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

There is a message on the main board here sm - NormaRae

Posted: May 21, 2015

with a link to the Dept of Labor. I encourage all of you to go check it out and write to them if you feel moved to do so. Maybe if they get enough inquiries about this company, someone will take a look at them. All I want to know, bottom line, is if they can legally do this, meaning cutting our line rate in half and our produced lines in half and then further reduction for what they deem as quality issues (which is very subjective in the best case scenario). It would be nice for someone to at least take notice of our current plight.

PS, if you go to their site, you can click on any sm - NormaRae

[ In Reply To ..]
link that says Contact Us and be able to email them. You only need an email address and your zip code; it can be done anonymously.

That is enough info for Nuance to know who I am - NM

[ In Reply To ..]
NM

If the Labor Board forced them to pay MTs - the back pay most of them are owed, - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
then you better BELIEVE I want them to know who I am!

The last time I sic'ed the Labor Board on a company I worked for, I got a big fat check for six month's back pay they'd been skimming off my wages.

You got that right. nm - wtfe

[ In Reply To ..]
xx

I don't care for the pay grid anymore than anybody else, - wannie

[ In Reply To ..]
but they didn't cut our line rate in half. Yes they cut our produced edited lines in half, but then they pay us the higher straight transcription rate for those lines. Before the new pay grid, we only got paid about half the straight transcription amount for the edited lines, so it works out the same. The reduction for quality "junk" is an issue, I agree, and is very subjective. I feel fairly certain I will get some dislikes for this, but that's okay. I just get frustrated when people talk about our lines getting cut in half. We get paid for them, just at a higher rate.

Girl, you must be gulping the Kool-Aid. That is an - exact TSM explanation. It is not

[ In Reply To ..]
a "higher" rate. I appears to be a higher rate, but half of that higher rate is less than my original low line rate. Why even bother with a C-LPH and "higher line rate" calculation? Simple, disguise and confusion.

Nope. No Kool-aid for me. Nope, no TSM explanation. - wannie

[ In Reply To ..]
I don't need a TSM to explain everything to me. I'm not at all confused. Do I think the pay grid is ridiculous? Oh yeah. I don't l like the fact that my rate changes week to week. Like I said before, it just frustrates me that people keep saying we only get paid for half of what we produce. That's not true. We get paid for all the lines we produce. They just have a convoluted way of figuring things.

I would love to see the DOL attempt to figure wages - based on the Nuance grid. That might

[ In Reply To ..]
actually be funny. Has anyone thought about sending them a copy and asking how they would decipher it ?

DOL and the line count shell game - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
Brilliant. That alone would about do it.

They caught a big company years ago - back wages paid

[ In Reply To ..]
Any of you old timers remember? I'm not mentioning any names but M--q---t from what I remember did something horrible and ended up having to pay a ton of back wages. I don't even know if they are still in business or the whole story I just remember it happened around 10 years ago and I remember making a note to not apply for a job with them. Sorry for the sketchy details but nowadays I only remember enough information to start trouble. Someone please fill in the blanks.

Was that the class action suit? - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
If so, they paid with books I believe. You could go to a website and order something. Correct me if that's the wrong suit. They definitely paid that way for a class action suit but not sure if it's the same one.

Last time they may have paid with books, but - next time - hopefully - their own blood.

[ In Reply To ..]

Never saw a penny of back wages from the Squid. sm - Former Cephalopod

[ In Reply To ..]

look at this site

http://health-information.advanceweb.com/Article/Rebuttal-to-AHDI-MedQuist-Open-Letter.aspx

Pay grid legal or not - all smiles

[ In Reply To ..]
The pay grid is perfectly legal as long as they give make up pay when you fall below minimum wage for your state.

The lines in half is not true. The Speech Wreck lines are halved to keep the cpl equal between speech wreck and straight type.

Having said that, the biweekly surprise makes it difficult if impossible for payroll to estimate the proper amount to withhold for federal income taxes, state income taxes, and for some of us, local income taxes.

Regarding income taxes, for each quarter (when those monies are due) N might overshoot or undershoot the actual amount owed. N determines from each paycheck what they should withhold based on your year end salary. Because withholding rates are higher for higher incomes. (8%, 10%, 15%, 25%, and so on.)

When wages are stable, it is easy to determine the yearly salary. When wages fluctuate all over the place, as ours do, it is not so easy to hit the mark on what the yearly salary is.

So, the rude surprise at the end of the year will be when we are under/over. If we are under, you bet they will be taking it out of our last few paychecks in order to hit the mark. If they are over, then we will get a nice tax refund.

Please do be prepared. If N does not hit the mark, you might owe a lot at tax time. N will pay a penalty plus interest for not withholding the proper amount each quarter, but YOU will owe the taxes.

I've been watching my withholding and my year to date income, they are way off. I'm getting prepared. No heart attack shock for me.

What's In Half? - Meh

[ In Reply To ..]
I still don't understand the complaint some have about the pay grid cutting pay in half. I mean, even before the pay grid, SR editing pay was half that of regular typed transcription. It was always half the pay. So why are people saying that the pay grid cuts pay in half? I personally earn more with the pay grid, but I only made 7.5/3.75 before. (Note: 3.75 cents is half of 7.5 cents because 3.75 was for editing.) Now on average I earn 8/4. True, occasionally I get 7/3.5 but I also occasionally get around 10/5. The point is that it was always one-half the pay for editing, so what does it have to do with the recent pay grid?

TRY TO UNDERSTAND - goneandhappy

[ In Reply To ..]
For the last few years, AFTER THE LAST PAY CUT, we were paid a few pennies less for edited lines. With the new pay grid edited lines are divided by 2. Make sense? You are now paid for every other line. If you used to edit 300 LPH that is now paid at 150 LPH. On top of that you have your quality score. A few years ago $30 an hour, today minimum wage if you make one major error.

Also TRY TO UNDERSTAND, that for that 150 lines - wannie

[ In Reply To ..]
you are now paid the same CPL that you are paid for straight transcription lines. 150 lines at 8 CPL is the same amount of money as 300 lines at 4 CPL.

Similar Messages:

Oct 12, 2014

** ...

Dec 23, 2011

There is a poster there who is posting blatantly wrong information about coding. Someone needs to post the correct information. I corrected one of the errors, but someone with more experience could probably do a better job of providing the facts. ...

Jan 30, 2013

Now if we could just get rid of the one below! ...

Dec 12, 2011

On the main board there is a message titled "Gotta Vent" and the following replies regarding coding have made me sick to my stomach, especially because a couple people stated seeing their coding departments wiped out by the EMR systems. Could someone shed some light on this? I am in a coding class now and I am not feeling so hot....but be honest. Thank you! ...

Aug 11, 2014

XX ...

May 13, 2015

Why have all the messages on the Main Board been "deleted by author"?? ...

May 21, 2010

I recognize the name used - it is by someone in upper management. At least she is using her real name - maybe she had second thoughts of using Hawkeye - LOL. ...

Mar 02, 2014

This is quite the eye opener and may explain why a lot of us are running out of work. Part of the problem is the complete mismanagement by TSMs and COMs, but the overall issue may be that EPIC is growing by leaps and bounds. It does not bode well for us MLSs. ...

Sep 02, 2014

I read with interest the article contained in the post on the main board because it occurred to me that this is the only industry I know where as an employee, for most companies today, Nuance not excepted, you accept a job and then you, the employee, provide your own equipment, you pay the expense to have your computer repaired and when it is down you are not paid for the downtime, you pay your ISP internet charges (which can be costly if you are running extra turbo charged service to meet minim ...

Nov 14, 2014

entitled "A little help from a friend" singing the praises of Nuance and how "you will love it here" and "don't believe what you read, we're all trolls." Trying hard to get that referral bonus! ...

Nov 07, 2014

...conspiracy theorists on this one! Ha! ...

May 06, 2010

Any body notice how any less than glowing messages about TRCR disappear in 24 hours. I'm sure they monitor the board and somehow are able to get things about their questionable practices taken down so that prospective recruits, who don't know better will apply with them. ...

May 29, 2012

nm ...

Feb 07, 2015

xxx ...

Mar 05, 2014

I was wondering for people who have been at Synernet for a while, is there a list of the team leads for each shift posted somewhere? I find it odd that they hire people, but then never tell anyone who was hired for the position. Aren't team leads there to help if someone should have a question ? I just felt it was odd. ...

May 27, 2011

. ...

Feb 27, 2015

Something is seriously wrong. I am very rarely OOW on my main acct, especially on Friday nights. Had no work in there all afternoon, now 2 reports and it looks like there are some people who are getting jobs. Either work is very sparse or too many people are in my account flexing from earlier in the week. ...

Oct 23, 2009

Bronchoscopy procedure note - After induction of general anesthesia, the patient had an endotracheal tube placed. Normal trachea and *s/l sharp main* carina. Normal right and left bronchial tree. ...

Feb 24, 2010

nm ...

Sep 22, 2012

have something called "CAC", (Computer-Assisted Coding".) Automation aside, just the fact that M*Modal is getting it's dirtly little hands into coding doesn't bode well for the field. ...

Sep 04, 2013

And found I still need my hip boots on for all the cr** that's on here. Never seen a more depressing, hateful, self pitying bunch of people in my life. ...

Aug 21, 2012

We recently had a new account start and the doctors often do not dictate all the main headings of the template that loads. The hospital keeps changing their mind as to keep it unused main heading in versus take it out if not dictated. Typically, I have always removed it if it was not dictated. But what do most of you do? Thanks for sharing your experience. ...

Aug 22, 2012

I am wondering why in the past 2 months or so the VR on my main account has become worse than when the drs were first VR. I am finding myself typing more than 50% of the supposed VR instead of just editing it and dropping my paycheck even further. This is very frustrating when you are stuck on a VR for triple the time or more of the actual audio time. I proposed this question to upper management and their response was that they have no idea why this is happening, but they are seeing this a ...

Dec 31, 2012

and while we were Transcend, it was so busy we worked OT to keep up. Now am lucky if I have consistent work. I am so sick of this. ...

Aug 16, 2010

Does not surprise me.. the Canned reports featured in EPIC I am sure will take over to completely do away transcriptionists. Clearly healthcare is okay with homogenous reports that really are not particular to the patient, just trying to stay within the slimmest margin of the law. It's like legal liability insurance...the bare minimum required. ...

Jan 14, 2011

Always makes me wonder about a hospital when one doctor gets sick with a cold, and then the rest of them get sick. That doesn't happen in every hospital. Their hoarse voices are screwing up ASR extra and their hoarse voices hurt my ears! ...

Feb 23, 2012

What is going on with those main terms? My coding textbook keeps wanting me to identify the main term, but I can't figure out which one it is. If you can find something under three different words in the Alphabetic Index, how do you know which is the main term? The one I choose is never the one the book says is right! This is frustrating. Does this mean I am not cut out to be a coder? ...

May 28, 2012

and of course can't get into mail. Not sure what is going on now! ...

Mar 25, 2014

Does anyone know if the big main account is being transitioned to VR, and if so, has anyone on this account been invited to move to VR? ...

Aug 04, 2013

Got email stating conference call this week for all of our "errors" we are making - what fun!! ...