to lunch.

Yes, I shower, but in the evening. I don't have to wake up when its dark anymore. I get up walk down the hallway to my office, turn on my computer, grab coffee then start in. I'm just not into the routine I used to be and this is the way I like it. I love my job and I'm thankful for what I have.

This happened at a hospital I worked at - SM

[ In Reply To ..]
I don't even like the embarrassment of having my own birthday celebrated, not to mention the horrors of having a group of co-workers sing to me and then having to open a gift in front of them.

I finally started telling them I was Jehovah's Witness and didn't celebrate birthdays. This got me off the hook for my own birthday and saved me about $30 a month what with pitching in for every single blasted thing under the sun my co-workers found to "celebrate."

Maybe not for everyone, but it worked for me. YMMV.

Deterioration of MT - Leaving MT

[ In Reply To ..]
It is really sad that this profession has deteriorated the way it has. I think there are many reasons for this, including outsourcing the work to MTSOs who want a big cut before the MT gets paid, MTs going home to work, offshoring, voice recognition, EMR technology, etc. It could be a great job for people in depressed or rural areas who have limited job opportunities, which would ultimately help our economy. I don't think it is that great of a job anymore. I try to discourage anyone and everyone thinking of going into MT.

MT, if it even lasts very much longer, will ultimately be volunteer work for all those bright-eyed newbies who will do anything to get their foot in the door. Little do they know...

why not call a union to find out some facts? - alias

[ In Reply To ..]

About a decade ago, if anyone would even mention union or standing together, they would be told to just shut up and be happy they had a job, and would be harassed on this board to no end.

Having experience with a union job (believe it or not, MT was even unionized once), it is a management trick to intimidate people to keep them from having a voice. It worked great on this board - getting women to agree on anything is like putting cats in a sack (coming directly from a union rep himself!) and I hate to say that but it has rung true in my experience. Rather than important issues, management gets you arguing about small scale things as a distraction, and then nothing substantial gets done. They spread fear that you will lose your job and will scare you, intimidate you, and threaten you. You need strength to form a union and to be in a union. You can't buckle under pressure...

A union is only as strong as your weakest link anyway, which can be pretty weak. A 'union' is basically just your co-workers, and union bosses will not do anything for you unless you have a majority and you make them do it. They will also just sit back and work with management unless you really are strong. Nurses, teachers - they seem to be strong. Educated people seem to do better in unions because they seem to have higher self worth...they know they deserve more.

These are my experiences. Even in a union job as a medical record clerk, in the hospital some decades ago now, people would get riled up about something unfair happening; but as soon as I would stand up to the boss and union about it, I would turn around and all my co-workers were 'gone' literally. I looked like I was a trouble-maker and as if it was me who was having issues, when I was just trying to speak up for everyone else, but to stand up alone even in a union does nothing. You need majority, and you need them all the time to be strong.

Well, capitation came along after my short time as a clerk, and I lost that union job (along with 200 other workers in 1 day) - as hospitals went from nonprofit to profit, and began 'cleaning house.' Third-party companies were hired to come in and do 'time studies,' and based on those so many people, even entire departments were let go - and heartlessly I might add. Some people need to be escorted out that day because they were upset. Our director was told she would be fired if she told anyone what would be happening that day, so it was all a big surprise. Myself working midnights, I was lucky because I hardly knew what was happening. 7 in the morning, end of my shift, the director came in with some young guy in a suit, and asked to see me in the office. I went in, sat down, and this 'kid' shakes my hand and says nice to meet me and I am fired...blahblahblah, I could collect my things and go. I guess I was tired because I did just that, and just left. I heard afterwards how horrible it was the rest of the day for all those other people. I was able to use unemployment to put me through school for an MT, and went back to that very hospital and was hired as an MT, a nonunion job.

Since then, I have not trusted anyone in healthcare. They are just a business...and care not for people, or patients. Don't get me wrong, the workers care, my fellow MTs, nurses, etc. but as for the CEOs, etc. - they want their money, period. They are after all responsible to their backers.

This is why, in my opinion, the government taking on healthcare is the lesser of 2 evils for me. Neither is good, but the healthcare as we knew it, that the anti-government people think is what we still have and think they are fighting for, is gone and has been gone for a long time. What we should be doing is fighting right now to keep ourselves relevant in the new system - and to get involved somehow.

This is my experience with healthcare. Since it has become a business, they are no longer interested in helping the poor (France started it to have a place for the poor to be taken care of).

I agree, though I think for the most part - Union MT

[ In Reply To ..]
...we would be better off union than nonunion.

I'm in a union MT job right now and volunteered to represent MTs in negotiations. I did know that several of my coworkers had likewise volunteered over the years, and it seemed no one ever volunteered twice, so I didn't expect it to be a picnic. I also knew going in that our union was unresponsive to its members (just try to get a call returned if you have a problem and need their help!). Even knowing those things going in, I was shocked at the incompetence of some of the union reps, how little they worried about blatantly contradicting themselves from one meeting to the next, how badly some of them treated me personally, and how willing they were to comply with "requests" from management that they keep us in the dark about things...

It was absolutely all I could do to force myself to attend the meetings.

HOWEVER -- even given all of that and the fact that I would literally choose a root canal (without even needing to give it a moment's consideration) over the same amount of time in a room with "my" union reps -- I have NO doubt whatsoever that we are better off being union than not.

It would be nice to belong to a GOOD union, but if the only two choices are the lousy union I belong to or no union at all, I'd have to choose the lousy union.

All of that said, I think you're absolutely right about the hopelessness of MTs unionizing in this day and age. I'm told it was Reagan who essentially broke the unions in the US (thus setting the wheels in motion for the loss of our middle class -- a phenomenon we MTs are all too personally familiar with!), but certainly no one in power since (Democrats included, sorry to say) has dared try to undo that damage.

If longshoremen hadn't been a militant union since Before There Was Dirt, I wouldn't even bet on THEIR managing to cobble together a decent union, if they were starting from scratch in 2013. Let alone us MTs... a scattered, isolated female workforce, a growing percentage of which is happy to work at home for "pin money," because they're married (at the moment) and think they can count on hubby's income forever... in an occupation that is rapidly becoming obsolete anyway.

Not an encouraging prospect. I guess I would summarize my thoughts as:

1. We would be better off union than nonunion, but that's academic at this point, and

2. The best thing we can do is get out of this occupation as soon as we are able to get into something else.

Sad thought... - Thoughtful

[ In Reply To ..]
I agree with the prevailing opinion that we would be better off united, but also that the likelihood of SUCCESSFULLY uniting is slim to none.

I disagree that our jobs will be nonexistent in the future. I don't see how computers, speech/voice rec, or even EMR can completely eliminate the need for MTs. Just like every other job, our jobs are changing and evolving and the successful MTs will adapt to the changes.

I think MTs desperately need representation of some kind to stop the abuses, really there is no other word for it, that we suffer on a daily basis while trying to do the best job we can.

My wish list would include:
1. Minimal pay standards for MTs and MEs just as there are for food servers - although admittedly their base hourly wage REALLY should be increased. For example, a base hourly rate of $4 or 5 plus production. That would ensure we got paid for time spent researching and other things we currently DON'T get paid for that we SHOULD get paid for. It would also encourage production without penalizing the MT for the crappy reports/dictators.
2. There should be some sort of standardization in line calculation method.
3. It would be awesome if there was standardization of the QA process. I know - but it is MY fantasy here, lol.

Really, are those 3 things really too much to ask?

had a thought-laughed my head off-moved on. - twas fun while it lasted. NM

[ In Reply To ..]
zzz

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