AAMT and the MT dilemma - Teresa Posted: Mar 2nd, 2016 - 8:22 am
I visited the AAMT website this morning in hopes of seeing something positive regarding the future of transcription and perhaps even their committment to the industry and what I learned was shocking. They proclaim that a "good" MT with at least 5 years experience can make upwards of $16 an hour. Really? Just did the math. With 21 years experience and at VR pay, I averaged $5.39 an hour last week with the available work. They also state that this is an inaccurate number as 50% of MTs will make less and 50% of MTs will make more, depending on the company. So what is the point of even giving that number if it is inaccurate? They say an MT, as per market, can make 10-15 cents per line. While working as an IC, I made that kind of money. If you work for an actual company, they might be getting 10-15 cpl (or more), but you are only going to see a portion of that. I asked for a raise once in all my years of working as an MT. During that time, there was no such thing as VR and my employer at the time, paying me 8 cpl, responded with this: "You average around $40 per hour with the speed you type, isn't that enough?" I was made to feel so greedy that I dropped the issue and never brought it up again. I never received a raise as an MT! The work I did as an IC was in addition to a full-time job with a hospital, needing both to make ends meet.
I checked their list of potential employers. Too bad that most were incomplete links, domains and web sites not found, and to save the best for last, one that was completely in Chinese. There are also companies listed that are not looking for MTs but instead looking for businesses to buy into their company and "transition" an already assembled staff to a new owner. These links led me to nothing but more links or a dead end.
There is an article on the AAMT blog, "Will Voice Recognition Affect Medical Transcription?" They state that there "might be a slight slip" in relying on humans for transcription but the "editing part" will always be there because the software is not 100% accurate. Ok, so why then are so many of us losing employment? I would call MTs with years of experience looking for full-time work not a "slip" but a crisis! MTAssist.com, when asked what they thought about how the EMR will affect the MT stated, "It will certainly affect manual or conventional transcription, but stay tuned, we are writing a post on that!" This post was dated 2011 and I could find no followup article.
I have never in all my years of working asked for unemployment or had to ask. Now that the transcription industry has been saturated with MTs that took a crash course for a few months in transcription, those of us with actual college degrees and work experience are being pushed out the door because we are too costly to maintain.
For the MTs that are looking to coding as their savior in this mess, please look again. Coding will be the next thing to be phased out. They are already developing software to omit the coder, thus making them into "editors" as they have the MT and cutting their pay. I have it on good authority from a hospital coding/transcription manager that this is the new goal --- doing away with the MT and the coder to reduce cost. The US Dept of Labor predicts a -3% job decline from 2014 to 2024.
Without the backing of physicians, hospitals, clinics, the industry, and even our own government, I fear that this trend is only going to get worse.
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