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

All this monitoring talk - Not a machine

Posted: Jun 24, 2010

I realize we work on production and that we're not making money when our fingers aren't moving, but I don't think there are too many jobs where you're actually actively working for the entire 8-hour shift. There's always downtime. I understand it being a problem if people aren't producing a reasonable amount of work during their shift, but come on! Being chastised for stepping away from the keyboard for a bathroom break or to grab a cup of coffee is just ridiculous.

Which company is this.?? I would not want to go there - .

[ In Reply To ..]
company names are allowed on this forum.

many many companies - have monitoring

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capabilities built into their software programs where they can see how long you were in a chart, how long it took to complete it, etc. It is nothing new.

Someone suggested that TTS has a special footpedal that monitors you, but I highly doubt that.

TTS doesn't provide the footpedal. You use your own. - nm

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nm

two companies are listed below. - nm.

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x

I agree - jj

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I know of very few jobs where you are "working" your entire shift. There are always breaks of some type.

Too many MTSOs expect an entire shift devoted to nothing but the keyboard. They will monitor how long it takes you to do a report or how long assigned to you. They will monitor your hours logged versus your production hours. There are many, many ways they monitor your production during your shift.

The top MTSOs including MQ, TS, KS and most others have monitoring systems in place and do use them constantly. I highly doubt the non-MTs at these MTSOs are monitored in the same way.

If you don't want the monitoring, then stick to smaller, independent companies that hire mostly ICs rather than employees. The majority of these companies don't care about the hours you put in as long as you send back quality reports that stay in TAT.

Would love to, but... - Not tax saavy (sm)

[ In Reply To ..]
I agree with your post, and I would love to be an IC, but the tax thing scares me. As I understand it (never had a class, just learned from other people's complaints mostly) you have to pay more tax if you're an IC, and the only way to avoid that is by buying more stuff for your "business" but if money is tight already, how do you "buy more stuff???" If there's a magic trick to being an IC, I wish somebody would enlighten me so I can break the shackles that are holding me in my current torture, I mean job.

taxes - jj

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It's really not that hard. You just pay taxes quarterly instead of yearly. However, I know of a few who choose to pay it yearly and figure it in with their regular taxes.

You can get one of those electronic tax programs, which makes it fairly easy to figure your taxes out. That's what I use and it's basically just filling in the blanks.

There are quite a bit of deductions you can take as an IC, but just make sure if you chose to claim a home office that you really have a home office as specified by the IRS rules. This is one deduction I've never been able to use in the 15+ years I've been an IC.

As an IC you can pay quarterly, but you do pay more. - sm

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You still have to pay federal and state, but you also have to pay 15% self-employment tax that the employer would normally pay. I live in NY state, and my accountant had told me that a good rule of thumb is to set aside 40% of my check for federal, state, and self-employment tax and then pay it quarterly. You can pay it annually with your regular taxes, but then I think there is some sort of penalty they assess for not paying quarterly.

But another expense you'll be facing as well is your own medical insurance. This cost can be daunting if you have a family and are paying it on your own. Unless your state offers some sort of low-cost buy-in program depending on your income.

Why anyone would put up with that I will never understand - awful

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No insult intended, but when people put up with being treated like that, I can't help being reminded of a saying I heard once - "you can't rape the willing..."

No one likes to be watched, but this is not a new practice. The first - transcender

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company, I think, that put this monitoring in was either JLG when the "secretary" watched to see who was signed in to transcribe at every minute of every day. But actual program monitoring capability came in strong with Your Office Genie. We used make sure we had heavy dictionaries or books to put on our footpedals to make it look like we were doing something when we had to get a drink or go to the bathroom.

Being monitored does not bother me. What does bother me is the gestapo techniques of being so nasty when you are not on at your assigned time without asking for a reason (my satellite has problems with connections sometimes). But most of the managers in these companies have decided they are gods and they rule your life and they are destined to make you as miserable as possible and hate your job as much as you can. I would love to make a bet that there is not one of them that could transcribe the required lines in a day or maintain the schedules they require the MLS to maintain. They sit on their laurels and rake in the big bucks, delighting in knowing they have ruined someone's day. Karma will eventually prevail.

or a 20-minute smoke break every 2 hrs - lol

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nm

Management finally noticing that I work hard? - Love it!

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I've been looking all my life for a job where my hard work was appreciated.

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