Medical Transcription Wage and Hour Law
Our Firm maintains a significant nationwide practice focused on the medical transcription industry, primarily addressing wage and hour pay practices through our St. Louis, Missouri office. This includes addressing issues involving overtime, minimum wage and other types of wage payment disputes and calculations.
Addressing Medical Transcription Pay Practices
Commonly, medical transcriptionists are compensated per line of transcription or editing completed. There is a misconception in the health care industry that medical transcriptionists compensated in this way are not entitled to overtime, but this misconception has begun to wane. However, disputes continue to arise as to whether medical transcriptionists paid by the line are entitled to overtime pay at a rate of time and half the regular rate of pay for hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. Further, payment of piece rate wages has led to disputes over timekeeping and hourly wage rate conversion calculations.
The United States Department of Labor (“DOL”) generally recognizes that medical transcriptionists are non-exempt employees for purposes of overtime compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The DOL has maintained an industry focus on hospitals and transcription companies with regard to proper recordkeeping and development of make-up-to-minimum measures to ensure per-line or production-based compensation schemes do not result in minimum wage violations. Policies and practices, including those as to timekeeping, overtime and minimum wage compliance with the FLSA, remain pivotal to wage and hour compliance in the field of medical transcription.
Federal and state law wage and hour lawsuits filed across the country involving medical transcriptionists are commonly filed as class actions and FLSA collective actions. Such claims often address company policies that seek to only pay transcriptionists for “hands on keyboard” and/or impose other limitations on time recording. These claims typically assert a failure to pay for activities which are integral to the accurate transcription and editing of lines, but excluded by the employer from compensable time. These activities include verifying patient and physician information; communicating with supervisors or team leaders via email and through internal messaging systems; ensuring the accuracy of medical terms; communicating with technical support; time flexing; and being required to remain on call for extended periods of time.
Contact Us
To address wage and hour issues specific to the medical transcription industry, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at 314-645-4100 or by email at kevin@dolleylaw.com.