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Would you be willing to pay someone to run your errands - dry cleaning, videos, books back to library, take your car in to get serviced, take your car to fill up the gas tank, pick up/drop off someone at the airport, pick up kid at school and take to soccer practice, etc.?  If so, how much would you pay?  Thanks for any responses.

Needing a better job than the one I've got, I've been spending my late nights searching the far reaches of the internet.  It seems the only MT jobs that will actually support a person are in-hospital jobs, and the few that still exist are rare, and difficult to find.  They're definitely not listed on our Job Board, that's for sure.  When I do find them, they all seem to be part-time, or too far away, or involve heavy phones.   Answering phones and transcription are NOT compatible activities!

So I keep seeing LOTS of ads for Coders.  Obviously that would mean school.  Ick.  Being the hater of school that I am, I would want to be sure that's what I wanted to do, so I thought I'd see what all of you think of Coding as an alternative to MT work.

-  Have any of you worked in coding before, or are you currently in school to learn that profession? 

-  How hard would it be for a late-middle-aged MT to learn? 

-  Do you think coding is worth spending time in school to learn?  (i.e., Decent pay, not about to be offshored, etc.)

-  If you've done it or are learning, do you LIKE it?  Is it interesting?  Tedious?  Stressful?  Boring?  Rewarding in any way?

-  Are you learning it on-site, or at home?  How many hours per day are you devoting to your studies?  How long does it take to get credentialled?

Thanks in advance for any input you may have on this subject!

Interesting article in "The Record".  Would love to hear opinions on this. 

http://www.fortherecordmag.com/archives/ftr_08062007p6.shtml

If so, do they know about it? 

Why on earth would a doctor prescribe physical therapy to strengthen a patient's muscles who is in the end-stages of myasthenia gravis?  Money?  A patient with nothing else to do but go to physical therapy?  I don't get it.  This group of doctors are a pain in the ***s.  One has such a high incidence of infections in his surgical patients that I cannot believe he is still allowed to practice - and this one puts everyone into physical therapy - unless they are a 4-limb amputee.  Does anyone know the # to the California Board of Medicine - because I think it is time to call them on this one - work or no work - I am sick of it.  i feel better now. 

Last week I interviewed at a ortho surgeon's office for a full time transcription job.  I've been on pins and needles since, because the money and benefits were so good.  Today I got "kind of" good news--they want me to come in on a part-time basis to see how it goes for both of us.  They have another part-time person and they feel if they let her go, I'll be swamped with work (10 physicians).  Of course, I said yes, since I only have a part-time job right now.  But afterward, I wondered if they will ever hire me full time.  Since I went through a personnel agency, I could not ask all the questions I'd like.

Has anyone been in this situation?  Should I just go in and do the best I can and hope for the best?  What strategies can I use to be hired full time hopefully?

I work at-home for a fairly small community hospital.  We have maybe four ESLs on staff at this hospital.  We all have the capability of looking up what reports are on the system and we are allowed to self assign provided we do not abuse it.  The powers that be decided to allow us to have this capability because on second shift and weekends there may be occasion where a report is needed stat and there is no one in the department to assign it and so the person needing the report can simply check to see what MT's are on the system typing and email one of us and we can self assign and do the report.

I usually work first shift, but this week I am filling in for another girl and working second shift.  It is me and one other MT on second.  I plugging along and I get rather lengthy consult by an ESL doctor we all kind of dislike doing because A) He is an ESL dictator and B) All his reports are looooooooong!  So, I get an 8 min consult and I type it, takes me about 20 minutes.  Then, a couple of reports later I get another consult, same dictator, 10 minutes long.  Now, I'm thinking okay what's the other girl doing.  So check on her and she is sitting on the same report she was on when I got the first 8 minute consult.  Her report is a 4 minute H&P by a very American, very good dictator.  So I type the second, 10 minute consult, with just a little irritation nagging me.  A few reports later I get yet another 15 minute consult by the same ESL dictator.  Now I'm steamed.  I look at the job list again and find that she is STILL on the same 4 minute report she has been on for the last hour and a half!  Presumably she has been waiting for me to clear out all the offending dictations so she doesn't get stuck with one!

So now I'm considering letting the supervisor know because it just burns me up when someone treats their co-workers so unfairly.  If she's doing it do me, she's done it to everyone.  But I'm afraid if I gripe about her to management, they will simply take away our self-assign capability and take away our ability to see what is on the system and I hate to penalize everyone because of one person's self-serving and unfair attitude.

What would you all do?

Does everyone space once after the end of a sentence now?  My daughter takes keyboarding in high school and I just realized they are not taught to double space after the end of a sentence.  Should I then change to single spacing after the end of a sentence? 

Ok, I am using Instant Text with Editscript/Escription and if you are familiar with IT you will understand what I am asking for help on.  When I highlight a phrase to add to my IT, then press alt +, the IT window pops up to add an entry but the phrase is not in the window and I have to retype the whole phrase in the IT window to create a new entry for IT.  Is there a way to make the phrase be in the IT window so that I do not have to retype the it? 

Also, how can you make it possible to copy and paste phrases from a document in Editscript so that you can add it to Intant Text or anywhere else? 

Thanks

Does anyone know if there is a law in NY state that you have to have Workers' comp insurance as an IC?  I was told by one company that you do and they will not hire me until I have the insurance, but I also saw on this website

Got me a real prize.  On the last two or three syllables of a sentence, this dictator inhales the words, getting her air for the next sentence.  Thought I had seen it and heard it all.  If she didn't say the same things over and over, there would be no clue as to what she is saying.  I have to tap into my super powers. 

The challenges are greater as the pay ebbs. 

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I currently do a small amount of transcription for a doctor's office and have been using Novuscript to transfer files and dictation.  Does anyone have any suggestions that might be less expensive that are HIPAA compliant for file transfer and dictation transfer.

How long do you all think (with voice recognition and EMR and jobs going overseas) that MTing will be around.  I have another 20 years of my working career ahead of me, and I have been thinking maybe I should get out and work in something that will be around for the next 20 years. 

This advice is given too late, but for future reference...

When you have a new program, just send the information out.

Telling people a month in advance that you are going to send the information out is just upsetting.  Calling people on the phone to tell them they will get information next month but you cannot answer any questions just makes everyone more agitated.

If you think you were offering a teaser to get people excited, I am sorry to say that it backfired. As you can see from reading this board, everyone is just nervous and upset. Some people are out looking for other jobs because they think they are going to lose their SE position.

Big mistake......

I'm a second shifter and I like to get on this board to break the monotony.  It's so quiet in the evenings when you're the only one working and the kids are in bed!

I love second shift tho!  I've worked second most of career.  I'm not what you would call a morning person! 

It seems as if my Keystrokes are made but the cursor landing the typed letter on the screen are not in time, if that makes sense.  It does not happen in wordpad just in the Meditech portion of my program.

I went into control panel and adjusted cursor blink but then it was worse, adjusted time to "fast" on the slide scale but that also made it worse.  Am I doomed to the fact that when I hit a key, the character I typet will appear in a nanosecond as opposed to immediately?

Thank you!