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

Is it worth it? - debeavoir

Posted: Feb 18, 2012

Editing at .04 cpl, is it worth it? For 250 lines per hour, that is $10 an hour. Maybe that is good considering we work at home? Seeking opinions, please. Not trying to start a war.

Is it worth it? - Might be if....

[ In Reply To ..]
Well, $10/hr would be fine with me (with the added perk of not spending time and money commuting) IF I could do that for a steady 8-hour day, every day, and if the company ALWAYS had enough work so there was no wasted NJA time.

I can't keep that up without ANY kind of break for the whole day, though; so if I extend my day for the times I have to get up for a bathroom break, stretching, resting my wrists, eye strain, etc., my hours always end up being more like 10 per day. So, if I'm only earning $80 for the day, I see that as more like $8/hr, which doesn't seem like enough to me for all that it takes to do this job really well.

This is just how I see it for myself and why I decided to move on to some other kind of work. I was averaging a little under $10/hr, but that was only if I counted 8 hours a day of working time and not the full 10 hours a day I actually had to invest. I know I can earn that much doing something that's much steadier and less stressful.

I'm not a single wage-earner, though, and would probably not consider $10/hr enough if I was supporting others. Personally, I don't think I could keep my production at 250 LPH of editing for a straight 8 hours, but other people can. I found it very hard on my wrists with all the corrections I still had to make to each report.

No, I don't think so... - wheres_my_job

[ In Reply To ..]
I've done 600 lph - you know, under ideal conditions, without having to make a bunch of corrections - but a day like that is rare as a blue moon - and can sink to 180 lph when you get the tons of letters with 4 addresses you can barely understand, etc...I get A LOT of reports where I can barely understand them...and the voice recognition can barely understand them. Then, there are the wonderful days when you run out all day long - oh look, there's work, but apparently there is a herd of locusts all working on that account, and the work just melts away before you can get to it.

NOT worth it, in my opinion, are they kidding? No, they're not. It's just abusive, in my opinion - it wasn't like this 10 years ago (I have been doing this way too long). I went to a website for homeless shelters in a certain city last night - they had glowing testimonials from people who's lives were "turned around" because of that shelter system. I almost emailed them with my sad sack medical transcription story.

It's a rip-off. They claim you will "be more productive" - on their wonderful editing software - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
but the reality is, you will not. Instead of breezing/speed-reading through a report with just a correction here or there, you will instead be LUMBERING through a long, totally botched-up VR transcription of ESL speakers, mumblers, and other hideous dictators. (Don't forget - all the good work goes to India!) Most of the editing software I've worked with so far is slower than actually typing the report firsthand. Functions that would take a 10th of a second while transcribing in real time, often take longer in VR because you have to add so many keystrokes: highlighting, cutting, pasting, retyping, or worse, looking up a normal in a long, hard-to-read list of normals, and then cutting and pasting THAT into the VR report you're editing.

It's easier to make mistakes, because
(a) - If VR replaces the spoken medical word with a similar-sounding one, often the reader will tend to think that's what they're hearing. (Similar to why, when askingt another MT to listen to a word for you, they don't want you to tell them what you THINK you hear!)
(b) - VR is a very effective SEDATIVE. It puts me right to sleep!

I'm a 35-year veteran MT, and due to the above, and various other factors compounding the trouble with VR, such as slow transcription software and a fluctuating workload, I struggle to get 250 lph. Currently my pay has gotten so dismal, that $10/hour would actually be an improvement, and for the fund of knowledge we have to have to do this job, $10, even $15/hour is lousy pay.

Ten bucks per hour - is still fine by me.

[ In Reply To ..]
I have all my bills paid now and share 1 car, so I figure if I had to work outside the house it would probably run about $300 extra a month in car payment at least for a few years, plus gas, insurance, etc. which go on forever. Not to mention at the very least an extra 2 hours getting ready for and to and from some crappy job that probably would not pay much more. I also have things I do on another computer at home that need to be monitored, so if I run out of work I just concentrate fully on that which is actually something I really enjoy. I am a few years from retirement, so I plan to keep doing this until it absolutely does not exist any more.

I started as a noob at $10 18 years ago (sm) - no way

[ In Reply To ..]
and had excellent benefits. I'm not interested in going backwards.

Next will be the thread about $8 an hour and the reasons why that's really all okay. I've seen just this slow decline -- and the accompanying rationalizations -- here on this board for years now.

I am NOT picking on you, OP, but we as a group have been complicit in contributing to the pathetic joke of a profession this field has become. There are many other big trends afoot that truly are beyond our control (offshoring, technological advances), but our willingness to sit meekly and accept less and less and less and not stand up for ourselves is a part of why we are now seeing 0.03 cpl ads here (and they are actually receiving resumes!).

If I worked at 7-11, at least I could have health insurance and a discount on a hot dog during my shift.

Love your post! - Boosted

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

NO, of course not! Not unless you're working for pocket - money. If you are working for income,

[ In Reply To ..]
at $10/hr working at home is a recipe for at best chronic economic problems and blighted lives for lack of money, and at worst destitution. That's $20K/yr IF, IF, IF you can actually pound the keyboard 8/40/2000 hours per year. Poverty wages for hard work.

To assess this issue, find the best-paying job you could prepare yourself for over the next year to two years, then compare your income at that job after 3 years on the job compared to $10/hour. Don't forget to also calculate the differences in total annual incomes to that date to see what you would have lost.

I'll give you a clue: Assuming one income per household, one could afford to make payments on a new electric car, the other couldn't afford to make repairs on an elderly gas guzzler and wouldn't be able to afford gas to go visit her parents if she did.

Most of us can no longer to work at home, - losing big money every single day. It is time

[ In Reply To ..]
time to look at some numbers. If you ever imagined all the things you'd have and do in the future, but still can't afford, it's time to take a very hard look at what working at home may be costing you.

I'm nearing retirement, but if I'd worked for $10/hour when I was 35, heck, $15/hour, I wouldn't have my own home now, wouldn't be able to buy health insurance, wouldn't have any retirement savings or safety cushion. My eventual monthly income from Social Security would be a fraction of what it will be (very low anyway). I'd never have traveled anywhere, never been able to help my children get established in the world. Everything I owned would be cheap and typically old and ready to break down. My big event to look forward to next week would be...well, the best things in life are supposed to be free, right? Whatever, it'd be the same as last week. Because I was poor.

So, if $10/hour is the option, it's way past time to pull on the nylons and get back out into an office job, where skilled clerical should bring over $30K to START, with better paid positions to work up into.

In the insurance industry, I earned $58K/year as a high-level clerical worker--back in the 1980s. I worked up into that position from an entry job. Why not? I had to go to work there each day anyway, so why not double my income while I was at it? Try doing that as an MT these days.

Most of us can no longer work at home; it's time. - Martha

[ In Reply To ..]
Back in the 1980's and 1990's you could support yourself on a clerical or secretarial job. They paid decent wages and the benefits were good. That's no longer the case. The few clerical jobs available in my neck of the woods start at around $9.00 an hour, many are part-time, and offer no benefits. Plus, they want you to know Excel, Power Point and bookkeeping for that crappy pay. I've also noticed that a lot of hospitals are turning their clerical jobs into volunteer positions. The good-paying office jobs that millions of women supported themselves on in the past seem to have dried up.

I've also noticed some "transcription" jobs offered - by hospitals are basically - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
secretarial or "girl Friday" jobs. In addition to being an Ace transcriptionist (which is a full-time job in itself), they also want you to answer phones, do billing, sometimes even coding, take vital signs, and oh yes - make good coffee.

I think since the govt. and Big Business allowed this - to happen, they should both be - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
footing the bill for FREE job-retraining and placement for all of us their greed has displaced and made irrelevant. Especially those of us over 50.

deBeauvoir - Is it worth it?

[ In Reply To ..]
Hey, I really appreciate everyone's input. Some of these thoughts I have not had,especially the one about thinking what I would be making in a couple years if I chose to train into a different career.

Because I have no children to feed and am not the primary income, I am not making coffee for any man except my husband!LOL

WE made this happen. Remember the mantra - "We have to get off backs of business."?

[ In Reply To ..]
Well, we did. Unquestioningly, negligently, not looking to see what profiteer'd do when protective laws of a 100 years were dismantled. Laws enacted only after previous decades of lives ruined by the sacking of our country and takeover of government by profiteers.

We sat around and watched the sacking of America over 3 decades. Many of us spent those 30 years wondering how much people had to be hurt before they'd finally stop assisting their own exploitation and get as mad as they should have been, NEEDED to have been all along.

By the way, that phrase? Anyone who ever blindly, ignorantly spouted that line, agreed with it without monitoring what was done with their support, owns a BIG piece of this mess.

No blame - Debeauvoir

[ In Reply To ..]
I previously worked in the transportation industry. Many, many jobs were cut because of technology. You either accept and adjust or do something different. This has been going since the Industrial Revolution. No-one came in to offer help. This is the only place I read this stuff about being taken care of. Really, I knew 8 years ago regular transcription work was on its way out. Experienced MTs did not foresee this? I guess we have to be proactive.

Right, Debeauvoir. My experience with people in - other fields is exactly the same. NM

[ In Reply To ..]
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