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Questions about working from home -

Posted: Feb 04, 2011

I have a few questions about working from home. I have a full-time job as a transcriptionist for a hospital, but I have recently applied to a company to do transcription from home, part-time. I get paid an hourly wage at my job, but the company pays by the dictated minute, and I am not sure if it is a good wage. They have a minimum requirement of 200 dictated minutes per week, and the pay is $1.15 per dictated minute. If anyone who works from home could let me know if this is even worth my time, I would really appreciate it. I would also appreciate any input about the pros and cons of working from home.

Thanks!

I was never paid this way - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
but, by my figuring, that would be $11.50 for 10 minutes of dictation. If you go by a 3:1 ratio (3 min to do 1 min of dictation) then that would be 11.50 for 1/2 hour work, which would be pretty fair by today's standards IMO. Course there are a lot of variables, difficulty factors, etc. You might just do way better than a 3:1 ratio too. (If my figuring is wrong, someone please correct me.)

Is my calculation correct???? - typetypetypeaway

[ In Reply To ..]
I figured it this way and came out with a different calculation than the OP above: 200 dictated minutes x 1.15 per dictated minute would be $230.00. Using the 200 minutes with a 3:1 would be 600 minutes or 10 hours. So $230 for 10 hours of work assuming the dictation is at the above ratio. You would adjust up or down with the ratio and also depends on the doctor dictating and the difficulty of the report and starting and stopping. Am I way off base here? I have never been paid like that before either, but if my calculation is ok, then $23/hour if all the star align in the planet, seems good to me for part time.

Yes it would be 230.00 for 200 minutes of dictation. - NM

[ In Reply To ..]
x

You actually came up with the same, but until your post... - more than fair

[ In Reply To ..]
I hadn't noticed that the poster above you said $11.50 for **1/2 hour** of work. Which is $23 per hour (11.50 x 2).

^meant this to go under typetypetypeaway's post. nm - more than fair

[ In Reply To ..]

yes...realized it was 1/2 hour, not for 1 hour.....nm - typetypetypeaway

[ In Reply To ..]
n.

Too many variables - xmtso

[ In Reply To ..]
Going on averages only,

you should be able to do 15-20 dictated minutes in an hour.

BUT- if you have dictators who are speed demons and you have to stop and listen 1000 times over to get what they are saying, that's going to change.

OR conversely, if you have those who hem and haw, tap their pencil, pick their nose, then you make out better.

If the system is conducive to production, increase; if not, decrease..

If you have lots of demographics to input, this could be a plus or a minus depending on if you are paid for doing this.

Your speed as an MT changes it.

:D

Working from home...sm - Just curious........

[ In Reply To ..]
Just curious why you want to give up an hourly hospital job to work at home? Is it just because you want to work part-time, if so did you ask your hospital supervisor about going part-time or maybe job sharing your position?

I ask this question because of all the posting here about no work, thus no money, changing accounts, which allows for more difficult dictators, and less productivity resulting in less money.

Working at your hospital I assume you are pretty much doing the same docs all the time unless you are at a teaching hospital. When you catch the work up at a hospital (which I know isn't very often) and you have 10 minutes with no jobs in your que are still getting paid, which is pretty much unheard of anymore in today's MT market.

I got the impression the OP was supplementing hospital job. - Yep, keep that hospital job.

[ In Reply To ..]

If it is the approx 10 lines per min too then - sm - ECMT

[ In Reply To ..]
the line rate would be approx 0.115 cpl which if course is great. But that is based on 1 min of dictation equaling 10 lines of dictation. So nice supplemental job I would say in theory. I would try it and see, you have nothing to lose by going for it. If it turns out you only crank about about 1000 lines doing 200 mins of work, then no it would not be worth it.

Lines per Audio Minute - Alias

[ In Reply To ..]
Please keep in mind that this sounds very much like "general" transcription and not "medical". They pay like this generally. and they do that because the dictations are mostly with multi dictators, like focus groups, interviews, etc. It is much more difficult to transcribe two to four people or more all talking at once in a group setting. It takes much longer to do that than the usual medical transcription and the per audio minute dollar amount sounds low to me. It may take a person a half hour or more to transcribe one audio minute with three people talking. Think about it.

Pay per minute - Medtyper

[ In Reply To ..]
I got paid by the dictated minute at the hospital I used to work for. I was paid $1.25 per minute and made excellent money, we all did, which is why I think we worked our way out of jobs. All of our jobs went to India by way of Teletrak. What you posted sound pretty fair as I was expected to do 100 minutes of dictation in 8 hours. So 200 in a week is pretty good.

Thanks for all your input! - an

[ In Reply To ..]
I have no plan on quitting my hospital job to work part-time from home. I was just thinking about it as a little extra cash on the side. It is strictly hospital backlogs, and last Friday I counted my minutes to kind of get an idea of how much typing I did in an average day because our daily quota is counted in lines typed, not minutes. I typed about 140 lines, but that is with doctors I have been transcribing for the past year and a half. I know that I probably wouldn't be typing that many lines in 7.5 hours in the beginning while I was learning the new system and all the new dictators.

I really appreciate all your input! I think I might just go for it!

Thanks!

You Do mean 140 minutes in 7.5 hours - right?

[ In Reply To ..]
As 140 lines in 7.5 hours doesn't sound right.

Oops! Yes I meant - 140 minutes in 7.5 hours

[ In Reply To ..]

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xx ...