This only pertains to federal health programs
Posted By: mtme on 2009-09-04
In Reply to: Have any MTSOs said anyting about the HITECH Act? - It could change the way we work in 2010
Like VA. It says if the MTSO is paid with federal money, then they are subject to all these things.
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all this to yes, yes, yes pertains to basic 4, not radiology.nm
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That is a hard question to answer unless is pertains to
them. I cant say one way or the other because I have not asked for flexibility.
I also dont know about how easy the line count would be to get because there are so many accounts and what could be easy to one might not be easy for another.
I found that I had to put my kids in day care for at least 6 hours a day in order to work.
It is too stressful to have to worry about getting the line count and worrying about making sure your little ones are taken care of.
I wish you luck.
Uh, are you sure about Federal? sm
This may depend entirely on the MTSO, but as an SE with MQ, they did in fact withhold federal taxes for me, (but not state taxes.)
So, a federal law
for payment of overtime only applies to whatever hours the facility or company defines as overtime; not all based on a 40-hour week?
It is a federal offense
If the federal government checks the time the employee is producing work from the company software instead of the falsified time sheet and finds it is consistent across the board, the company will definitely be in a huge amount of hot water. I don't work for them and never have. I have my own small company with just me and two more employees, but if this is going on, the employees would have a firm case. They should also document the calls or even record them when they are called to work extra. Just my two cents. I hope this helps.
If you are an employee, they have federal
guidelines to follow to ensure you make at least minimum wage and to reference for overtime purposes.
Clocking in/out does not necessarily mean a loss of flexibility. It does mean some accountability, though.
You can go on line and get the Federal
forms from the IRS. I never did state, they were never that much anyway.
Your federal ID is just your SS number.
I am not an IC at Transcend, but I do some IC work in my local area. All I needed for this was to get a business license in my city of residence, for a home-based business. It costs me $26 a year, but I'm sure that will vary widely depending on where you live. (And that fee is tax-deductible.)
That's all it takes to become an 'established company,' to the best of my knowledge. Instead of a W2 at tax time you get a 1099.
Just call your city hall and ask them how to get a license to set up a home-based business.
If you have a home-based business you can write off all your computer equipment and repairs, and if your accountant is savvy enough, you can even take the home office tax deduction. Mine told me that is no longer an audit red flag because so many people are telecommuting now.
Federal Trade Commission ........ nm
ss
Do they take out for all taxes or just the Federal and you pay your own local? nm
s
WHY NOT MAIL THEM COPY OF FEDERAL....SM
and labor board guidelines regarding employment of independent contractors and the difference between IC and employment status. They cannot have it both ways...have their cake and eat it, too. They don't want to pay taxes, Soc Sec, and benefits for MTs.....but they still want the same control over the MT . Same mentality of most MTSO's....insulting our common sense & intelligence bec. they've soooooooo smart and we're are, collectively, soooooooo dumb!  
Several years ago, they passed a federal law
That law says that companies with over a certain number of employees have to provide advance notice (I thought it was 30 days, but maybe it's 60 days, I dunno)before just closing up shop and doing mass layoffs.
I do NOT think that law would apply to smaller transcription MTSOs with fewer than 50 employees or so.
It would absolutely apply to Medquist, though!
I google federal layoff law. sm
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=federal+layoff+notice+law&aq=f&oq=
Can click open articles.
Companys should at least be reported to the Federal labor department so those coming up from behind. Sadly people need to be MADE to be decent to their fellow humans
SE doesn't take out federal and state taxes, only
x
Heartlanders-find a Federal resource to help
Although my job has not been displaced, I can emphasize with your predicament. I have seen the decline in pay and benefits as a direct result of offshoring and only being able to find a job with a MTSO who stands against offshoring by sacrificing about 30% of what I had just 3 years ago. Now I have custody of a 2 yo and because I make just barely above the 200% poverty level, I do not qualify for goverment benefits that I have been paying into for the past 30 years; however, because of certain federal funds being administered differently at the discretion of different states, I could move to a different state and the 200% limit would not apply to me!
In researching what benefits ARE available to me, I found the website I have linked below. There are benefits available to persons who have lost their jobs to offshoring but I would like to point out one thing:
ONE of the programs requires that at least 3 OR MORE persons having been affected apply for the benefit. So please for the sake of each of you that are going through your own crises, band together so each of you can find a solution that works for your own needs. Please leave the ability to email each other in your posts so you can network. You need each other's support now more than ever! Find out what you CAN do for yourselves and for each other. What have you been paying taxes for all this time? You deserve whatever benefits you can obtain...you have already PAID for them!
Here's The Federal Law on Mass Layoff Notice
http://www.doleta.gov/programs/factsht/warn.htm
ANY federal money - included Medicare and almost
I could be wrong, but I read it to mean ANY federal money which includes Medicare/Medicaid, and there are probably not too many hospitals, clinics, or private doctor's offices that do not have at least 1 Medicare/Medicaid patient. Seems to me they would not be too worried about all the listed countries for off-shoring if it was only VA, since there was already a big stink about off-shoring VA records. But then, as I said, I could be reading it wrong. I guess only time will tell.
Overtime is calculated in Elabor, in compliance with federal law....
We enter our hours into Elabor each day, and OT is calculated. Right now, with a slow workload, I doubt overtime is approved. As a matter of fact, it is not approved.
Does your MTSO take out all federal/state employee taxes? nm
nm
MTSOs have a unique loophole in the FMLA Federal
MTSOs have a unique loophole. I got caught up in it a couple of years ago when trying to use medical leave for my personal medical illness.
Here are the Federal Requirements:
EMPLOYEE ELIGIBILITY
To be eligible for FMLA benefits, an employee must:
• work for a covered employer;
• have worked for the employer for a total of 12 months;
• have worked at least 1,250 hours over the previous 12 months; and
• work at a location in the United States or in any territory or possession of the United States where at least 50 employees are employed by the employer within 75 miles.
The loophole for MTSOs is the last one …”50 employees… within 75 miles.” MTSOs can interpret that to mean “50 employees who WORK FOR SPHERIS” within 75 miles of EACH OTHER. So, if you live in the middle of Wyoming, there may not be 50 employees within a 75 mile radius of your home. Thus, the loophole, which some MTSOs actually do use.
HOWEVER, some employees do have a counter-loophole. States also have FMLA requirements, and the State that you live in supersedes Federal requirements. In my case my Sate does not have the “75 mile radius” requirement, so after I contacted my MTSO and informed them of that, they backed down and approved all the leave I wanted.
Check out your State requirements to see if they are different. If they are not, if you can survive with 6 weeks and want to keep your job, I would not rock-the-boat any further. Personally, I would use those 6 weeks to find another employer who is more employee friendly, if there are any left out there.
Good Luck and Congratulations on the new Baby.
What programs are you all using?
X
programs
I've always had to remove them myself. Go into your Control Panel off your start button and click on Add/Remove Programs and you can find what you need to remove. It will walk you through uninstalling. If you have icons on your desktop you can just right click and delete those but it won't remove the program unless you go into Control Panel.
TT has 2 different VR programs
I don't do VR but maybe someone else can help you with this.
To be independent at Transcend, have to have own company established and federal ID number?
I guess that about tells it all, does it not? In other words not just the required 8 hour weekend but also you have to have established company. I wonder how many fit under that category?
Mentoring Programs can be
awful experiences, depending on which company you work for. My past experience was with Heartland and the mentoring program there was obnoxious with a capital O. I had to leave because of family issues, and I learned nothing while in the mentoring program. My general knowledge of the MT field, what I learned through general life experience or through MT training, certainly NOT from the mentoring program, is what kept me at the job. Had I had to rely soley on the mentoring program at Heartland, I would have been one of the many in my group that I just recently learned were hastily fired now that the company is changing hands. In your own situation, don't feel too bad if the company you applied to doesn't get in touch with you as soon as you had hoped or at all. The universe is sending you a message. Try, try again and NEVER give up.
Mentoring Programs
OSi has an excellent program for "newbies." You can apply through their website, http://www.ositranscription.com, being sure to include your school and certificate information.
If I'm not mistaken, Spheris has a similar program, as well. You might want to check with them. http://www.spheris.com
Best of luck to you!
switching from old programs
I posted this theory on the main board a couple of weeks ago. I read in the court papers for a lawsuit from a hospital that Medrite (specifically) had been inflating lines. It's an allegation, not proven, but if it's true, that means that transcriptionists on old programs such as Medrite are now experiencing a decrease in DQS because they were getting inflated lines before but no longer. I worked on MTs before and have noticed an increase in productivity on DQS. My MTS came out to a 65 cpl count, as does DQS (spaces included on both). Has anyone experienced a decrease in line count moving from MTS? So far I just hear people complaining who came from Medrite or cottage.
Transhealth programs and IT
I am thinking about buying IT to use, sounds like it is a great program. My question is does anyone that works for Transhealth and uses Chartmatrix use IT? How does it work? Thanks.
Yes, they are very similar programs
I have both WordPerfect 10 and Word 2003 on my computer.
Are there any other shortcut programs out there (sm)
besides Shorthand? I just wondered if there were any others so I could check out their programs and prices. I downloaded ShortHand and it's pretty good but just want to know if there are more programs out there. Thanks!
They are FutureNet programs
you need to be connected to upload them to your computer and connected to transmit them back. I do not think you need to be connected while you are working. You can download in batches of 5 or whatever number they authorize you for, disconnect from the net, transcribe, then re-connect and transmit.
is this the info you needed?
MT mentoring programs (employment)
Hi,
Can someone tell me if or what they know about MT mentoring programs? I'm being considered for a couple through well-known companies that were actually referred to me. Then I heard from someone else that you have to be cautious because someone they knew wasn’t paid. I've been looking for a job a long time now and I was almost hired. It fell through because they couldn't hire after all. Like I said, I'm waiting on some feedback from a couple of mentoring programs but it will be in January. The last few weeks I've had to put MT employment searching on hold because of the upcoming holidays; Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. I would appreciate any feedback on this thanks.
Brenda R.
MT mentoring programs (employment)
Brenda, Thank you for the advice. All I want is training from a legitimate and accredited school and to work for a legitimate company? Is that to much to ask?
line counting programs
I know abacus is free to download, but I have found that it is inconsistent with its counting abilities in my own experiences. I believe this site, MTStars has a line counting program available too, but I do not know if it is free. I don't know anything about wtd. lines. best of luck.
I think they use different programs, very confusing and disorganized
nm
Now that's helpful! I wonder if that's true for other programs?
nm
Vista is not compatible with many programs out there yet. (sm)
From what I hear, Vista and MOST transcription platforms are not compatible.
There are better MT education programs out there (M-Tec and Andrews) but
CS does have segment of their program that Spheris is involved with. However, my understanding is starting pay for newbies at Spheris is low, even by today's standards.
My suggestion would be to check out other schooling options and other companies to work for before taking the leap. Do some searching of the archives here for more info both on schools and employers. (Also, you should be aware that CS has an affiliate program where people make money by getting others to sign up for their course so you may want to take any rave reviews with a grain of salt.)
line counting programs
If the line count in a particular platform, for example ExText, is compared to MS Word count where the total word count is divided by 65, shouldn't the count be about the same?
line counting programs
In this case, the count in ExText is way below that of MS Word for the same reports. I don't have another line counting program to go by but wouldn't you think from this that something isn't quite right?
Check out MT courses/programs (nm)
.
I've tried to open it with all these programs?
What companies offer internship programs?
 Please post. TIA
Good programs can be run on faulty servers
.
I think all those programs can be tweaked. Did it say in your contract how the lines would be
s
A lot of programs with their program. Not user friendly.
nm
They are changing line count programs, not platform.
nm
If the tech doesn't know his stuff, it won't work. Programs like 123
you can have another tower set up for the new account to go on and use a KVM switch between your machines. You keep the single monitor and keyboard and hit a few keys when you need to switch back and forth to work or check the email, etc. Good luck! nm
Wasnt that software awful. Quit after one day. Too many programs to open before you could even do
a single report..What a waste of time.. too bad though. They seemed to be a really nice company to work for, but there was no way I was taking half the day to do two reports. NO WAY>>>
I love working on Meditech. I find it faster than other programs. It really does sm
depend on the account, the version, your connection, etc. There is not a lot of donated time in my opinion. I type upwards of 3000 lines per day (65 character count, not gross) and only work 8 hours. The spellcheck is medical on the account I am on. I use my Expanders for everything. Most of us on the account I am on do over 1500 lines a day, so maybe different accounts are set up different at the actual hospital. I have never lost a report in the middle, although I read that a lot here. I have been working on it for over 3 years.
eMTS uses several different software programs depending on the client, including CareFlow and
b
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