and .... that is no different than with paper records, so ...
Posted By: what is your point? nm on 2009-08-06
In Reply to: Recent hospital experience - Not so fast
nm
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The paper says 45 days.
I hope it isn't 45 working days. 
paper work
I currently work for Phoenix and the paper work they send is for your use. It explains the doctors accounts and also has examples of the doctor work, so when or if you have a question, you can refer to these files. It is your choice to print them out or not.
I believe they have both, DD and paper check.
Extext and Escription, in my opinion, are the best platforms out there. Extext is a little more difficult, but Escript is totally awesome and very user friendly. TTS has had pay issues in the past (which you will find a lot of negative posts on here regarding that). I have worked here for almost a year now and have never had a single issue with my paycheck. Always on time! Feel free to email me if I can help further.
I haven't seen an MT job in the paper since the mid-80s!
X
carbon paper... sm
Not just onionskin but erasable onionskin... oh, yay!
Pale green eraser pencil with brush on the other end for boo-boos.
I'm going to bet that most dictators under the age of 40 have absolutely NO idea what they mean when they say CC to Dr. Jones...
If you are an IC, the printer, ink and paper are tax
x
First check will probably be paper
NM
I think the first one is paper check. nm
nm
No. The paper they make you sign
says $125 (I guess to reimburse them for sending it to you in the first place) and for returning it.
Do be aware . . . paper checks only! (sm)
They don't offer direct deposit, just mailed, typed, handsigned checks, which can be very hard to cash.
They don't communicate very well -- hard to get someone after 3pm EST if you have a problem.
At least one of their major accounts still uses a DOS platform and requires you to have this weird token thing that changes passwords every few minutes to log in. You also have to get their footpedal and software. So, if you're using their tools, their token, etc., how can you be an IC (since part of the definition of an IC is that you provide your own tools)? Another company the IRS needs to look into, IMHO.
The DOS platform is so slow you can't make any kind of lines. Instant Text works, but there is no way to save normals.
My son was about 17 when he asked me what carbon paper was! nm
X
That's funny didn't know they had it in the paper
I was told they recently moved somebody from another dept within the company to fill that position. She is definitely entry level, completely different field. Just goes to show.....
We may not have had to type on sticky paper
but MTs breaking into this business have their own set of challenges. I am a little tired being looked down on as a new MT, only 5 years, because it is so much easier. I beg to differ.
I went to school to be an MT. I have under my belt a 2-year Associates degree in Medical Transcription and a CareerStep class. I was hired by a national company who promised me a constant account with 2 backups, and I did not lie about my experience. I was at goal my first day of traning and have always had QA scores above the required average.
In return, I went to work and printed sample after sample after sample as we had over 100 doctors in my primary account alone. I learned new voices, new ways of pronouncing medications, and that some people still use kilograms as a unit of measurement. I faithfully made note of every blank I left and its correction so it would not be a blank again. I studied not only transcription but the other doctors names, specialties, area hospitals, local physicians, nursing homes, lakes and recreational facilities, highway and route numbers, and pretty much every possible place a person could work in the area.
My secondary account did not get as much attention initially, but 6 months after I started, my account was yanked and sent to India (where they no doubt know more about US geography than I do), so I repeated the process over again. So far I had made it a year and learned clinic notes, routine procedures (sometimes called OP notes), consultations, and ER transcription.
I had not lied about my experience, but it really didn't matter because one day I woke up, went to work, and was getting discharge summaries from a teaching hospital that I have never heard of. I was told that since I am doing so well that it was time to move on. LOL...it was more like no other team in the company could type that account so we got it. I typed it, cried, and typed it some more. Pretty soon, I was literally not making enough money to pay my bills after I paid my health insurance. I was not making my quota, which I had always regularly exceeded, and I was worried that I was going to lose my job for not producing. By the way, I am at a whopping 6.5 cents a line at this point.
I went looking for a job. I was recruited by a smaller MTSO by their president. He said that they were very supportive, like one big happy family, and they jump on a conference every month just to hash out any issues they have. I even got a 1 cpl raise. WOW...but, I am 3 months short of your 2-year minimum exeperience requirement. (I didn't lie).
I got the job anyway, and after 3-1/2 years, I have never jumped on a big ole conference call or had the opportunity to hash out any issues. Since being there, I have learned 10 accounts (repeat above learning process times 10), and I am still one of the highest producing MTs they have.
Again, I was handed a gift by my MTSO. I was given the opportunity to work on their self-described second hardest account because I was doing so well. Again, the message was sent by waking up one day and seeing it in my queue. I decided to be a team player because the company line is if you can do this, you can do anything. You will make bank.
Eventually, I was given another opportunity to help out on an account. This soon became my primary account because no one they trained on it could do it, and the account I was hired to do (and loved) was given to someone else. I figured if I was doing harder work (and the hardest they had),after 3 years I should get a raise.
No, I couldn't have a raise because they still had my primary account related to my pay scale. It didn't matter that even if I begged, I couldn't get that work. I was still what they considered a Level 1 MT. Shame on me, I went looking for another job.
I held that job for 1-1/2 weeks. I spent 3 days in training after waiting 2-1/2 months for my computer to arrive. It then took me another week to track down my production supervisor to be able to start working and get samples for my account. In our phone call, she apologized for taking so long (insert baby crying), but she was very busy as they had taken away her assistant and not replaced her (insert long pause as she IMs someone else). She was very hard to get a hold of now (insert baby crying again) but she would do what she could to get me started. I typed for 5 days and had 3 unanswered questions that were critical to me doing my work. I came back after a 2-day break to an e-mail that she was going to be gone for a week at a production supervisor meeting. Yes, I quit and without notice.
I was wise enough now to have not given up my current contract, and I decided to accept that they were going to pay me when they felt like it, but I was not going to take Level 1 pay for doing Level 3 work. I assumed that account full-time in June. I was off almost $800 that month even with the increased line rate (so much for making bank). By September I was back up to the production that was normal for me and raised my contract to 14,000 lines. Then last week, my boss tells me that we are backed up in OPs in this account.
I said that I would take them on as I had been practicing on them for quite some time. As I expected, my production dipped again. I knew I was not going to make 7000 lines, and I IM'd my supervisor that if I was going to be set for all OPs, I would need to readjust my contract back down.
The tizzy fit that she threw defies description, and I am back wishing for a new job. I told her simply that either we are in trouble for not meeting production or we are in trouble for not being a team player. I cannot produce 7000 lines of OP notes in a week, and I am not being terminated for not meeting my contract goals.
Is it fair that you have a single priority report that needs to be typed, and all I have to do is read the account notes (all xxx pages) and type it, BUT you are going to bash me if my production is off.
It is really easy for the MTSO
or management or whoever does it to complain that the quality isn't there or line counts aren't being met but wouldn't consider paying an ounce of training time to compensate you.
My husband is also self-employed. If I said to him, I know you regularly make xxx dollars an hour, but this is an emergency, and you are the only one who could do it, so would you mind spending 20 or 30 minutes learning how to do this. I know you may never have to do it again, and I won't pay you any more than what I normally would no matter how long it takes you, but would you do it to be a team player? I would STILL be taking that flying leap.
When you were back typing on sticky paper, did you regularly worry that you were going to have to stay an extra hour in the evening because the report you were on was taking too long? Did you spend your evenings researching doctors in Bullhead City, Arizona, and Columbus, Ohio, and in some little known town in Louisiana that has a clinic but barely even a zip code? Did you have to use Mapquest as one of your transcription tools so you could figure out where this guy on this account is from? Did your boss come to you and say there is a clinic 300 miles away that is behind, and I volunteered you to do their work? Don't leave, now, until you have 1000 lines in. And don't WHINE.
PS...how do you know they don't whine in India.
so, it wasn't put on paper that you are terminated
nm
Saw on paper that pay was only 6 - 8.5 cpl. Is that what you guys will be starting at, or staying
m
On the front page of my morning paper
http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/214991
I see a big ad in my paper for Heartland IS, many bad reviews on this board.
Stuff about them being sold and on their website is a big picture of....India? I am sort of new to the business, one of the MQ SE in the middle of the shuffle. Are there any companies that are stable? I am tired of stress. 
I don't think so. What you see on paper or on the screen in black and white.
If it were me, I certainly would ask specifically the HR person or MTSO. Pick up the phone, dial their number, and ask. Never take a job, unless you know how and what you are getting paid for.
I do believe it means without spaces, but I could be wrong. Things change so fast in this industry, what it means one day, does not necessarily have the same definition tomorrow.
Tradeoff between paper use and system speed (sm).
If I have too many reference lists up in Excel and Wordpad, my system bogs down; Microsoft products are such memory hogs.
Any Spheris employees get paper checks?
Just had my direct deposit changed to a paper check. Since payday is tomorrow, am wondering how long it will take to get my check--I am only two states away from HQ. Thanks!
Any Spheris employees get paper checks
Wow, I was expecting it Monday. That's good to hear!
I DID type on sticky paper and an IBM Selectric
Yes, I did stay an extra hour because a report was too long. The difference was I got paid for it and appreciated for it.
I agree with you. The cheap exploitation of the third world has driven a high percentage of this field into filthy trash and many of those managing it into slumlords. It went from MTs working from home to fill a need to just dirty bloodsucking middlemen looking for a place to weasel into and make a buck off the backs of others.
What do you mean that you have Thanksgiving with your family? What do you mean that your arms or back hurt after no time off for months? What do you mean that you need time off for a mammogram? Geeze. It's sick. It's just disgusting. I'm in it only because I've done it so long I'm not quite sure what else to do. I'm back at a hospital so I can be a PERSON again. The difference is night and day. I'm finding the hospitals are grossing-out on it, too, and outsourced MTs are thought of as those poor things and somewhat pitiful. Like a necessary evil they are trying to figure a way around.
LOL .. I'll bet you are write. UGH on the carbon paper ... sm
We typed in triplicate, so had to correct 3 documents each time I made a mistake. Forget the good old days in this case ... I am going to give my PC a big hug right now! 
Webmedx first pay date DD or paper check?
Just wondering. I know every place does something different. I asked my STM, and she is trying to find out for me, but i thought this might be faster.
mean black character on white paper
also called virtual black character or VBC. Spaces not paid for. Never do it. This is just horrible.
I wish I had kept the article out of the paper on Transcend outsourcing
The home office located (as you might know) close to Atlanta and it was listed as a top company for Georgia but was I surprised when the person speaking made no bones about their outsourcing and the reason they STATED for it, lack of American MTs. Well, ladies, who do you feel about that? I am sure someone posting on MTstars has this article because they did last time. Hopefully they can quote word for word.
I'll check paper tomorrow, but not sure about Broward,
zz
12/cpl, hsi, no travel time, no paper/products. Small town.
dd
Article in local paper about Spheris and outsourcing to India
Franklin-based Spheris Near Top of Medical Transcription Business
BY SHARON H. FITZGERALD
In today’s world of Palm Pilots and voice-recognition software, you might think the need for medical transcriptionists is waning. You would be wrong. Franklin-based Spheris employs more than 5,000 medical transcriptionists worldwide and is looking to hire more as its service to more than 200,000 physicians at health systems, hospitals and doctor groups continues to grow.
The world is changing because the demand for electronic medical records … is very high. Certainly there are some technologies being tried and adopted, such as speech-recognition technology or systems where the physician is required to key in his or her own information. Those are still in their infancy and hold some promise in the distant future. But for right now the work-flow habits of physicians and hospitals and the need to see many more patients and process them more efficiently is driving the demand for what we do to its highest levels, explains Harry Shaw, Spheris investor relations.
In July, Spheris was named No. 7 among the nation’s fastest-growing healthcare information technology companies. The designation was by the publication Healthcare Informatics, which also ranked Spheris 28th for total revenue. The company is the second largest in the medical transcription industry.
Spheris’ growth is in no small measure due to its December 2004 acquisition of HealthScribe (also known briefly as Avicis), which was No. 3 in the field. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, Spheris gained a workforce of more than 1,800 transcriptionists. About 1,500 of those employees work at a centralized facility in Bangalore, India. Thus, says Shaw, the transaction gave Spheris a much-needed global perspective.
To service this increased demand that’s out there, having enough medical transcriptionists to do the work is a real challenge to the industry in general. One way to tackle that increased demand is to tap the resources that are available globally, he says. One of the neat things about having an operation based in India is that a lot of dictation is done at the end of the day after hours. So we get a lot of volume that comes in late in the evening, and if you follow the sun, that’s the morning time for India. They’re just starting their business day, so we can route a lot of volume that we get late in the day to India when transcriptionists are just coming to work.
Shaw says the fact that Spheris owns its international facility and employs its workers rather than subcontracting differentiates the company from similar businesses. In addition, all Spheris’ medical transcriptionists in the United States are either full-time or part-time employees of the company.
With more than 3,500 employees and additional sites in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Sterling, Va., Spheris depends on high-tech global systems to quickly turnaround client transcription. Here’s how the technology works: Spheris provides clients with a server and whatever voice-capture system the client prefers. That might be a hand-held device or it might be a phone number the client calls. Shaw says fulfillment shops ensure that the client — as well as transcriptionists — have the hardware and software necessary to do the job. Following a patient encounter, physicians and other healthcare providers dictate details such as patient history, diagnosis and medications prescribed. The voice files are sent to a data center in either Franklin, St. Petersburg or Sterling, then passed out to transcriptionists.
The technology play is critical for a company of our size, and it’s one of the advantages that we offer in terms of cost savings, he says. He acknowledges, however, the continued existence of sneaker net, with some physicians continuing to speak into a tape recorder; then tapes are picked up at the office for delivery to Spheris.
Most of Spheris’ U.S. transcriptionists work out of their homes, where they usually receive digitized voice files over the Internet. Spheris offers the client a variety of templates, or the client may have its own format. Turnaround time is 12 to 24 hours, Shaw says, although stat service is available.
As it is known today, Spheris is the result of a small Franklin company called Total eMed, which purchased the much larger EDiX from IDX Systems in June 2003. The resulting company was branded as Spheris. In November 2004, the company completed a recapitalization in which two private equity investors, Warburg Pincus and Soros Private Equity (now known as TowerBrook Capital Partners), acquired ownership. The management team, led by President and CEO Steven E. Simpson, also invested and continues to lead company operations.
Asked if an IPO is in Spheris’ future, Shaw says the company will take a cautious approach to that. We want to make sure that we stay disciplined around the acquisition of HealthScribe, making sure that we’re fully integrating all aspects of that. … We do have a growth strategy in mind, and that certainly is an option down the road.
No, we got a small Valentine's gift that looks like a paper weight/ memo holder??
nm
AC Medical Records?
HI! Has anyone heard of AC Medical Records in Oregon? I was offered a position with them and was wondering if anyone had any info. Thanks in advance!
Amanda
Maybe WL should see a doctor and have her records
s
AC Medical Records
Seeking feedback on this company with an Oregon address, positive, negative, or neutral. Any info welcomed. Thanks.
Records theft
 All the more reason why we should as MT's in this United States of America band together, go to Washington DC and protest!!!..I am more than fed up with seeing our skills and profession as a whole ****ardized by outsourcing. I think it would be a good idea for us MT's on this board to seriously consider a sound strategy we can utilize to make our leaders listen to us and take us seriously. Perhaps this is wishful thinking on my part but if we could put something together, I for one would be willing to WALK to DC if I had to (and with the price of gas out of control; I might have to) - to make ourselves heard.
records theft
Amen
Which is EXACTLY why U.S. medical records should
Their poverty and desperateness to survive is exactly why something like ID theft has certainly got to be too big of a temptation to ignore.
that's what happened with the VA records and
the whistleblower from Q is no blacklisted.
Digital Records Corporation
 Does anyone out there work for Digital Records Corporation, MTs, that is? Need to know if you have to have a C-phone as the only way of working for them? Will be taking their oral part of test on Monday, but she would not tell me any specifics about them before that ! Whatever else you could tell me about them would be greatly appreciated. All I know, right now, is that they do pay for the spaces, that is a plus for me, because now I don't get paid for that ! Thanks.
i was offered at 8 cpl for medical records w/o ops
.
Digital Records Corp - Does anyone know
anything about this company - good or bad? I would appreciate your comments. Thanks.
Anyone know about Digital Records Corporation? sm..
It looks like they have a GREAT benefit package. Any information from current or past employees would be greatly appreciated. Are their benefits as good as they say? Is there plentiful work?
Digital Records Corporation...
Check out their website, http://www.relyondrc.com...That is the one that I am referring to. Thanks.
Anyone know about Digital Records Corporation?
Any positive or negative information will be appreciated. I've got to get out of Medquist.
I think people don't realize those records are THEIRS
They are YOUR medical records. My sister is a nurse, and I used to work for a medical malpractice attorney, and I was amazed at the errors I would see in the MR. Plus, my sister says - those records are yours. You are entitled to view your medical records any time you want. You can't view someone else's, but you surely can view yours, and NEED to view them for accuracy every once in awhile. When we moved recently, and my husband was given his records to take with us to a new doctor, I was amazed at the sloppiness of the records. I loved our doctor, but considering the fact that her staff took my husband's history, and listed he was allergic to Doxacillin (he is actually allergic to doxycycline) - made me think twice about whether or not I would ever return to that office. Pitiful.
Medical Records Company
Anyone heard of Medical Records Company. Ive never seen them on here before, but just looking for info. Thanks
SmartMed and Digital Records Cor
Anyone work for either or test for either? I see that ad has been at top of page for SmartMed and had 2000+ hits and wander what is the story - no one posts about them. Also never see Digital Records commented upon except for pay by the stroke a little bit down the page.
AC Medical Records (ACMR)
Does anybody have any info on AC Medical Records (ACMR) transcription company in Oregon? Thanks!
Digital Records Corporation (DRC)
Anyone familiar with this company? If so, what do you think of them. Good/bad place to work. Platforms? Fair pay with spaces? Enough work?
Thanks
Plus your medical records include your SS#, too! nm
.
AC Medical Records (ACMR)
Does anybody have any info. on AC Medical Records (ACMR), a transcription company out of Oregon? Thank you!
MRC Medical Records Corp? sm
Anyone have any information on this company in Florida? Thanks.
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