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

Question on current price/line and more. - MontanaGal

Posted: Oct 11, 2010

My current account (hospital ER) is switching to a different system where I will connect via the internet and type live into their system. We have been on the PC Anywhere system for years. I have been charging .12/line gross line count. The new system will count 65 characters/line. I think I will need to charge more to keep my pay equal. With this account, I cover stats Mon through Fri with no extra charge. I have 12 years experience and re-read and verify to make everything as perfect as humanly possible.

To continue my current quality and service, I think I'm going to have to charge .16/line with the 65 character line count. Is that way out of line? I would rather one fee and not charge extra for the stats and faxes, etc.

I appreciate any input.

My two cents - oaf

[ In Reply To ..]
Be sure to clarify if the 65 cpl count is with or without spaces, etc. When you switch to character from gross it makes a HUGE difference. Do they realize you will have to change your rates? I would just take a document and figure it out divided by 65 (with or without spaces depending on what they want) and see how much you would need to charge to continue your current income. I wish you luck! I know when I had to make the change I lost money - but I was an employee and not an IC at the time.

You will have to totally renegiotiate your contract - see message

[ In Reply To ..]
regarding line count, cpl, etc. Like the other poster said, do a comparison of gross line versus 65 char with spaces and 65 char without spaces. Need to determine exactly how the lines are counted with the new system and go from there.

Good luck on that.... just lost an account - sm - ITKMT

[ In Reply To ..]
to India, was charging .12 cpl/65 chac/line, immaculate work, great TAT, still lost it (and typed live in their system as well...now a bunch of people in india have total access to this hospital). You will not hold onto if you raise your price. I would just bit the bullet and stay at .12 and make the slightly less amount. Not too many get gross lines anymore, count yourself lucky for having had that at all.

I have to agree with ITKMT - sm - michelle

[ In Reply To ..]
I have been in this business for 13 years and actually run my own service (incorporated last year). I have about 10 clinics (totaling about 40 doctors) and charge most of my clients 11-12 cpl - 55 characters with spaces. No extra charges for stats (and we do A LOT of them), faxes, etc. just like you. I have had most of my clients for several years and if I went to one of them and told them that I was going to up my rate by 4 cpl, they would most likely dump me like a hot potato! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but with most clinics and doctors trying to cut costs every way feasibly possible, I'm afraid if you try to up your rate to that amount, you might not have the outcome you want. There are so many options these days, they will try just about anything to save a dollar! And amazingly enough, somehow, the MT seems to be the first thing they decide they can change...I DO NOT understand this! However, depending on your relationship with your client, you might have better luck than I. In years past, I have charged by the gross line, but had to stop that about two years ago and go to character line counts. To help with the decrease in lines that occurred, I started using Abacus to help me count. It helps a little bit when doing character counts because you can add parameters to count due to formatting and other document properties. You might want to check out a good line counting software if that is something you can integrate in with the new system. Good luck in whatever you decide to do! In this day and age of outsourcing to foreign countries, I can't stand to hear of "one of us" losing an account to them...so I hope everything works out for you!!!

You might find this helpful... - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
It looks to me like, mathematically, at least, you'd have to charge 17+ cents per 65-character line to actually equal 12 cpl gross. I'd think it would be helpful to run some of your documents through a counter like Word's Word Count for a double-check, though.

see link below

Jeeze I am with the wrong company for sure. - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
get 10 cpl and 60% of that for SR for the hardest, crappiest work that India won't touch. Take your 12 cpl and dance to the bank.

cents per line - jane

[ In Reply To ..]
iagree, 12 cents per line is good. the way things are going those of us who have work should be careful of making demands for more.....

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