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

I am so tired of living under the threat of this 99% - I cannot take it anymore

Posted: Mar 23, 2012

Either I am being targeted or I will agree I am on an account that perhaps requires regular audits, but I just cannot take it anymore. The last two audits I barely failed and I now I am assuming I will be terminated.

We are encouraged to speed up editing and in the process we are most assuredly missing incorrect ASR dictation, etc.

I mean no offense to any MTs who work for this company, but I daresay across the board this company does not produce MTs who continuously maintain 99%, it is impossible. Especially, as I go into the FTR reports and I see major mistakes that are made, some lazy, others who knows.

I would really like to hear from you MTs who have no problems with the ninja like auditing because you always maintain 99 to 100%. Then maybe I will accept that no matter I have been doing this for 20 years and have NEVER had a problem with my quality or EVER had a client have a problem with my reports, that I have just been lucky and able to skate by and I am an incompetent MT.

We had no say in what they decide constitutes critical, major, minimum error.

I am shaking so much right now. I hate what this profession has become. It was perfect, we are isolated and for the most part, women, a perfect combination to exploit.

see and say - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
I agree that the 99% is unrealistic, however, I do not believe that they are exploiting us.

I miss things all the time with ASR, not because I dont pay attention, or that I dont know what I am doing, its just ASR plays mind games on me. Plain and simple. Never made these mistakes typing. Just the way it is now. I am not lazy, and I do care, I just blink here and there and miss things. OOPS.

not sure how you think we are not exploited. - I cannot take it anymore

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They set all quality standards, rate of pay, hours we work and we have no input whatsoever. I would say that is definitely exploiting the very happy fact we are isolated with no collective bargaining power.

Very much agree...with you on that... - sm

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...very much.

same with every company in America - let it be

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Does not every company do that. You have the choice if you do not like the terms. If you want the power, become an IC.

BECOME an IC? The abuse is the SAME... - R U kidding me?

[ In Reply To ..]
NM

Becoming an IC does not give you power with - the industry companies maybe with

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your local doctor's offices or hospitals you have a little wiggle room, but if you are an IC for these companies you still have to sign a contract to abide by their terms and conditions.

I worked as an IC briefly for a smaller company and it was ridiculous, I might has well had been an employee.

If you strictly work for yourself and gather your "OWN" clientele, then that is the only way will you dodge the bullet, but if you are doing overflow for companies, there is no getting around it.

I am so sorry for you. I'm sure it must be hard to - work under those

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circumstances. How often are you audited? If you are that fearful it can't be good on your productivity and if your productivity isn't good your pay check suffers.

I am just curious how often they are auditing you?

I have been audited every month for as long as I can remember - cannot take it anymore

[ In Reply To ..]
not being paranoid, may be the account I am on.

The only recourse is to stop and re-listen to every report again to make sure that the 30 or 40 reports I do a day do not contain the major errors or critical errors, thereby insuring I have no hope of ever making anything above 8.10/hour.

I know what a major or critical error is, but I am - curious to know what your QA is

[ In Reply To ..]
is counting against you as major or critical errors?

It is not abnormal to get audited once a month, so if that gives you some relief, but do you feel that she is marking things that are unecessary? or counting things as critical or major that she shouldn't be?

Critical errors are incorrect medications, wrong dosage, etc - cannot take it anymore

[ In Reply To ..]
Which I agree are critical, but worth 3 points!!!

Major errors which I do no agree with, forgetting to cc a doctor, or not changing the report type, or not importing the Ctrl S option for headings that were never used. Each worth 1 point.

System is set up for failure, you make one critical error and unless you are 100% on at least 3 of your other reports, poof, you fail.

and I strongly believe we are encouraged to speed up the playback, but then we miss minute nuanced speech that changes dosages, and even medications that sound alike.

the above response makes it sound like that I what my reports look like - cannot take it any more

[ In Reply To ..]
want to just clarify..they are not. I produce quality work, but when you miss one dosage because it sounds like one value on high speed as opposed to slow speed, that is 3 points. And I do not believe when a doctor mis-codes the report and we do not catch it, that is OUR major error. or if we do not import Ctrl S headings when they are not even used.

But mostly I do not agree with the 0.25's for - and I am not exaggerating - putting 'a' instead of "the" or a typo that should be caught if they had a spell check with a grammar check.

I get audited ONCE A WEEK - call me paranoid

[ In Reply To ..]
I re-listen to everything. QA is not my friend.

I know exactly how you feel - slave wages

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Always been considered an excellent MT, never any problems till I came here and started getting scored major errors for hearing "frankly" instead of "in fact"

AMEN - Amen

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AMEN!

My sympathy to you. I am so - paranoid that I re-listen to

[ In Reply To ..]
every report just to make ABSOLUTE certainty that everything is 100% correct. Does it cost me money? Yes. Does it help the hospital or the patient? Nope. Does it satisfy QA? Apparently. It is what it is.

Why so many people - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
having trouble with audits lately? I have noticed this more here on the boards over the past couple of weeks then ever.

Like three or four posters struggling with constant audits and a couple recently being put on 100% QA. Wonder whats going on?

I thank God I am on a decent team with a good CCM and - QA coach. I dont seem to

[ In Reply To ..]
have any problems whatsoever. I hope and pray neither of them leave or get replaced, as I see not all teams are easy to work on.

I will tell you, my QA coach before was a gem - cannot take it anymore

[ In Reply To ..]
and I am sorry, but the one I have now will not let anything go. And I am refering to "of" instead of "the" downgraded 0.25.

That just ridiculous. It makes me angry reading - some of this stuff people are

[ In Reply To ..]
being docked for. We work on VR for goodness sake, we basically only have time to skim read the reports and add punctuation and formatting as we go.

Taking off for stuff like that is crazy. I would challange these people marking off for minor errors that dont affect patient care to work a pay-period of VR and see how well they do at trying to maintain an avg of at least $100 a day and not manage to miss anything.

Its just rediculous - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
That is the problem, trying to make a living with this horrible speech recognition is a joke. Like I told my
it is a fine balance. You don't want to turn in any mistakes, but my goodness I am trying to make a living. I went through school for this and I am a professional that is now finding it hard to make a living, it is a sad state of affairs, but this is what it has become. The truth of the matter is if you want to stay in the 99% realm, you will make no money and that is how they want it, they keep more in their pocket, less given to the employee, which is what MModal is about. They do not care it is all about the money and only the money to them. I think that everyone is just trying to make a living, including QA, CCM, everyone, but now they are morally corrupt, because they have no choice and look what they are doing to us. My goodness everything is a critical error now. We are human beings and 99% is an impossibility 100% of the time, that is just the way us humans work. Too bad VR is not required to do 100% quality

Ur right, we are humans, not machines. - nm

[ In Reply To ..]
.

I do not "skim." I listen to every word and then - re-listen to every word

[ In Reply To ..]
And no, I do not come close to $100 a day any more. Used to aim for $150+ in the good 'ole days.

Maybe "speed read" is the word, not skim. - unless you speed the dictation up then

[ In Reply To ..]
it's not possible to get through the report quicker then if you would have typing it.

The idea that anyone could double productivity without cranking up the speed is unlogical to me. Unless every single report is absolutely perfect and we all know that's not the case.

Bottom line, rates for VR need to raised. Either they - want QUALITY or quantity, which is it?

[ In Reply To ..]
of course I prefer quality, because my name is attached to the reports I produce and edit. The industry does not look at it from the MT perspective.

Ditto...my sympathies.... - Deewee

My sympathy to you.... - mydilemma

[ In Reply To ..]
I used to do this also, but then got a very stern warning that if I dropped below minimum wage, then my employer would fire me because they had to make up the difference and the $3 extra dollars they had to kick in that week was unacceptable. We're told to hurry up, slow down....what's a person to do?

I think they use the audits as a weapon - old and burned out

[ In Reply To ..]
I've said this before and will say it yet again. If they really cared about quality, they would fix the ASR, the database, the dictionary, etc. They do audits to keep their boots on our necks. They also pass the people they want to keep and nitpick to death the ones they don't. With my last CCM I went over a year without an audit. With this CCM I went 6 months without one and now have been audited for 3 consecutive months and have passed and truly don't know how because I don't care at all any more. I think they're keeping me because I am flexible part-time and get no benefits at all.

Here's Something To Watch Out For - Alias

[ In Reply To ..]
I've noticed that when you're numbering something with the ctrl + shift + L, any word that comes after it will always be recognized as being spelled correctly, whether it is or not. I'm continually on the watch out for medications. That is a glitch that definitely needs to be fixed in the system.

Huh, I just tested that using ctrl + shift + L - Not a problem here

[ In Reply To ..]
by purposefully misspelling the first word and spellcheck stopped on the misspelled words for me, every one of them.

Hum - Alias

[ In Reply To ..]
I think I need to call IT on that, then. Thanks for testing yours.

99% QA - Melissa

[ In Reply To ..]
I was on an account that expected 99% or 100%. The VR was terrible, along with ESLs. I worked every day, 7 days a week, all day trying to get my lines, making sure every work or comma was accurate. Constantly picky about commas, or cap this or that. I was so depressed. I finally quit. I hurt myself money wise looking for another job, but I feel so much better. That job was killing me.. literally. Plus the errors you made were docked 5.00... Glad to be gone.... I would go on elsewhere if you arent happy...

IMO this is NITPICKING QA - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
AND this IMO is what constitutes QA NITPICKING & over-editing of a document having nothing to do with document integrity but instead reducing MTs paychecks while ensuring their employment role and paycheck. It's beyond moral and exploitation. Easy for everyone else to say find a different career.

QAs/MMEs don't grade or audit. - nm

[ In Reply To ..]
x

Uh..that is exactly what they do. Not sure what you mean? - i get an audit from QA that is both audited AND gr

[ In Reply To ..]
x

You get an "Audit from you're QA coach" - Not MME. the msg said

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that MMEs are not allowed to grade your reports and they do not do audits.

Audits are done by QA coach not MMEs. They do not have that authority.

I know who you feel - mom2huskies

[ In Reply To ..]
I have been getting audited every week. Some how I pass but I am always waiting for the other shoe to fall.

The other day I received an e-mail that I made a mistake. What happened was ASR had typed what the provider had dictated. Unfortunately he dictated the incorrect credentials and I did not catch it. It figures that this one time ASR would type exactly what the provider dictated, LOL. To make a long story short it ended up being my fault. So now I figure I have a target on my back just because of one mistake.

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