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wouldn't it be wild if there was a Tourette's syndrome for transcriptionists, and we could just insert whatever random thought or opinion we had on the patient/dictator.

I'm in the middle of a patient's social history and the doc dictates his occupation, and then in the PE he says he's dignified looking.  I mean he's obvious very impressed by his social stature and I would love to say that!

I am going to try to make sense, here. 

I am trying to make a template for a new client I was just given by my MTSPO.  my template is a bunch of letters.  At the top is typical letterhead.  They want this starting at 1" from the top.  Then below will be the rest of the letter.  They want this centered on the rest of the page.  Right now, since I am just making a template to fill in, I have the date line starting at the 3 in. line, the RE: starting at the 3 in. line, Dear: at the left margin, and a couple other sentences and closing and cc line and such.  This is already on the template so that I just fill it in when I am transcribing.  They will dictate 18-20 of these, all in a row, so I do one letter and then just move on the next page to fill in to create another letter, so on and so on.  Does that make sense?  I am trying to make a template for this. 

 I am SO frustrated.  I am going to be up all night if I can't get this accomplished! 

I've been with this large clinic acct. since March of 2004. Since starting, they've been growing & going through lots of changes in the way they're running things. I am a part-time IC. I've gotten great audit scores and have been told I'm one of their best MTs on the account (when wanting to switch to doing more on a different acct.)

When I first started, all the work was in a pool. Sometime later, I noticed they were pretty much assigning only certain clinics to me, which they confirmed they'd starting doing it that way & it improved production. All the MTs seemed to be pleased with this. I had mostly decent dictators overall.

Not too long ago, I noticed I'd started getting overall worse dictators. When I asked my supervisor about it, via email, she said nothing had changed, I was just getting the luck of the draw. I had my suspicions that some of those in higher positions that could manipulate the work were giving themselves the good jobs, & even voiced something to that effect--slightly. But, I did notice after I'd tentatively voiced my suspicions, I started to get some of my better dictators back.

However, last week I noticed a drastic & complete change. I started getting some of the worse dictators from clinics I usually didn't work on--not some of the good dictators from that clinic, mind you, but the worse ones almost consistently. My suspicions were confirmed a few days ago by a broad email sent to us all that there had been some work-pool changes. In effect, it was saying those of us who weren't doing well by their criteria, i.e, QA utilization, production, audit scores, accountability & quality, were not going to be getting work when it was available, but it would go to the ones who meet all this criteria, and that basically we were going to be getting the junk, to paraphrase.  Since work usually doesn't download until later in the morning, they were going to save any morning work for the "good" MTs.

Now, I know that I am meeting all those criteria, and I am so upset by the fact I'm getting all the junk now. From reading this board, I'd thought I'd learned that companies will give full-time employees the better work instead of the ICs, that this somehow is better for the company. Could anyone advise me of this? Could there be another reason for this that mgmt doesn't want to tell us, other than trying to attack our work & say it's our fault?

First off I am a MT myself, not a company and have no idea why they are soliciting work from individuals, unless they think we will sub-contract it to them.  

Edited by Moderator

I presently work with a Dictaphone C-phone but have been having problems with either my phone system (FIOS) or the phone, or both.  The boss suggested switching to Transnet. I have heard that when working on Transnet on your computer you cannot have access to the internet. I need to do a significant number of physician lookups for addresses, etc. so this would be a definite draw back. I'd like your opinion as to the pros and cons of the C-phone vs Transnet and if given the choice which would you prefer.

Thanks in advance.

Barbara

one-way plane ticket?  Price is the most important factor. :)  Thanks!

Chickadee

what please is the difference in ability to connect between:

802.11 a/g/n (cannot remember if it was wireless)

802.11 a/b/g wireless

802.11 b/g wireless

..................

Re speed, I saw somewhere the a/g/n is 5 times faster, true?  or is the speed in the gHz or in the hard drive rpm...????

I would really really appreciate some input, and thanks.

Am short on cash right now and my two cats are needing treatment.  Don't want to make them sick and figure that is why cats cannot use dog flea remedies.  Wanted to see if anyone had ever done this.  I don't want to take any chances with Charles and Cali <meow>

Thanks !!!

and why?  What do you like about it?  Also, what is the worst?

I really like EditScript 8 & although it isn't perfect, I like the fact that I can access other reports on the same patient/same dictator if I need to verify something (although I never trust it 100% lol)  One thing I don't like is that I can't use my Expanders (or maybe I can, but don't know how to go about it?)

I don't like ChartScript, as I don't think its very user friendly and those old DOS-based antiquated systems were for the birds!

The Difference between Focusing on Problems and Focusing on Solutions

Case 1

When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space,they found out
that the pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (ink won't flow down to the
writing surface). To solve this problem, it took them one decade and
$12million.

They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down,
underwater, in practically any surface including crystal and in a
temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.
And what did the Russians do...??

They used a pencil.
 

Case 2

One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was
the case of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan's biggest
cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a
consumer  had bought a soap box that was empty. Immediately the authorities
isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the
packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department.For some reason,
one soap box went through the assembly line empty. Management asked its
engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard
to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two
people to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure
they were not empty.

No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent a
whoopee amount to do so. But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company
was posed with the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays,
etc., but instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong
industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the
fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty
boxes out of the line.
 
Moral
Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution.

about Dictaphone EXSpeech, my wave volume on my pc's master volume controls kept turning down automatically after each VR job and I couldn't figure out why.  Well, after much research, having both the tech people at the hospital where I work and the Dictaphone/Nuance tech support people telling they had never heard of that problem, I figured it out. 

And since someone on here had told me it was a quirk with Dictaphone, I wanted to share because I thought it my help her out too.  When you are in a document in Word Client Correction Editor, you hit F2 and that is your volume control, make sure you turn it all the way up, click okay and bingo it's fixed.  Apparently, that particular volume setting in Word Client is connected to the master wave volume control on your PC.  If it it is at the lowest setting, then your master volume control will reset after each job.  If it is turned all the way up, that is your master volume control will stay. 

Excuse my excitement, but it was driving me nuts having to manually turn up my volume with each job.  As many MTs know, one little annoyance can wreck a whole day!

My mother likes to read soap mags, and they have these advertisements for really pretty items at the back. I decided to see if they sold these items on the web, and sure enough:

http://ardleighelliott.collectiblestoday.com/ct/store/ardleighelliott/store_ae_front.jsp?cm_ven=Search&cm_cat=Google&cm_pla=Performics&cm_ite=j1792169

So, for anyone who likes to give these types of gifts, you'll find plenty here. I think the prices are fairly reasonable.

And, no, I have no connection with this company. I just think they have beautiful items that would make wonderful gifts.

Hi all,

I have been offered a MT job with another company that requires me to call into the hospital's Meditech system.  I have never worked on Meditech so I don't have the slightest idea how to use it.  I am used to signing onto my computer and getting right into the system, not having to dial in anywhere.  I'm sure I would get used to it but my phone may be the problem.  I have my phone bundled in with my cable/high speed internet through Time Warner and the MTSO thinks this won't work, that I need something like Fair Point as a dedicated phone line.  Does anyone out there in MT land know anything about this?  The MTSO is anxious to hire and I'm anxious to start a job where I can finally make $ again and I don't want to miss out on this all because of the wrong phone!

I didn't know whether to laugh or be disgusted, so I have decided to do both.

Just saw a story on MSNBC about some jerk (an American jerk, looks like the biggest geek in the world) who has outsourced all his worries to a Pakistan company and a young, pretty Pakistani girl named "Honey" takes care of answering all his emails for work, for home, for his family, etc.  Hired a second Pakistani woman, a middle-aged woman (forget her name) to handle his WIFE.  When his wife is upset with him or he with her, he emails this Pakistani woman and she handles it -- emails the wife and argues FOR this jerk.  Even picks out the gifts he gives his kids and wife.  OMG. 

What a stupidman for doing it and, I must say, a stupid woman for putting up with that. 

How's that for Americans outsourcing everything and sending it overseas?!

Dr. dictates:

Reason for Death:  Incompatibility with life.

My desktop crashed so I bought a laptop.  The dictionary for the system does not seem to be picking up near the medical terms my desktop did and the new computer has a newer version of MSWord.  Is there anything I can do to expand this?  I have Stedman's but some of the things it is saying I am misspelling are very basic medical terms and I did not have this problem with my old computer. 

At what point does delete that go to far?  It's an op note and I get the pre and post diagnosis, procedure, surgeon, asst, anesthesia, etc. Then she goes on to hpi, ros, fh, sh, meds, allergies, and exam.  After exam she realizes that she's doing an op note and tells me to delete that and start over from preop diagnosis.  Needles to say she was an extremely difficult to understand ESL, wasted about 20 minutes of typing time that I won't get paid for and I had to split my shift. 

Sorry y'all it was vent or scream.  I chose the vent to not wake up the family.

I can't concentrate, my head hurts, and I can't hear half of what is being said.

Sorry, I needed to whine for a minute.

Thanks for letting me

Are there any MT companies doing Dictaphone EXText Speech. 

The butterfly type back support?  Can't remember the exact name for it.  Do you think the chairs are worth the money?   Thanks.

He thanked me for my letter, said that as he understood it, this bill didn't cover anything of what I had mentioned.  However, he said he would be paying more attention to this bill when it comes before the full senate for a vote.  He said he was against outsourcing.  Below is my letter to him:

Dear Senator Barrasso:
 
I am writing to request that you support the above bill. I am a medical Transcriptionist in Wyoming. I moved here 2 years ago from Colorado, bringing my job and income with me. I make an above-average income, which I spend in my community, but my job is at risk because so much of this work is being outsourced, particularly to India. More importantly, the health and privacy of the American public is being put at risk by this practice. First, Indian transcriptionists do their job poorly and inefficiently. The gross errors jeopardize health care. Every error has the potential to injure or poison an American citizen, including many young children for whom accurate diagnoses and medication administration can be a life and death issue. To add insult to injury, Indian transcriptionists are NOT required to honor HIPAA. Once a physician's dictation leaves this country, it is no longer private.
I am a very hard working medical transcriptionist and I am still able to earn a decent living in this industry, but it is certainly not what it used to be. I am paid 9 cents for every 65 Keystrokes I type, whereas an Indian is paid 2 to 3 cents for the same work. This undercutting has hurt this industry and every woman (95% of us are female), many of whom are trying to support families on their own, has been dragged to the poverty line because our wages have not grown with the cost of living. I make 9 cents today and I made 9 cents in 1996, the year my career began.
Please protect the healthcare and privacy of Americans, and help to protect yet another industry from moving to overseas. Support and sign S.810/H.R. 1653.

Son is out of school due to chickenpox and teachers are sending home the homework w/o samples. They learned a new thing in math and it's been a LONG time since I did this stuff. The sample in the book is really no help. Is there a website I can visit too?

He needs to write out the equation and then solve the problem. How would this be written out. There are 25 more questions like this and I'm lost. After he gets the answer he needs to put it in the equation and see if is the correct answer.

B + 1/8 = 2/3.

THanks for any help.