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

Nature of the Beast - MTSOs - lovalashMT

Posted: Oct 22, 2012

Fellow MTÃ¢ï¿½ï¿½s - Would appreciate any and all feedback. I am in need of gathering information on the trends of the medical transcription profession. If you have worked as a hospital-employed MT as well as for an MTSO (medical transcription service organization, or MT outsourcing company), these are examples of the type of input I am requesting: 1) How would you characterize differences in pay rates, benefits, and potential gross income between hospital vs. MTSO employment? 2) Has speech recognition affected your earnings as an MTSO employee and why? 3) Are you aware of any MTSOs that pay their MTs by a fixed hourly rate/salary (vs. strictly per production)? 4) As an MTSO employee, do you experience any work-related downtime difficulties that affect your potential earnings? 5) What types of common downtime issues do you experience? 6) What are the pros and cons of hospital vs. MTSO employment? 7) Have you found gaining hospital employment to become more challenging over they years, and if so, do you have any informed knowledge of why that may be? 8) Do you experience any specific challenges as an MTSO employee that are otherwise a non-issue as a hospital employee? Again, thank you for your participation in my research project. I will post any relevant feedback the first week of November for any who may be interested in my findings. Look for the same posting title Ã¢ï¿½ï¿½ Ã¢ï¿½ï¿½Nature of the Beast Ã¢ï¿½ï¿½ MTSOsÃ¢ï¿½ï¿½

Who are you and...SM - Old Anon

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and why do you need this information and what are you going to do with it? Not to burst your balloon, but a lot of this information is researchable, probably with more facts and data to back up the facts than I could give you. Now if you wanted a personal narrative of what I've seen in my 35 years in the biz that would be different. Care to elaborate on your mission?

Who are you and... - lovalashMT

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My 'mission' is in fact a family court-related one in which I aim to prove that I can no longer be reasonably expected to command the $40K I once earned back in 2008 due to the evolution of outsourcing. And I would very much like to hear your personal narrative.

I doubt the experiences of others is going to - affect the courts decision

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All you have to show the court is your pay stubs that show hours worked and money made. Has nothing to do with the rest of us!

I doubt... - lovalashMT

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I dare say you are correct on one level, but the court takes many factors into consideration. Do you not agree that my potential earnings have likely changed over the years - especially in view of the fact that I was once hospital employed and now MTSO employed - due to the effects of outsourcing on our industry?

I actually agree with this response - ICManiac

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Having spent 4 years in the family court system, the court will be unimpressed with the detailed analysis you seek to compose. They want to know what you made last year and what you make now. No judge is going to give you credit for loss of future earnings due to current trends in pay. They deal in black and white facts. What do you earn now? What did you earn last year? And if you need to change a CS order next year because your income has changed in the future, they will invite to return to court when that happens.

I actually agree... - lovalashMT

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I don't pretend to expect much persuasion of the court by this collection of other MT's feedback, but it is a difficult situation to explain to anyone not working in the industry. Let me clarify my situation: The court uses a worksheet that calculates income/expenses from both parties/parents. This past February, the court ruled to hold me accountable for worksheet calculation purposes to the wages I earned in 2008 - when I was hospital employed. It is considered my 'earning potential.' It is simply my goal to open the court's mind as to why that is not a reasonable expectation in this day in time in this particular career of which I have been a professional for 18 years.

and Furthermore... - lovalashMT

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I also want to add that though this year 2012 I am being held accountable to previous earnings in 2008, my ex- had been claiming for Years that he was making 22K self-employed, was finally proven in 2008 to have been raking in a cool 100K (he had been hiding/laundering his $$ but was exposed), but now in 2012 is again claiming 22K self-employed income - which the court is allowing for this year's worksheet calculations, despite his recently-proven 'earning potential'.

you know, I feel for you and your situation but I think this affidavid thing - is, well, not the way to go about this. IMHO.

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You're working in this profession, you really should be well spoken on the subject, enough to get the point accross in your own signed statement with FACTS to back that up. You keep mentioning how hard it is to explain - then you should not be representing yourself in court and should get help verbalizing from a legal source such as paralegals, law students, etc. Not here. Personally, I would not sign a thing going to court for someone I am not related to or have not known for at least 10 yrs.

good luck to you anyway.

still, even, - ICManiac

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I don't think you will have much impact with what you will present based on your own investigation. Newspaper articles, perhaps, would carry more weight. Why a court used information from 2008 to decide CS in a case for 2012 sounds more political than practical. Sometimes there are case workers who are assigned to work out the details just before the case goes before the judge, and if that happened in your case, you would be better off bringing your checking account records for last year and this year and those 2008 records should simply be "unavailable" to any interested person. Further, the family court judges are intensely aware of the economic circumstances causing financial stress as they have more and more cases, but have to work fewer hours because of budget restraints. It is happening to them, too. I would look more toward the dysfunction of your court system than trying to prove no hope of making the same earnings you did 4 years ago. It's happening in every segment, not just to MT.

There was mention of an article posted here on MTStars on the main board just after the lawsuit by the 12 MTs was filed. That article gave very specific details about a hospital system who outsourced their transcription department and its effects on the income of the affected MTs, even detailing what it would mean for the UE of those individuals. I suspect that would be the route you would want to take rather than bringing your own research findings.

here is the link to the newspaper article - ICManiac

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You can search the Winston-Salem Journal site for other related articles.

here is the link... - lovalashMT

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Thanks ICManiac! The more articles I can get my hands on the better. Despite someone's previous post, Google'ing and successfully getting to the heart of the matter ain't all that easy - at least not in My attempts. But having said That, anyone out there have any more interesting article links for me? :)

"changes in medical transcription" on google. - see? common sense. NM

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`

who are you - something fishy about all this - No message

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.

something fishy about this... - lovalashMT

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Why so defensive? Why so cynical? Do you or do you not agree that outsourcing has affected the MT profession in general? You are an anonymous entity, so why not give your honest opinion? By all means - say it as you see it! But why be interested in the topic if you, in fact, do not have a position on the matter?

Unfortunately there are people on this board that - hate everything and everybody.

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n.m.

Wasn't there an article written recently about - how this is a SM

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knowledge job and we should be paid accordingly? It talked about the pay cut for VR and how wrong that was. Does anyone remember where this article was posted? This might help the OP tremendously to get her thoughts together on this. This is very hard to explain to anyone who is not familiar with our field IMO. There are so many variables involved. Sorry I cannot remember where I read it.

Wasn't there an article... - lovalashMT

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I certainly wish you or anyone else could direct me to finding such articles. Our situation in our field is a rather unique one and is, indeed, "very hard to explain to anyone who is not familiar..."

pick a phrase about the subject in 3 to 5 words and plug - it into google. same for any topic. NM

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Beast of Nature - CALIMT

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If you spent any time here you would already know the answers to all your questions because you would have READ THE BOARDS! Your questions indicate you already know the "nature of the beast". Will be interesting to see your compiled feedback in November.

Beast of Nature - the Evolution of Outsourcing - lovalashMT

[ In Reply To ..]
Truth be told, I don't spend much time here, but have visited this site many times over the past 18 years because this is where MTs go to discuss MT matters. I do appreciate your comment that my "questions indicate [I] already know the "nature of the beast," because I can only presume that you know all too well of that which I elude to. Thanks again for joining the discussion.

Here are my answers: (s/m) - Slumdog

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1) Q: How would you characterize differences in pay rates, benefits, and potential gross income between hospital vs. MTSO employment?
A: The chasm of difference is enormous: Most hospital jobs pay a living wage (hourly), overtime when it's required, and provide benefits. MTSOs rarely provide any of those things, least of all a living wage.

2) Q: Has speech recognition affected your earnings as an MTSO employee and why?
A: Do bears ____ in the woods? SR has made it impossible to support myself. Pay is low (less than 4 cpl in my case), SR isn't very good (resulting in lots of stopping and editing), and MTOS requires an unrealistically high min. linecount. You speed up to make the line count, you get dinged on mistakes. You slow down to ensure top-quality editing, you get dinged for being too slow. A lose-lose situation for the MT.

3) Q: Are you aware of any MTSOs that pay their MTs by a fixed hourly rate/salary (vs. strictly per production)?
A: If there are any MTSOs that pay hourly, I sure haven't heard of them. If there ARE any that pay hourly, you can bet your backside that it's below minimum wage.

4) Q: As an MTSO employee, do you experience any work-related downtime difficulties that affect your potential earnings?
A: All the time. First is NJA. When there are No Jobs Available, I can't earn any money. Second is software glitches. Sometimes it freezes, and sometimes is gets slow. Glacially slow. Can't make any money with that, either.

5) Q: What types of common downtime issues do you experience?
A: See #4, above.

6) Q: What are the pros and cons of hospital vs. MTSO employment?
A: Hospital: Pros - Living hourly wage, better healthcare benefits (usually), an 8-hour day, 40-hour week. Cons - Having management in the building with you, instead of across the country in an e-mail. Most of the recent in-house hospital jobs for MTs these days are either as scribes (i.e., an MT that has to work standing up all day, following the doctor around), or else the MTs are only there to "train" the EMR, then they get booted out. Often with no chance of being retrained for another job in the same hospital.

7) Q: Have you found gaining hospital employment to become more challenging over they years, and if so, do you have any informed knowledge of why that may be?
A: Absolutely. (See the answers to #6). Also, I live in a region where almost all hospitals have been taken over by HMOs, who are notorious for slash-and-burn cost-cutting measures. MTs are seen as nothing more than red ink on their books. Very, very few inhouse jobs come along any more where I live. On the rare occasion that I've even gotten an interview with any of them, even though I could have done the job well, I don't get the job. Later, I found out that at several of these places, they had no intention of hiring outsiders, only hiring from within. The job ad and the interview were some kind of a formality they had to do, but they already knew even before placing the ad who they REALLY wanted to hire. Sure wasted a lot of my time and energy. The rest don't seem to want to hire anyone over the age of 30.

8) Q: Do you experience any specific challenges as an MTSO employee that are otherwise a non-issue as a hospital employee?
A: The biggest issue is low, piecemeal production pay by MTSOs, vs. hourly by hospitals. Also, when you work in-person for a hospital, you are more likely (in theory, anyway) to be considered an actual "person". Whereas, when you work remotely for an MTSO, you're just a little orange light on someone's PC monitor. Your humanity counts for nothing.

you probably just did her homework for her, sounds like - she needs to write a paper on the subject.NM

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1

Looking forward to your findings - Leaving MT

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I have never been a hospital-based MT nor have I worked as an employee for an MTSO (only as a subcontractor) but I am looking forward to reading about your findings with this research project.

You might post this on the M*Modal and Nuance boards as well. I think a lot of MTs working for those companies might have been hospital employees who ended up at those respective MTSOs because their hospital ended up outsourcing to them.

My experience...SM - Old Anon

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Now that I know what this is about, I'll tell you what has happened to me re: Hospital MT vs. MTSO employee. Here goes. At the beginning of 10/2011, I was laid off from an hourly hospital job due to outsourcing the entire department to a MTSO. At the hospital job I made $18.35 an hour (with an annual raise) and had to maintain an average of 160 lph. The benefits were extremely generous and probably why they got rid of us. They were a NO cost, very good health plan, 10 PAID HOLIDAYS which we did not have to work, NO WEEKENDS except for 1/2 day every 4th Sunday to do stat H&Ps, 3 weeks vacation AND whatever sick time we did not use at the end of the year was paid to us in a lump sum check. Okay now, we were not invited to join the take-over MTSO, so I got unemployment for almost 2 months while looking for a job. In the end, all I could find (got 3 offers from 25 resumes sent and took the best one) was a MTSO job as an employee with the majority of the work being SR at less than 0.04/line. Now, I'm not the fastest typist in the world and neither am I the slowest. My average hourly works out to be between $9 and $12 per hour while maintaing the requisite QA of 98% or above. So to summarize, I used to take home $1100 every 2 weeks. Now I'm lucky to take home $500 after my health insurance payment is deducted. Luckily being close to retirement age, I took an early retirement which brought me back up to my original take-home pay figure. If I had not been able to do that, I would have had to sell my house and find a roomate situation somewhere with cheap rent. I could not have lived on what I make with the MTSO.
Just an aside here, if you want to bring facts to family court, wouldn't you be better off getting sworn affidavits from people with stories like mine? I know you're short on time, but it seems to me that those statements would be more believable than a survey?

My experience... - lovalashMT

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Our stories are quite similar. Thank you for sharing. If you or anyone else would like to send me your sworn affidavits to this regard, I would be ever so grateful! It should come as no big surprise to any of you that I can't afford to pay an attorney to do my biddings!

Legal Counsel...SM - Old Anon

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Because you'll be presenting facts at a family court hearing, I'm afraid any of us who could furnish you our story would have to do it through legal channels and that would be through your attorney who could verify we are who we are and that our statements are factual. Otherwise, I would have to engage/pay for an attorney to do a sworn affidavit for you. I'm afraid I can't do that BUT if you can see your way to hiring a family law attorney, let me know so we can connect, and I will certainly give you a sworn statement you can use in court.

Legal Counsel... - lovalashMT

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That is so kind! And bless you mightily for that, but I was really being 'tongue-in-cheek' about anyone actually supplying me with sworn affidavits... that would be Too easy, like having one of those 'Easy Buttons'! I appreciate your empathy, though. We're all in this career-sinking boat together, now Aren't we? :p

you should take the post above from the gal who worked - in family practice law seriously and soundly.NM

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Want staight up answers???? - MT SLAVE

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Read my post titled, "Absolute FED UP with these expectations". That will tell you what I think working for an MTSO is like. IT SUCKS (and in house jobs no longer exist in my area).

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