B. Krultz & Associates
N10334 Sidney Avenue
Greenwood, WI 54437
Phone:  715-267-6750
e-mail:  pkbk@badger.tds.net
General and medical transcription services,

word processing, office support services

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What is the transcription turnaround time?

     Turnaround can be anywhere from the same day to a week or more for very large projects.  Factors affecting turnaround time include the size of your project, audio quality, audio file download times, the current work schedule, and so on.  Customers are scheduled on a first-come, first-serve basis.  We must have your audio recordings in our office to add you to the work schedule.  Please contact us for current information on availability and projected estimates on turnaround times. 
     
  2. How do I send my recordings to you?
  1. How much will it cost to transcribe my interview? 

    This answer only applies to interviews and not single-person dictation.  Calculate the total number of minutes of your digital recording and multiply that by the minute rate to arrive at your final cost.

    Lines:  A few people have asked how many lines or even pages will be produced in a specific amount of time and the answer to that is it varies depending on the person.  If one person usually produces four pages in nine minutes, that person is likely to continue to produce that in all work, but another person may only get out two pages and that will be their consistent production.  That difference is not totally due to rate of speech, complexity of vocabulary, or making corrections to the text either. 
     
  2. Do you sell dictation equipment or recording devices?
    No.  If you are looking for new recording equipment or are replacing existing equipment, we recommend digital recorders over cassette recorders.  The brand doesn't matter, but the audio quality and file size of your audio recording does matter.  Also, avoid buying recorders with nonstandard file formats because very few people will be able to transcribe those formats.

    Audio file size is pretty important.  The audio file size matters because your e-mail account may have limits on how many MB you can send as a file attachment.  Huge files may take you a long time to upload or for a transcriptionist to download.  Some free or low cost file storage sites set limits on how much can be stored or downloaded, or if you are using a rented storage site like we use, the costs increase considerably for both the storage and for the bandwidth used in uploads and downloads.  Yes, some storage sites or file transfer sites charge by how much is parked there, sitting there and doing nothing, for the amount you uploaded, and for each download. 

    The smallest audio file is probably .dss followed roughly by .wma, .msv and .mp3.  The largest file sizes are the .wav audio files.  There are different 'flavors' for some of these file formats so this is not a fast rule but a generalization.
     
  3. What is the cost per page?

    We have never used page rates because a page can have too many variables such as font size, very short lines, bulleted lists, and things a customer could end up paying for when it wasn't included in the page.  We just use character counts and, again, there is basically no way to really estimate how many characters will end up on a page. 
     
  4. Is satellite connection fast, expensive?
    Since we are in a rural location, many of our customers are interested in this and have asked questions.  The monthly fee is roughly equivalent to what we had been paying for a second phone line plus our dial-up internet access account.  We had an initial satellite equipment charge for the dish and modem itself, but it was less than what you would pay for a small television set.  The upload and download speeds for web pages aren't real fast although graphics load faster, but when it comes to uploading or downloading files or software it is very fast.  An audio file that used to take three hours to download on dial-up now takes six minutes to download.  The satellite is always connected to the internet, unlike dial-up.  Bad weather occasionally will temporarily shut down the satellite system.  I believe most of the satellite providers have fair access agreements, which means they can and will lower transmission speeds the more bandwidth you use during a specific time period. 

    I recently had an opportunity to use DSL in a large city at a private residence and found it was about the same speed as my satellite system. I have also used a public DSL system in a town with a population of around 20,000 and that system was incredibly fast, instant.   
     
  5. Where are you located?

    We are located in rural central Wisconsin.  Transcriptionists and/or other independent subcontractors, if applicable, may be located in Wisconsin or elsewhere within the United States. We prefer to have independent subcontractors located within a reasonable distance of this office because we may have deliveries of items that are not electronic in nature, and we may need to phone subcontractors on occasion. 

Additional information

We must have your audio recordings in our possession before we can add you to the work schedule.

Transcript and document encryption is available upon request.  Encrypted documents are self-extracting, so you will not need any software to open them, just the password.

I use independent subcontractors, which is normal for remote transcription services, and I am also an independent subcontractor when I work for other transcription houses and clients.  Independent subcontractors, by legal description, are not employees.  I cannot tell my own independent subcontractors what tools to use to perform their work, how to do the work, when to do it, and so on.  I can set criteria for the finished product including a deadline and for confidentiality and things of that nature.  Although I cannot request or mandate that a transcriptionist utilize specific equipment or software, we do often share ideas and advice, even on professional software, and even share things like word lists for a project because all of us, subcontractors and customers alike, benefit from this mutual cooperation. 

Files To Go file storage information

We rent space from Files to Go for customer audio files.  Customers do not need to open their own account to send us files; our customers are covered under our account. 

The Files to Go site allows customers to submit audio files to us that are too large to be sent via e-mail file attachment.  There are no file size limitations on Files To Go.  There are no restrictions on types of files that can be uploaded to Files To Go.  An optional encryption tool is available on the site.

Other customers cannot see your name or your files.  Barb Krultz is the only person who can see the customer names and their files.  Subcontractors can only see customer files that are assigned to them, and they do not have access to and cannot see anyone else's recordings, files, or names.

All customers and subcontractors must use a password and user ID to access the site.  In most cases, customers are given upload privileges only.  If you make a mistake and upload the wrong file, contact pkbk@badger.tds.net and Barb will delete the incorrectly uploaded file.

Audio files are retained on the storage site until transcription and proofing are completed. 

Note that the demo on Files To Go is misleading because it shows you the screen from an administrator's perspective.  Only the administrator can see all customers and all their files.  Other customers will not see your name or your files.

How can I reduce my transcription expenses and increase accuracy?

  1. Use a digital recording device.
  2. Place the recorder or microphone closest to your guest or individually mic guests.
  3. Eliminate background noise including wind from outdoor recording, air-conditioners, and fans.
  4. Pause when uncontrollable background noises occur such as sirens, airplanes, barking dogs, etc.
  5. Tell the transcriptionist where start and stop points are if you have sections you do not want transcribed.
  6. In interviews, the host should remain silent until a question or comment is required.  That means, no "ah-huhs" or other habitual comments.
  7. Restate or rephrase a question or comment if you believe it is not audible. 
  8. The host should control the situation by preventing multiple people from speaking at the same time.  You may have to ask them to individually restate what they said, or you can restate what they said.
  9. For tape cassette recorders, use brand new tapes no longer than 60 minutes total length (30 minutes each side).  Please record on only one side of tapes to avoid bleed-through, which results in fuzzy audio.
  10. Provide correct spelling of last names, names of businesses, street names, foreign terms, etc.  Please clarify initials for abbreviations, etc.
  11. Identify primary speakers.  At least give us a first name.

Speech recognition

No one has asked yet, but here's a little information on speech recognition and my experience with it.

  1. It seems to work fine for single-person dictation if the terminology and punctuation aren't too complex. 
  2. It is extremely important to correct errors made by the speech recognition program or the program will think those errors are correct and continue to make that error. 
  3. The program isn't as smart as a human and doesn't know what you are thinking.  It may not always be able to tell if you want the word 'won' or 'one' or 'their' or 'there' or 'to' or 'too' or 'two.' 
  4. It cannot transcribe any work from customers' recordings even if they are the only person speaking because the software can only recognize one voice, my voice.  Each customer's voice would have to be trained in order for the software to recognize their voice, but it wouldn't solve the problem of how do you correct words or add new vocabulary. There is also a limit on how many new voices can be trained without have to repurchase or re-license the software, which is pretty expensive.   Echo dictation is like riding a unicycle.  Some people can do it, other's can't.  I'm one of those who can't. 
  5. It is actually faster and I have a more accurate transcript if I just type it up instead of using the speech recognition software.  One reason is we cover a wide diversity of topics among our customers.  It would be physically impossible to input all the words, names, we come across.  When there is repetitive text, I use my text expander as much as possible.  I think you need to use what works for you, but at least sincerely make an attempt to try new technology as it may help. 
  6. There are lots of things the software cannot do like insert correct punctuation for complicated sentence structure.  As I implied earlier, the vocabularies that come with the software are pretty impressive but have never been adequate to cover my needs or my customers' varied topics, the people or places in their projects. 
  7. It is easier and faster to share vocabulary, new words and names, with subcontractors by putting those new words into a text expander glossary.  The problem is encouraging typists to use a text expander.  To many rely on auto correct.
  8. The speech recognition software is excellent for proofing documents typed from other typed documents.  The software will read out loud what I have typed and I can compare it to the print source document.

Security

  1. The home office of B. Krultz and Associates is HIPAA compliant for medical transcription.
  2. Both medical and general transcription are considered confidential. 
  3. Encryption of documents is available.  We offer two different encryption options provided by different software companies.  You do not need software to open the encrypted files, but will need the password.  Note:  This is not the same encryption package offered by our storage site provider.
  4. Our computers are protected by firewalls and subscription security services, which are updated frequently by the vendor.  Incoming e-mail is scanned by our software as are downloads.  We do regular computer scans.  Incoming CDs or DVDs are scanned.  Our router is password protected. 
  5. Our file storage site is password protected.  Additional encryption is available through this site during uploading and downloading of files.  Each customer has their own user ID and password.  Only the administrator, Barb Krultz, has access to all files placed in storage.  Subcontractors (also access using their own user ID and password) are only allowed access to customer files that are assigned to them for transcription purposes; they do not have access to other customer files nor can they see the names of other customers or their files.  Customers cannot see the names of other customers or files of other customers.
  6. We reserve the right to direct customers to other file storage sites or upload or download sites.
  7. We reserve the right to direct customers, or ask them to utilize alternative e-mail addresses to either contact us or for use in sending e-mail file attachments.  Reasons for this include preventing overload of one e-mail box, distribution/sorting by category/criteria, security issues, and so on.  Your incoming e-mail never goes outside the administration of B. Krultz and Associates. 

Backups

Backups are done on a regular basis.  We retain copies of customer files for an extended period of time.  Customers have had computer disasters and we have provided copies of their files free of charge. 

  1. Archived files are backed up to removable media in-house. 
  2. Archived files must be retained until:
    1. Project is completed.
    2. Payment is satisfied.
    3. Text expander files are created.

Perks for our customers

Customers may request an advertising blurb on our web site for any work we have performed for them. So if we have transcribed interviews for a book or magazine article or something else, let us know.  

 

http://www.mid-wi.com/transcribe