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

whatever happened to 8 cents a line? - curly

Posted: Aug 03, 2013

When I took the Career Step course not even 5 years ago, the industry supposedly was paying on average 6-9 cents a line. I worked in a hospital at an hourly wage for a few years and was recently laid off and am working at one of the online companies now - and I REALLY want to know what happened to the 6-9 cents a line I was told was industry standard FIVE years ago? I'm making 4 cents a line now -- how does an industry pay LESS 5 years later?

8 cents a line - NYMOM

[ In Reply To ..]
Well every once in a while you get a straight type job that pays 8 cents a line/ of course, usually mush mouth ESL.

That's what we've all wondered, those of us who - have been doing this for many years.

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm going on 16 years myself, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. MT is not the career it once was, and will never be again. MT has turned into this "work at home" nonsense for years now, since the Internet took over the world, and technology in general, speech rec, EMR, Epic in particular. No, MT is no longer a career, but something for people who want to sit at home and work for pennies, which is exactly why so many of us are desperately seeking other employment opportunities, or even going back to school for something else, which is what I'm doing.

Eight cents until just recently. - Underpaid

[ In Reply To ..]
I made 8.5 CPL straight typing on a pretty good account until just recently and could still make a decent living. I was planning on working a few more years and retiring with Social Security, but that would have been too easy.

I have 18 years in this business and yearn for the good old days of picking up tapes and delivering to three or four good-paying private accounts (12-15 CPL) and making 80,000 a year. Seems like a dream now. We have been reduced to near poverty level. I still get asked almost daily, "How do I become a medical transcriptionist?"

I scratch my head daily wondering the same thing - Ridiculous!

[ In Reply To ..]
Straight typing for students just out of school used to be 6.5 cents to start, now its what is being offered to veterans!

I wont do it - at that rate x1200 lines per day adds up to minimum wage - and if Im going to make minimum wage, Im not going to be legally liable the way we are, thats just nuts! Also, at that rate, we make less than minimum if you factor in costs for cable modems and equipment maintenance.

Its ridiculous - and these people are getting away with it because there are those out there willing to do this. Until people start adding up the dollars and cents and thinking about this, things will just keep going down and down.

are we liable? - curly

[ In Reply To ..]
i mean, could an MT get sued, if there's a problem with a chart?

liability - irritable

[ In Reply To ..]
It would be a long road to sue a transcriptionist. I think it would have to be flagrant and malicious disregard for the documentation (like creating incorrect info). Otherwise there are plenty of places to lay off the blame that are much larger pockets than ours....that's not to say we might not get roped in to be part of the side show, but ultimately I don't think it would cost us much (someone would probably even pick up our lawyer...like say the people we work for, since they would be covering themselves).

8 cents a line/VR - irritable

[ In Reply To ..]
capitalism. Many jobs are paying less instead of more. The top end isn't sharing and they DON'T HAVE TO. They will sacrifice quality and quantity (making the doctors do much more of this on their own than they ever did). I think they are making a big mistake, of course, doctors have better things to do and could make the hospitals a lot more money if they were allowed to doctor instead of secretarial, but everyone is looking at their budgets with tunnel vision....oh no! that's a red mark on my budget line...put it on some other department. I know of a hospital that is using VR that is not even editing, leaving that to the doctors to take care of and the doctors type in a disclaimer stating that this is likely an inaccurate record and it's not their fault...if this keeps up there will be no need for documentation, as inaccurate and incomplete documentation as that it is, we might as well not have any.

considering taking this to the news outlet - curly

[ In Reply To ..]
what you say here about hospitals and doctors getting rid of voice rec is very true, happening all over, and it's really scary. no one knows better than we MTs how hideous the dictation can be, how wrong it can be, and how desperately the charts need us. one of my personal stories is - i had a doc dictate a 2-word term (cannot remember it), and for the first word he used "epididymal" - and the patient was a woman! - and i thought, if I'M the one who puts that word in there, I'D be the idiot, NOT the DOCTOR, right, huh? anyway, i've been thinking about this, and i really believe the american public needs to know about all of this - about the pointlessness of hipaa with so much going overseas, about healthcare organizations and businesses getting rid of MTs and leaving their charts to doctors and how that could cost SERIOUS mistakes in patient care. this is NOT the field to take chances in!

HIPAA overseas - Anonymous

[ In Reply To ..]
You make good points except for your comment about the pointlessness of HIPAA overseas. MTSOs offshore who accept domestic transcription are HIPAA compliant. Any company (Nuance, M-Modal, etc.) who uses offshore contractors is HIPAA compliant and requires all of their entities to be HIPAA compliant. None of this is done willy-nilly and no one wants to be sued. They are all required to sign legal documents and take it very seriously.

hipaa overseas - curly

[ In Reply To ..]
i totally understand that - BUT there is SOOO much that can go wrong, ESPECIALLY when you've got people all over the world looking at your medical information. HOWEVER, THAT really is not the point -- the POINT is how americans will PERCEIVE their healthcare information milling around in other countries. americans are angry enough about outsourcing -- when they find out their confidential healthcare information has been outsourced - and the implications - they will be furious, i guarantee it.

Americans - Anonymous

[ In Reply To ..]
That is interesting. Most of the Americans I know don't care, or something would have been done to stop it long ago. Every facility is different, but I do QA for a facility that uses Indian MTs. For us, no confidential healthcare information is sent out. We send them the voice file, the patient name and MRN, that is it. The MTs have no access to the patient record or facility system. Voice files are also encrypted and the transcription is done via secure server. Please list the implications.

In-house VR versus outsourcing - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
There are more and more facilities moving to in-house VR. As someone noted, physicians are expected to edit their own work.

Why are some facilities doing this? To eliminate the unacceptable turn-around times and document upload screw-ups we experience at the hands of MTSOs, for one. They are also tired of being cheated and overcharged on line counts.

Something you might not have considered is that younger doctors are very computer-savvy and don't mind doing their own reports. For them, the control and speed outweighs any inconvenience. They get the VR working correctly for them and just go to town with it. Their reports might not look as nice as an MT's, but they are legible and accurate.

You might not realize that even MT reports are full of errors. Ludicrous errors, too. The quality isn't there and never has been with some MTSOs. As the big ones expand, quality drops. You have no idea how bad the work coming from your own companies is.

Facilities are trying to put the responsibility back on the doctor. They can type, use the computer, and do their own templates and point-click. They can use VR. If your MTSOs are using VR anyway, why bother sending the work out?

If the doctor sees the results of his VR himself, he cannot blame anyone else. He has to dictate better. He learns to dictate clearly.

As for the horror of offshoring, what makes you think that US MTs are any less risk? Any work that goes outside the facility is at risk. Hospitals are not happy that their patient information is going to the homes of unidentified workers, some of whom post here that they scoff at HIPAA, don't understand it, and believe it is ok to share confidential information with friends and family. (One posted here that her husband hears all of it!)

Hospitals are just taking it back. A few have in-house quality editors. They have also been developing positions which involve helping doctors learn to use new technologies and providing support for that. These positions would be something you can move into. There is a lot of information about them on the internet.

good points, all - curly

[ In Reply To ..]
i read a report by an MT in our department once that had under heent - "acephalic" - no head! this report had already been submitted and was old. to be honest, i, myself, don't give a crap any more. i hate med trans and i'm getting out any way. couldn't be more bored if i were shoveling elephant poo.

"Hospitals are just taking it back?" You make it sound like it's accountability at - CrankyMT

[ In Reply To ..]
the heart of things, and it's not. It's cost cutting and the ability to share information in a digital age. Actual quality obviously isn't driving things, and it's not the fault of the US medical transcriptionist either. If quality was the true issue, then nobody would have off-shored records to foreigners in the first place (something clearly and logically of much greater risk than sending work into an American's home), who obviously don't know our language, customs, system, and entire way of life nearly as well as we do.

You state the quality hasn't been there with US transcriptionists, but you fail to provide any sort of data or evidence. You simply throw out an unsupported and highly generalized statement.

One thing we do hear about ALL the time is that health care costs too much. I find it comical that busy, highly-paid physicians, especially those who did not grow up with computers, are now expected to be their own transcriptionist/secretary and that hospitals are holding them accountable for the accuracy and content of their notes (basically what you stated in your post).

The real truth of the matter is that they want to have the ability to share records easily with other providers and facilities and to cut costs. They think it's just a learning curve for the physician, but it's technology and cost cutting and not inaccurate MTs at the root of this.

And I'd like to know whatever happened to $22/hr! - I made 8 cents/line in 1978. -NM

[ In Reply To ..]

curly - Tony

[ In Reply To ..]
I make 9 cpl.

could you expand pls? - curly

[ In Reply To ..]
are you saying because you're pay by production, you make 9cpl? i'm asking what happened to the base pay, and i'm guessing you know that.

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