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

Another Speed Question - Prudy

Posted: Jan 26, 2010

Just wondering how many lines and hour an MT who uses no expanders or macros whatsoever can type. Anyone know?

The fact that there are so many variables kind of sucks because an MT can't really argue if their company gives them a hard time about their speed since there may be no one else to compare with (in an fair way).

Wow ... - Prudy

[ In Reply To ..]
No one from back in the day (before macros and expanders) that has a clue on this?

If you want to go back to before macros and expanders - then there was no such thing as lph

[ In Reply To ..]
Everyone doing straight typing was paid by the hour or on salary until about the time line counts were invited. Line counts were invented after these production boosters because bean counters wanted to cut MT pay based on the newfangled technology. Even in the late 80s when I was setting type font and line spacing manually by coding each line individually, things were paid by hour (BTW, that was $8 something per hour then).

To answer the original question though...if a company is giving any MT a hard time about low productivity and that MT is producing without the use of macros and expanders, well, I think that MT is not trying to keep his/her job or earn enough money to live independently.

Not true. Back in 1977 I was working for an MTSO (sm) - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
and we were paid on production. I have never worked as a transcriptionist being paid hourly or salary. I have always worked for MTSOs on a production basis. I mostly remember averaging 1400 to 1800 lines a day before my first expander which was PRD.

Maybe I can help (sm) - Long time MT

[ In Reply To ..]
In 1993 I was supervisor of a hospital MT department in the Pacific NW. At the time the jobs were being transcribed on an old word processing system that did not allow for AE and macros. We had a departmental standard to meet of 125 lines per hour. Does that help?

Speed - kayla

[ In Reply To ..]
Wasn't that in the days when a line was a line and they were about 45 to 55 characters long?

No expanders? - LK

[ In Reply To ..]
How can lph without expanders be relevant to working as an MT today? You can't hope to produce at any kind of decent rate without them. I can't believe that anybody today would work without heavy use of macros, so what does this have to do with anything?(please excuse me if I'm not understanding your question).

I would say that if your company is giving you a bad time about your speed, you need to find a way to get faster.

How did you all learn about Expanders and who taught you? - nm

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

my first expanders were called macros and - I taught myself

[ In Reply To ..]
I opened up the books that came with my computer on how to use DOS and WordPerfect and I applied what I read. I set up document templates, action macros, abbreviation macros. Lots of good information in the "Help" section of the toolbar.

I learned about formal programs, PRD, Smartype and Shorthand, from MTDaily when it was still a free site. DOS, WordPerfect and Smartype for DOS was the best MTing I ever did.

When I moved to Windows, I kicked and screamed, but spent time merging my Smartype files over to Shorthand. I've built upon my abbreviations for 14 years now.

Even if an MT has not heard about abbreviation expanders, there is a lot of information to be found about how to use macros and AutoCorrect in MS-Word to get someone thinking about getting an expander program. Maybe that is part of the problem - Have people stopped reading the Help files or books that come with their computers? What a waste of good information if that is the case.

How did you all learn about Expanders and who taught you? - eagles_fan

[ In Reply To ..]
Before I started the Andrews course, I used macros in Word 2007. I learned from the Help documentation that comes with Word 2007. In the final module of the Andrews course, the school recommends that the students use Shorthand. I'm currently using Shorthand, and I love it. I learned from the Help documentation that comes with Shorthand.

Expanders - EagleEye

[ In Reply To ..]
I learned about them from my instructor in Medical Transcription courses I took years ago. She called them macros. Everyone in class was like "What are you talking about?" I never really got to use them much until I started my first job as an MT though.

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