Hoping to inspire some of you that are struggling (long post, sorry!) - HappyTranscriptionist

Posted: Mar 01, 2014

Hello all my fellow transcriptionists! I love this board. I have been coming here and reading most of the messages here for many years now, even though I haven't really been a 'medical' transcriptionist for about 4 or 5 years now. I love all your comments, feel for you when you share your frustrations, and gain insight into the changes that have continued to happen with medical transcription (in particular, with the MTSOs). I am heartbroken for the many of you that are working yourself to death for pennies, watching your wages go down further and further over the years. I was in the same boat! I worked for Spheris, Transcend, and Transolutions before I found a job at the local hospital through sheer luck. My pay from the MTSO was $0.10 per line in 2007, and I was hired at $0.12 at the hospital. I got a raise to $0.16 per line before the end of a month, worked from home, and was an IC for the hospital for two years. I did all the work for the three most difficult (accented) dictators at the hospital, and guess what? After about a week they were easy to transcribe because I was used to what they were saying. I loved my job there. They laid me off when they went with an MTSO - and I was actually not offered a job when that happened, either. Imagine my surprise when I found I couldn't get hired for an MTSO for more than $0.07 per line, and almost all the work was editing at lower rates. Don't we ALL hate editing? I had been complaining that it was NOT faster before I worked for the hospital, and I was NOT very excited about having to go back to it. I worked for two or three companies at that time and quit them all before a few weeks was up for a variety of reasons, mostly OOW or low pay. I do remember the one company I worked with provided NO way to count your lines on your own. I had gotten into the habit of writing down the line count for every single job on a piece of paper for comparison years before, and this company tried to tell me there was no way for me to get a count - they would inform me of the count a week later. I told them I quit. So what's a mom to do? I lived 30 miles from town and couldn't find a regular job that paid enough to drive there every day or a medical transcription job online (now my only option) that paid enough to live on. I started searching. And searching, and searching and searching. I found way more information that I was ready for, but I also found MANY options for transcription jobs that DO pay, online work that was ready and waiting for me to take. I want to share some of the things I have learned with all of you, and maybe a few of you will be pointed in the right direction. Transcription is NOT a lost art, but medical transcription is not everything. Transcription is really just typing what is said on a recording. When I started this, my brain was so trained as a medical transcriptionist that I hadn't even really thought about other kinds of transcription. And once I did, where do you find that type of work? Let me tell you - it is everywhere. But switching to this type of work was difficult for me because I was entirely on my own. I made many mistakes, and I learned a lot the hard way. I can't share all my secrets with you, but I love what I do now and I hate to see how discouraged most of you seem to be. Let me give you some things to think about. First off, general transcription is typically billed per audio minute, not per line. I personally love being paid on production, but try telling a client that you will let them know what they will pay for their transcription once you have completed it and can tell them how many characters there are. Then try to explain to them what a line is - some will understand, but I never got a single client this way. It is all billed by the length of the audio - if it is a 15-minute file, you will bill XX per minute. This offers upfront pricing and rates for both parties. Second, if you are going to be a good transcriptionist you absolutely must get better at punctuation, researching, and formatting. There is global competition for transcription, not just in the medical field. Work for general transcriptionists is actually a lot easier to get than you would think, but there are many transcriptionists overseas as well trying to get work too. If you think about it, medical transcription is complicated but also incredibly repetitive. This is why they are able to outsource this type of work so effectively (and we can debate the 'effectively' part of that statement, I think we all agree). But other transcription is NOT repetitive and uses all kinds of words, phrases, and expressions that simply cannot be taught to a non-native English speaker. What makes me (and hopefully some of you too!) stand out from the rest is our command of the English language and the ability to listen when people speak and turn that into a correctly-punctuated sentence or paragraph on paper. Being able to research names and places by not only using the word itself but perhaps context clues from your document will help you fill in almost any blank. And take control of your keyboard - learn how to use Microsoft Word and jump around the page using copy, cut, and paste but also how to highlight entire words or lines by using shift, end, home, and control buttons. Pay attention to how different documents look such as an interview with margins on the page. Being able to confidently set up a document and begin transcribing on your own is easier than you might think. Pay rates - what a topic. This is the big one, right? Well, of course it varies. And rates from overseas competition are shockingly low and discouraging to a lot of people. But the difference here is that your experience and expertise will make you valuable. First you have to know how long it takes to do general transcription, and the answer is that it should take you approximately 4 times the length of the audio. So an hour of audio should take you about 4 hours. For just starting out, that can take up to 6 hours, and with experience you can get some of the easier stuff done in 2 hours. But 4 hours is a good goal. I have seen audio going overseas for as low as $6 per AUDIO HOUR. That is less than $2 per working hour - not enough for us! I personally never take any audio for less than $30 per audio hour, but when I started I went for as low as $20 per audio hour for some of the more clear files. It is low, yes, but honestly it was more than I made doing medical transcription and I used every job to gain experience. I spent a lot of time trying to compare files to see what the line count was and what the audio rate but I stopped doing that when I realized how much better it was this way - there are so many instances where there is silence in a recording, or jobs with someone who maybe does a radio show or a podcast that speaks slowly and clearly. And honestly, I only have one client that has that $30 per audio hour rate these days - and he sends me work from his company in Pakistan (more about this in a minute). Finding work is a challenge when you don̢۪t know where to start. I recommend you do some Google searches on general transcription and freelancing. I recommend Elance.com very highly as well as ODesk.com, Guru.com, and Freelancer.com. Elance has been the most successful for me personally, but I know many prefer ODesk. Do NOT be intimidated by the lower rates you will see here...just like in MT, some people value price and others value quality. Offer quality and keep in mind that this is global competition to find your rate. It is a numbers game - the more work you bid on the more chance you have of being chosen. It is difficult in the beginning, but if you offer a lower rate for your first few jobs and build up some feedback you can feel more confident in setting slightly higher rates. Do not get discouraged! I have gotten jobs as high as $2.00 per audio minute through Elance. It is out there if you keep at it! And be sure to set up a dedicated email where clients can keep contacting you - the best ones may not have large jobs or great rates, but might have an hour or so of audio every week. I have been working as a freelance transcriptionist for over four years now, and work is literally EVERYWHERE you guys. I started finding work online, and there is plenty to be had, but local work is the best paying and most satisfying. Do you know who needs transcription? Lawyers, police departments, insurance agents, authors and ghostwriters, consulting firms and market research companies, advertising agencies, news reporters and journalists, personal coaches, and business offices just to name a few. Anything that can be recorded can be transcribed - business meetings, conference calls, podcasts, webinars, focus groups, interviews, interviews, and interviews. And yes, you can find medical transcription as well - I still do some, but it is all charged per audio minute these days and done in MS Word. Try a few smaller practices or put in your info as an overflow transcriptionist at your local hospital. You are an independent contractor now offering freelance services - you will tell them what you charge (by line or audio hour for MT). Make a few templates and get to know how to use your Word program, get better at using keyboard shortcuts to make your life easier, and understand your own strengths and weaknesses. We are NOT a dying breed. We are skilled, valuable, and smart. Look beyond your own computer and train yourself to do other transcription if you want to get yourself out from under the thumb of MTSOs. There is an interesting shift in much of the work out there - a lot has gone overseas at lower rates than is fair, and when someone pays for that work they are often unhappy with what they get back. I have offered my services to a few foreign companies and I get a lot of work from them with Australian or other accents that their transcribers simply cannot understand. I have gotten jobs to edit work done by foreign transcriptionists as well, and after editing a transcript for someone who paid the lowest rate the first time they usually don̢۪t fall for that again. There are always those who will take the lowest price, but you don̢۪t want those clients anyway! You want someone who values your expertise, doesn̢۪t nitpick you for every blank (which are NORMAL!), and is willing to pay you a fair wage. I am sorry this got so long - I really want to help point a few of you in a new direction. I am hoping to inspire some of you to go look and see what else is out there. Start being your own boss or look for work at the general transcription companies (there are a TON if you start searching) to get some experience. It is different than MT, longer files and a wider variety of work types and topics, but I wouldn̢۪t go back to MTSOs for anything. I would rather work at Walmart! But I do get paid more now than I ever did then, I set my own hours, I work as much or as little as I want or have time for, and I work directly with clients who value my time and experience. I would love to answer any questions, and hope this starts a new conversation and way of thinking about transcription for some of you.