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

Left a good paying IC job, now looking, but have some questions. - jj

Posted: Jun 03, 2011

I think I have been leading a bit of a sheltered life after reading some of the posts on this board lately. Here's my situation. I have worked IC for a local hospital for 5 years getting paid 0.15/line after leaving a 5 year position with MQ making 0.09/line. There was a major contract dispute and all the ICs left including me. Now I'm looking for another job. I was called by Etransplus today and she offered this what I would call a tier type program. I felt like it was penalizing those who just want to work part time. Here's kind of what it looked like. Up to 3000 lines 0.06/line, 3000-4000 lines 0.07/line, 4000-6000, 0.08/line, over 6000 lines 0.0925. How is this fair and is there any company that just pays a straight "decent" amount of money per line straight typing or is this the new norm? I could go to Walmart and be a greeter part time for what this company was trying to offer part time.

Also, how is the work with VR editing? Is it worth training on? I have been in talks with another company that does about 80% VR editing and 20% straight typing. The VR editing pays less than the straight typing, but wondering if I could make it with a company like this or is the VR editing slowing you down where you can't really make any money.

Thanks for the advice.

So sorry - SCMT

[ In Reply To ..]
With my experience working from home, this is the only line of work where after putting in YEARS of hard work that my income has dastically gone down instead of up like one would expect with raises keeping up with the cost of living. I sometimes thought about being a greeter at a Walmart, but those jobs are already taken. So forget that. You practically have to wait until someone dies to get a job anymore. I feel bad for you that you left a job that paid 15 cents a line. I started out with 8 cpl back in 2003, crept up to 9 and went down to 7-1/2 cpl with the same company!

The bottom line is - they don't want to pay. Just about everything out there is voice wreckognition. Some do very well with it, while others like me do not, and you won't know unless you try. You never know - you just might be one of those who are high producers. I wish you the best.

My pay has fallen 50% with VR. I used to TYPE - 1800 to 2000 lines a day.

[ In Reply To ..]
VR is so tedious, I struggle to do 1200 a day at 60% of my line rate. You really probably should have stayed with your 15 cents per line. We mostly make 4-6 cpl now.

Should probably look elsewhere - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
Most companies that pay a straight rate (non-tiered) are paying 4 cpl or less for VR and around 7 cpl typing. Most are also switching all work over to VR if they haven't done so already, so keep in mind that the VR rate is going to be making up the majority of your pay. The quality of VR depends on the quality of the dictation and which software is being used, but the overall quality is quite poor. Many MTs are struggling to produce the same amount of lines they were with straight typing. Some will claim to be doing quite well with VR, but they are unquestionably in the minority. The switch over to VR is what killed this profession. It changed the nature of the work from tolerable if not interesting to tedious monotony and cut the pay in half, essentially a transfer of wealth upward, as all of the gains have gone to those at the top. You can try your hand with a new company and hope to be placed on great accounts, which is the only way to produce more with VR than you would with typing, but you certainly won't be making anywhere near what you were with that 15 cpl job. Most of us are now looking at minimum wage or a few dollars above.

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