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What is AVERAGE line count per hour for an MT to type - Josie

Posted: Aug 17, 2013

Just wondering, what is an Average line count per hour for an MT? I worked in a pathology office for almost 5 years, but we never kept count of lines per hour. When we pulled an audit once, we were only typing about 700-800 a day between myself and the lady I worked with. I had to pull all the slides for the doctor, help with grossing, assist in frozen sections, etc. I was hired for a job where they want me to type 135 lines per hour, that's not bad is it? Sorry, I'm nieve to working at home as a transcriptionist and just wanted some info :) I'm so excited about this job and the people I'm going to be working with! Any pointers would be greatly appreciated. I think the only thing that I'm really worried about is my three teens leaving me alone so that I can work.

Is it typing or speech wreck? No message. - anon

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xx

typing - Josie

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It is just typing. I don't type 135 an hour, I think I would type more (type 65 wpm), but no clue yet. The company I work for is still installing things into my computer, so I haven't worked or trained yet. That is this coming week.

lots of variables, but 135 an hour is on the low end - get yourself a good expander

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Get yourself a good expander. I use Smartype but lots of other people use Instant Text. They will run you somewhere in the $150 range (there are others, but those two are the best, IMO) and it's tax deductible and worth every penny.

Set very, VERY specific limits with your kids. When mom is working, she's working. If they wouldn't bug you at the office for something, then they can't bug you at the home office. Period. You have to be very firm about that, or things will get out of hand quickly and once they are out of hand, it's hard to retrain and set back to rights.

To your original question about how many lines per hour, that has a lot of variables to it, i.e., how fast do you type, will there be templates available or that you can make, what platform are you using, etc.

Obviously, if you are a fast typist, that will help. Getting the expander will help tremendously. Once you get used to the account and figure out that the doctor always says things like "the patient is in agreement" you can set up a phrase and just type "tpii" and save yourself time and keystrokes.

I work on a straight typing account that I have been on for five years - which makes a big difference. There are a lot of templates on this account which I get paid for - also makes a big difference. I can do anywhere from 250 to 400 lph depending on which doctor is up in the queue at any given time.

I would say 135 lph is on the low end and that is straight typing with no expanders and no templates or shortcuts of any sort. That would be good for starters, but then you work on improving that. Do things like putting typos into your expander - if you consistently the "teh" instead of "the" , etc. It will slow you down at first, but you'll be thankful for it later on down the road when you don't slow down to correct yourself with typos (which is what I tend to do).

So, 135 an hour isn't bad, it's on the slow end. It's good to start if you've never really worked on production before, but you will want to work on getting that faster, so you can make more money, if nothing else.

Good luck!

thank you - josie

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Thank you for all that info, that is excellent. I have never been so excited for a job in my life. To not have to pay for gas to drive to work, and I have a terrible car right now anyhow. Here is a dumb question. What is a "word expander program". I forgot about using keystrokes, had them set up at my last job, excellent advice. Thank you.

A word expander program is software that expands - words or abbreviations

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If you use autocorrect in Word at all, a good word expander program takes that premise and then expands on it by about 1000 percent.

It's software that runs concurrently with Word or whatever platform you're running. With Instant Text, it shows up as a bar along the bottom of the screen. With Smartype, it's a box that shows up more near the area of your cursor.

For instance, if you type the letter "p", then you will get the top 9 or so options of words that begin with the letter P. Patient is usually the first option and you just hit your space bar, and bada bing, the word patient is spelled out in your document. You can do the same thing with phrases. The phrase "the patient" is usually abbreviated by just "tp" - easy peasy. I don't know how to type normally any more because I'm so used to the abbreviations that I have. I have to think about spelling some words because I'm so used to the abbreviations that I use for them.

It's little things like that. I type on an oncology account and the word thrombocytopenia is used a lot. I decided it was easier on my hands to just type trma. If they say the word thrombocytosis instead, my brain hears the first part, so my fingers are already typing "trm" so I just add an s to that and have trms for thrombocytosis. If I have a several word phrase, then I use the first letter from each word, for instance, "thank you for allowing me to participate in this patient's care" would be abbreviated "tyfam" and then it brings up that phrase. Some people use the first letter of the first word and then the last letters of the last words. That's too much thinking for me, but it works for some.

I use it for other little quirks, as well. My hand always goes out of alignment when I use the letter "q" so for the word "questions", I came up with the abbreviation "stns" It's easier on my hands and I can go faster. Going faster is what it's all about.

Both of those expanders I mentioned have command options as well. I use Smartype and so in that program, if you type "dd" it deletes the last character of the last word typed. If you type "ss" it adds an "s" to the last word typed. Same with "tt" - it will backspace and add "-type". Things like that make a HUGE difference.

I tried Instant Text several times but could never make the transition from Smartype. Smartype, IMO, is a little more user friendly, but I can see the appeal of Instant Text. There are people out there who love it, it was just different enough from Smartype for me and I had too much muscle memory and couldn't switch. There is also Shorthand which is very basic but also good.

Both Smartype and Instant Text have free 30 day trials so you can experiment and see if one of them suits you. It's worth the investment. Trust me.

The other thing you want to invest in is a REALLY good pair of headphones, not just the regular "transcription" head phones that a lot of people use. I have a pair of Bose stereo headphones. They're pricey at about $150, but remember that anything like this is tax deductible. They are noise cancelling and so I hear very little of what is going on in my house. It's just me and a roommate and lots of cats, so it's not like there's a lot going on, but I don't hear much going on outside, either. What I DO hear, though, is every word the dictator is speaking. I can't tell you how much of a difference it makes. One of my co-workers got the same headphones on my recommendation and he was astonished at how much more he can hear. If you don't want to spend that much, Radio Shack has some pretty good ones that are in the $50 range from what I understand. Get the best ones that you can afford. It will be worth the investment.

good luck!

Agree. Autocorrect user here (similar to Smartype or Shorthand in practice). - sm

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I tried Instant Text but couldn't get used to it because I was too set in my ways with my own "system" by that point. I kind of regretted that I didn't start out on Instant Text so I wouldn't have had that built-in habituation with something else already, but I'm not sure I would totally 100% recommend Instant Text even to an expander newbie now, simply because it's not as overall compatible with as many platforms as say Smartype and Shorthand are. (I know of some definite conflicts with IT and EditScript, for example, that you may or may not be able to resolve by having your company turn the clipboard off for EditScript, which depends a lot on the approachability of your supervisor; not worth the gamble to me.)

Similar to the above poster's system, I have my own, which is somewhat based on this: http://jonknowles.net/abczrule.htm (which is a great site to peruse regarding expander use in general, by the way: http://jonknowles.net/index.htm )

Because of how many Autocorrect shortcuts I've got going now (over 20,000) and more and more conflicts developing (needing almost identical shortcuts for different words/phrases), I've altered my method to include syllables in words (first and "middle"). So instead of my old ecgn for electrocoagulation, for example, I've changed it to elcon (and elcod = electrocoagulated, elcog = electrocoagulating). Basically, "ababz" within a word, not just between 2 words (see above link). I still get a few conflicts that require me to add an extra letter or two, but many fewer than before, and this is much easier to remember for words that I seldom use. I also use the method of the first letter of the first 4 or so words in a phrase still (twnc = there were no complications; tpigc = The patient is given computerized discharge instructions). And sometimes I just let my fingers tell me what they want for an expansion (can be a little idiosyncratic).

Another good trick I learned: ho for hypo words, he for hyper. hoth = hypothyroidism, heth = hyperthyroidism, etc.

I like those -dd, -ss, and -tt commands you mentioned in Smartype, 10:15 a.m. poster. Those are automatically built in? I've done similar with macros and a key remapper, but that's very limited because of needing a key like Ctrl, Alt, Shift, or a combo of those to be included in the shortcut. I might look into Smartype if I ever feel I need to move on from Autocorrect (I am very careful to keep necessary backups in case of the oft-reported crashing when there are a lot of expansions in AC, but no problems so far, knock on wood).

response about Smartype - Yes, those commands are built in

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I freaking love Smartype. I bought it years ago when it was still offered by Stedman's and stuck with Word 2003 for a long time because it wasn't compatible beyond that. Joe Weber (the original developer) got it back from them and he has modified it and improved it and it's really nice. He also responds to e mails asking questions, too. He's a pretty cool dude.

Those commands are built in, along with others like "yy" to change a word ending in "y" to ending in "ies". It's also really easy to create them as well, so -year-old lady wasn't one of them, but I was able to create that very easily, along with some other ones that make sense to me.

The one thing I like about Smartype and Instant Text as opposed to autocorrect is that you can see your options right there on the screen and you don't have to remember all of the abbreviations you put in. Instant Text and the upgrade of Smartype also allow you to use the same abbreviation for different phrases, so if you have "the patient is in agreement" and "the patient and his wife are in agreement" you can use the same tpii short hand and then choose either option 1 or option 2, which ever fits. I use that for things like over the counter and over-the-counter. The other thing that's nice about these programs is you can store quite large blocks of text with formatting, so if I have a dictator who sometimes uses a section for LYMPH in her PE but not always, I can save that as a phrase and only put it in when I need to, but it's got all of the formatting done for me already. I don't know if that's an option in autocorrect, since I never got into using it that much.

Anyway, I'm a huge Smartype fan. It's easy and easy to learn and pretty intuitive.

Cool. Yeah, when I think Smartype, I think like the days of PRD and WP5.1, lol. - nice that Joe's kept it up

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Thanks for the info. :)

words or abbreviations - smartype user - SAM

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Thanks for that post, it was very informative.

Would it be okay if I emailed you to ask a few (probably redundant) questions about Smartype?

Thanks so much :)

Yes, absolutely - The email through this site works

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I work nights, so you may get responses at odd times, though. :).

Email all sent - Thank you SOOO much!!!

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I work nights, too, so I know what you mean about the odd times, LOL!

Thanks ever so much for your help :-)

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