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

Any suggestions? - Dallas

Posted: Jul 25, 2012

I can't make money with VR and I know there has to be a way for me to work faster or something. I type so much faster than I do editing. Today I've worked 11 hours and have made $28, that's only 700 lines. I normally could have typed at least 2000 lines and made my 9 cpl per day if I worked that long. I'm going broke. Bills aren't getting paid, and we all know there just aren't jobs out there right now, especially in your 50's. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Get your own clients - just me

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Obtain your own clients or do freelance work. You would make more than that for sure. Gosh, I feel so bad for you and hope things get better. Hang in there.

VR - Dallas

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I've actually checked with some of the clinics around here and they've moved on to the EMR systems so they really do the work themselves. I remember when Clinton spoke about giving a tax break to physicians who went to VR and they researched it and found that it would cost job, so they didn't do it.....and here we are now........I could just scream!

VR - anon

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I can also type faster by about 1.5 times, which is weird. Remember when they told us we could do 4-5 times the work in VR??? Yeah, right.

I have been trying to figure out my problem with speed as well. For me a lot of it is the tedious aspect of VR. I find that my mind will wander and I get up a lot more. With typing I am more "engaged" in the work. So I had to eliminate any distractions that I had around and schedule "up" times.

It's funny because I remember in the good old days I could type and do a shopping list in my head at the same time and still have great accuracy. I find VR requires 100% attention and focus.

A good day of VR for me was about 1200-1400. When I got my work space distraction free I got up over 2000. The problme is that I am finding it hard to do that day in and day out. Oddly VR is much more exhausting than typing for me.

Hopefully somebody will have some earth shattering revelation on how to do a zillion lines of VR.

Of course, running out of work on a regular basis doesn't help much either.

I'm the same way - Dallas

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I type a report and am so tired that I get up and go outside for a bit or I find something to do around the house. It's sickening. I find myself not concentrating and it gets to the point to where I just no longer care. I'm to the point that digging ditches sounds pretty good.

There is one company I know of that is straight typing - anon

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with no VR (at least it was that way up through last summer) and that company is SoftScript.

I cannot give a glowing recommendation as I was not crazy about the managers and we ran out of work quite often but if it is straight typing you want, it may be worth checking into.

Do you think it is because they know the pitfalls - IMANMT2

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of VR editing and the distractions that take away from productivity. I mean the software company who developed it must have used MTs or somebody to sit and edit to have some kind of idea what their pitch could be to sell it. They can't promise the moon and deliver your back yard. That would eventually come back on them.

Is it possible that knowing all this, it costs them .03 per line if you type/edit it all or if it is spread out amongst 3 MTs (the volume) and given the difficulty, interruptions or whatever, it gets typed in the timeframe needed?

I think from every conversation I've ever heard about VR editing (the negative anyway) it is assumed the managers are clueless. Could it be they are not and this is the explanation for consistently low work pools? The distractions and lack of productivity is something they factor in when they calculate man hours to get the job done?

When I first started SR...SM - Old Anon

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my line counts were dismal too because it was something I'd never done before, similar to when I first started doing straight transcription and had dismal line counts. Now after 6 months of doing SR AND getting advice from a trainer and going over their tutorial a few times, I am able to produce between 2000 and 2600 SR lines per 8 hour shift. Of course, this has built up slowly over time but I stuck to it and didn't throw my hands up and say "I can't do this". What I am trying to say is, you have to give it time. You have to focus and avoid distractions. I am actually enjoying SR now, although I also can straight transcribe about 100-125 lines less per hour than SR and get paid more than double my SR rate for this. Pitting that only about 15% of my lines are straight transription, or I'be be swimming in dough. It is what it is, so just keep on trucking.

To Old Anon - anon

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What did the tutorials cover?

Was it simply ensuring no distractions and maintaining focus that improved your VR line count?

I honestly cannot think of anything else that would matter but, unfortunately, staying focused is easier said than done. Do you have any tricks? IV infusion of coffee, etc.???

Response to anon re: tricks - Old Anon

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First trick is to avoid your mouse like the plague. Second, focus on the 1 or 2 most important keystroke commands and use them religiously. Once you have mastered those add a couple more (depends on how many your SR platform uses). Actually, before you start using keystroke commands print out what they are and what they do and tape it up on your monitor. Take your time and strive for accuracy and slowly but surely, your speed will increase. I kept the dictation speed normal or below normal for a while, but now with very familiar, clear dictators, I can increase the speed well past 100% of normal. My company is a bugger for accuracy, so if I don't maintain my QA scores, going too fast and making mistakes and/or missing words, I will be warned. The company trainer had told me to use control-right arrow to move along with the voice cursor, but I found it quicker to just keep by little finger, right hand on the right arrow most of the time. Strive to keep going forward at all times and try not to bop all over the document if you can. That's all I can think of right now.

Ah, the mouse that kills me. Thank you so much!! NM - anon

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xx

Did no one tell you...SM - Old Anon

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that using the mouse was a no-no and wastes a lot of time. You must use the keyboard commands and avoid taking your hands off the keyboard as much as possible. Do the things I suggested, take it slow, step by step, and you'll see an improvement. It took me 6 months to reach my over 2000 lines per shift level, but keep at it and you'll get there too.

is that at 3 cpl? in what time period? - IMANMT2

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I'm just curious.

I read an article on line entitled MTs Need to Get Off Inaccurate Pay Scale by
Sherry Roth, PA-C, DF-AAPA, CMT, AHDI-F
Coral Springs, Florida

May 7, 2012
MTs Need to Get Off Inaccurate Pay Scale

in

For The Record
Vol. 24 No. 9 P. 29

You could Google it maybe and find it.

She talks about many things but also the expected inaccuracies in VR/SR as opposed to what is tolerated in straight typing by MTs (98% accuracy).

I found her article very interesting.

I also did a little research on the government website today and discovered a contract that was awarded, as a sole source to America's Pride, looked like, without counting the 13,500 radiology reports (not lines, notice?), it came to roughly .06 per line. and the volume for the 3 months based on 22 days out of the month, 5 days a week, about 2630 lines a day but with the math that would be roughly an additional 200 radiology reports per day. It isn't much of a volume or award, either, because my calculations of .06+ per line didn't include the radiology volume expected at 13,500 reports.

at .03 that is 78.90 a day for the MT if only one MT is doing it, which I might doubt. but that is 78.90 for the corp which is half the award, which would be almost 60,000 for 3 months. Would they have to pay an editor to edit the MT/VR editor's work?

I was just trying to get an idea of what was going on. And to be honest, I still don't know. I know the contracting officer who awarded this contract at Eglin cited some kind of emergency to continue (after a poor performance??) with this contractor for an additional 3 months at $115,000 + and made it sound like there were 20 clinics and multiple sites and almost a threat to national security if there were disruption in the transcription.

I was thinking if there were an MT service who didn't support a bunch of people (in the office and elsewhere) who have nothing to do with the flow of work that generates the revenue to pay everybody, and if line rates hadn't gotten too ridiculously low, it might be possible for a group of people to come together to perform the work, hit TATs, accuracy, etc., and underbid these corps that outsource and depend on wringing volumes out of MTs doing SR/VR for starvation wages. But if this is the typical (I don't believe it) prime contractors line rate there is almost no way to compete with that, even with a dedicated bunch of MTs intent on carving a decent living for themselves and doing what they enjoy out of what is left of the industry. Which if this is correct, doesn't look like much. :(

Any thoughts?

Interesting - hmm

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.

IMANMT2...SM - Old Anon

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No, it's more than 0.03 cpl, but less than 0.04; and I only work an 8 hour day. I do about 85% SR and about 15% straight. My cpl is more, of course. Why do you ask?

file a complaint with the Labor Department - Snow Bunny

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You need to be able to show proof of time worked so they can see you are making under minimum wage. They'll do an investigation of the company.

Make sure to request that you remain anonymous.

If someone is IC, cannot file with Labor Dept. - That is only for employees I believe. sm

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People can say don't accept less than X amount for VR but when no one is paying more than 4 cpl, you either accept that rate or go hungry. I'm just starting on VR but very sickened to see I'm making less than minimum wage. I hope I am able to get faster but I'm using keyboard shortcuts religiously with no distractions. Hoping it gets better with time. Otherwise, I'd be better off working in the fast food industry. :(

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