DICT8 Plus (new November 2022)

[Whitestar55]

Hi, Here we go again, anyone else set up a new thread yet? Hope to find everyone 🙂

@Carosel2@Chrissols @Gally123 @danblack87 @TypoQueen1 @deflatedbirthday @joewe41 @Lunnuni @nomadchild @Australia25 @ElleBee56 @Newinmarch22 @deewu @Indiepops @Frazzledbynature

@Whitestar55 I'm on a different PC today, is this the new thread, thank you for adding me 😊

Thank you.

I wondered when the old one would finish, thanks for the tag @Whitestar55
I'm here to ask about when you mentioned audio dictation and having a good pair of speakers. I'm not here to use it for dict8, i was wondering what make of speakers you have. You read reviews on Amazon but I don't even trust them anymore.
p.s i did try one with Word dictate to listen to the dictation to save my weary wrists once but it wouldn't pick it up. :)

@Whitestar55 - 👏👏OMG! where have you all been! Have I missed much? I thought it had stopped! Thank you for notifying me. Not working so much for Dict8 at mo as there is no flipping work and what comes in is utterly diabolical. It's disgusting I feel so sorry for the poor patients. I even started to master the RTX patients but the decent ones of them now have been taken off. They must still use this Trust as the rubbish coming in are from this Trust with the RTX numbers and other newbies who again (and I don't blame their secretaries) but the letters are obviously being left to be uploaded to us muggings at Dict8. I have been with Tpro for a while and I can earn decent money now I have got used to it. I only had one hospital but now I have three, which is enabling me to maintain a steady income. I dont work full time, probs about 3 to 4 hours a day and the best thing with them is there is always weekend work. They are lovely clear dictations, albeit very Irish! but you do get used to their lovely accent and if you manage to concentrate on certain docs that you like then its a doddle once you get to know the different layouts. That's the only bug bare is remembering which hospital does which to me. I can earn a better rate per hour with them. I used to earn on a good day £5-7/hr with Dict8 (and that was if decentish work was coming in), and would have to sit for at least 6/7 hrs. I would earn at best £400 a month but in recent months it has been roughly between £50 and £70 for the whole month and that is sat nearly 6hrs plus a day. It makes sense I work with Tpro now as I can earn easily £12/hr plus because the work is tenfold and much easier. I aim to earn £130 a week with Tpro. I can get about £500 plus a month but if I stuck to it could easily earn their target which is around £770 where you get a bonus on top which I think is 10% extra but dont quote me on that, but like I said earlier, I don't work full time as I have grandchildren commitments amongst other things, and the Team lead's are brilliant. They are very appreciative what you do even if you do a mistake their advice is always given in a kind manner to the point they even sound as though they are apologising they have to tell you that something is wrong. I always get catch ups with my Team lead who sends messages to say how well I am doing and that they are really appreciative of my work and even ask about my family etc. I feel as though I have a little pen friend so to speak with her. Good luck to anyone who still gets the work with Dict8 but I'm more than happy with Tpro now. Why not try and give them a call. I keep looking on Dict8 now and again but when there are only 3 or so letters on and very poor dictation they dont get a look in now

Still not received a cheque from last month - contacted Dict8 today, one line reply . Cheque issued - contact your sorting office why not delivered!!
As if the sorting office will help. Obviously have not cashed cheque as not received so am going to write again tomorrow and insist they send another cheque and cancel the previous one. Not rocket science - they really do not care at all.So £370 short right now

@Australia25 - when my cheque did not arrive they issued a second one after about 2 weeks. I think the post office allows 11 normal working days before classing something as lost in the post. You can go through post office complaints but you will need the details from DICT8 as to the date the cheque was posted and the address of the letterbox or whether collected from the office and the franking details, but they do compensate if they cannot find the cheque. Obviously with all the postal strikes DICT8 have had a lot of delayed cheques - they should consider electronic payment if they do not want to pay out replacements for stuff lost in the post.

@Whitestar55 your info about TPro is really helpful. I really hope they take me on. Won't apply until New Year as my pension doesn't start until March, unfortunately not enough to compensate for my NHS job but if I can top up with TPro will be fantastic. Working in NHS is really stressful now, think I'm too old for it all!!

@Whitestar55 thanks for tagging me onto this thread and thanks for setting it up. An update on my cheque that the bank declined due to the date being illegible (paid in via the app). The cheque was reissued with a suggestion (via email) that it's paid into the bank and not via the app which I'm intending to do once I get a new paying in book. The app is useful as it takes less time to clear and is more convenient as it now means a trip into town to the bank or pay in via the Post Office which adds an extra day to reach my account. Ah well, c'est la vie, at least I have a new cheque. @carosel2 I agree with everything you've said about TPro. Their set up is professional and the team leaders are great as is the feedback which I like as they share the letter we've edited, with queries, and what the text should be, rather than being left totally in the dark as to what the feedback relates to. I also like the fact that you can look at previous letters which is really useful if you can't make out what the doctor is saying. @Australia25 I hope you get your cheque sorted out. I was left with the feeling that they didn't really appreciate having to reissue my cheque but am grateful they did. I still can't believe that paying by cheque is cost effective but then what do I know? I really need to stay up-to-date with this thread now. It took me a few weeks to catch up with the last few threads!

@ElleBee56 - Yes they are very good and you can actually use their text replacement that acts like auto-text on word where you can add certain phrases that are repeated and names, drugs etc to save you typing out all time which speeds things up, plus if my letters are follow ups they are usually same diagnoses and medications so I just copy and paste from a previous letter and add anything that is different, but it does certainly speed things up enormously

@Whitestar55 - yes give it a try! you can always keep with Dict8 but once you get into the VR you will be surprised just how easy it becomes and if you fancy typing a little (which I do sometimes when a doctor ums and arrs a bit) as its easier to type from scratch and it gives you a bit of variety. I always keep the text dictated below my typing just in case I don't understand anything through their accent and then once typed up, delete the VR. They really are a lovely company.

Thanks for adding me into new thread. It's good having others to talk to about all of this. As others have said even with dictators who are difficult to make out there are usually past letters on Tpro to refer to and if not there's always plenty of work to find something that's easier to make out. You'll not be stuck. Not having to run to bank with cheque was also a lovely change. They are so much nicer to work with

@TypoQueen1 It was actually @carosel2 who gave the information about Tpro, as well as some of the others on here. I don't work for Tpro, but I'm definitely considering doing so if they'll have me.

I find typing for DICT8 pretty exhausting due to the fact that a significant percentage of time is taken re-listening and guessing, Googling and Note Boxing, and without the aid of autotext, previous letters, patient names etc, all of which is unpaid for time, as you all know and it = full time work for part time pay at the end of the day!

I received another message from them apologising as the original reply was quite abrupt. I did mention this would not happen if they used BACS. Their reply was they have thousands of transcribers (!!) and people often forget to inform them of change of bank or address details!!! As if anyone would!!
Said I will wait until Saturday and if no sign of cheque then they will cancel it and issue a new one which they could have offered in the first place !!

@Whitestar55 thanks for the reply, back to the drawing speaker board lol.

shocking about the lost cheque incident, its very worrying for a company to act like this especially when run by medical staff. Found an article online interview with the founding member!

@Frazzledbynature I've seen that interview too. It's more likely they found a niche that would give them a passive income. If they were really concerned about the delayed clinical letters and impact on patients, they would have striven to improve the situation in-house.

Reading between the lines I would change the word utilizes to 'exploits' 😞
'DICT8 is a medical transcription company that utilizes the skills and experience of UK based and trained medical transcribers'.

'Changing the culture of secretarial support services within the NHS has been difficult. We have enabled secretaries reposition themselves from a majority transcription role into one more akin to a PA role (i.e. force one band 4 med sec to look after 3 or more consultants reducing the number of band 4s, whilst down-banding the rest to a 3 forced to carry out monotonous tasks all day). This in turn has enabled a much better patient engagement between the medical world and patients' (most likely via the answerphone).

Since when was a med sec role a majority transcription role?

Another question about T-pro, who are the Team Leaders? Are they also transcribers/proofreaders working remotely, or are they office based employees?

@Whitestar55 - my team lead conducted my interview via video link when I first started which was good because you can put a face to a message as they can you. I was nervous abt this at first but she was so lovely. She lives abroad and works from home. She checked all my work to start with until.I got the hang of it then when I got the hang of it told me to send any queries to QC and they would correct and let me know of any advice in future so I think there is an inhouse QC team that randomly check our performance now and again and obviously pick up any queries. I know my team lead types sometimes if letters on a particular specialty is getting bogged down and she helps out trying to get letters out on time. But not really sure of the whole dynamics on how the company works on a whole. I can only speak from my experience of what I know.

@carosel2 Thanks again for the info, it's helpful. I'm glad it's working out for you.

Forgot to ask - do you need to provide references?

@carosel2 are you still paid on the higher Tpro rate before they dropped it?

@Gally123 - ?? I was never paid on the higher rate, I wished I was!😄 it was someone else on this thread that was who got it and was similar to Dict8 rate if im not mistaken, im paid at 0.00077 per character. I asked if I could be once as I told them Id heard of others who were and they said no because it was VR but said if I typed a million characters I would get the bonus which Ive never suceeded in doing yet lol

@Whitestar55 - i didnt send any but they knew I worked for Dict8 and from my CV saw I clearly worked for NHS as a medical secretary for over 20 years plus before retiring, i put referees on my CV so not sure if they took any up. I just did a typing test as others have and had the briefing and training on video about a week later from being contacted to agree to the rates they were giving me

@carosel2 - I just wondered, I knew you had signed up about the same time as I had, and I had been offered the higher rate first and then when the process was put on hold for lockdown mid typing test it moved to the lower rate. I do manage to get the bonus now most months, which we had to fight for. Just a shame to think I missed out by a day or two as I had had my zoom interview, but these things happen. But I do think that people who do the same job should get paid the same wages; it is a bit annoying to think there are people doing the VR who are paid at the higher rate as they have access to that as well as the typing.

@carosel2 Thanks again. I might apply if DICT8 dries up further.