Medical Transcriptionist Salary

The medical transcriptionist salary is trending upward - slowly - but still affected by massive changes in the industry. If we didn't laugh, we'd cry! So enjoy.
What is happening to the medical transcription profession? As an MT, I feel that we are being bombarded by massive changes in the industry - voice recognition, offshoring, electronic records - and we're standing helplessly by as these changes threaten our jobs and, more specifically, our paychecks. Of course, MTs don't actually have to pay bills and raise a family, they just work for fun, so providing a living wage is not really something the companies who hire them need to be concerned about. So I decided to come up with ways for companies to save money on transcription.
1. For MTs paid by the report, don't pay for linked reports. After all, no one actually has two hands and two feet - that's just a myth.
2. When paying by the report, don't pay for long reports. We enjoy typing those so much, we'd actually do it for free. In fact, give us all long reports, and let the cherry-pickers at the hospital have a break from the long ones.
3. For MTs paid by the line, don't for spaces. Spaces are not actually required, do not involve any "work", and actually provide health benefits to the employee, who gains extra muscles in their thumbs, thus improving fitness.
4. Don't invest in a clear dictation system. Those staticky recordings provide more health benefits to the employee, who gains extra muscles in their ankle as they rewind/play for the 100th time, thus improving fitness.
5. Don't invest in a good voice recognition system. After all, we don't actually type when we "edit" the nonsense that VR puts out. Everyone knows it's a simple matter of reading along. And, of course, everyone believes the vendor when they say their product produces 98% accuracy. (Oh look, is that the emperor? And is he not wearing any clothes?)
6. Send all work off shore. After all, it's a global economy, we've worked hard to make the United States one of the richest nations on earth, and we should share our wealth with the rest of the world. Don’t worry about the American MT - they can always find jobs at WalMart. Also, don't worry about the offshore MT not knowing English. Third world countries assure us that they all speak English and, after all, why shouldn't we believe them? And, don't worry about security. Just because HIPAA, which is a U.S. law, can't be enforced outside of our country, that's not your problem. In fact, offshoring gives an additional economic trickle-down effect to terrorists and identity thieves, who would only have to get a job at a transcription company in Pakistan to further their careers.
7. Don't pay for any reports containing the number 3. Doing so will save tens of dollars.
8. Don't pay for any reports with blanks in them. If we can't type every word, we don't need to get paid for any of it.
9. Don't pay holiday pay unless we are actually tied to our computer for the entire holiday shift and are available to type the 3 jobs that come in so that we can "work" 8 hours and get paid for 2. (Family always comes second.)
10. Come up with more extra work that doesn't involve an actual completed report so that we can be considered more productive employees. This would include looking up addresses, correcting patient demographics, changing incorrect patient ID numbers in the Dictaphone system, reading through 50 pages of account specifics (be sure to change them daily so that we have more productive work to do that doesn't actually involve typing), constant emails, to name but a few. Any help we give our fellow MTs, like listening to an unclear word, is paid for by karma and not in your budget, so you won't save any money there.
11. Don't pay for the extra equipment and phone services we need. After all, does Microsoft actually provide their programmers with a computer and a phone?
12. Hire a monkey. The rumor is they don't need to be paid at all, except in a box of bananas a week. As for the need to actually know medical terminology, well....you get what you pay for.
Medical transcription pay is not really a laughing matter when we have to pay our bills,

taken from

http://www.medical-transcription-and-you.com/medical-transcriptionist-salary.html