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For those of you MTs that have disabilities, and are stressed beyond belief because all companies seem to want the same production level, no matter what your medical condition might be - Well, there is a GREAT company just for us.  www.nticentral.org.  It is a very long application. You have to submit to them a doctor's letter stating you are handicapped.  You only have to transcribe 40 WPM!!!!  My friend sent me an email about this company.  I was so jazzed, and am still filling out the application; however, I am waiting on my total disability, and do not want to jeopardize that at all!!  Wanted to spread the cheer for those of you that are not waiting on disability, or anything else that might jeopardize getting amy monies.  This company sounds fabulous!!

I have only been doing medical transcription since August, 2007.  Can someone please tell me how to determine your level of accuracy?  I have seen before where companies require 98% accuracy.  Is this the norm?  I feel that I am above 98% but how do I know for sure?  

You can bash day care all you want, but I have to say that unless you are with your kids at home not having to work, but giving them one-on-one attention, you are not being fair to your child either.  I think day care is a lesser of the two evils.  You are allowing your child a learning experience.  My kids are not being "raised" by the people at day care.  But they are picking up valuable experience and learning essential social skills.  I think this is better than watching their mommy work all day and being left by themselves to play.  You cannot honestly say that you do not neglect your children while you are at all working all day FT.

PT is a different story.  I guess it is possible to work around their schedule and I believe an hour or two a day of keeping them occupied on their own is fine. 

My kids have made such great friends at day care and they think of day care as a horrible place.  They think of it as a place where they can play with their friends while their mommy gets her work done.  Of course, my kids are only in day care for the time it takes me to finish my work and I wake up very early to get half of it done, so I can spend more time with them.

But I am more comfortable knowing that they are at a place where they are interacting with other people and having fun, rather than home with me working, not able to give them the attention that they need.

I also have to say this.  I was never in day care.  My mom didnt have to work.  I was very shy and never was I forced to come out of my shell.  I had to repeat Kindergarten because I was not ready for it.  I struggled through school because I was shy and I hated the interaction.  I hated being called on for a question.  I hated having to do oral reports.  Even to this day, I hate having to work in an office with all the office politics, which is probably why I was so interested in working from home.

I can see that my oldest daughter is shy and I could imagine that we would struggle the same way through school as I did.  But now that she is in daycare, although it took some time, she is very friendly and interacts with everyone great.  She starts Kindergarten this September and I am not even worried because I know she is going to do so incredibly well.  She is definitely ready.  As I said her day care is more of a school setting.  They learn a lot there!!!!  If she didnt have this experience I dont think she would have even been accepted into kindergarten this year.

Should be sulfa and Minocin. 

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Doctor dictates:

"The patient takes Doxepin for insomnia.  He has been taking 25 mg four of them at time, but I am prescribing 100 mg tablets which is the same."

This just made me giggle...

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050819/phf024.html?.v=22

See above webpage, especially 'Operating Income' (most recent) toward bottom.

Do MTSOs, nationals, usually pay for downtime for employees?  If so, what has been your experience - ever received downtime? your company's policy, i.e., pay for two days downtime?

Also, as an employee for a nat'l, if you have a set schedule, what do you do when very little work comes in, for example one dictation/hour?  At what point do you cut out?  I'm new to working for a national and this has happened a lot lately - I know, the holidays.  If there is little work, I usually only stay connected for two hours, let me sup. know, and call it a day. 

I swear, sometimes I hate this industry!!  Any other company, at least in my state, if there is no work, as an employee, you still get paid or after a certain period, you get unemployment...something!

MPWord - helpful or not.  I am currently set up in Word with Instant Text.  Would MPWord help me any?  Can you use or import your glossaries from Instant Text into MPWord?  What about making your own templates and default settings such as font, tabs and format?

Does anyone know exactly how the fax options works?

Thanks, Mis

For acute care and for clinic?  I know it varies by region.  I used to know the going rate, 13 to 14 cpl in the early 90s.  I have had my own accounts since then and I really don't know where to set my rates anymore.  I don't want to price myself out of contracts by charging too much, but I also don't want to charge a lot less than everyone else.  I can't really ask my clients what other bids they receive because of course if it's more than i charge they aren't going to want to tell me they would pay me more.  I have been told by some that they have been unable to raise their rates because of competition from India.  My accounts are at 15 cpl now but if I can't go any higher than that i will never be able to increase pay for my subcontractors.  I'm just a small business but I'm feeling the crunch like everyone else.  I'm almost at the point of raising my rates and if they don't go for it I'll just figure it's not worth it anymore and i'll close up shop.

Just wondered if anyone knows what bigger services are charging these days.  The reason i used to know is I worked in a hospital transcription department so I would see the invoices that the transcription services sent along with the work.

I will ban and delete as necessary. Moderators are also keeping watch.  We apologize for the inconvenience of this troublemaker.  If you have any questions, feel free to email me directly.

Administrator
MTStars

My company has their own line count software and you can check your line count as soon as you are finished with a document if you want.  They pay per 65 characters.  I have noticed that they are rounding down the lines.  Say it is 42.49 lines, they drop the .49.  Is this legal?  It seems that we should get paid for the partial lines as they add up over a course of time.  Is this something that is common? 

Thanks in advance for any  info.

I like the keys on my keyboard to be easy to touch, not feeling like you have to bang them down to get a letter to appear.  I've been reading about the ergonomic keyboards.  What do you find comfortable?  I looked on Amazon.com about the Microsoft 4000 Ergonomic keyboard and there were a lot of reviews, some of them saying that the keys were hard to press, especially the spacebar.

thanks  

Can anyone tell me if the ShortHand Word Expander software is compatible with Vista?  Thanks!  Much appreciated!

I bought this brand new but it has an annoying quiet buzz. Also, how is the tone on yours? Mine sounds muffled. Is there any way to clear it up? I have the tone slider at the top of the "+" sign. Is there another way to up the tone so it is more clear?

My doc tried to test it today and he said all it did was beep at him. He did use an author ID. Do you ever have problems with it constantly beeping?

Of course, the "manual" doesn't give a lot of info.

I own the older model that used tapes and never had a problem with it. I beginning to hate this one and I've only had it since Monday.

I feel silly even having to ask, but what exactly does "gross line" mean?

There is an ad that is saying they pay 7 cents per gross line for 1 job, and 8 cents per 65 cpl (I assume they just mean 8 cpl for 65 characters on this one).  So what is the gross line, and how would the pay compare?

I want to "upgrade" from word97 to word2003.  Is there a way to take my dictionary of words I have established over the years over to 2003?

and is there a way to go in and correct words put in wrong...

thank you for any help