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I'm wondering if anyone is using the online BOS 3rd edition and if you like it? 

All comments appreciated.  - P.S. The company I work for uses these rules so the info is pertinent ... and I have no former editions.

Thanks. 

Our company has told us the company we use for VR wants to help us to edit faster, supposedly helping us to use the keys instead of the mouth. Now this seems sorta odd to me. I am wondering if the VR is not as satisfactory as was thought and perhaps the MTs are not really able to get reports out as fast as was thought and not eliminating the need for the MTs? Any thoughts on this?

PRESS RELEASE:

 **** Please post URLs, not actual copyrighted materials. ****

Which is the correct way, one space or two spaces after a period in medical transcription?

Thanks for any help in advance.

I know there is a similar post further down the board, but I am in a similar situation....how DO you figure out what to charge your client?  I think charging what you made as an IC and then adding a few pennies makes sense to me.  Do other MTSOs think that is reasonable?  If there is no way to know what the previous transcription service charged, do you just ask what the CLIENT thinks is reasonable and go from there?

Also, lets assume that the MTSO (very small, of course) has a remote phone-in system...how can the MTSO figure this into their price?  Do you bill them separately for phone charges  or just tack it onto the cpl?  If so, that makes figuring the cpl even more complicated. 

Any wisdom from other MTSOs would be MUCH appreciated!

Anyone out there use Directway satellite high-speed internet to type into a Meditech system? How well does it work and how much of a problem was it to set it all up?  Thanks for looking.

I am on the 7th report for this doctor, all between 8 and 10 minutes long. She has eaten, smacked, talked with food in her mouth, and crunched through every report!

I have three more to go, opened up this most recent one, and the first thing I hear is crunch crunch smack! I realize doctors are busy and need to multitask but oh-- my-- gosh! If I could get a solid minute of dictation out of her without hearing it, I could be happy again!

thanks for letting me stop and scream for a minute!

Right now it is just after 1 a.m.  I have been paged for the THIRD TIME tonight for "stat" reports from a hospital, and that's just tonight.  I have been reduced to tears from sleep deprivation, I have diarrhea and shakes, and I really really really want to tell my employer to sod off.

When do you think is enough enough as far as knowing it's time to move on?  Is this normal in medical transcription--to be on call for hospitals?  Yes, I do get paid extra for taking call, but then the piddly financial 'reward' completely negates itself because it interferes not only with my personal life, but then my professional life, as I am a complete basket case the following work day and can't 'put out,'  thereby inciting the wrath of the bean counters when my lines aren't there.  There is no schedule flexibility even though I take call...I won't be able to fall back asleep now because I had to slap myself awake in order to make myself conscious enough to type a 45-minute long report, and I'm not allowed to adjust my schedule tomorrow to accomodate a nap.

I am not a machine and I don't think the company gets that.  How my other coworkers do it I have no idea.  Oh wait...they don't...they quit as well! 

I just shot off an ornery e-mail to my poor boss stating 'take me off pager or I quit,' so we'll see if I have a job tomorrow.  I think I am displaying true self-destructive behavior here and is royally stinks.  I'm better than that, but I think I have been officially driven over the edge.  Sorry for the rant but I am truly fried.  I'm going to go lie in bed and stare at the ceiling now while the song 'another one bites the dust' replays itself over and over in my head.

I've been asked 3 times really recently by new moms about "becoming a Transcriptionist so I can stay home with my baby." What do you tell people who ask this? Yes, I did work from home from the time my twins were 1 until they were in kindergarden, BUT I 5 years of MT experience BEFORE I worked at home. Yes, I found a great small company and made good money. I was lucky. The first time out I found this company, had 1 doctor, after a few months he learned I was home with young twins and was accommodating etc.

One of my friends who asked has a medical background and knows terminology, etc so her asking did not seem unreasonable to me. The one who is a clerk at a drug store, has no medical background at all, and isn't the brightest bulb in the box was offended when I said I would check out our local community college because they have a great MT program. She quoted the TV ads where she can make $50,000 with a home program so why would she go to school. I gave her a couple of websites and wished her luck.

How do you respond when people tell you they've decided to become an MT so they can work at home and want advice?

Thanks,
Jenn

I am very concerned because just recently I started getting pitting edema in my ankles.  They are extremely bad.  I can't wear socks it is so bad.  I don't have a clue what could be causing it.  I did have 3 kidney stones last year that I don't think ever passed out of my bladder but I have no more trouble out of it.  Then no other problems.  I dont go to the restroom hardly at all, which has me worried.  I have tried Lasix which worked but I get scared because I feel dehydrated.  Mouth is dry, etc.  It has me worried for DVT or CHF.  I am only 38.  

Any ideas what else it could be or if I am needing to go to ER ASAP.  I dont have insurance so I dont want to go if it is just from sitting at the computer all day and is normal. 

tia,

Sounds like - Reveals a type II scanned female with a shallow scar over the right eyebrow.

Is this correct?

TIA

I posted this under another post by mistake - - oops!  Here we go again.  I have a possible position as an IC with a service that utilizes ChartScript.  I hear it is a Word-based program; so, does this mean I can import my autocorrect/autotext entries?

School starts in a week here !  I am already planning our next family vacation for next summer (always helps to have a plan so I can save the funds to do this)- We are not "outdoor" people, so camping and skiing are out.  Has anyone taken an extended train vacation with sleeper cars ? I have two boys ages 15 and 11, and wondered if anyone had traveled the "American Oriental Express"?

Is it HIPAA compliant to send reports via email if they are password protected, or does it have to be certified email?   

hto seail

paint your house a funky color. I'm thinking I missed a huge sale at Home Depot on paint because my neighbors are going crazy with the colors. Yes, I understand home depot and Lowe's screws up paint and you can get the mixed up colors very cheap but geez. My neighborhood is going crazy with weird paint colors on their houses. Two months ago someone painted their house bright green with bright pink trim, then came the peach house with green trim, bright yellow house followed by bright blue house with the leftover yellow trim. New house being built across the street is all burnt orange including the fence. They even painted the driveway burnt orange and not UT vols orange. Now my neighbor is painting hers bright green. It's not a bad neighborhood here in Central Florida and the houses here run from 150s to 300s but these colors are horrendous. I think if I put my house up for sale I won't get an offer because the peach house, green and pink house, and orange house are all on the dead end street I'm on.

For the past 2 years I've been busting my derriere to produce a 99-100% correct, top-notch transcription product for my employer.  Occasionally I have a question, but often the QA's either can't tell what it is, either, or else they can't be bothered and tell me so.  So, I just let most of the holes go through as-is these days.  It really bothers me, but there seems to be no other way. 

Meanwhile, the dictating physicians/nurses/PA's/residents/janitors/garbage men/gardeners, and whoever else is dictating these messed-up reports, don't have the sense or the common courtesy not to assume we MT's have ESP, and know exactly who they're talking about when the say, "Send a copy to Dr. Smith in Miami".   Often, if I'm willing to put in the time, and do the detective work, I can find out which Dr. Smith in Miami they're talking about.  They often have Dr. Smith's address right there in front of them, on a letterhead or another report, but they're too important to pick it up and read it into the report.   

But you know what?  I don't get paid enough to do straight no-brainer typing, let alone clean up their never-ending sloppiness.  We're expected to do minor grammar clean-up for the ESL's, the sloppy, and the just plain intellectually-impaired, but when it comes down to having to do major damage-control 100% of the time, I'm not paid enough to do that, either.  Especially when I just had to spend an hour today on the phone with that jacked-up mistake of an "insurance company" we have, which has denied every medical and dental procedure I've had this year.  I'm close to living on food-stamps because my paycheck doesn't include enough for groceries, and yet I'm sending good money down the toilet every 2 weeks to pay for this so-called 'insurance'.  If they won't pay for standard preventative dental care and a simple doctor's office visit, then heaven help me if I ever actually get SICK someday.

So meanwhile, I've gotta make a living somehow!  Less-than-mediocre pay and benefits is going to result in a normally picky, careful, accurate MT just throwing in the towel and turning out fast, less-than-mediocre work in order to make those lines.  I just no longer give a flying U-no-what.  Then maybe I can afford to pay for that last dentist & doctor visit that my so-called HMO chose to deny coverage for.   MT isn't a 'career', it's just  job, and not a very good one, at that.

Okay.  Rant over.  Back to my wonderful 12-hour day of typing.

My record is around 45.  Right now i'm on a report that is up to about 23.  Talk about toxic!

I have been trying to locate some people form my old High School - Figured with all of you out there someone might know someone and pass this on. I went to Garrett Hign School during 1977 thru 1981.

Sonia Suppan Bugher and Carissa Babson Snyder

Lost track of them many years ago, and there are so many people looking for them now - we were all concerned when they disappeared. Last I heard Carissa was in NC and Sonia in Oklahoma. Tried classmates.com and theya r elisted as "missing" LOL. Who knows maybe they are MT's too.

about Dictaphone EXSpeech, my wave volume on my pc's master volume controls kept turning down automatically after each VR job and I couldn't figure out why.  Well, after much research, having both the tech people at the hospital where I work and the Dictaphone/Nuance tech support people telling they had never heard of that problem, I figured it out. 

And since someone on here had told me it was a quirk with Dictaphone, I wanted to share because I thought it my help her out too.  When you are in a document in Word Client Correction Editor, you hit F2 and that is your volume control, make sure you turn it all the way up, click okay and bingo it's fixed.  Apparently, that particular volume setting in Word Client is connected to the master wave volume control on your PC.  If it it is at the lowest setting, then your master volume control will reset after each job.  If it is turned all the way up, that is your master volume control will stay. 

Excuse my excitement, but it was driving me nuts having to manually turn up my volume with each job.  As many MTs know, one little annoyance can wreck a whole day!