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Uuh, no. It's not about the Christmas card. - Picked right up on that did you?

Posted: Dec 30th, 2017 - 6:34 am In Reply to: Good points - Cheapness in compensation

As clearly indicated, it was about the context of insufferably low line rates being paid.

...and then you offered the tired old excuse that the problem is systemic. Our line rate, you imply, is inevitable. It's "baked into the economics of healthcare."

That, in a nutshell, is what you ask me to believe, and I'm afraid that's the argument that too many of us have been willing to accept without questioning whether it's true or not.

Let's ask ourselves whether there might be any evidence to suggest that this argument is false.

For instance, what profits are transcription companies recording? Unfortunately, many MTSOs are private companies and we can't see their financial statements, but you might want to check the few public companies. That will be eye-opening for you, just for starters.

Then, let's ask ourselves what has happened to the wages of other healthcare workers over the period of MT line rate decline - at least the last 10 years. One would reasonably expect that wages for positions such as unit clerks, departmental secretaries, etc. should have also declined during that same period if, indeed, "healthcare cost-cutting" is really driving our line rates, no?

I could suggest several other metrics that contradict your theory - and, let's be clear, your position is NOTHING BUT AN UNPROVEN THEORY - a supposition, in fact.

The fact is that the evidence indicates that there's money in the system to pay us properly.

To be sure, healthcare clients love to cut costs, but that doesn't mean, for instance, that they can pay a hospital pharmacist whatever they like. It doesn't mean that they can pay whatever they like for the medical equipment they buy. It doesn't mean that they can dictate ruinous prices for their utilities.

The real problem, I believe, is that healthcare clients have figured out that most transcription companies are run by people who have little business ability.

These are people who can't even tell you their own marginal cost of a line of production, and who live in fear that someone else will offer a lower line rate. This fear, of course, arises from the fact that they only know how to compete on the basis of price.

...and yet, oddly enough, it usually isn't a lower price that causes a healthcare client to switch transcription providers.

It's a persistent failure to meet quality standards, turnaround times or both.

...and why does that happen?

Now we begin to get to the heart of the matter.

I'm tired of the old argument "they won't pay us, so we can't pay you." There is enough profit for you to spread a little bit more of it around, and there's enough profit for you to hire the kind of people who won't cost you clients, and who will help your company grow.

Do you know what it costs to lose a client? Do you know what it costs to gain a new client to replace them? Do you know what the real cost of MT turnover is?

If you knew any of these things, or thought clearly about the contraindicationss to the "systemic", "baked-in" arguments that we hear all the time, you'd probably be more inclined to stand up on your hind legs and demand a proper line rate.

...oh, and about offshoring: Any number of clients have discovered to their sorrow the true cost of offshoring, besides which their rates happen to have been rising.

Root cause analysis asks "why?", and then "okay, and why that?"...and "fine, then why that?" until the root cause is discovered. It doesn't stop with the first "why" or the second or the third.

Applied to our situation, perhaps we ourselves are the final "why"...because we've allowed ourselves to be the easiest target in the entire healthcare system for "cost-cutting" and it's unreasonable to expect anyone OTHER THAN OURSELVES to say "Okay, this has gone too far now."

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