It's very slow. If you have any tips on speed,
Posted By: let me know. on 2009-04-30
In Reply to: Interesting, I haven't seen it get worse - Spheris MT
nm
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Speed tips on VR
MG - WOW! can you tell me how you achieve such a great line count with VR? That is incredible. I have worked on eScription before and am now on Dolbey which is similar. I am starting to get used to using the function keys and not the mouse but I wonder if you could share some speed building tips? Thanks!
speed tips
I speed up the audio enough to still hear it but to be able to get through it faster. If i run into something I am not sure of, i just slow it down. I use ALL of the shortcut keys I can as well and run the spellcheck! :)
EditScript 8-speed tips?
I recently started VR editing in Editscript 8. Im using the alt-k and alt-shift-k options...slowly. LOL What seems to slow me up is adding in commas and such, which those options don't seem to help with. Anyhow, after three days I am at a blinding speed of something like 220 lines an hour.
Anybody have any tips to increase ease and speed, or does it just take time, or does it never happen!
Anone out here with JLG willing to share tips on how to speed production (sm)
I'm new at JLG as part time, only a few weeks old. What do you do to speed up production. I'm learning two new things at once, JLG and Instant Text and feeling like I'm exceedingly slow. I'm not a new MT, been doing it for over 10 years now. Any help would be greatly appreciated. You can even email me if you want. TIA 
The download speed is not consistent, can be as slow as
dial-up at times. I had it for a year so I know. Satellite is also not secure, so if company is 100% compliant with HIPAA satellite would not be allowed.
I had lots of problems with my satellite, though I was never without for more than a day. Customer service was the absolute pits. They have since updated some of their equipment that is suppposed to eliminate some of the issues.
my instruction sheet says 222 for for slow, 333 for speed.
nm
Enterprise slow even with high-speed conn--have used 4 other systems that were much better..
most supervisors okay, couple aren't, like everywhere. It's an okay company...certainly not great.
Depends on the account. Work on VR lately has been slow. Just like all companies, we have slow times
Honestly though, I have only had 2-3 times in the past 2 years where it was like the other day...no work... It did pick up later but I just think it's important not to make someone think we're overloaded with work all the time. That would not be fair to them if they end up with high expectations.
No - it is not always slow! Depends on the company and hospital. I have never been slow this time
Slow time is usually in September when everyone is back to work/school from the summer months.
Been doing this 24 years and never slow this time of year. Actually, I am drowning in work - can't keep up.
Tips
It doesn't matter if you never get the same dictator again - utilize your word Expander by entering words, phrases, and text in chunks. You don't have to use it just for normals.
You should hardly type out any word or phrase fully - use that expander.
YES, it makes that kind of difference!
If you are a perfectionist, you need to decide on where your balance will be. What does your company call for in quality standards? Meet that standard, by all means, but make sure you are not going for overkill on the quality while you are only getting 3 reports a day typed. Proofread as you type, following 3 to 5 words behind.
Some are just faster at typing, period. Some are more knowledgeable so they have to research less.
It sounds like, from your post, that really increasing your Word Expander usage and maybe not being so obsessed over perfect reports will help you raise your production.
You can do it.
Thank you for the tips -sm-
I am sure the knowledge will come in handy for me sometime.
Now do you see why your tips
there are no more posts defending your tips for a resume. You should be ashamed of yourself exposing applicants in such a way on this board. This company you represent is definitely off my list. What a scam. You couldn't even post the link correctly, yet you are on here giving tips for resumes.
These MTSOs are a dime a dozen... I did read on your website that you always hire the best MTs, but I guess you fall short on recruiters, huh? 
Thank you for those tips, they will help.
What company is QT??? Q-Tips?
Yes, that is the platform but tips
not really, just very good, almost no errors at all on the reports and I had all VR all day today, love it. Use the mouse, just used to it.
I think they are taking tips from the Q then.
Either that or my QA person is moonlighting and working at #2 on the side.
Unbelievable.
work at home tips
I found that I had to be mean. No, I cannot babysit, take you places, loan you money etc..... I am working....... I found family to be the worst. The husbands and significant others think they are exempt from this. Call a million times a day. Honey do you want to go..... with me and it is always during working hours. They have odd working schedule and do not understand we have to work set hours. I got a lot more done when I started being firm with people.
We use dial up so of course the phone is always busy but they are not afraid to use the cell phone. Be firm and stick to your guns. I found the best thing was having set hours because otherwise the DH wanted me to go everywhere with him on his days off. I wonder how they would feel if the situation was reversed.
Good luck to you
Lisa
Tips on the application process
Good morning! Never give any information not asked for. If they don't ask if you have books, don't tell them. There are so many ways of researching on-line until you get the books that you would have been fine. Never, never say what you won't do until you actually talk to the recruiter after testing and they see you are going to be a quality employee. Then when you're specifically asked about scheduling during your job offer, say you'd prefer not to work Sundays. During the application process, when they ask if you are willing to work weekends, I always put yes, but for me this means Saturday. During my job interview/offer, that's when I let them know I prefer Sundays off. Maybe this will help for next time, along with prayer. (Oh please Father, I want this job, please, please, please). lol
I've worked for 3 different companies in the last 12 years and have always received replies to a job opening. The next time you apply, send a followup email the next day on the status of your application. I did this the very next day with all three companies. That is not being pushy...it's just letting them know you seriously want this job and are excited to know your status. Good luck, Dreamer! :)
Editscript tips and shortcuts?
Does anyone have any tips and/or shortcuts for increasing productivity on escription's editscript software? Any assistance appreciated. Thank you in advance.
MTSO has some resume tips
(Not sure if this is best board for my message but here goes.)
Am just a small business MTSO owner who posted a couple IC work opportunities on the job board the other day. No problems there. Had absolutely tons of responses and appreciate every person that sent a resume. We're evaluating some very good candidates as a result of the ads and appreciate the MTStars boards for this venue.
However, after seeing the quality of resumes we received I just feel the need to give out a bit of advice to those MTs who are pasting resumes into their email response in hopes of getting a call back from an employer with a job opening.
A lot of resumes we received were clearly written and easy to read at first glance (those are the ones we kept). However, most were not.
Because of this I’d like to offer a few resume tips to new and seasoned MTs when sending an email resume through the email pasting process.
Again, the purpose for my post is just my opinion and to alert some MTs that their resumes were so horrible to read, so completely convoluted and jumbled up that it would take days to decipher/separate the MT/transcription skills from the past employment, unrelated past jobs, and skills useless to transcription work, etc.
Also, with the resumes we received over the past few days it was really hard to get through most of them to find out which sender had the best match with the skills we were looking for. I've utimately had to just delete a lot of them because of not clearly seeing that from the paragraphs that went on and on, naming everything kind of work experience they ever had that is totally, completely, and useless when applying for this kind of work.
There are really good reference materials out there for doing a resume, but I have to say most of those setups are for job resumes that get printed and do need to have some relevant paragraphs relating to the job they're applying for. These transcription positions are a completely different situation.
Therefore, I'd like to humbly offer my MTSO two-cents worth of advice to folks pasting resumes:
1) Resumes should never use the word I in any part of the resume. It's not a letter, you should not refer to yourself in the first person. Your resume is almost supposed to read like a 3rd party presentation.
2) Get rid of absolutely anything on that resume that is irrelevant to the type of transcription work for which you are applying.
3) Get rid of old job listings. No MTSO can possibly care that 10 years ago you worked at Burger King!
4) Make LISTS of skills -- bullet, dash, arrow, anything to highlight your skills so the reader can quickly skim through that list.
5) DO NOT write paragraphs as a mixture of employers, experience, and skills. It's just too hard to read through those.
6) Please dont list E-V-E-R-Y course you ever took in your MT training program. We don't care! If you completed a training it's hoped you had those courses. And, these course names don't take the place of experience. Just don't do this.
6) You don't have to list E-V-E-R-Y piece of computer equipment and reference marterial you own. MTSOs assume you have the needed gear when you apply. You might list a few to validate you have what the MTSO requires, but again make it a short list not a paragraph.
7) Applicants should send a resume that first of all is a match for what experience the job post says it's looking for. Ortho is ortho, ENT is ENT, psychology is psychology (not psychiatry), and so on.
8) Past employers are extremely important; however, when applying for work via email I wouldn't list any of them at all at first. If the employer is interested they will let you know that they would like your references.
9) Best test for your resume: Paste your resume into an email and send it to yourself. You will see how you come across
CONCLUSION: Most MTSOs just want the facts, Ma'am.
In my opinion, a short and sweet resume is the best way to help an MTSO manager make a decision in determining if an applicant has the skills needed for the type of work they need help with, then to encourage that call back to the MT for the next step--work/test, whatever the MTSO hiring process is.
I would like to encourage MTs to think about fixing up their resumes. To that end, I’ve gone ahead and humbly posted a link to a sample bare-bones resume format that works very well when pasting into emails.
Hope this is of some help to anyone who wants to improve their resume appearance and ensure a better response to their online email job applications. Hope this is of some help out there. It’s not all the answers and solutions, but again just my thoughts.
Here’s the link to the document, it is just from my website. Just click on the link below -- or paste into a browser address bar and press ENTER -- the file should automatically open in Word.
http://j.b5z.net/i/u/2032565/i/SAMPLE_RESUME_SETUP.dmt.2008.doc
I’d be happy to answer any emails regarding this. Marcia - Data-Med Transcription, Inc. (http://www.data-mt.com)
Need tips for converting PRD for DOS to Shortcuts for Windows, please. sm
How can I best start "cleaning up" a copy of my beloved PRD for DOS to make for a less-hassle conversion to Shortcut for Windows? Many of the headers in my PRD have special DOS characters for bolding, and I don't think they will be useable. For many of my glossary entries, I use slash marks (i.e., cad/ for coronary artery disease). Are the slash marks a problem in Shortcut? If so, what's a good character to substitute (a "q" maybe??). Thanks for any suggestions. I'm trying to make this conversion in a month just a tiny bit sane.
Any tips on handling recruiters who may not be honest?
I am just getting a weird feeling from a recruiter. The recruiter told me three different starting rates of pay and asked me to tell her what she quoted two days ago. I asked what percentage of MTs stay with them for a year. She avoided the question. The recruiter also could not explain the pay scale. Are recruiters required to be honest? I find it hard to believe that she was being dishonest. Maybe I am paranoid. Do they generally care about the company they work for, or their job is done once they hire the MT?
Just want to say thank you to those helpful MTs with tips for remember certain things!!! nm
X
Resume Tips & Tricks for Seasoned MTs!!!
We should all add these qualities to our resumes. It's what they expect anymore anyway:
- An outstanding ability to take muddy, garbled jibber-jabber and severely fractured English in 155,000 dilects and turn it into unbelievably beautiful transcription, with no blanks!
- Oh, and don't worry, Mexican, Cuban, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Indian, or even rabid auctioneer doctors who speak so fast they could not understand them self on a play back . . . no problemo! It doesn't matter, because I am so good if it sounds remotely close with even one syllable barely audible or intelligible I will struggle until I get it. I do this eagerly because I know you are selling me pride in my work, not a decent wage and because I dread your miserable QA autopsy of my work.
- Will work as hard as a slave for $3 an hour average with a college degree on the most gut-wrenching work you have, and all this without an occasional can of salve for the whip marks on my back.
- Will also fill in hundreds of entries for free on patient information, courtesy copies and researching things like how to spell Waccamaw even if I don't live in South Carolina. Things doctors could spell, or dictate clearly but won't because they are too lazy.
- I will also run those dates of service through my magic crystal ball formula to know when the doctor says The patient was seen today, I should look back on the ADT screen and see when he dictated it to know what he means by when it was dictated. I will do it because you will bonk me on the head and tell me, It's your job to do this for free!
While I am at it, I will run a medical quality assessment through my head to see if it sounds logical and reasonable for all medical sciences and diagnoses. I will happily verify those medication dosages are correctly dictated because even if the doctor has been to medical school and I haven't . . . I should identify that 325 mg of Coreg will kill someone and correct it! Again because, It's my job, to run around behind doctors and wipe their butt for free!!! I'm happy to do that, even if I haven't had the benefit of medical school because . . . . yes, I'm that good baby!!
- And at the end of two or three years of struggling to make a wage above the poverty level learning all this garbage, if you find some foreigner will do my job cheaper to make you more money, don't sweat it! Just fire me . . . in a conference call with 101 of my coworkers in mass humiliation. No problem!
Thanks for the tips! Think I'll avoid them like the plague! :) nm
nm
Applicant has Some Ad Posting Tips for Data-Med
Hey, I applied for a job with your company. Here are some tips for you:
1. My first reaction was disgust at having to cut and paste my resume into the MT Stars form. Why couldn't you let the applicants send an email to your address so all the wonderful bullets and neat formatting that you requested (that actually most of your applicants probably had in their resumes) would stay clean and easily readable? It always seems very lame to me when companies won't even supply an email address--and suspicious. I've been scammed into free work on this board before. No email address means to me a red flag. And I despise posting my resume into that form.
2. The link to your web site on the MT stars template is broken. I don't know if you're aware of that or not. But, again, it was another red flag for me. Either you didn't have much attention to detail or you were a scammer.
Just some helpful information.
great tips!! I'm going to check out CoolTimer... nm
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Any tips/hints/advice, fellow MTs???
I am posting to ask my fellow MTs for some tips/hints/advice/suggestions.
I'm starting a new position tomorrow which uses the Meditech platform.
Yes, I know MediTech is rather antiquated, clunky, and a general pain. It's the version where one cannot type into Word and paste into MediTech; everything has to be typed directly into MediTech.
It's been EONS since I've used MediTech and I'm going to be very rusty. Does anyone have any quick tips, hints, or refreshers they can throw my way to make my transition back into time a bit less stressful?
I appreciate anything you guys can offer 
Cheryl Flanders' Tips '.N Techniques
Does anyone know if this is compatible with Word 2007?
Thank you (as always).
Tips for Handling Offensive Posts -- SM
If you find a post offensive:
Read a post that offends you? Make sure you think about what is upsetting about it. Is it personally upsetting or is it against posting guidelines?
If it is just upsetting for you, my advice: Ignore it. Don't respond. If you respond, you are feeding that opinion and it will more than likely incur another post, etc.
If it is against posting guidelines, report it using the REPORT THIS MESSAGE button. Or, copy the URL and send to me in an email (cher@mtstars.com).
Remember, that just because you dislike a post does not warrant its removal. You must be responsible for what you read and post for yourself. If a certain poster gets under your skin, don't read his/her posts. Just ignore those posts. Don't allow yourself to be drawn into a tit-for-tat argument that ends up getting you into trouble along with others. Be responsible for yourself.
Moderator
Any tips on how to survive working at Transcend?
I just got sold to them and my friend has given me a lot of words of warning. Anybody have any suggestions on survival?
Go on Spheris private board. Lots of tips
nm
Isn't that the truth! Do these "resume tips" apply to oversees too? sm
Because they sure get our jobs.....
TA Speed sm
I don't use TA Speed, I use Instant Text, so I can't answer your question about imports into it. However, I do use AutoCorrect for correcting my typos, and I have no problem with it. Your original AutoCorrect file will still be there, even after you install your software. I don't see why you couldn't just continue to just use your AutoCorrect if you wanted. During my initial training, I told the techie-type critter that I wanted to use my Instant Text (and not the TA Speed), and I *think* he went into the system and did some kind of techie voodoo, so keep that in mind (and mention it to the tech if/when you do work for them). =)
It took me a while to get up to speed
I do acute care only. I know when I was hired, I was told I would not be paid for any carbon copy information, but I don't remember about demographics...Demo information would only be a line or so, anyway at most.
I do know the computer strips out any hanging spaces at the end of paragraphs, but a lot of companies can do that with their platforms as well.
If your headers and footers are embedded in the template, I don't see how you could be paid for that as it would not be something you produced as part of the report.
As far as lines per pay period, I print out a copy of my schedule, jot down my line cout for the day and total it out at the end of the pay period. When I get my check, it always matches what I have calculated.
If you are limited in what type of work you can produce, you probably will have a hard time making lines. The more diversified you are, the more likely you can be cross trained and placed on backup accounts.
ASR Speed
Had to give you a pat on the back, ndmt. Excellent, excellent point. Why doesn't someone stop the madness?
Speed
Reading this board, I am being disabused of the notion that I am any good at MT at all. Been at it about 15 years and I'm a part-timer; always have been. I came to it when I was over 45, as a retirement job.
I don't get to use a lot of templates or normals, so this is not a factor. On a good day, with really 'clean' dictations (good sound quality, clear dictator who is not constantly correcting himself) not having to spend a lot of time looking stuff up and with the wind at my back, I can produce maybe 250 lph for 2-3 hours. I always thought this was pretty good. Then I get fatigued and drop to 200 or so. With really bad dictators/sound/subject matter, I get as low as 150. I believe my knowledge and accuracy are good, but obviously my speed sucks.
On this board I am seeing claims of sustained speeds of 300-400 lph or more. So I'm thinking that maybe VR could actually IMPROVE my production. And as my company seems to be phasing this in ,account by account, I will soon have the opportunity to see for myself.
I would like to take an informal survey of speeds and VR vs straight transcription. Anybody willing to weigh in on this subject?
Speed
Been on VR for a year, been an MT for 25, have also been a book editor/manuscript proofreader. None of that matters one bit. And, no, VR does not learn and improve--at least not the platform I use. My top VR so far is 350 lph, average about 200-250. Main problem is reports with no punctuation, SR guessing at words, having to insert numbering, but my absolute favorite is docs taking personal calls while microphone is still on. I've heard everything from 2 docs discussing whether to seduce a woman with wine, candy, flowers, a skiing trip, etc, and then one of them calling in midst of same report to ask some chick if she'd sleep with him that night, that he was having dinner catered, also docs talking to their stockbrokers and car dealers, wondering whether to buy the green or the black Jag, and docs screaming at their kids and/or spouses--all this goes into SR and the old SR gremlin tries to turn it into part of the report, just as it does when the doc says--Go back and insert so and so under the diagnoses and take out so and so from the med list and add 3 more cc's, ad nauseum. All that stuff and more will slow you down terribly. You can never count on getting good clean SR reports for a whole shift. I think I need to get a job selling SR/VR systems but I couldn't stomach that kind of dishonesty to promise that MTs would be doing 600 lph in no time.
actually, the typing speed...
is not as important as learning to use an expander to do the work for you. This is the REAL key. I type perhaps 300+ words a minute using mine.
How long did it take you to get up to speed (sm)
As to the 300 lph? I'm pretty excited as I've been offered a position with them. Thanks for the info.
Why is it so hard to get speed
with that company, are they on a slow system or something?
Speed vs. Accuracy
Medical transcription in the 21st century emphasizes production and speed. While your medical background is a big help, you will need to crank out the lines if you have any hope of making money, especially as a newbie. Please keep in mind the time, effort and energy expenditure versus the financial return. Finally, I would keep my options open, and not limit them to medical transcription. Good luck.
Voice speed
I can't help with that as when I fix the voice through Express Scribe it stays that way.
speed rate
to the person that e-mailed me, my e-mail has not been working correctly but no to your question if it is working. good luck!
Speed is a big issue
10 cpl is more than I make, but I'm pretty fast. My base rate is 7.5 to 8 cpl depending on which of my 2 accounts I'm on, but since I do enough lines daily to qualify for bonus, I acutally make 9 to 9.5 cpl per line. I average about 1500 lines per day. Production is what drives pay, so that's why I'm making what I do. I think it's unfortunate that years of experience isn't really compensated in this business, but years of experience doesn't always equal what the employer wants, which is speed and low error rate. Everyone brings a different set of skills to the job. In the end it's what you produce and not how many years you have behind you that the employer cares about. Fair or not, that's the nature of this business.
changing speed
go to the transnet player, click more at the bottom right, and it gives you options you can change.
adjust speed
tech dept could even help. They gave me another phone number to address this problem and never even got a call back. that did it for me.
adjust speed
I did this and it did not work for me. it would not budge. I'm not there any longer.
Speech speed?
You are so right. If you have lousy dictators it is easier to type them from scratch than to correct the system errors made because of them. I had to go to speech and my checks are down 40%. What system were you using? The one I am on is awful. It types every grunt and entire phrases the dictator did not say. For me it is easier to do ESLs than speech, at least with the system and dictators I have. Is there a better system out there?
LPH and increase speed
As I mentioned before, I am struggling with speed.
I am curious what most people start out typing (LPH) and how quickly you increased to your max (many mentioned they are 200-300+) lph. Anyone who will share on this?
I appreciate it!
dictaphone speed
Does Dictaphone itself increase the speed of dictations in ExText? My dictators are suddenly speaking much faster than before. I have them turned down to the minimum speed, and they're still too fast. I've heard of Dictaphone increasing the speed so that we have to type faster. Do you think this is true?
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