going back to school
Posted By: pumpernickel on 2009-08-24
In Reply to: To all my fellow MDI'ers: Things to ponder... - steph1
I've been thinking for a long time about going back to school, just kind of a vague someday-I-will sort of thing, mostly because I have known for quite a while that I'm not going to be able to make a lifetime career out of MT with the changes the industry is facing, but I always put it off. Now I'm starting classes at my local university in January and what finally got me motivated to get it going was starting on VR. Has anyone else noticed how quickly VR has been taking hold in companies the last year or two? It's just all over the place now, including MDI, and while the VR at MDI is pretty decent it's just been a wakeup call to me that I need to get in gear and get an exit strategy out of the business. The other big factor is EMR and the federal mandate for electronic records by 2012. I don't think that means all transcription will be eliminated by then of course, but I think as more clinics are forced into a system anyway a lot of them will go with something that does help them eliminate their MTs. So... EMRs taking over clinic jobs and the acute care MTs fighting over the VR lines to get the paycheck they need... it's just a dead end.
If you can go to school, I'd do it for sure. Keep on part-time with MDI if you need to or want to, but the best thing you can do for your future is make sure that there is a job there for you.
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willing to go back to school?
If you are willing to go back into 3-9 months of training there is this thing called Scoping - which is basically VR for the legal industry. Most courtrooms use VR instead of a traditional court reporter - the job of the court reporter is now to verify that the VR is working properly and is picking up the important people in the courtroom. The pay is pretty decent - about that of an experienced MT. The catch is you have to learn short hand because if the audio isn't working properly the reporter has to pull out her ShortHand machine and type it out - then you AR paid to translate it into a court report.
Search around for scoping jobs - there was one listed a couple of months ago on the job seeker's board, that's how I heard about it.
Going back to school
I am going back to school so I will just get out of transcription completely. 
Going back to school
I know exactly how you feel about being sure you make the right decision. I am going back to school for nursing, after having been able to stay at home, full-time, for the last 15+ years as an MT. I'm going through a little anxiety at the thought of getting back out there in the workforce. While it served me quite well in those years and allowed me to be home to raise my children, unfortunately I agree with the other posts as far as MT'ing eventually being a low wage career in the near future. With VR, it is a nice break from typing but the pay is severely low and seems to be getting lower across the board for both straight typing and VR work. So, my 2 cents is it never hurts to train for another profession, if nothing else to fall back on if you need to. Go with your gut...it's usually always right. 
Call or go back to the school
and ask them exactly where these $60,000 to $70,000 jobs are. When they tell you, let us all know!
I went back to nursing school when I was 34
and actually did better than my younger classmates. I think I realized how important it was at that age, much more so than when I was 18. I only worked as a nurse for a few years and then started transcribing. You're never too old to pursue something that interest you. Nursing school is tough but very interesting.
Well she would actually be thinking about them by going back to school also (sm)
I am at a point where i need a divorce but guess what? No job security. So far my kids are staying in an unhappy home. I pray that never happens to her. Even if it doesn't she still needs job security to take care of her babies, married or not, and nursing would give her way more security than this.
Not with MDI anymore but going back to school sm
I'm going for an associate's in health information management, and a good portion of the program is for coding. I can also go for my bachelor's afterward in health service administration, so even if coding goes the way of transcription at some point, I have options that can't be outsourced. I am working full-time, but my kids are in elementary and middle school and I'm not doing this as a single parent, so there are definitely some challenges for you. That said, I think many people have challenges doing this sort of thing - mine is that it has been 16 years since I was in college and there are a lot more technical things to learn. I had kicked myself for years for not finishing college when I had the chance the first time, so whatever you decide, try to make sure you will not regret it - whether that is continuing school or not - and only you can decide that. Good luck :)
Tired, but end is in sight - going back to school!
I am so happy. I am going back to college. Depending on where you live, with the stimulus plans and everything else, there may be funding available to help you train for another profession. I live in Michigan. The state has a program called No Worker Left Behind where they will pay for schooling and books up to 10,000. To qualify you must have a total family income of less than 40,000 a year (easy on MT pay). That's basically it. Check into your state and see what's offered. There's a list of the need for jobs to be filled in 2012 and you can pick from that list, there's probably 300 different types of jobs listed. It includes everything from truck driving school to a chef to a college associate degree in a variety of subjects.
"QA manager needs to go back to school for English 101"
..
Good Lord! You want to go back to 1918, like my grandma who quit school in 3rd grade to go work
in a box factory? No, child labor laws have nothing to do with poor work ethic. It is simple enough to develop good work ethic with laundry, chores, etc. I think it is more the prosperity of the last few generations. When you have lots of money, it's hard not to give it to your kids, spares you the unpleasant feeling of watching them struggle and suffer...
I worked in QA for Transcending back in 2000-2001. They were paying hourly back then. SM
The accounts weren't too horribly bad. The reason I ended up leaving was because slowly but surely they began to inch closer and closer to paying QA by production. When I first started, the quota was something like 30 reports a day. We simply had to make sure that we QA'd all reports that were close to being out of TAT first and then do the rest. Then, my supervisor left and they hired a new one who immediately called a big teleconference meeting and said we had to up production to 60 reports a day. Then, they started counting lines. Which was fine because they were still paying hourly.
Next, there was an MT who used VR software because she was blind - yes blind. Again, when I first started, I was told we had to edit her entire reports because she used the VR software and we had to make sure that everything was correct and made sense. Then, we are told only check the blanks. I wasn't comfortable with that and I continued to completely proof every word. Then I was called on the carpet not because I wasn't meeting the production quota, but because I was ONLY meeting the production quota. I told them I was proofing all of the MT's work that used VR, I was told that no one ever told me to proof every word of the VR reports and that I needed to fill in blanks and move on. When I voiced my concerns, I was told that was my job, to fill in blanks and I should move on and strive to product above the standards. Next thing you know, rumors abounded about changing the QA staff to being paid on production. So I left.
There just seemed to me to be too little concern for quality and more emphasis on quantity and I just didn't want to be part of company who would take money out of my pocket just to line their own and that's what they were doing by putting QA on production. I also am not comfortable with the job of QA being thought of as a blank filler. There is much more to the QA profession than just simply filling in blanks.
I don't know if Transcend ever did start paying QA by production, but I could see that the idea was being floated there. Maybe there was a enough protest that they didn't change from hourly.
Good luck to you!
Phoenix Medcom- Another apply a few months back, ask to take a test and never heard back??
I applied a month or two ago, received an email from someone asking if I would take a test and said she was getting ready to go on vacation for a week, so I hurried and immediately and told her I'd love to take the test. I never heard back. I waiting thinking she went on vacation and would contact me when she got back to do the test but nothing...very strange..Just wondered if this happened to anyone else.
Well, in J-school...
they taught us to NEVER hyphenate after any word ending in a "y"...but who knows if that applies in MT land...
What's the name of that school?
xx
Yes, but are you just out of school? sm
I understand it being possible with experience, but it is presented as being available from home directly out of a course. I have yet to hear of or see that happen. If so, please share! I see more often than not people having trouble even getting that first job out of school. I've been working my butt off with no raise and no appreciation now for almost a year and am sick of it. I am currently starting a job with a new company and hopefully will find things better there. Hopefully, for me and others, I just had a really crappy first experience.
If the school was A or M, you would have SM
had a job coming out the door. I am guessing the school was C, and now you are finding out why C isn't the great school they make it out to be.
Which school did you go to?
A and M, as you put it, open the doors to companies that otherwise would not speak to a newbie, and I did not have a problem securing a job. You missed the point because you did not take the time to read my message. Instead you judged me!
It is not fair or realistic to expect an MT that has just graduated to be as good and productive as someone that has been an MT for several years. It is not right to ask the applicant to reveal social security and driver's license numbers along with granting permission to do a background check and to test before the applicant receives basic information about the company and/or job. Also, a number of companies, recruiters and MTSOs have been complaining about the bad quality of some MTs, that they do not show up for work or constantly need time off while at the same time there are numerous graduates from the top two schools that are eager, willing and knowledgeable that are not given a chance despite the good name of the schools and a good GPA. Many companies overhire which leaves some MT to find an empty queue at work sometimes. Account managers make promises to give you more accounts but never find the time to do so. It is also very difficult for a newbie if the QA people have less knowledge of the BOS, grammar, punctuation and terminology.
Many new grads post on the various boards that they send out a number of resumes and/or tested and never hear anything or after several weeks. Any honest MT with several years' experence will confim that even after going to one of the top two schools it still takes up to a year before it clicks. You never stop learning as an MT. How is a newbie supposed to learn if he/she receives no feedback? Some companies post on their website that they accept newbies but that they will treat them like MTs with experience. Like the other responder stated, they seem to have forgotten what it is like as a newbie. These people forget that at one point in their life they started as an MT with no experience. How many of those people were grateful for that opportunity that enabled them to get where they are today?
I see an opportunity to build a whole new generation of willing and capable American MTs. If we want to have better working conditions, if we want to be treated better, then we need to have an excellent education and be reliable. We need to deliver, and then we can make demands. Companies and MTSOs make promises they do not keep. What is so wrong about letting an MT do discharge summaries if that is what he/she prefers and train them on other reports and accounts when work is a bit slower? What is so wrong about limiting the number of doctors the MTs transcribe for? Why don't companies that require the MT to use their computer provide an up-to-date spellchecker and drug database? How can a company offer 5 cpl for an IC job? Why doesn't anybody approach the doctors about their dictation practices?
Why can't we all just work together and try to change those things so many people are complaining about on these various MT boards?
Which school?
M-TEC and Andrews are heads and shoulders above Career Step.
I know I am old school but it seems to me
that if you cash a paycheck from someone, you should not badmouth them at the same time. I hated the Q, yes, I did, but I left. I did not keep on taking their money while bashing them. Just sayin', that's all.
Has everyone heard back from Keystrokes yet regarding the email we received a while back?
Just wandering why I haven't heard any response yet.
When I went to school for this MT career
What happened? I barely clear $30,000 a year in this field working for a national. I'm in debt up to my eyeballs. Someone please help me.
Poll: school vs. OJT, etc.
I was just curious....
How long have you been an MT?
Did you attend an MT school, or did you receive on-the-job training?
That's all for now. 
Both. If you do school, expect to do OJT anyway. nm
x
I'd concentrate on school first (sm)
and don't even concern yourself on which companies allow flexible hours. You would be more concerned at that point on getting hired somewhere as a newbie. If you're serious about being an MT, then concentrate on school. Start now before the baby comes and see how far you can get. It's not just a few month endeavor. Then, when you have finished school and have hopefully done well, that's the time to worry about where you are going to work and the hours they will let you work. There are the big nationals, and also smaller MTSOs that might give you the work in the morning and expect it back the next morning, and you work on it when it's convenient for you as long as you get it back. But...the big thing will be completing school AND getting hired.
It's not so much the school, it's the individual.
x
Nursing School
I never think it's too late to do what you really want to do!. I am an R.N. and can tell you that there is a severe shortage of nurses who really care about the people.
Go to school! Make a difference in somebodys life!
Never too old to go to nursing school sm
When I was at the hospital, there were new grads there in their 50s. Go for it. Plenty of jobs out there in nursing.
That's about the age my mom was went she went to nursing school.
Plus, whether you go to nursing school or not, you're still going to be 41. Why not spend this time following your passion?
Less than average school
But why would someone settle for a less than average school? Do they want to be content with producing less than average work? As a businessperson, that is what I would be concerned with in hiring such a person. I would want someone who cared enough to get the best education out there from one of the big 3.
I am getting a job driving a school bus.
That cannot be taken out of the country. They start at $13 an hour. Give my brains a brake, I mean break.
I have a boring last name, and when I was in school I always - sm
secretly wished a had a long, difficult to spell-and-pronounce last name, just so I could sit there and watch the teachers stumble over trying to pronounce it.
This is like in high school where
Why are these companies wanting to have initials for their names? Do they think it will make them more popular? For example, TTS, TT, MQ, KS..... There are others doing the same, and looks like this one that doesn't pay wants to be FST now so they sound more important and fly under the radar as Four Seasons known as a nonpayer. Professional to me equals proper name, and isn't that what the BOS preaches? Let's be professional insteady of like small children with little nicknames that are like baby talk!
Doing QA right out of school with NO experience????
That just doesn't sound right to me. Most companies require at least 2-3 years of experience just to transcribe! I can't believe anyone would hire a brand new MT fresh out of training to do QA!
Not just out of school. Are they hiring?
I have been working for over 6 months. I know that they say 3 years' experience, but that's what my present employer also said and they hired me right after graduation. I'm working in acute care on 3 different accounts and do basically every work type and subject matter. I am doing more than 12,000 lines per pay period (every 2 weeks) with 99.6% accuracy on my last random review. I would like to try to convince them to give me a shot if they have open positions.
You can do it ... (school + work) (sm)
I transcribe for 3 clients AND I go to school full time and have a family. It's doable ... difficult but doable. Keep your chin up! :)
In high school
my very first typing class (and we were talking the 1960s, Remington manual typewriters) one of my fellow students, who had never touched a typewriter before, was effortlessy typing 100 WPM within a week. Just a natural talent, I guess. Not a talent I possess, apparently. I am in awe of anybody who can do this!
Old school gone internet
I've been at this a long time, 25+ years, started on a typewriter. I was hospital trained, learned out of a Dorland's. After working 5 years in-house, I started working at home. Again I worked with books; this was before AL Gore invented the internet ;) But, back in the good ol' days, the couple of services that I worked for over the ensuing years provided the reference materials, although you were responsible for buying your own drug book each year. So back in 'the day', I didn't have to invest in the books anyway, and that was even when I made better money. Now it would be pretty much impossible to go out and by those same books.
I also question whether you learn anything more from a book than you do the internet, though. My fave book back 20 years ago was the Medical Word Book by I think it was Tesio or something like that. Great book, I found my word almost every time, but I really didn't learn anything about the word I was looking up. However, and maybe this is just the way I confirm I've got the right word, I'm not just plunking HAYGAR DILATOR into google, I'm plunking HAYGAR DILATOR GYNECOLOGY into google, and will turn up Hegar dilator. And at this point, and maybe this is just the way I learn, I've connected Hegar and gynecology in my head, and learned more than if I ran my eyes down a column of H's in a book.
And that isn't something that you can just lay at the feet of the MT schools. I think good searching on Google is almost intuitive for some of us fortunate folks. But we are the exception, apparently. I know at UCLA, one of the classes my daughter was strongly encouraged to take in her first year was how to do proper internet research, how to judge the source of information, etc., and I believe they are starting to teach this at least on a rudimentary level in the elementary and secondary schools, too.
I do, however, agree 100% that grammar and spelling wise, these 'yunggins' are pretty weak. Spelling I blame on the advent of spell-check, and the only thing I can think of as responsible for the grammar is teacher apathy and/or the 'just move along' attitude prevalent in too many schools.
Sorry so long!!
Other than school transcription lab
All the experience I have is acute care. I really enjoy it because I rarely have one night where I only type one kind of report.
That particular ad is for some kind of school/training
xx
Hubby starting school for this
and is not picking Andrews or MTec. They both want big deposits, will not work with you. Hubby can't get a PT job to raise that much money due to after effects of chemotherapy, but we can afford a monthly payment. We applied for different financial aid packages and loans, but either make too much or too little. So we are picking another school that my friend is currently enrolled in. I called and talked to the person that does the hiring at my company, that also hired me, and she said they would not have any problems with that school.
I was 15 on a manual in high school....sm
And that was in 1964 - learned to type real well in that class on a manual......but I began MT'g with tapes and privately I still pick up tapes from 4 surgeons twice weekly, but I transcribe those tapes on the computer *lol*....
Good thing about the web is that most of us now find all we need to know today online and rarely reference our books anymore......I like that!! Saves some time....time is money!! 
Meditec on line school
Wondering if anyone has ever gone through this online school for MT, coding, billing, etc?? I have a message posted on the Billers and Coders forum, but no answers as of yet. Seems as though less visit that forum than this one. If you care to, go over and read that post and it explains why I am looking into this program. In the meantime, if anyone has had any experience with this school, feel free to share!! 
Nursing school for me right now, can't wait to be done. nm
nm
If you are just out of school I really don't think they hire newbies
.
Medical Transcription School
Can someone recommend a good medical transcription school? I have a friend who is interested. I was trained at a local hospital. Thanks in advance!
I am wondering why her school isn't helping her. nm
Focus was good for me when I was just out of school...
Focus was a great company at one time and I got my start as a newbie there, and my teams leaders and the HR people were all great. They pretty much let you worked whenever you wanted to (which is unusual but great) and did not bother you and you would get regular QA audits/feedback. Just recently, since the merger or being bought by Nuance, things have changed drastically. I do not want to post any negatives, because again, I am grateful since they were my first job, but I am glad I found a second company because I can see the writing on the wall and it does not look good right now. I have decided to part ways with them since they are going through a major transistion, and I hope it works out well for all in the end.
I wish Focus and the MTs still there the very best...
Find a reputable school
Hi, Shelley.
I am so sorry you got pulled in by TranSCAM. I agree with the other poster's info on contacting a lawyer and the BBB about them.
There really is no way to do OJT in this career anymore. The best way to get into transcription is through studying with a reputable school such as CareerStep. There are others....look through the posts on here to find schools that graduates recommend. Best of luck to you!
Are you for real?? Do you really think that MTs fresh out of school sm
CAN DO YOUR JOB?? Wow. You don't think the economy has anything to do with the slowdown either? What about all the other MTs on this board who say their companies are out of work too?
WMX bought M-TEC, which is not an MTSO, but a MT school.
x
Congratulations! Did you also go to school for billing? (sm)
I only ask because I've been an MT for 20+ years and want to switch to billing. There is a company 2 miles from my house that does billing and is always hiring. I have never submitted an application because I don't have any training in billing, just MTing. TIA
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