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

I am NEW and SCARED - Can I Survive

Posted: Jul 30, 2013

with this company? I have read soooooo much here that scares me. Can a person pay rent, car note, insurance, utilities and still eat working for this company. I just got passed to this company after 30 years of MT and a salary of 60,000. I am quite aware after reading here that I will not make what I am used to, but can I SUPPORT MYSELF?

if you pay the car note you can live in the car and apply - for food stamps. You will qualify for sure now.

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Going from 60K to here, you are in for the shock of your life. Sad, but reality. I know they probably told you how great it will be, but that was just the sales pitch. If you can live on min wage or close to it you should be fine. Good luck.

yes but - ParmaGirl

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plan on a Humongous Cut in salary.

IMO, it depends on what your lifestyle has been and/or whether you have dependents and/or whether you have a spouse who contributes significantly income-wise.

can you survive - trapped now

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be sure to get a generic antidepressant as the feelings of rage and hopelessness set in and continue to increase.

60K shut the front door! - Never saw more than half of that

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I have worked for a hospital, worked for a small MTSO and now MModal. I think the most I have ever made is $31,000 a year. No wonder we are losing are jobs, some of us are way overpaid.

That kind of thinking that 60,000 is overpaid is horse _____ - sm

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This is not what put us in bad shape, but technology that is bad (voice wreck) and overseas put us at below poverty level pay for a well trained skilled profession where we should get pain between 40-60 K depending on location i.e. NY versus Podunk anywhere.

Way to think you're worth something - not

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Really? I have made close to $60,000 in a year where I did a lot of overtime and they weren't penalizing the heck out of everything. Get an ego,for crying out loud.

We have a lot of knowledge in our brain which we transfer to our fingers efficiently, effectively and quickly. That is what is known as a skill. If you belittle what we do and choose to call anyone who succeeds overpaid, you are justifying the MTSOs making us into minimum wage workers.

Some of us ARE way overpaid, though, and that is not the MTs but the CEOs and other higherups involved in making us nothing more than a line item that needs to be cut to satisfy their investors.

I am Original Poster and yes - I EARNED 60,000

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last year and the prior two years because I worked lots of OT AND I have skills and knowledge for Medical Transcription. Machines cannot think. I have done this work in my area for 30 years, so I know the docs, the area, etc. It is ridiculous having five other people handling one report CORRECTING my work who aren't even in the same country! This is the BIGGEST FACT ----- Nuance LIED to our hospital about our futures. Told them we'd make MORE money than we made there. All I want (which is very sad) is to at least be able to pay my basic living expenses of rent, car, utilities, gas, and food. That is 3000 per month and according to what I'm reading here, I won't make half this. I "know my stuff" but with Nuance it looks like "my stuff" will not matter because they're paying others to nit-pick us down to nothing. That is pretty dirty and low down.

Just so you know, the post above this - which you responded to

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Was in response to the "shut the front door" one above, which expressed the thought that $60,000 means "some of us are way overpaid." This I was disagreeing with and comments were directed to that poster.

I completely agree with your point of view, and I do think the job should be worth that if you work hard and are good. I have had to make the same adjustments you have and I agree that it is not justified at all to cut our pay in half just because they can. I am seeing this pattern everywhere in this country now, where raising the minimum wage is considered asking too much of the "job creators" and middle class jobs fall victim to cuts to impress the "investors." I think the "job creators" have had a pretty good time for awhile now and it is time for us job doers to catch a break. I for one am glad people can raise to the heights you have, and I do NOT accept our job should go down to minimum wage. To make what I used to or even close, I usually work 60 hours a week now, one full time, one part time, so not fun but necessary. I think if they ever can get a credit for companies who bring jobs back to this country and/or NOT give them a tax credit for offshoring jobs, our work might start to be valued again, but that is probably a fat chance the way things are right now.

earning $60,000 - just me

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I agree, when you work locally and have familiarity with the MDs, area, etc. you can rake in the money as an excellent transcriptionist -- I did for years (making approx 45,000). However they went to EHR and my job disappeared. I have worked for 3 entities in the last 4 years and now am lucky to make $22,000. Your assumption is correct -- they will drive you to the poor house... I lost EVERYTHING last year

Sorry you weren't as successful, that was the norm - anon

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I was making about $70,000 by my second full-time year as an MT in the 90s (I'm a fast transcriber/high producer). That of course dropped because of VR but in 2010 I was still making $50,000. Now I'm at the mercy of the bigger MTSOs (two since then) and have dropped into the $30,000 range. What a drastic paycut.

Just because you didn't make that much does not mean it wasn't true.

You meant to say - that WAS the norm

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yep, we been there and done that and it's not like that now. Half that maybe, or maybe maybe 2/3 in a really good year...

I did say "was". - anon

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My reply was in response to the (I assume) relative newbie who has only made $30,000 with three different companies in her MT career and didn't feel MTs were worth more than that. Wow. I wonder if she is one of the ones that entered the field just to "work at home".

No doubt... - I just meant

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to underline the word "was"... as in, long gone, thing of the past, never to return. Yes, I have a neighbor, former nurse, thought it would be great to work from home and after all, she was a nurse... tried MT school and couldn't hack it, decided she would rather start a blog. Those are the ones (except she dropped out) that will inherit this once rewarding field. Sigh.

So true (nm) - anon

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x

Straight talk - SM

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You need to start looking for something immediately. Really pinch pennies while you are looking. Read these boards, people are not exaggerating their distress. Check your local hospital job boards daily. If you can find something that pays $30,000 a year, jump with joy.

New and Scared - Treesvsforest

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This profession is a joke anymore. Done it over a quarter of a century and in a mere year it's gone from a lucrative profession to less than minimum wage. With them outsourcing to overseas companies and the government mandates on electronic medical records being implemented in January 2014, we are basically all washed up. We are! This is no longer a main occupation job. It's a job from which one can make some spare change and that's all. I am applying at another company as QA and since it's paid by the hour perhaps it will hold me over until I can find something else to do that will pay something better than minimum wage. What gets me is the outsourcing mess. The substandard quality is just bizarre and how these huge hospitals think they are getting such a good deal. They think contracting to the large transcription companies that most of the work is being done in the USA. It's not! And some of the larger companies make it look like the reports are being done on shore by having the Indian MT's use American names. I picked up on this little tactic recently with the company I just left. I saw a strange name that caught my eye "Jennifer Anniston". I swear, that's the name the person in Mumbai had chosen for her American name. There were in excess of 40 MT's at that company and every one of them turned out to have an American name. Isn't that illegal? I mean I had to provide an I-9 with my real name when I got this job to prove I was legally allowed to work in the USA. Shouldn't this offshore mess have to operate under the same guidelines instead of an alias?

I am New and Scared - Sarah

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If you made 60,000, count on maybe half of that. If you score 99% or better each quarter on your post audits, you can count on bonus -- but don't get too excited....it's hard to maintain 99% with the hatchet queens doing your audits. It happened to me, my salary was cut by more than half and I am struggling.....

In a word, no - sm - Freebie

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I had to flip flop jobs and do a bunch of messing around to keep everything under control financially and still having problems. I worked QA full time for another company for several years and I'm good at it, but with Nuance I can't even make bonus. I had to go back part time with Nuance and take another job full time. My living expenses are 1300 a month not including gas and groceries and I can just barely make that. Good luck to you.

Can I Survive? - burnedoutco

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If you are on your own, NO. If you are far from retirement age, find something else to do. I do love the job of transcriptionist but not the way it is now. When our hospital system was outsourced (not to Nuance), I saw many great transcriptionists who were on their own lose homes,respect, etc., and this was a number of years ago when these companies were not so bad as they are now. Granted, there were a few who made it work, but I don't think you can make a living wage with the way things are at Nuance. Believe the posts here, they are true, especially the Fiesa stuff. I really try not to get upset but sometimes when I start work my hands are shaking with anxiety. Definitely take the advice of getting generic antidepressants, though probably you will not even be able to afford the copayment on these. Maybe you can get some cookies from the food bank because that is what it will come to. Believe it, I have seen this happen to a friend.

no dues to join - this club

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Sorry about your situation. Ten years ago, many of us were making 60k and companies were competing for good MTs with bonuses, better benefits, etc. Guess you should count yourself fortunate to have maintained your lifestyle for so long. You have a lot of grief and rage to work through. Keep your chin up.

parenthetical aside - SM

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All this started before Obamacare was even a gleam in the president's eye. This, my friends, is capitalism. Take from the middle class, give to the rich. Unions were formed in the way-way back for precisely this type of worker abuse. Not asking for communism. Not asking for revival of unions. Just food for thought.

One word answer......"Nope". - no message

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no message

New and Scared - Rainwoman

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$3000/mo would be about 400-500 lines/hour for at least 40 hours a week with speech wreck. If you were really familiar with the account, the system and got enough work, remotely possible but pretty unlikely. With straight typing (which is only the new accounts), it would be a little more realistic, like 250 lph - again if you got enough work, which nobody seems to do on a consistent basis.

So, basically - OP

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since my account is starting out as a temporary high percentage of straight typing, I will be working myself down to nothing. If I were younger I'd go to nursing school or something similar. Very sad. Gonna lose everything, but will try to maintain my dignity. :(

You will need to adjust your lifestyle - significantly

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You may be able to get by if you don't mind Ramen noodles every night. You ain't gonna have anything left over for fun, that's for sure!

I was at 70K before I was acquired by Nuance. I ended up having to - file bankruptcy

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when they decided that everyone makes the same salary no matter what the experience or difficulty of accounts. Then they overstaffed my account so that I was only getting work half the time. I went from 70K a year pre Nuance to 15K with Nuance. I sold everything of value and ended up back to renting, lost everything, and filed bankruptcy in that 1 year. On the plus side, now that I have no debt, no car, and cheap rent I can afford to work minimum wage and start over and can get grants to take college classes.

Basically Nuance takes talented, educated people who are productive members of society and turns them into minimum wage welfare recipients.

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