Medical Transcription Discussion Forums:

• Main Board
• Job Seekers Board
• Company Board
• Word Help Board
• Classifieds
• Medquist
• New MTs / Students

General Discussion Forums:

• Gab Board
• Politics Board

I have been in transcription for nearly 20 years but I'm back in school.  One of the classes I can challenge for the nursing program is Medical Terminology.  It has been years and years since I took the class and the credit is too old.  My options are taking it over or challenging.  I would prefer to challenge. 

My question is.......... does anyone know of a website where I can take a FREE practice medical terminology test? 

Thanks

I recently signed onto Vonage due to SBC challenges. I have found that I am having problems with the foot pedal to my Lanier and dictaphone.  Last night I had to call in at least 10 times to finish all my reports.  It seems to go dead when I press on either the forward or rewind pedals.  No problems if I just keep typing and don't touch either pedal.  Is anyone else having these problems or am I the only one.

there is the thread about podiatry, posts about companies, posts about cherry picking,  ESLs taking over, this company is the best.     How many hundreds of us are on these boards???   Its a good thing we are all individuals - and there is so much work out there because one type of person could not do all the types of work.  Not everyone wants to work for big corporation  - not everyone wants to run their own MT service.

Some of us hate short little clinic notes, some hate long operative reports.  Some love radiology, others want to type IMEs. Never work for a company that IMs you all day vs  this company never gives feedback.

Where I  recently worked - we always used to leave behind certain reports for the late shift person, stuff we all thought she loved until one day she complained - how come I HAVE TO DO ALL the _____ studies..  Its kinda funny- you might think someone is cherrypicking all the CT's and they think they are doing you a favor by leaving short reports. 

Of course NO ONE likes the really awful individual dictators, whether it is ESL or chewers, the accounts that have a million details or QA that keeps changing. I think most of us know you have to take some bad with the good and when you TRY to do the tuff stuff, the good stuff becomes easier.

So  when someone comes to vent - cut them some slack - who cares about typos here - we all know that when we are working, we use our spellchecks and pay attention to details. 

When I take time to answer on this board, it is never with judgement - I always try to say "in MY experience, psych reports are bad because ..."  or when I worked for  XYZ company, they did not count lines correctly.  You cannot make generalities about  a profession as varied as this one. 

I come here for information AND entertainment - it does take a certain type of person to do this work -  that has nothing to do with the skills involved - and I think we share an understanding of each other, even as we argue over everything.    We all saw a part of ourselves in the recently posted "You Might Be a Transcriptionist If..." and we all laughed as we shook our heads. 

Sad to say I am about to make the decision to try a career change - I cannot push myself anymore (after almost 30 years) to produce enough lines to make the money I need - thats not to say it can't be done these days, just that I don't want to/can't  work that hard anymore. 

The company I work for has a heading that we insert name, dob, date, mrn # and then we have to retype it in the actual document.  Is there any way to get that to auto fill that same info in the document?  TIA!!

Hi Anyone/everyone.

I need some frank advice about this  profession.

I  have relatively easy dictators.   I recently purchased Instant Text and am learning it . . My QA is good and I have not yet had any report/dictator I am unable to do. Yet I struggle daily to make my line counts. I feel like I am working all day every day.

Life circumstances prevent me from working outside the home right now. I know I am blessed to be available to family members at a  very difficult time.

Does anyone have any advice? How long does it take to able to produce 1200 lines daily without struggling?

Thanks for any/all suggestions.

Got a letter from Frank about "document preservation"  and the ever-threatening "new pay plan."  He keeps mentioning his new pay plan, but never has the balls to tell us what it is.

I am required to put a time stamp on all my reports, which I do as soon as I get it at the beginning of the report and I put it on the bottom of the report of course under the impression.  However, when I have to insert a "normal"report, which is quite often, the impression part of the "normal" report will come up UNDER the time stamp and I am forced to ALWAYS cut and paste the impression and move it ABOVE the time stamp.  I have put a few spaces before my time stamp entry in shorthand, but "normal" impressions still go underneath the time stamp.  Anyone know how I can cure this in shorthand?  Is there a way I can do something so that the "normal" will go ABOVE my time stamp entry....a way to trick the normal into thinking my time stamp isn't there so it would come in above the time stamp?  I am pretty new to the whole ShortHand thing, so any suggestions would be appreciated.  It sure is a pain to constantly have to cut and paste.

TIA

First laugh, GREAT side jobs.  Mor sobering:  Avg. 13.78 per hour.  Sad:  Pays less than a dog walker.  Arghhh!

http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-7_great_side_jobs_for_extra_cash-842

  Any musicians out there?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQDPenBUC68

 I was offered a home-based MT job as a direct employee of the hospital with an extremely good per-line-rate.   But yes, it was too good to be true!  Apparently on further consideration, the administrator now says it is too costly (technically) for home set-up; mentioned something about the Lanier DVI desktop and how costly etc. etc.  and some other MT has the license (?what's that about?); also mentioned "Cquence" transcription software program.   They already have 5 other off-site MTs.   Anybody out there with opinions and/or constructive advice...please.  

I am currently working part time IC for two different people, I have a little less than one year transcription exp, all in family practive or GI...I have been thinking about trying to get my own account locally but not sure about some of the "in's and out's".  Those of you who do this, do you have someone who covers for you when you have to leave town?  I have always had someone to QA my work, so if I do my own account and have a question(blank) do  you call the office and ask or do you leave it blank?  I am kinda back and forth w/ the idea, I know I would make more money, but not sure if I want ALL the responsibility. 

of earphones.  Does anyone have any suggestions.  I tried other earphones and the same thing.  I check volume etc. 

TIA

About a week ago somebody posted about at home positions, not MT...needing an extra phone line, answering the phones, and I believe accepting orders, etc. Alas,I didn't write down the web address....sure would like to have it!

Thanks

I work for a hospital and I am forced to use Meditech.  There is nothing to help a Transcriptionist except for autocorrect.  The F11 key is diabled as well as macros.  Any one else experience this problem, and how did you get around it. 

Going crazy without my tools.  I can't stand not being able to F11 to my next stop, let alone make templates, etc.  Autocorrect on this computer is terrible as well.  It will only take words in a line, not a paragraph, for example.  Sheesh..  Any advice???

The company I recently began working for asked me to purchase the Quick Look Drug Book as a reference tool, as they use it.  So, I got one...bought it used online so it wasn't that expensive, and I was needing a new drug reference book anyway.

I am just not impressed with this book.  While it does have very useful information in it, I find it is not laid out in the most convenient manner.  The drugs are listed alphabetically by the generic name.  So, what if the doc says the brand name of a drug?  How am I to use this book to look up the spelling, etc. of a brand name drug if I don't know the generic name of the drug so I can find it???  I have hardly used this book at all since I got it....I still go online to look up meds.  I feel like I wasted my money.

Maybe I'm just missing something here.  If anyone has any insight please let me know.  Or if any of you have a better suggestion for a drug guide that is laid out in a better format for MTs, I am open to suggestions.

TIA!!

I have searched, but not really found one I am totally happy with.  If anyone has a good IC contract, please email me or let me know a link.

TIA!!!

Sunny

I'm on day 8 of slathering Ben-Gay all over my piddies and right shoulder for worsening pain that must be either tendonitis and/or bursitis.  It's totally frigging up my line counts and will to live. 

I've been wearing my SmartGloves and doing everything else "right" as far as stretching, taking breaks, and even getting up and doing "the hustle."  ;-)

The only 2 things I can think of needing replacing here are my chair and my keyboard.  I've been eyeballing that Kinesis contoured and it looks both sweet and scary at the same time.  I checked a YouTube video of it and it makes that little clicky noise I love, which means the keys snap back and are quick...love that.  I hate mushy keys. 

So, does anyone here use this particular keyboard and if so, would you recommend it?  I mean like HIGHLY recommend it?!  Sure is a steep price tag, and I am tight with a dollar, so be honest.  Thank you!

Oh--the link for the keyboard I'm fancyin' is:
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/    
It's the contoured one...fugly one farthest on the left.

When I tried to encrypt and send a file with WinZip, my computer automatically tried to send the email via my old dial-up instead of my current one.  I've deleted the old dial-up installation, and the new one is the only one showing up in My Computer/Dial-Up Networking, but this computer still tries to send using the old dial-up.  I tried downloading the free CenturionMail, and it does the same thing.  I'm thinking there has to be someplace I need to update/edit, but I'm not sure where to look.  Anyone out there know?  I'm so close to getting this to work, and it means more transcription work for me now, which I really need ASAP.

Kris

With all of the talk about expanders, autocorrect, autotext, and productivity we could use a forum for that on mtstars.