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

Is the new trend to dock MT pay for excessive QA - Kiki

Posted: May 27, 2010

submission? I'm with a company that does this (amongst other bordering on unethical things)....I'm sure we all know what company.......cough MQ cough........

Anyway, is it just this horrible company that docks pay for QA over 5% and also if you fail an audit? I really wouldn't have a problem with docking of pay for failed audits IF they were fair, but this company doesn't know the meaning of the word fair.

Just wondering if there are other decent, honest companies where you don't get punished for crappy dictators, penalized for sending to QA, and that actually give production bonuses.

bad trend - cashstrapped

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I'm glad things didn't work out with me and Medquist, because I think this new trend is horrible.

Wow, that is horrible. The harder you work trying to reference something - shortcake

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or listen over and over again but still can't get it you then lose pay?? I wonder if you lose pay if QA ends up sending off with a blank. I keep track of all my QA submissions and most are doc descrepancies and my submissions sometimes are over 5%, so I would be docked for the doctors' descrepancies?? I am sooooo glad I left MQ when I did and if my new company even starts to consider this, I am out....

shortcake - we are not getting

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a straight answer as to whether or not we are docked even if QA is ultimately unable to fill in the blanks.

Sadly, I think I already know the answer.

That is why all my blanks now go directly to the client. I refuse to play the game. I was told to trust myself and what I hear, and that is what I am doing.

good strategy. The MTSOs are shieldng - crap

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the clients and their bad dictators out of fear to lose the account if they complain that their MTs have real trouble listening to bad audios.

That's the advantage working in an office:
If my boss asks me to do "crap" for him, I just knock at his door and tell him that I refuse to do crap and fight it out with him, and if I prove to him and he has to admit that it is his fault, he cannot fire me, or else.....!

Yeah, I also know the answer..I was denied a raise because of - shortcake

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my QA submissions and when I showed documentation that a huge % of my blanks were not filled in by QA, I was told they put a freeze on raises. I was told many years ago, if you are not absolutely sure about something, do not put it in the report. I think this could prove to be dangerous as some will have no choice but to guess about things. In the good ole days I remember being told to listen 3 times and if I can't get it, move on. Of course we have access to google now and that is a huge help but sometimes blanks just can't be helped, and the MT should not be punished for that. MQ may be looking to get rid of QA dept possibly, how stupid is that???

as far as I know - MQ is the leader

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of the pack on this new grand idea. Others will surely follow as usual...

MQ is the leader - Annie

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when it comes to a lot of bad things. Remember the transcriptionists' lawsuit?

If there is truly excessive QA, they need t just get rid of the MT entirely - Docking does not make sense

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I wouldn't keep an MT who abused flagging and took advantage of sending blanks to QA. I've never been in the position of making those decisions, but anyone who abused QA would be out that day. I wouldn't dock anyone's pay though. It's so important for an MT to know what they don't know and flag appropriately, but if they flag everything, they might as well not have bothered at all. Someone else is going to have to transcribe that report for them. They shouldn't be paid for reports that are worthless. If it's an occasional one that can't be helped, that's one thing, but if the MT can't handle difficult dictation, they are in the wrong business or need better training. No docking if I were making the decision. No jobs for MTs who aren't able to transcribe.

absolutely agree with you 100% about weeding out - however at MQ

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the problem is that we are only allowed to send 5% of our total lines typed for the week to QA no matter what the reason. This could include blanks for sound quality, cutoffs, missing hospital/physician names that cannot be verified, etc (the client can force us to send a blank for that reason). All these blanks count 100% against the MT as far as their amount of QA submission. See the problem developing here?

We are forced to choose between an educated guess and having our pay docked. No more extra "set of ears" to help us. Of course no calling the client for verification. You are on your own to make the decision.

The worst part of all is that one long chart submitted to QA with ONE BLANK may cause you to exceed your 5% allowance for the week.

Then everything you type for the rest of the week is docked 3 cpl.

Oh, OUCH! - Never mind then

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That does change things. Thanks for clarifying.

P.S. - I should clarify

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that if the chart has obvious sound issues only, then there is no need to send to QA. However, "dictator effect" is extremely subjective. To send or not to send? hmmmm

It literaly pits the MT versus the QA on whether or not "someone" could have heard the blank. Who is to say who could have heard it and who could not have heard it?

Therein lies the main flaw of the FTR program.

However at MQ - Nick

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When has MQ EVER been fair or honest with its MTs?

it would be fairer to get rid of the bad DICTATOR!! - well,....

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nm

lol - we would lose so many accounts

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if that were the case.

That's part of the job and a little bit of job security though - In my opinion

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Otherwise, I agree with you.

I totally agree with you! Everyone please read my following post (last para at least)---- - Kiki

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But unfortunately in a lot of cases at MQ, the excessive blanks have to do with horrible dicators, horrible audio, or simply getting bounced from account to account, having up to 20 different (and more!) accounts to have to memorize with new, unfamiliar dicators, new client rules, etc. It's next to impossible to NOT leave some blanks, and 5% is NOT very much leeway.

But in the end, you ARE right, even with all the above taken into account, if MQ is not satisfied with an employee, let them go, don't dock the pay. Herein lies the problem---they do NOT want to have to pay unemployment to let someone go. They would rather dock the pay and pay us Indian wages. Proof that they are greedy and unethical amongst other things.

You are exactly right...having done QA, I have seen (SM) - Oh My

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Having done QA, I have seen what I had previously presumed were good, solid MTs send reports to QA claiming they couldn't understand something or had "poor audio and can't make out a SINGLE WORD."

Ummm...yeah, that "poor audio"? Yeah, it was a BIT substandard, but I managed with it just fine, this MT just didn't want to deal with it, obviously. She also had days where apparently she couldn't make her reference books open because she'd obviously not even tried to find something relatively simple to find, even for me and I'd never had reason to look these things up before. When doing QA for a relatively small group (20 or less) of MTs, you learn quite quickly to separate the "girls" from the "women", so to speak (or "men" from the "boys," but we were all female).

An MT can convince you she/he is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but once you start doing QA, you can very quickly start seeing through the ruse to the truth and sometimes it's not pretty. Not at all.

There are indeed MTs who abuse QA, and I agree with this poster; they need to be dealt with on a 1:1 basis and terminated. They are a total drain on QA resources and lack the willingness to put 100% into every report.

how come that it is NEVER the dictator's fault? - ??

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nm

because doctors will be doctors - that is what my CCM always tells me nm

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nm

any doctor can be ........... - sm

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a lousy dictator.

In no profession should any worker be made responsible and get blamed for others' inefficiencies, and this so openly, and nothing is being done against it. This is against all rules.

The only thing we hear is:
Get an ear checkup, hahaha, this is hilarious!

If they spoke clearly, SR could do it all with 100% accuracy - LOL

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Not happening, is it?!

VR - none

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Therefore SR is not the solution.
Maybe EMR will be, or something even better, after EMR.

Are you embracing VR's imperfection because a perfect VR would render you obsolete?

This is so paradox.

When I worked in a hospital years ago, one - k

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of the ESL doctors told our supervisor it was not his fault if we could not understand him. She basically told him then that if he could not speak more clearly, then he would just have reports full of blanks if on a 2nd listen we couldn't get it instead of spending large amounts of time trying to get what he was saying. After a couple of weeks, he straightened up and was a lot easier to do. That was the good old days, working in a hospital and actually knowing the doctors.

this is...see inside - sm

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the crappiness of this profession:

The biggest injustice in the MT field lies in the fact that it is ALWAYS the MT's fault, no matter what and that MTs are not given any opportunity to defend themselves.
Does "innocent until proven guilty" not apply to MTing?

Even a killer gets a fair trial before getting convicted.

You know what? Not all of us have had this problem - MT

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That sounds like a little bit of an overreaction. I sympathize, but not every MT is having that problem. Maybe we have more experience, better training, clear accounts, better equipment, nicer supervisor, more skilled QA, or whatever reason. Not all MTs are getting zapped this way. See if you can change accounts or companies, for a starter. If that doesn't work, you may need a different career if you really view it the way you said.

You know what? Me neither, but many do. - bad dictators

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nm

QA questions? - old mt

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One company - not MQ (surprise) will terminate your contract if you ask too many questions as you should know all? In theory if you are a seasoned transcriptionist I can see it - but if you some of the God-awful dictators what are you supposed to do - quess or not leave blanks. It seems they all want us to be all knowing.

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