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I need help quickly.  Someone gave me a foot pedal with a serial adapter.  However, there is no serial port on my new computer.  Is there any way I would be able to use this foot pedal with my new computer?  Thanks in advance for your help.

Today is my first day of my new account of a hand surgeon/plastic surgeon.  He is easy to do, easy to understand but the gal in the office that had been typing him has some unique ways of doing their consults/letters/IME/arbiter's reports/OP notes and chart notes.  They all go on letterhead for the second through however long they are.  I just had a 6 page arbiter report and she wants it spaced down for pages 2 through 6 to be on letterhead.   To me that is really unusual.  I waste three inches for the letterhead.  She has been there for  15 years and just incorporated this into her job and she does a reasonably good job but has little things that are not really "correct" and that show that she has not been to school.  But she is leaving in a month and so guess I will go along with this and then explain to the doctor the way letters/consults should be done.  It is funny as four of my other docs are always doing letters/consults/notes to this doctor and so she sees the other consults come in not on letterhead and so you would think she would notice but she doesn't.  But I think it will be a decent account and so will do it "their way.   But she said that she preferred if I did not capitalize any of the drugs but I gotta do that correct.    I have often said to others, they are the boss do it their way but it is hard when you have been taught something for so long to do one way.   

Patti

Well, this is really something.  For the first time since being at home, Comcast is down. 

Dial up modem is too slow to register my keystrokes and I get kicked off the hospital's system (which is 3,000 miles away).  

I do believe, after experiencing this, that technology is going to be the determining factor in outsourcing.  I used dial up modem for a clinic when with MQ but it was only a few hundred miles away from me and worked just fine.  Could it be that the farther away you are from your account, the less optimal dial up modem operation is?

Can you imagine what would happen if all accts were linked to a foreign country and the server went down? 

This event led to a 911 emergency as I was only MT on my acct scheduled to work today.  I am actually shaking as I know  how important it is to get the radiology work done in two hours.

Just had to share this with you guys. 

Does anyone type in this program for a company called DRC, Digital Records Corporation.  If so, can you tell me some about it, and possibly give me a web site so I can check it out to see what it is like?

where they don't use the postal code standard of two caps; i.e. CA instead of CA for California?

I immediately delete any application that comes to me if it contains gross error. I'm just blown away when I see MTs and LTs with 5+ years of experience who use the "Ca" formatting. Before I blast away this latest applicant, I thought I'd stop to check if there's something out there that I'm unaware of. Out of the 12+ resumes I'm getting a day lately, at least two will contain this error so now I'm questioning myself.

When I start a new sentence, the first letter automatically caps, but lately I have noticed that the letter "N" does not.  Does anyone know what would cause that and when to check (and fix) in the settings? 

Thanks for your help!   

How many changes do I have to learn now? Does it ever end? I guess buying #2 and the CD was flushing money down the drain. I know - whatever the client wants - but they didn't agree with #2, so we shall see how #3 goes.

Hello,

I'm seriously considering applying to Med-Line for MT studies. They are AHDI approved and provide a paid internship. Has anyone heard anything good/bad about them? Has anyone gone to this school? Were you satisfied? Found a job? Do employers hire folks who studied from that school?

I'm trying to keep all my options open - I realize Andrews and MTech are the top schools - but I was also impressed with what Med-Line has to offer.

Thanks!

I'm relatively new to transcription, so this is probably a dumb question, but here goes...

How does a C-phone work?  Is this live dictation?

I have worked 2 jobs for many years now.  My full-time job is with one of the nationals.  My second job is for a local specialist's office.  It is the second job that I want to talk about.

I have worked for these 3 physicians for 14 years now.  I started out typing from tapes and bringing in the work daily on "sticky back" paper.  We have progressed over the last year to having the work put on the internet and having the office staff download the work each day.  It is working very well for all of us.

I am paid a very generous hourly wage.  I am on the company's payroll.  I get benefits, such as paid holidays, AFLAC, sick days, bonuses, personal days, etc.  I am quite satisfied with the arrangement.

My thought is, can we somehow appeal to our local providers to once again give the work to those of us who work at home as employees rather than farming out work to the big nationals?  This would eliminate the middle man and our wages would hopefully once again go up. 

I am most interested in others' opinions.  Are you happy working for a big MTSO, or would you prefer working, once again, as an at-home employee for a local company.  If so, can we somehow solicit this work back where it used to be?  I have been doing this for 25 years now, and I remember when most local health care providers did have their own employees,either in house or at home, doing their transcription.  Guess all the recent discussions on this board have got me to thinking how I (we) can improve out current situation!

Thanks in advance for any replies I may receive on this post.

Man dies after 50 hours of playing computer games.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6448213/did/8888579/

I have really slow dial up and I am looking into getting something faster.  DSL and cable are not available where I live so Verizon/Cingular air cards or satellite are the only options.  Which one of these works best for MT work?  Will I be limited to how much I can download and upload working full time as an MT with either of these?

Thanks

Have to purchase a new spell check. Hard drive on my computer had to be replaced and with that lost the spell check.

Asking  all the experienced MTs out there to advise which is best, Spellex, Sylvans or something else.

Price is also factor.

Thank you!

I would really appreciate some help in this. 

Thank you so much!

I've been an IC for eight years and have always charged 11.5 cents per 65 character line.  Lately I've been getting doctors calling me; I tell them my rate, and they poo-poo it!

Had a large cardiology account I was doing for two years and did a great job, so the doctors and OM told me and I know my stuff well enough to know I did a GREAT JOB for them.   I was billing them $3900.00 per month.  One of the docs all of a sudden decided I was earning too much and offered me a flat rate of $3,000.00 per month for an all you can type scenario.  I told him I couldn't and wouldn't do that period, so they replaced me with a service who is now charging them 9.5 per line!!!

I'm fed up with these cheap skate doctors.  Any of you experience this lately.  Do you feel that 11.5 is too much to charge a line?  Next these docs will want us to transcribe just for the honor of doing it!

I'm so fed up and getting sick and tired of doctors offices calling me obviously looking for something for nothing!  The first thing out of their mouths is, "What's your line rate?????"  It's like they don't care about anything else; i.e., accuracy, quality, education, etc., etc. 

Thanks for letting me vent!

I have been working for a company for 15 years doing it the old way - i.e., tapes and printing, that has just been sold to an online company. We have a meeting with them - what questions should I ask? Terms like "platform", "expanders", etc., are Greek to me. Thanks.

Can anyone tell me what type of foot pedal Career Step uses.  I have a friend who is accepting an at-home transcription position and she needs to purchase a foot pedal.  She saw one on E-bay and it states that it is a Career Step foot pedal, however, that is all it says.  She is needing to purchase an IN-USB-1 foot pedal.  TIA