Voodoo Line Counting Exposed
Although it should be pretty straightforward to estimate your costs for transcription I have found that it has been very difficult to do a direct comparison without validating numbers. To make a complex comparison simple I will only look at billing by the line and not compare that to other methods of billing (page, word etc.). Generally speaking there are three ways to bill by the line. 1) The standard which is 65 characters per line which will include spaces and punctuation. 2) Basic (Gross) Method which counts each carriage return as a line. 3) Microsoft Word which uses an embedded line word counter similar to the basic method. The differences in costs of these three measures can be as different as an apple to an orange. Let me give you an example....
Emdat, Incorporated
857 Collins Blvd.
Covington, Louisiana 70533
- AAMT standard calculates this address as 1 line
- Basic (Gross) calculates this address as 3 lines
- Word calculates this address as 3 lines
To validate what you are paying per line you first must verify what you are paying for an individual document. Then you should compare the cost of your document to what is being proposed. Only then can you do an apple to apple comparison. "Trust but Verify" was a favorite saying of Ronald Reagan.
I can tell you that I was told by one client that they were paying 12 cents per line. Knowing this was a very competitive price, I wanted to take the conservative route and validate that indeed I could save them money. Once I received copies of 3 transcriptions and analyzed the line counts I was able to compare line counting method with the 65 character standard. According to 65 character standard they were paying 20 cents a line. Nothing illegal at all in how a line is represented although one method is 60% higher in cost than the other. I know some articles have exposed some fraudulent billing practices but this should not be able to happen if your transcription platform offers excellent reporting tools.
