Medical Transcription Discussion Forums:

• Main Board
• Job Seekers Board
• Company Board
• Word Help Board
• Classifieds
• Medquist
• New MTs / Students

General Discussion Forums:

• Gab Board
• Politics Board

I have kept in touch with an MT I worked with at the last in-house job (radiology).  This was inpatient radiology and also an outpatient radiology clinic the hospital operated.

One of the girls, a person who at one time folded towels but who was hired as a clerk, was just discovered to ahve not mailed out reports for 30 days.  These include both in house reports and outpatient reports.  They have been sitting on her desk because she "has not had time to do them." 

What do you make of this?   The lead MT is close to this girl (hence her being moved from housekeeper to clerk) and is trying to minimize the impact that not having the reports mailed to referring physicians' offices, as if it is a minor problem (how they found out about it is a doc's office called the MT's supervisor and asked why 30 days worth of reports were mailed to their office yesterday.

They were keeping it from the director of radiology.  I think this is BIG and that heads should roll for negligence.

What do you think?

I normally try to be very, very careful, but I don't know what happened, but it did.

Feeling a little shaken regarding my skills and attention span right now. 

Please tell me I am not the only one who has made an error and had the client send the report back. 

I'd like to thank the administrator for helping me with my question about the main board. Being new here, I looked around for "instructions" but must have overlooked them. It's nice to see the administrative message at the top of the main board explaining how to use it -- I took the word "main" litearlly, as others new to this board possibly have.

I do have a question. When I signed up at Yahoo-Groups , I signed up to receive daily digests, which are digests of the main board. Is there a way to receive digests of the boards listed on the left?

I saw it awhile back but can't find it now.

Has anyone ever tried this for Meditech  

Meditech Magic Overlay template.    If so is this the same thing as a template to put over regular keyboard that would have shortcut functions for Meditech on it?  I work PT for a hospital but have never had any formal training as I work remote for this hospital. I really would like to more about maneuvering around in this program.  I just know enough to get in the report, type it and send it to the hospital.  I would like to learn more.  Thanks.

Pauline

Sure is loaded with garbage lately.

What is with these companies demanding 5+ years experience and then offering 7 cents/line, or wages of $7 to $15 an hour?  Yikes!  I hope people aren't taking these jobs.

The companies should be ashamed of themselves for expecting experienced MT's to settle for such crap wages.

I have only been working from home for 8 months now and my previous MT work was done while i was office manger and of course i was paid hourly but did more then just MT work.

I was wondering what is the going line rate other companies are offering??

in-house hospital employee around Carmel Valley?   Hourly range or annual salary.

Thank you so very much for any information!!

I was thinking about going ahead and testing up with my company so I can get me one of those wonderful raises... the only thing is that if I fail then they will performance manage me.... so I wanted to ask around and see how long everyone went before they got a raise.

I started out at 6 cents a line 2 years ago and really was hoping they could give me just a tad bit more.  A lot of the people on my account are getting 8-10 cents, but have been working a few more years then me.

THANKS BUNCHES!

Just want to get some feedback on how long it takes to do 1200 lines.  I did clinic notes and was an IC for four years and work on and off throughout the day, so I really never had to work straight through the day to produce.  I am now going to do acute care-hospital work minus lab and radiology reports.  I have about four years experience.

Thanks,

Hey everyone.

Just thought I'd pass the word. If any of you were interested in using docukey.com's file storage services, I found a coupon for getting the first month free. It's newclient. I entered it in as a coupon code and figured I would give it a try and see if I liked it. So far, it seems really nice since all of my clients use Olympus digital recorders.

-Sheri

If no one has access to our E-mail address and this is the only place that they could have gotten it, how did they as I just got an E-mail from them about applying for a job?   So somehow our E-mail addresse are not protected as they say that they are on this board?  Did anyone else receive it?   I have never posted my resume, or applied for a job throught his board as I own my own MTSO.   Makes me wonder about how safe our E-mail addresses are.

I have 3 doctors that I am going to be taking on as clients of my own.  One is going to be using a recorder, the other 2 are still wanting to use a call-in line for their dictation.  They will not be dictating a large amount just a couple times a week.  Does anyone have any suggestions for a service that provides a toll-free call-in line for a decent price?  I am thinking about mydocsonline for my doc that will be using a recorder.

Thanks in advance and Merry X-Mas to you all! 

I just read an article about this in the Advance mag I get biweekly.  It seems the MTIA, AHIMA, and the AAMT are endorsing the VBC method of measuring productivity for transcription.  Basically, that means they don't want to pay for spaces.  So they are finding another way of screwing with our money. 

I know there are several services out there that don't pay for spaces now and quite frankly I won't work for a company that doesn't pay for spaces.  I'm a firm believer that transcriptionists should get paid for every single keystroke, but that rarely if ever happens.  Now with those three major industry organizations endorsing not counting spaces, it may be the case that all services will adopt the VBC method and we are all going to lose.

Oh, the AAMT says that the VBC method will create a "level playing field throughout the industry" and allow for a "great opportunity for the industry to engage in a real discussion about the inherent value of transcribing and how pricing under the new defintion should reflect that value."  The AAMT also states that MTSOs should consider an MT's "critical thinking skills and interpretive judgment" when discussing compensation.

Yeah right.  Like MTSOs have been considering anything more than the bottom line and pumping up there pocketbooks.  To them we are machines.  I'm tellin' ya medical transcription is circling the drain. 

I need to type  VENTILATION PERFUSION SCAN as a heading.  But when the capital letter lock key is on and I type in vps to bring up the three words in all caps, my IT changes it to small case.

Does anyone out there know how to make all caps remain all caps?  I have auto capitalization check marked already. 

Thanks soooo much if you can answer this!

with much talk about changing jobs due to the challenges facing the MT field, what are people managing to do successfully?  And let's leave the opinions about the future of MT out of the conversation, shall we, and just limit it to some ideas of what people COULD do if they wanted to change?

Are you and your spouse more like.....................

A) Tim and Jill (Home Improvement)

B) Roseanne and Dan (Roseanne)

C) Howard and Marion (Happy Days)

D) AL and Peg (Married with Children)

E) Raymond and Debra (Everybody loves Raymond)

F) Steven and Elyse (Family Ties)

G) Other ____________

We are probably most like Tim and Jill but a little bit of Raymond and Debra thrown in. LOL.

I hope I posted this in the right spot! Kind of new to this forum, especially with posting messages.  I downloaded a medical transcription survey from 2007 from the MTIA web site which I thought was very interesting and would like to share it with you all if you have not read it.

I loved the summary point stating "Doctors do not generate revenue, documents do. Accurate and complete healthcare documents are essential to a doctor's and institution's revenue cycle."

I remain hopeful and optimistic that in the future that we will once again be recognized for how important our jobs really are.  All of us can go out and get ourselves a medical secretarial position or other positions in the medical field, but it takes a special talent to do the job we do, and I think many people who think our jobs are not worth the money we deserve, possibly can't do OUR jobs.

This is the link and if it does not work, go to the MTIA.com web site, search under press releases and it is the Bentley MT survey for 2007. Hope you find it interesting.

http://www.mtia.com/Downloads/MTSurveyReport-Preliminary.pdf

Does anyone on the board here know how to subtype in Word?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. doctors increasingly have access to computers to look up information on their patients, but more than half still don't have digital health records or the ability to write electronic prescriptions, a study released on Wednesday found.

Twenty-two percent of doctors surveyed by the Center for Studying Health System Change last year had access to electronic prescription tools compared with 11 percent in 2001.

About half can use computers to access notes on their patients or exchange data with other doctors, up from about 37 percent and 41 percent, respectively, four years earlier.

"Despite substantial growth rates ... many physicians still lack access to practice-based clinical information technology (IT)," said study co-author Marie Reed, who manages data for the independent policy research group.

Overall, a higher percentage of doctors said last year they could use technology to find out about recommended treatments and patients' medications, as well as share information with other physicians.

The study comes as a U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce subcommittee prepares to consider legislation on Wednesday that would create guidelines to help hospitals, doctors and the government share patient records.

All Americans are supposed to have electronic health records by 2014 under a goal set by

His administration has funded the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology but has otherwise relied on private industry to spur wider use of information technology in the health sector.

Some critics say the federal government should take a greater role, offering tax breaks and other incentives as well as requiring U.S. agencies to make greater use of electronic health data.

"In general, major barriers to physician adoption of clinical IT include start-up and maintenance costs, as well as the significant effort and costs of changing workflow to effectively use IT," the study said.

Researchers surveyed more than 6,600 doctors in 2005 and about 12,000 in 2001. The did not ask doctors whether they actually used the technology in their everyday practice.

About 65 percent of doctors last year said they could look up information on treatment guidelines compared with 53 percent in 2001. Twenty-nine percent said they used technology for reminders about preventive treatments for patients, compared with just under 24 percent in 2001.

The Center for Studying Health System Change, which receives most of its funds from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation philanthropy, said promoting digital health data may encourage more doctors to go high-tech.

Until then, the slow adoption rates "suggest that physicians as a group have not yet reached a tipping point in the adoption of IT for most clinical activities," it said.

www.vh1.com  I get the newsletter sent to my mailbox so you might have to search, but it was sent to me today.  It's terrific.  Love her!

Alright folks let's move this off the word help board because it's become a different discussion.  First of all, I personally believe that we should type what doctors say, everything they say and not change a thing.  So if they say Synthroid 100 mg, leave it.  If they say There was changes.  Leave it.  However, our companies and many hospitals don't agree. 

If you were to try to get a job editing books at a publlishing house you would need a degree in English and you'd get paid a whole heck of a lot more than we do.  But we do the same job, fixing the English of doctors, having perfect punctuation, correcting verb tenses.  Not to mention the medical side, knowing all the drug dosages, correct lab values (yeah we get marked off for those too).  I love it when I have to leave something blank like I just did "H&H 13/4/38"  ???

IMHO we don't get paid enough to do all we have to do.  We are not just typists.  My friend is a nurse and when I told her everything we have to know she told me we could all be nurses!  This is because I carried on a conversation with her about cardiac cath, CABG and people who have IV dye allergies and the compliance issues with Mucomyst.  She was shocked.

We get no respect from many doctors.  I actually had a PCP that I went to when I was sick say that because I was an MT I knew too much about medicine in a really condescending voice.  Had another say then what do you suggest when he tried to tell me he'd done all the possible tests.  Corrected another to his face. 

So call me whatever you want but if I hear the doctor say something that is inappropriate in the same manner that Potassium 132 is inappropriate or Synthroid 100 mg is inappropriate, I'm going to leave a blank.  Maybe the doctor is mad or frustrated but the medical record is a legal document that the patient can get access to anytime they want.  So when the doctor calls a patient a land whale or says she's f-ing pregnant again or is a retard or is an SOB (and I don't mean short of breath), IMO I am covering their butt by giving them a chance to rethink what they say before they put it in a legal document.