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

I just can't believe that I just finished an 8-1/2 hour - shift and made a whopping

Posted: Mar 29, 2013

$66.03. I worked my BUTT off tonight for $8.25 an hour. Back in the day, those 1400 lines would have grossed at LEAST $116 for the day, AND, I wouldn't have worked 1/4 as hard then as I did tonight for that measly 66 bucks. Doctors and lawyers are paid for the education over and over and over again. WHY is it so different for MTs? Twenty-two years of this and I can't believe I'm reduced to this. Wow......

Must be VR - What platform?

[ In Reply To ..]
x

Editscript - NM

[ In Reply To ..]
xx

Figured it was Powerscribe - PS is horrible!

[ In Reply To ..]
ExEditor and Chartscript VR Platforms are much better.

Ask for a raise or move on to another company. nm - Carol

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

They just issued pay CUTS....I seriously doubt - asking for a raise would get

[ In Reply To ..]
me anywhere. Move on to another company? Sure, I could do that and start over on a 3 month wait for insurance, learn new accounts, new platforms, new team leads. Been there, done that, too many times now. I just wish I could figure out what SOME have figured out and they are able to do this 300-400 LPH stuff. I'm GOOD at what I do. Sound rec is simply kicking my BUTT all the way to the welfare line.

VR and pay - Cathy

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm sorry that you are going through this. I have been there. I worked at Nuance and did about 95% VR until a few months ago.

Anyway, you say that VR is really hurting you. What are you finding the most difficult with VR? I know some things are beyond your control (horrible dictators, constantly switching between accounts, poor audio quality, etc.), but could you make a list of what is holding you back with VR? Are there a lot of edits that you need to make? Is it just really boring? Do you have all ESL dictators? I would love to help you try to be more productive with VR if you let me know what you need help with.

VR - buffy

[ In Reply To ..]
Is it really possible to make money? I have been here for six months and I believe I can make money but not so sure now after you making on 66 bucks? Thanks depressing.

VR - Cathy

[ In Reply To ..]
I didn't find it possible to make much money at Nuance due to constantly running out of work, but it didn't sound like that was the OP's problem. I was able to do 400-500 LPH on VR if everything was working for me (stable account, good dictators, good audio quality, etc.). I know there are a lot of things about Nuance and VR that you cannot change and that are more than frustrating. There is an element, though, that you can change, and that is your attitude and willingness to improve your skills to maximize the situation you are currently in. I know it is hard to have a good attitude working for Nuance. I would definitely recommend looking for another job, but in the meantime if you want some help/suggestions on improving your VR productivity I would be more than happy to help you if you have specific questions.

Some general suggestions are to use your expander for corrections that you make frequently. I would often have the entire PE or ROS in my expander and just put that in instead of making the corrections. I know you're not supposed to do that, but if they are going to pay so little for VR you have to do what is productive for you. I would also recommend creating macros to fix simple things like capitalization, add a period, etc. You can create macros in Shorthand if you have it or with a free program called AutoHotKey. I know that I have posted some of these scripts here before if you search the archives, but if you have questions on how to create them or which ones to create let me know. Also having a "cheat sheet" with the account specifics for each of your accounts on hand near your desk will be a great help so you don't have to keep looking things up when you end up switching accounts constantly. Using your keyboard shortcuts instead of your mouse will save you lots of time, and you can create macros with AutoHotKey that will allow you to do things with your keyboard that you normally have to do with your mouse (like change the worktype in Enterprise, etc.). When I was on a stable account, I would have macros that would automatically do certain things when I opened a job for that account (i.e., if I knew the dictator always dictated on the wrong worktype, my macro would change the worktype when I activated my macro upon opening the job, speed up the dictation speed, and change common errors for that dictator). That was much quicker than doing all of those things individually.

You won't ever make a fortune at Nuance, but you can do better than $8.25 an hour if you work smarter and get some productivity helps in place.

VR - buffy

[ In Reply To ..]
Thank you so much! I have done about 350 LPH and if I can keep that up on a continual basis with my accounts and take your tips and work them in, I think it is going to work out. I always have work and that is never a problem on my accounts.

Great tips. - A seasoned MT.

[ In Reply To ..]
Hopefully people can benefit from these tips. I also do quite a few things you mentioned and they do help. Now, if only Nuance would do something about the audio quality on my accounts, maybe those of us on them could produce more lines with better quality.

Thanks Cathy for your input! I'm an oldie MT. - And last night I came to

[ In Reply To ..]
a conclusion. I've been wasting time fighting the changes I need to make instead of biting the bullet and LEARNING how to work smarter. It's time. I love what I do and I'm not quite ready to quit, so I need to learn how to do this thing and get good at it, or get out of the way of the others who are already ahead of me. I have a new attitude and my problem lies with creating shortcuts, macros, etc. I use Shorthand for Windows and, in the old days, I had TONS of macros set up for the same doctors on their PEs, ROSs, etc. My game has changed due to the fact I type for some pretty big hospitals and don't get the same doctors frequently. I have made myself available and been trained in many accounts, so I'm not running out of work so often anymore. ABSOLUTELY ANY HELP you can give me to learn what I need to, will be GREATLY appreciated. It's a new day with a new attitude and I need new ways to do this! Thanks.

VR - buffy

[ In Reply To ..]
I have a hard time figuring out how to make macros for VR. I usually just have to change it with mouse and click. There are actually ways to do this faster. Please let me know how.

Macro help - Cathy

[ In Reply To ..]
It is tough when you are spread out across so many different accounts. There are some universal macros that you can make that will make it all go faster, though. When you create a macro, it is like sending keystrokes or mouse clicks. You can combine many tasks into one and have 1 key combination for that. I would start by assigning keyboard shortcuts for anything that you have to do with your mouse. I'm not too familiar with Shorthand, but I am sure you could look in the help file and find out how to send mouse clicks. If you can't get that to work, you could try AutoHotKey. You can download it for free. If you did that, you would right click on a script that you had running and click on "Window Spy." Then you could point your mouse to what you wanted to select and use those coordinates to send the mouse click, (i.e., Click 1358, 40).

Other things that I do are for general editing (like deleting to the end of a line or the end of the document, moving your cursor around, putting a period in and capitalizing the first letter of the next sentence, etc.)

Also great helps are macros for QA notes. Because you usually always write the same note to QA for blanks, you can create a macro for blanks, poor audio, unknown copy, etc. If you have a different protocol for each account, you can have different QA macros for each account.

Another thing that helps a little is to make a macro for inserting your normals. Instead of typing the shortcut to get to the normal page, make a macro that will do that automatically when you type in your normal code. It makes it go a little bit faster.

I also had a macro to fix the demographics on an account where the doctors always mixed up the MRN and account numbers. My macro would copy the information from the dictator input box and paste it into the correct box and then search for the patient for me instead of me having to type those numbers out.

You have just to think about what is holding you back and where you could shave some time. Repetitive things that you do over and over again each day can be made much faster with macros.

I pasted some of my AHK scripts below. They would be different for Shorthand, but you would just use the @KEY (I think) and then send the same keystrokes. The text after the ; is just commentary and doesn't need to be included in the script. In AHK, ^ = control, ! = alt, and + = shift; i.e., when you see "Send, ^+{End}" that is just sending a control + shift + end to select the rest of the text in the document. All the scripts end with "return" to stop them from running continually. If you want to use a function key for your shortcut, (like F1) you would start the script with that and then ::, i.e., F1:: If you are using just a combination of letters for your shortcut, you sandwich those between :: and ::, like ::de::

Feel free to post or email me with questions. It is probably clear as mud, but I will try to help you get it.

::de::
Send, ^+{End}
Send, {Backspace} ; deletes to end of document
return

::ce::
Send, ^{End} ; brings comma to end of document
return

::du::
Send, ^+{Home}
Send, {Backspace} ; deletes to beginning of document
return

::cu::
Send, ^{Home} ; sends comma to beginning of document
return

::dle::
Send, +{End}
Send, {Backspace} ; deletes to end of line
return

::cle::
Send, {End} ; sends comma to line end
return

::dpb::
Send, ^+{Up}
Send, {Backspace} ; deletes to beginning of paragraph
return

::cpb::
Send, ^+{Up}
Send, {Left} ; sends comma to beginning of paragraph
return

::dlb::
Send, +{Home}
Send, {Backspace}
Send, {Backspace} ; deletes to beginning of line
return

::clb::
Send, {Home} ; sends comma to beginning of line
return

::dpe::
Send, ^+{Down}
Send, {Backspace} ; deletes to end of paragraph
return

::cpe::
Send, ^+{Down}
Send, {Right} ; sends comma to end of paragraph
return

::ah::
Send, ^{Right}
Send, {Backspace}
Send, - ; adds hyphen after a word
return

::ah2::
Send, ^{Right}
Send, {Backspace}
Send, -
Send, ^{Right}
Send, {Backspace}
Send, - ; adds hyphen to 2 words (e.g., 25 year old becomes 25-year-old)
return

::dlr::
Send, ^{Delete} ; deletes 1 word to right
return

::dl::
Send, ^{Backspace} ; deletes 1 word to left
return

::dls::
Send, ^+{Insert}
Send, {Delete} ; deletes sentence (works in Enterprise, not sure about other platforms)
return

Macro to adjust volume with up and down arrows:

; Volume On-Screen-Display (OSD) -- by Rajat
; http://www.autohotkey.com
; This script assigns hotkeys of your choice to raise and lower the
; master and/or wave volume. Both volumes are displayed as different
; color bar graphs.

;_________________________________________________
;_______User Settings_____________________________

; Make customisation only in this area or hotkey area only!!

; The percentage by which to raise or lower the volume each time:
vol_Step = 1

; How long to display the volume level bar graphs:
vol_DisplayTime = 2000

; Master Volume Bar color (see the help file to use more
; precise shades):
vol_CBM = Red

; Wave Volume Bar color
vol_CBW = Blue

; Background color
vol_CW = Silver

; Bar's screen position. Use -1 to center the bar in that dimension:
vol_PosX = -1
vol_PosY = -1
vol_Width = 150 ; width of bar
vol_Thick = 12 ; thickness of bar

; If your keyboard has multimedia buttons for Volume, you can
; try changing the below hotkeys to use them by specifying
; Volume_Up, ^Volume_Up, Volume_Down, and ^Volume_Down:
HotKey, #Up, vol_MasterUp ; Win+UpArrow
HotKey, #Down, vol_MasterDown
HotKey, +#Up, vol_WaveUp ; Shift+Win+UpArrow
HotKey, +#Down, vol_WaveDown

;___________________________________________
;_____Auto Execute Section__________________

; DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING HERE (unless you know what you're doing).

vol_BarOptionsMaster = 1:B ZH%vol_Thick% ZX0 ZY0 W%vol_Width% CB%vol_CBM% CW%vol_CW%
vol_BarOptionsWave = 2:B ZH%vol_Thick% ZX0 ZY0 W%vol_Width% CB%vol_CBW% CW%vol_CW%

; If the X position has been specified, add it to the options.
; Otherwise, omit it to center the bar horizontally:
if vol_PosX >= 0
{
vol_BarOptionsMaster = %vol_BarOptionsMaster% X%vol_PosX%
vol_BarOptionsWave = %vol_BarOptionsWave% X%vol_PosX%
}

; If the Y position has been specified, add it to the options.
; Otherwise, omit it to have it calculated later:
if vol_PosY >= 0
{
vol_BarOptionsMaster = %vol_BarOptionsMaster% Y%vol_PosY%
vol_PosY_wave = %vol_PosY%
vol_PosY_wave += %vol_Thick%
vol_BarOptionsWave = %vol_BarOptionsWave% Y%vol_PosY_wave%
}

#SingleInstance
SetBatchLines, 10ms
Return

;___________________________________________

vol_WaveUp:
SoundSet, +%vol_Step%, Wave
Gosub, vol_ShowBars
return

vol_WaveDown:
SoundSet, -%vol_Step%, Wave
Gosub, vol_ShowBars
return

vol_MasterUp:
SoundSet, +%vol_Step%
Gosub, vol_ShowBars
return

vol_MasterDown:
SoundSet, -%vol_Step%
Gosub, vol_ShowBars
return

vol_ShowBars:
; To prevent the "flashing" effect, only create the bar window if it
; doesn't already exist:
IfWinNotExist, vol_Wave
Progress, %vol_BarOptionsWave%, , , vol_Wave
IfWinNotExist, vol_Master
{
; Calculate position here in case screen resolution changes while
; the script is running:
if vol_PosY < 0
{
; Create the Wave bar just above the Master bar:
WinGetPos, , vol_Wave_Posy, , , vol_Wave
vol_Wave_Posy -= %vol_Thick%
Progress, %vol_BarOptionsMaster% Y%vol_Wave_Posy%, , , vol_Master
}
else
Progress, %vol_BarOptionsMaster%, , , vol_Master
}
; Get both volumes in case the user or an external program changed them:
SoundGet, vol_Master, Master
SoundGet, vol_Wave, Wave
Progress, 1:%vol_Master%
Progress, 2:%vol_Wave%
SetTimer, vol_BarOff, %vol_DisplayTime%
return

vol_BarOff:
SetTimer, vol_BarOff, off
Progress, 1:Off
Progress, 2:Off
return

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Macro to search Google and other websites:

menuReferenceTools =
(
&Google Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=@@
&OneLook
http://www.onelook.com/?w=@@
&Phonetic Search on Drugs.com
http://www.drugs.com/search-wildcard-phonetic.php?search_type=phonetic&searchterm=@@
&Abbreviations
http://www.medilexicon.com/medicalabbreviations.php
&Utah License Lookup
https://secure.utah.gov/llv/search/index.html;jsessionid=13aa4d657ce588a1577a60b4d742
&Zip code
http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/citytown_zip.jsp
)

F1::
ClipSaved := ClipboardAll
Clipboard =
Send ^c
Sleep 100
CreateMenu("mRef", menuReferenceTools, "ReferenceTools")
Menu mRef, Show
Clipboard := ClipSaved
ClipSaved =
Return

ReferenceTools:
RunMenuItem(menuReferenceTools, A_ThisMenuItemPos)
Return

CreateMenu(_menuName, _menuDef, _menuLabel)
{
Loop Parse, _menuDef, `n
{
If (Mod(A_Index, 2) = 1) ; Odd
{
Menu %_menuName%, Add, %A_LoopField%, %_menuLabel%
}
}
}

RunMenuItem(_menuDef, _index)
{
Loop Parse, _menuDef, `n
{
If (_index * 2 = A_Index)
{
StringReplace toRun, A_LoopField, @@, %Clipboard%, All
Run %toRun%
Break
}
}
}
;
; AutoHotkey Version: 1.x
; Language: English
; Platform: Win9x/NT
; Author: A.N.Other
;
; Script Function:
; Template script (you can customize this template by editing "ShellNewTemplate.ahk" in your Windows folder)
;

#NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Again, let me know if you need more help. I have more scripts too if you need more help or ideas.

Well that didn't work so well - Cathy

[ In Reply To ..]
I can email you the scripts if you would like. My formatting got ruined when I posted this message and it took out all of my paragraphs and other spacing.

As long as we allow ourselves to be treated as slaves, we will be. - lindabel

[ In Reply To ..]
all the while these MTSO's are raking in millions off our hard work.

VR - MTgirl

[ In Reply To ..]
I have been here about 2 years and finally do 300-400 when I am "zoned in." My brain gets fried on transcription after so long and if I really wanted I could do 400 average its just so boring!! lol. I want to try the macros I haven't used that yet. I do use autocorrect for everything though.

VR - MT girl

[ In Reply To ..]
I was also making about that at 6 months. Now I am doing about 350 average per line without trying too hard. I usually push the speed up to midway from the middle to the highest speed and keep it there. I don't use a pedal I use my hands to pause dictation and go forward. This gets easy once you get all the shortcuts down and know the doctors, typical medical jargon, etc.

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