A - No future in this profession.
Posted By: sm on 2005-09-12
In Reply to: POLL - movin'on
Get a 4-year degree and open up your options.
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- POLL - movin'on
- A - No future in this profession. - sm
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This is our profession -- a profession which is dying, I might add. SM
So I should get a hobby so I won't care, like you? A hobby isn't going to pay the bills. I can't afford a hobby because in addition to working for a living, I also have to study in a different career field in my spare for fear that eventually transcription will be strictly an offshore operation!
future of VR
My personal opinion is that for now only some companies will use it but eventually it will become more predominant like all technology, i.e., cassettes to mini-cassettes to C-phones, etc.; as well as manual typewriters to electric to memory typewriters to computers. It seems to be something people either love or hate, but I do believe it is here to stay, though not take over.
Future-Net - NM
X
In the future you should try
doing a catchy flyer with pertinent info and faxing it. This works much better. Most of your mailers probably went in the trash without being opened. If you do a flyer, try using phrases like -will beat your current Transcriptionist rate- you WILL get calls. You can bargain from there.
I have a friend who works in a doctor's office and a drug rep gave them a list of phone numbers and fax numbers for all physicians in the area. If you can get one of these, just go down the list and fax 10 or 15 back to back at a time. I got several calls.
MT future
I have ben doing transcription for 7 years and ASR editing for about 6 months. From what I see, it will be a very, very long time before it is perfected. Honestly, transcription has not been lucrative for me in the past and although pay is slightly lower than transcribing, I have not seen much of a diffence to my bottom line.
MT future
sorry about typos, been a long day!
future
unfortunely, seems to work well for radiology...hospital probably a safer bet for future work.
there is editing needed, but personally would rather type thanlisten and correct. and many self edit anyway.
no future in MT
I agree. Itis the same old crap everywhere you go. Lousy pay, no raises, etc. I've worked for several agencies and it is only same old routine.
since i'm not sure about the future of MT
I've gone back to school as well. I'm completely torn as to what I want to do, i'm back and forth, and the past two years have been taking courses for nutrition and psychology, and cannot decide between the two. When I was a soph in HS I knew I wanted to do something with psychology, but here it is 15 years later, when I've decided to go for it, and its just brutal, the studying, the work on top of a full time job. I SOOO wish I would have just started 15 years ago, in that direction. I've always had a full time job and moved out at a young age, so just took the technical college route and learned MTing.
I'm looking at about 10 years of college because I can only go part-time, to be a clinical psychologist. I'm thinking of just going for the nutrition. I love working with food, time flies when i'm in the kitchen and I love watching people enjoy what i've made. I just know its a stressful job, you're on your feet a lot, and its more about speed than anything. I went to the library today and bought a book "can you stand the heat" all about the working conditions of a chef. I know I do not have it in me to be in school the next 10 years, i'm sorry, maybe if I were independently wealthy and could just focus on that. Becoming a chef will take less than three years. I will do MT'ing as long as its around though, as I enjoy working independently.
Go to the library, there are books that fit your personality type with a specific job, and then a list of the pros and cons, the money you would make. Just really research it. If its what you want to do the rest of your life, make sure its something that will make you happy.
Future-Net
I do work for Future-Net and this is what they do.
I'm sure your future will be
xx
Is there a future for me as a IC MT...
Hello! I'm new here but any advice would be welcomed. I haven't worked as a full-time MT in nine years. Mostly I've done Pathology at a hospital in Las Cruces, NM. I would like to get back into the MT field so I've purchased the SUM Advanced CD, which I am currently working on, and 19 practice dictation tapes from "Absolute Experience". I have also just started a workbook entitled, "The Language of Medicine." After I've finished all this, is there a future for me as an independent contractor MT? This is really the only job that pays well that I can do from home. Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks in advance! Shelley P.S. I took a test this week through a company called StatIQ in Albuquerque and I was surprised that I scored 94% (since it has been so long). However, you must score 98% to secure a job.
Why not? Don't you think that even future - sm
programmers, code writers and technical engineers are warned that a lot of U.S. work is being sent to other countries?
Future Net
No YOG - Your Office Genie was sold to MQ. FutureNet had most of the old YOG employees. I quit because I did not want to work for MQ.
Might try it in future...
but for 30 years have done my straight-8 on 2nd shift, 3-11 or thereabouts. I'm up at the crack of dawn and love having the daylight hours to be outside and get so much done. I will admit that some nights typing can be sOOOOOO long, though.
Future-Net
Does anyone know anything good or bad about Future-Net I have been accepted for a position with them and want to know what you think. Thanks in advance.
Kathy
FUTURE REFERENCE
try www.fda.gov in the future, great help for all FDA approved meds
The future of transcription....
Actually, it's listed in job future forecasting as a growing field, in light of the aging Baby Boomers. There's one thing for sure in this world, people will get old and sick. As far as voice recognition, I think it will fall by the wayside just as soon as people realize that it has very limited realistic possibilities for quickly producing a quality document. It will NEVER happen and I've said it all along. A "few" doctors who are very committed have made it work in their own practice, but as my eye doctor told me (who tried it a while back for his office dictation), "I don't have time to fuss with it." He said that if we going to have to hire someone to make it right, since he didn't have time to make sure it was right himself, then he might as well just have someone transcribe it.
The last factor in the availability of experienced MTs is the pay. It has gone continually down in the last 10 years. How can you expect to hire someone to do something which is very specialized and pay them peanuts? If it were a job where people thought they could make a good income, they'd pursue the field. But the word is out that it's no more than sweat shop wages in many places, so why bother? And I agree with you about mentoring. The hospital I work for (at home) does hire a newbie at a time and train them. But that's increasingly rare as the almighty dollar dictates everything these days.
The future of MTing. sm
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at the future. I prefer to think of them as forward thinkers, because that is what they are. I congratulate you on doing well. However, the industry, as a whole, thanks to offshoring and greedy MTSOs, is not doing so well. There's an excellent article on this board about Dictaphone being bought out and the new company "phasing out manual transcription." Exactly what do you think that means?
Future-Net Technologies
Anybody know anything about this company? I have heard good and bad.
bucky may have a future but he does come.NM
.
I too am worried about the future of MT BUT......
Am I the only one here who thinks this article has nothing to do with us? We ARE NOT simply word processors or data-entry keyers. This says nothing about medical transcriptionists. Just my opinion.
and maybe you can do their transcription in the future, but not now.
:P
Thank you. I think that will be my future plan! nm
nm
VR is definitely the wave of the future
Integris owns several large hospitals and numerous smaller clinics in Oklahoma City (near where I live) and they now do all their radiology transcription using VR. They only employ about five transcriptionists to do editing and what little transcription they need to have done. And their main hospital is the largest one in Oklahoma City. I don't know exactly how many radiology MTs they used to employ, but I do know they were staffed 24/7 and probably had at least 10 or more people working during peak times.
Actually, I think for a while this will work to the advantage of at-home transcriptionists, because it will be cheaper for smaller facilities to have a transcription company handle their work than for them to invest in a VR system. But eventually, yes, I think we will go the way of the dinosaurs.... 
For future reference
eScription increased my time out value and that fixed it.
Hmm, but my daughter won't! Think about the future instead of just yourself.
/
Scared about future
Hi all, I've been wondering this for some time and especially these past couple of weeks when work has been low, I'm 33 years old, do you all think MT is a profession I could retire from? Or do you think that MT'ing is going to be phased out before my retirement age? I'm just worried about in the near future when I'm in my late 40s, early 50s, I will no longer have a job and then what will I do, it will be too late to start over. Does anybody else think about these things or am I just being crazy? 
Is the future of coding...
as bleak?
Coding the future
I think you are doing the right thing by learning coding, that is definitely the future and people say that MTs do well at it.
Pharmacy tech is very low paid, at least in my area.
What is the future of IC in this industry?
Wide-spread IC, I mean, such as we've had in the past? Sorry for your situation, Blondie. The reason I ask is that the company I'm working for is making it a real priority to make employee MTs work their agreed-upon hours so the work can be kept in TAT and the clients will be happy and not break off blocks of work to send elsewhere. I'm wondering how you think the end of the work-whenever-and-as-much-as-you-feel-like era would affect the large numbers of IT workers. ??
it will come to a point, in the future,,sm
when VR will be so perfected - example given by above poster - that VR will need little to no editing.
Then health records will be done by AVR and EMR.
Welcome to the profession. Get used to it.
x
Consider another profession?
To standardize testing you have to have every single company use one lone resource. What if company A is more concerned with ESL skills, company B is more concerned with oncology, and company C would like to know whether you rock at op notes? How do you standardize testing to cover every area that a given employer might want to concentrate on?
Definitely a profession. This is a
you will get a lot of pessimism and negativity. I definitely have made tons of money in my own business. Sounds like low self-esteem on the posters below, unhappy, depressed.
This is not just in this profession but
all over. I sat and waited on a call yesterday (my off day) regarding a piece of property I have up for sale. No call at all. I really hate to leave a message on a recording because most of the time you are ignored. Times have changed and not for the good. I think the majority of my family including my mother and my grandmother who are deceased would probably be shocked at today's life as we live it.
which profession
would you let us know what you decided to do? I'm wondering what I want to do next.
re: which profession
Dental Hygiene...usually takes 2 years but have to do it part time so I can still earn a living so is taking me 4 - I'm more than halfway done though, so can't complain...
our profession
This is old, but has anyone read this?? I must research further what the final outcome was. While I totally agree with what they are doing and why, I totally DISAGREE with their final recommendation for standardizing line counts. VBC is not the way to do it.
You ask anybody in any profession
They will say they are worth more than they are being paid. That's the way it is everywhere. I make good money sitting at home. My local hospital pays their transcriptionists 9.40/hr. Big deal! I'll rather stick with a MTSO any day.
Our profession/New job
About three weeks ago I began a position with a local health care company (transcribing for local acute care hospitals but part of a national chain).
We are not really transcribing, at least not by my definition (21 years of experience). Rather, we are recording medical ShortHand (abbreviations [even in DIAGNOSES section], shortened medication names, slang, contractions, etc.). On the one hand, they claim they want you to type it verbatim (no expansions, additions, etc.), yet OTOH they say to delete redundancies, repetitions, etc., which is hardly verbatim. We are not allowed to expand, add to, or correct ANYTHING except number and tense dictated by ESL docs, who comprise about 60% of the dictators. In addition, certain dictated terms are to be abbreviated (e.g., "emergency room" transcribed as "ER").
The supervisor had the gall to look me right in the eye and deliver a harangue about how these are "legal documents, and we have to transcribe EXACTLY what they say." (Conveniently disregarding the bit about deleting redundancies and the other "allowed" changes.) So ALL of my previous employers, AAMT, etc. did it wrong, and THEIR crackerjack legal department is smarter than everyone else?!  Don't think so. Cutting costs is the game they're playing; everyone can see that.
Excerpt from a typical report looks like this: Wrote scrip for vanco 100, patient also to take aspirin 81 and will return next week. I don't think .... [blah blah blah]
AAMT taught me to create a complete, coherent, grammatically correct document that doesn't look like alphabet soup. Needless to say, I don't feel good about what I am creating and HATE THIS JOB!!
I'm just curious if this is happening elsewhere. With all of the emphasis on "cutting costs," I have to think that it is.
Thanks for listening to my splenic venting. 
Certification is an investment in your future!
I have been told that only the "best and the brightest" will have a job MTing in the not too distant future; these are usually the CMTs. In my opinion, it is a good investment, and it is not too hard to maintain once you have it. I get all my credits through the AAMT journals. I am quite proud of my certification. I think it shows to your employer that you know what you are doing and take pride in your work. 
Future-step recruiter
I too spoke with this woman, only she told me she was recruiting for Medquist because they no longer wanted to outsource and wanted to bring all the work back to the States and that this is why they're on their hiring binge!
in the future, leave the cleaning to them
Where I live, you're not going to see $150 of your deposit 'cause they automatically charge you for cleaning up after you leave. It's just a shame you didn't take pictures after you cleaned up.
Live and learn.
future of medical transcription?
I have been doing transcription now for a while, under five years, for a national. How long do you all think it will be until it is a completely a speech recognition technology? My national is definitely trending towards the speech recognition and I just wonder how long it will be until it is totally that platform, and before hospitals and other nationals as a whole start using it mainstream. Medical editing doesn't seem like it will be very lucrative as transcription has been in the past.
future of medical transcription?
I have been doing transcription now for a while, under five years, for a national. How long do you all think it will be until it is a completely a speech recognition technology? My national is definitely trending towards the speech recognition and I just wonder how long it will be until it is totally that platform, and before hospitals and other nationals as a whole start using it mainstream. Medical editing doesn't seem like it will be very lucrative as transcription has been in the past.
I fear what the future holds too...
Those three beautiful souls growing up thinking this is the normal way to live. Call your family today and start planning to leave this creep. It won't be the easiest thing you've ever done, but it will be the smartest.
For sure... Bucky? He's nice, but has no pro future.
x
Very happy Future-Net employee
I am now working for Future-Net after working for the "big" company for over 25 years. I never thought I would find a company that treated its employees like they are so appreciated. That is my experience.
Feel free to e-mail me at FN.employee@yahoo.com
I have had QA folks actually call and complement me on my performance.
Granted, I have a very difficult hospital, but I also have the experience for it. No one bothers me, no one calls. If they have a question they e-mail and if I have a question, I e-mail and within 10-15 minutes if that person is at their desk, I have an answer.
If there is something that needs to really be talked about or new training, etc. we do it on the phone and they always tell me it can be at my convenience if necessary.
I have had no problems with QA. Actually I was told my QA ratio was less than 10%. I don't understand QA ratio because after working for the "big company" for so long, I never had a QA report and I always hear folks talking about these reports. Guess it depended on who you worked for.
I do know that in this profession now, one of the problems is folks who won't take the time to look up new words because of the time factor and expect QA to do it all. That is our job to create a legal document, these are patient's lives.
I know I sound like I am on a "tangent" but having done this for so many years (almost 30 total), I have seen the profession go down hill. Even though we get paid on production, it is our job to research words....its different if you just can't understand what the doc is saying, but I have seen folks who don't have the proper reference material, won't invest in it and just expect QA to fix everything. That is not our jobs. Plus that is how you learn.
I don't think ANYONE should ever try working at home for a company without at least two years MINIMUM experience in a teaching hospital doing the "big 4", its too stressful. Plus, I see a lot of folks coming out of the 3-4 month schools with the bad promises who cannot possibly make the money that these schools are promising. That is one thing that has brought this profession to its current state.
I know I am off the subject, but back to FN. I absolutely ADORE my job there. It has worked for me and I intend to retire from there. I am 51 years old now, been doing this almost 30 years, over 25 with the "big one" and the rest with the hospitals.
A good reference library, willingness to learn, previous experience in a hospital setting of at least (in my opinion) two years and the love of medicine make a good MT, if you want to be a good MT.
My final comment....I have been in supervisory positions where I listened to MTs complain about bad dictators, certain types of reports that were too hard, etc, etc. My advice to them and to anyone in this field is instead of complaining, make up your mind you will learn every kind of MT you can and learn it well. Put yourself in a position that makes you a valuable employee that no one wants to lose. Then you don't have to be in the position of worrying about what kind of reports, etc. LEARN ALL YOU CAN, LEARN IT WELL, MAKE YOURSELF INDISPENSIBLE TO MT PROFESSION. It pays off. Hang in there.
Yes, I love Future Net. Sorry for the long post. But, its been on my mind for a long time. Also, attitude is everything. If QA is grumpy, be nice, they have 100s of other employees and it may not be directed at you, sometimes they have had the worst of the worst for the day and folks who will not look up words and leave tons of blanks that any experienced MT should not be leaving just because they are too lazy to look them up. Don't take anything personally and if something is directed at you, then talk to that person, clarify the problem and come to some agreement as to how to remedy it and just do it. We all work at home and once the problem has been addressed, we don't have to even deal with the people.
Sorry this was so long. I highly recommend Future-Net
For the future, its always the correct choice
to put "negotiable", if you want to be able to negotiate. Works for me everytime. Took lots of biz courses, etc., and all recommend the same - if you put a specific amount, you end up either selling yourself short, or you might impact them the other way - best to negotiate. Also why most companies don't put specifics. Preferred wording - salary commensurate with experience!
It's my only option for the future or I'm out completely
I'm waiting for the right conditions (a connection that will work with their programs) and I am going back to a hospital. All in my metro area have their MTs working from home and I've found that the two big ones do not allow offshoring; in fact, find it repulsive. I was impressed. I can't wait to get steady income, real vacations, sick time, insurance, rotating weekends off, realistic expectations by medical professionals who know transcription and to be treated with respect again!
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