By Emily Ford
eford@salisburypost.com
SALISBURY — Today is the last day of work for 69 Novant Health employees who transcribe medical records for doctors at Rowan Regional Medical Center and other hospitals.
Novant, which owns Rowan Regional, has outsourced its medical transcription division to Atlanta-based Transcend Services.
Transcend offered jobs to all the Novant employees. Some took the offer but will earn about half as much as they did with Novant, several employees said.
“They were forcing the Transcend jobs on us,” said an employee who refused to take the offer. “But they would be doing our old work for a mere pittance of what we were paid.”
The employees interviewed by the Post asked not to be identified because they fear retaliation for sharing internal Novant communications. Four of those affected live in Salisbury.
The transcriptionists, who work from home and live throughout the state, were given a 24-hour notice to attend a mandatory meeting March 15 at the Holiday Inn in Salisbury. During the meeting, where employees said they feared another round of pay cuts, Novant announced it was outsourcing their jobs.
“Everybody was in shock,” said the employee, who has worked for Novant for nearly 20 years. “It was totally unexpected.”
The employees had four days to decide whether to accept jobs with Transcend, which takes over medical transcription for Novant on Sunday.
Another employee said she will earn four cents a line with Transcend, down from nine cents a line with Novant. She also will lose incentive pay offered by Novant, she said.
After more than two decades as a Novant employee, she said she earned roughly $54,000 last year. With Transcend, she predicts she will earn $25,000.
“I have a mortgage and a kid in college,” she said.
She said she took the job because she needed health insurance and was afraid she would not qualify for unemployment benefits if she was offered an outsourced job and turned it down because it paid less.
Novant will pay unused paid time off but did not offer severance packages, employees said.
Employees said they received conflicting information from Novant officials and the Employment Security Commission about whether they would qualify for unemployment. They said Novant told them one thing during the meeting but gave different information later.
“We didn’t know what to believe,” the employee said. “It was scary. I have to have insurance on my children.”
Employees can file for unemployment, Jeanne Mayer, Novant media and public relations manager, said in a statement.
Novant will provide accurate factual information to the Employment Security Commission but does not intend to contest any decision of the commission, Mayer said.
Novant evaluated medical transcription for months before choosing to partner with Transcend, a company whose sole focus is transcription services, Marilyn Gilliam, Novant vice president of talent acquisition and retention, said in a statement.
“This move will allow Novant to attain timely and accurate transcription services and to reduce expenses without compromising patient care,” Gilliam said. “In some cases, our transcription will be done even faster than it is today.”
Novant strives to find ways to reduce expenses without impacting patient care, she said, and continually assesses how to best manage resources and processes to improve the level of care while keeping it affordable for patients.
The 69 employees affected had the ability to transfer to Transcend without interruption in employment or benefits, Gilliam said.
“Throughout this transition, our goal was to provide future employment opportunities for our employees, much like we have done when we have partnered with other companies for specialized services,” she said.
Mayer said Novant has more than 1,600 vacancies company-wide, and transcriptionists who did not take jobs with Transcend have the opportunity to find something other than transcription work within the system or elsewhere.
With tools like voice recognition and the electronic health record, the health care industry has less need for traditional medical transcription services, she said.
At the March 15 meeting at the Holiday Inn, employees were given limited time to decide whether to take a job with Transcend because Novant wanted to ensure there was not an interruption in employment or benefits, Mayer said.
“It takes time to put those services in place for new employees, and Transcend wanted to ensure the transition was seamless,” she said.
After the meeting, Novant employees learned that a rival company, Nuance Communications, had purchased Transcend for $300 million.
The deal, which is expected to close in about six months, makes some Novant employees who are taking Transcend jobs nervous.
“My job might be in jeopardy again,” one said.
Novant and Transcend representatives at the meeting should have been up front about the acquisition by Nuance, employees said.
“My biggest fear is that they are going to learn our work, pay us four cents a line, and once they get it down pat, off to India it goes and we are out,” she said.
Transcend did not reply to a request for comment.
Mayer said Novant is not aware of any plans to outsource Novant’s medical transcription overseas.
“Since all of our employees were offered roles with Transcend, we anticipate our transcription work will be conducted locally,” she said.
Although Transcend is paying less, employees said the company has been more responsive than Novant to questions about the arrangement.
“They have been wonderful to us,” an employee said. “They answer our emails.”
The employee who did not join Transcend said Novant transcriptionists had two weeks to close their careers with little assistance from Novant.
“We had no help wrapping up anything to leave the company,” she said. “The bosses were deadly silent. We had to beg them for an answer.”
Contact reporter Emily Ford at 704-797-4264.