Counting Lines and Pages in Medical Transcription

Achieving a standard of measurement in medical transcription has been a topic of discussion for over a decade. Unfortunately, there are still large discrepancies between methods of charging -- and paying -- for work. In fact, the only reliably constant factor is that rates and methods of measuring work are negotiable.

In order to negotiate, an understanding of the "lingo" is required:

A Keystroke is any stroke of a key - including the space bar, carriage return, underscore, bold, etc.

A Gross Character is any letter, number, symbol or function key necessary for the final appearance and content of a document, including the space bar, carriage return, underscore, bold, and any character contained within a macro, header or footer.

A Net Character refers to printed characters only. Net characters can be estimated at approximately 83% of gross characters.

A Gross Line is any printed line that has one or more characters. Using this definition, a line with one word in it is considered a line.

A Net Line is a defined line length that includes a predetermined number of gross characters (55, 60, 65, 70, 75, etc.).   Say a document has 1000 gross characters. Using a 65-character line count, this document would have 15.38 lines (1000 divided by 65). Some services calculate net lines as 70% of gross lines.

A Net Word is defined as five (5) alpha/numeric characters plus one(1) space for a total of six (6) characters.

A Recorded Minute refers to the length of the dictated recording. Some services will charge twice the recorded minute as their transcription time rate, some will charge up to four times the recorded minutes when measuring transcription time. Others will charge an average number of gross characters (about 780) per minute of recorded dictation. One variable that can make a tremendous difference when using the recorded minute method of measuring work is that all dictation is not recorded equally. A poor quality recording (as compared to a good recording) can easily double the time it takes to transcribe it.