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

Stop letting these companies advertise their "jobs" here....sm - Tiny

Posted: Apr 17, 2011

8 cpl is what I started at 6 or 7 years ago, I'm still seeing this number and of course much lower. How are companies getting away with this nonsense of not paying for spaces, paying 5 cpl, etc.

In my opinion 8 cpl + typing for large teaching hospitals with 18 pages of specifications = really low pay.

The one way I can think to put an end to these companies and their crappy pay, besides no one taking these jobs, is to stop letting them advertise on MT stars and other MT boards unless they offer a fair wage. They know how popular this board and others like this one are. If they want to advertise a job for 5 cpl doesn't include spaces...etc.....let them advertise elsewhere. Why are they allowed here? I find it completely insulting. I've been doing this for at least 13 years and if I weren't working for a hospital right now I know I would not be doing this for a living. I feel for you transcriptionists out there being exploited and cheated. It makes me want to start my own company.

It's late, I just worked an 11 hour shift, and I'm a bit cranky. But, continuing to let these companies advertise their crappy, low paying jobs on this board really has to stop. Maybe I'm wrong?

They should be forced to stop paying less than - minimum wage! Oh, they CLAIM - S/M

[ In Reply To ..]
they offer a fair wage, and that it meets or exceeds each state's minimum. They *claim* that if we're not making min. wage, it's because we're:
Lazy
Undereducated
Inexperienced
Stupid
Too young
Too old
and yes, "too American"!

The MTSOs are artful dodgers that have learned how to skirt most of America's employment laws. One of the best ways being, of course, by simply sending the work AWAY FROM AMERICA.

Sure, that 7, 8 or 9cpl seems like a good deal, when you add it up using the kinds of line counts you probably made 10 or 15 years ago on simpler equipment, with less-spoiled, less-demanding accounts, all wanting the moon and the stars for next to nothing.

But when reality sets in, you realize that you're working far in excess of the usual 40-hour week. You're also not getting a dime of overtime, because you're told that you *should* be able to do their daily minimum linecount within an 8-hour shift. Funny thing, though, they don't factor in the fact that you sit there twiddling your thumbs for big chunks of time each day when you see the dreaded "NJA" on your screen. Or that you spend other large chunks of time looking through their ever-growing numbers of pages of job specifications.

Lacking the backbone to ever say "no" to the faster and faster TAT the clients keep demanding, along with higher accuracy, tighter HIPAA compliancy, and details upon details, ad nauseum, for each and every single doctor in each and every single medical institution they serve, they shun the prospect of a simpler, more standardized report format (a "one-size-fits all", generic style for all). No, they instead fill their reams of job specifications with cow-pucky little details that have nothing to do with patient care: Hospital A wants 2 spaces after a colon. Hospital B wants 1 space. And Hospital C wants 3. A wants headings in bold, all-caps. B wants headings in bold, not all-caps. C wants it in all-caps, not bold, and underlined. A wants hanging indents, B wants block form, C can't make up its mind, so they complain about it no matter which way you do it.

Then, they allow each specific doctor in each institution to dictate his very own, personal style. This may have worked back in the 50's, when MTs often worked for one doctor, often as a medical secretary. But with the dumbing-down of 21st-century "McTranscription" companies, one doctor may have scores of different MTs, in different parts of the country, doing his work.

The fact that MTSOs are so spineless and scared of their own shadows that they can't find the conjones to tell these clients that it won't be possible to offer them their low, low, discount bargain-basement-transcription prices AND give each MD his or her very own, personal style of formatting is really beyond belief. Sure, times are tough. Sure they want to make a profit. Sure, there's lots of competition. But there IS a cutoff point, when they either have to take a stand, and make a few demands themselves, or end up making NO money at all.

Meanwhile, as all these MTSO execs are learning how to run a business, whose pocket do all their mistakes come out of? OURS, of course. Back when they were taking Business 101 in high school, I guess somebody forgot to tell them that although the Customer Is King, the lowly employee is not just a cog in the wheel, or a squirming bug of an entity to be squashed beneath their heels whenever they feel the need to make more money for themselves. Somebody forgot to tell them that in addition to taking care of your clients, you ALSO take care of your EMPLOYEES. If you don't you won't have any.

And I love it when they turn around and say, "Well, fine! We'll just send ALL the work to India!" Well, "fine" right back at them! Go ahead. Do it. And while they're at it, I hope they figure out a way to get their Indian cr*p work proofed and QA'ed. Because if no more MT work is available in the US, then eventually no more new MTs will come along to replace those who retire, starve to death, or change professions. And that's where all their editors come from! You can't just call up Kelly Girl and get yourself a top-notch medical editor.

Also, I think we all just KNOW that the offshore MTs are being lied to and taken advantage of, as well. After all, the companies hiring them are the same ones that are screwing US. And the Indian MT companies learned their trade from all of America's less-than-upstanding, offshoring MTSOs. So dishonesty, sweatshop mentality, low pay, and total disregard for the workers that actually MAKE a company a company, are hard-wired into the industry, not just here but worldwide.

It's all going to come to blows someday. Maybe it'll happen in America, or more likely somewhere else, since the American MT is now a bona fide Endangered Species. If people in 3rd world countries can stand up to a corrupt government, they can stand up to a corrupt industry as well.

Stop letting these companies advertise their "jobs" here....sm - threedogs

[ In Reply To ..]
Great post! Years ago, we got an account in our office that was from ****! I called up the supervisor and apologized for all the blanks. She told me not to worry about it. She said she had a box of pens on her desk and all the MDs had to take a pen when they came to â��herâ�� department and fill in the blanks. If they did not follow the department rules they were written up. When I worked in the clinical area in the OR and OB, we wrote the MDs up a lot for never filling out their charts on the unit and other reasons. Nothing is ever done about it because they bring the patients to the corporate hospitals in our corporate health care system so they make money.

AMEN - Alice

[ In Reply To ..]
You said what I have been thinking and preaching for as long as I've been working for an MTSO. Back in the day, when I worked in a hospital and docs presented handwritten notes, if we could not read them, did we spend hours and hours trying to figure out what they wrote? No. Did they hire a team of QA to decipher it? NO. Back then, if the report was not readable, it went right back to the doc to fix it, or he/she would be penalized. Our director and hospital administrators were not afraid to speak up to the doctors, to hold them to a certain level of accountability, and never seemed to place them on any pedestals of godhood back then. Of course, there was no competition with another "service" that would come in and take over for a cheaper price. It certainly was a different world back then, 30 years ago.

Right ON! - Lynn

[ In Reply To ..]
Beautifully said...and sadly, so true! We should take back our industry, demand higher wages; if we break the law on one of the HIPPA laws (which don't apply to India or offshore), we can be fined $10,000 and IMPRISONED! Don't you think that counts for something? Doctors face these kinds of penalties, and we make nowhere NEAR a doctor's salary, yet we protect the doctor through the legal medical record. Who is protecting us? Not our salaries! I couldn't even afford to hire an attorney to fight a HIPPA claim.

There is strength in numbers...I'm just saying :-)

that's a really good idea - let them advertise elsewhere - NOT here

[ In Reply To ..]

Response - SM - Moderator

[ In Reply To ..]
Everyone is free to make their own decision on what job advertisements they wish to apply for.

If you do not want to work for that line rate, then simply don't apply. Obviously, if companies do not receive any applicants then it will be a clear message received by them.

However, just because you don't want to work for those rates does not mean that others are not wanting those positions.

We do have a minimum on the rates advertised and, as long as MTSOs abide by our requirements, posters will be offered a range of job opportunities.

Moderator

Okay...so minimum is 5 cpl. sm - Tiny

[ In Reply To ..]
Is that only for earn and learn though? And you are right, no one has to take any of those jobs if the choose not to. I think that is also a huge part of the problem. But, I can understand both sides.

Response - SM - Moderator

[ In Reply To ..]
For any transcription work, whether it is an earn-and-learn program or not. We have not posted a minimum per-line rate for VR/speech recognition editing at this point.

We are the only board that I am aware of that has any limitations at all on job postings.

Moderator

The precise reason I am leaving this profession... - anonymouse

[ In Reply To ..]
That's why I'm out of here. That and the fact that they can't even have work for you to do 40 hours. I think if they don't have the work for you to get your 40 hours they should have to pay you for every hour you don't have work available to you. I'm going back to school next fall. Luckily, I'm still young.

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