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

Why do companies overhire??????? - GGRR!!

Posted: Jun 19, 2012

Why do companies overhire?? I was told my hours and days to work, but yet, I constantly run out of work. What is going on???

DiscouragedMT - DiscouargedMT

[ In Reply To ..]
I know what you mean .... Happening to me too! Is your company KS?

plain and simple, TAT. - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
competition is great amongst MTSOs -- their biggest selling point is faster turn around times (TATs) -- getting reports back to the client faster and better than another vendor. Next would be cheapest rates, hence our drop in pay.

unreliable MTs who quit without warning or do not show - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
More likely because MTs nowadays quit without warning, do not show for work, or somehow pass the test but do not know what they are doing, etc. I am now transcribing numerous accounts I had taken on for other MTs to transcribe but....due to the above, instead of managing, I am typing.

agreed - em

[ In Reply To ..]
I saw this first hand at a small MTSO when the owner was hiring (no, this wasn't me). She need two but hired four because past experience had shown that 50% of her ICs would flake out, not due to lack of work, but there was always some drama excuse why they couldn't work today, not until next week, or not at all after all.

ReliableMT - ReliableMT

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I am a very reliable MT, but still have this problem with running out of work. Not fair for the ones who are reliable to have to put up with no work because of other MTs that are not reliable. Doesn't make any sense to punish me!

Been there, it is sadfor the MTs who are reliable - just me

[ In Reply To ..]
Yes, that is what goes on unfortunately. She is lucky she has 50%. The ones I hired never showed up at all, so I am transcribing 9 accounts and extremely leery to accept more work, as I am too tired and busy. Making a lot of money though! In the long run, they did me a huge favor. I love my accounts, extremely easy work, fabulous English-speaking dictators and making way more transcribing than I would ever editing behind them, for which I was losing a significant amount of money. It used to be an MT would be hired, learn the account, make good money (instead of a portion going to pay for QA now and overly greedy national MTSOs and paying for platforms), and stay put. Now they just jump from job to job to job or apply for ones they have no intention of working just for the heck of it I guess. Clueless on this one. Sorry for your situation. Good luck. You might have better luck with a smaller company, more personal. That has been my experience.

MTs who quit without warning do it because the MTSO - cuts their pay without warning.

[ In Reply To ..]
How many of us found out through our own investigations that our company was committing wage theft on us? That they had cut our cpl without being forewarned? That they thought they'd just slip that little 'detail' of VBC past us, thinking we wouldn't notice?

Any company that pulls all those fast ones (my own included) doesn't deserve even a "take this job and shove it" email, let alone any kind of notice.

Guess we have to distinguish between large - medium MTSOs and SM

[ In Reply To ..]
the smaller ones that these people are complaining about? I suppose it happens, but it is hard for me to imagine that after going through the testing process and the training process that anyone would just flake out and never show up or make up excuses not to work. In my group of MT friends, we are all older, need to work to support ourselves/families, have a lot of experience, and take pride in our work (it has been difficult in the last few years to do this) Maybe these managers/owners who are complaining should make an effort to hire those of us with the qualities listed above and commit to paying a liveable wage. If you continue to hire those who only work for "extra money", don't consider this a profession, and pay minimal wage, well... you get what you pay for.

Amen to That!! - I agree

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When you over-hire, you cannot expect to keep good and reliable MTs who need to work for a living, take their jobs seriously, know what they are doing, and expect more than a minimum line requirement set forth by the company. We cannot afford to sit at a computer for hours with no work. If that were the case with my job, and I was offered another job with plenty of work and a decent wage, yes I would leave without notice. Obviously they did not need me in the first place if I am sitting there with no work and my leaving should not be a burden on them.

A lot of times, the MT looks great on paper, 30 years experience, looking for FT and still flake out - MTSO

[ In Reply To ..]
You would be very surprised how many unreliable MTs are out there. We pay well, have a lot of work, screen carefully and still have this problem. I have talked about this with other MTSOs, large and small, and it is common. We all wish we could find all of the MTs that you describe, but you have to kiss a lot of frogs in the meantime.

Touche to MTSO. Will certainly give you that. - You just never know. No message.

[ In Reply To ..]
x

Lots of MTSOs look good in their ads: "Lots of work, - great accounts, incentive pay, paid -sm

[ In Reply To ..]
vacations, easy platform that will help you to produce".... and yada yada yada.

Then, once you work for them, the good accounts and the work seem to "disappear", as does your productivity on their ponderous transcription software. The so-called "incentive pay" often turns out to be an unattainable carrot-on-a-stick. And the "paid vacations" are basically lines you typed, but were sucked out of your total linecount by their scamware, and put into your so-called vacation lines. Which were already yours to begin with, but they stole them from you, then claim to "give" them to you for PTO. The only problem is, you can't use them for a vacation because you have to keep using the PTO lines in order to buy groceries each month.

In my opinion, it's the MTSOs who are the FROGS.

I am really having a hard time believing this - I am sure every now SM

[ In Reply To ..]
and then you run across this, but you make it sound like it is quite common. If an MT with 30 years experience looking for FT work is hired by your company with promises of plenty of work and other incentives, works for you, and then flakes out, there must be a reason for that other than a whim on the MT's part. Those of us who work to support ourselves and our families can't afford to just flake out.

Flake out MTs and Flake out MTSOs - 32 years here

[ In Reply To ..]
I just have to put in my two cents worth here. In the past two years or so, I have seen the "work ethic" go way down. I was hired by a company as an IC, loved the work, loved the account, etc., and worked as many hours as I could. I thought this would be the LAST company that I ever worked for (since I am now in my mid 50s). It was all straight typing, no VR, great dictators and pay was biweekly and on time.

To try to make a long story short, all of a sudden, low to NJA. I would contact my supervisor via IM or email to ask her why all of a sudden we had no work. I was told to contact the owner of the company, which I did, and approximately an hour later, we received a "blanket EMail," stating that the account had gone to another service because the hospital felt that we were not meeting TAT.

I have ALWAYS put my "all" into a company as far as backlog etc., is concerned. If it means working a few hours on the holidays I have done it -- if it means working weekends, I have done it -- maybe not a full shift, but 5-6 hours on both Saturday and Sunday.

The problem that I have seen in recent years is that "acute care work" never stops -- It's 24/7/365 and too many MTs (especially those that are newer), feel that they should be able to work M-F daytime hours and have weekends off. I agree too, that there are the "hobby MTs," the ones who have a husband or a significant other to help support them and if they make $300-400 a week to help pay for "incidential expenses," that is good enough for them.

I am a single, self-supporting MT, and have probably been "blacklisted" because of the fact that I too, have waited for work, and sat for hours and competing with other MTs and have seen it with one of the last companies that I worked for, (again, a good company), but those MTs, who would "disappear for days" and close to the end of the pay period, they were all coming on and trying to make the minimum line count required for benefits, etc and I became extremely upset over the fact that those of us who were on constantly would run out of work and those who only came on occasionally, were not fired or locked out of the system.

This is an extremely frustrating situation, when you have people who feel that they "can work as they please," and those of us, who are dedicated to our jobs, only have OUR income to rely on and trying to survive.

In part, I really blame these schools. I saw a recent post on the New MTs Board, where someone had attended an "online university," paid a substantial amount of money and has been looking for work for MONTHS. It's strange too, because I decided to possibly look going back to school and the "tuition" quoted by this "school" was $7500 a semester!! UNBELIVABLE!!!

Bottom line, is too many people treat this profession as a "hobby," and not as a job. They seem to forget that MTSOs as well have expenses, overhead, etc., and they get inundated with resumes, hire a person whome they feel might be a good candidate, the person works for a week or two and then AWOL until it's close to the end of the PP.

I recently "tested" for a company that has gotten some recent bad reviews on here and I was informed that I had to "download their software" to test. I had never heard of that -- had problems with the software, called the company, got it working properly, tried to test and finish the tests -- and also questioning the "test files," because I realized these were "live dictations," and not "old files." The next day, after no response to my emails, I found out that I had been locked out of their system -- no tests required apparently and finding out that some of their MTs are still waiting for checks.

There are unscrupulous MTs and their are unscruplous MTSOs -- this is why so many MTSOs now, even with an IC position are asking for a "schedule;" it is not a schedule per se, but the days and times you would be available to work.

I ran into a situation about 2 weeks ago, where I was offered a position with an MTSO, and we were to begin "training." That particular day, I was staying with a friend (because of the way this industry has become, I have been having to live in a motel, while trying to find work and thanks to a good friend, when I can no longer afford to pay for the motel, they have helped me out by allowing me to stay with them). Situation being is that there is no internet connection available there, so I have to at those times, try to rely on my cell phone or my friend's cell phone, as a "connection," which normally is very good. To make a long story short, I ended up draining my cell phone battery after being on the phone with AT&T with still no resolution to my connectivity problems. We ended up having storms and losing power for several hours and I had no access to a landline to be able to call this particular MTSO to let her know of those problems. I ended up calling that same evening, getting someone who was in her office, and telling that person what happened and to let this MTSO know that if she was available for me to train on Saturday or Sunday, I could do that. I followed up with an email, on Saturday, basically explaining what happened, after spending hours sending in paperwork, etc., only to get the "Dear Jane" letter. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise, but what I am trying to emphasize here, is that I DO try to keep in contact with my MTSO.

I have also recently had to deal with MTSOs who put a "platform" on my computer and it is either "install it yourself," or we will have our tech support department contact you." I am pretty tech savvy, but in the case of putting Bayscribe on, for the "test" company," it was a problem with the version of IE I had on. The company before that, everything was done via Yahoo Messenger (which goofed up, but got fixed) and the "techs" remoting" into my computer. NO phone communication whatsoever, just coming in and doing their "thing." While we were on "remote support," I was also getting IMS from the techs, even though they "had control of my computer." I have always been pretty "tech savvy," and even helped out other MTs when they have had issues -- normally, its been a "shared computer," and one of the kids has been on it and goofed something up.

It definitely is a two way street. The MTSOs need to understand that if you have an MT on and working seven days a week is a "dedicated MT." If, for some reason, you don't see "Jane, the dedicated MT," working for a day or two, maybe it was circumstances beyond "her" control.

On the other hand, we have "Sally," the MT who feels that she can work when she feels like it -- no communication for days, gets on at the end of the pay period and works. I guess if I were an MTSO, I would much rather have "Jane" working for me rather than "Sally."

For the MTSOs -- large or small, I would suggest having software installed or having someone that knows how to properly install software and knowing computer systems -- I have Windows 7, 64 bit having gone from XP 32 bit -- I had to replace both a desktop and a lpatop and being a single MT, at the time, I had to go with what I could afford, which is what most MTs have to do.

Also, quit being afraid of talking to the HIM director at the hospital whose account you have. If you consistently have problems with sound quality, or the way a doctor dictates, then speak up. The last company I worked for, it was in a town where my mother's family was from. I talked to their HIM director, and found out that there were FIVE other services working on the same account. THIS IS WHAT IS GOING ON, AND PEOPLE WONDER WHY NO WORK!

Okay, getting off the box for now -- I do apologize, but things need to be seen both ways and not just one way :)

Flaking...etc. - just me

[ In Reply To ..]
I definitely feel for the MTs these days with what you described. I had a small taste of it when building my business back up after my largest client went EMR. A lot of these issues do not pertain to me though. I only hire professional MTs and not "hobby MTs," do not use a platform at all, my dictators speak extremely clear English, no VR, and I always provide what I hope sounds like positive feedback (although we all know this depends on how they "read" it), and pay them as much as I possibly can with the hopes they will train on the account and be able to at some time send work straight through without me editing 100% to voice. Alas, this never seems to be the case. .

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