A possibility. You might want to try some of the SUM tapes on various specialties, you to sm
Posted By: jj on 2006-10-25
In Reply to: So many drs, so many specialites, can't get ahead! - Need2Vent
bone up/refresh on them. I have them, if you are interested.
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Specialties
My specialties are Oncology, Oncology research, and emergency room (I have been an EMT for 15 years--old habits are hard to break!!).
mt specialties
Do you think there are MT specialties that are more in demand, such as acute care? If so what might they be?
My two favorite specialties...
...radiology and op reports. In speaking with MTs, people who like one tend to like the other. I think it's because they both are fairly technical and have "flow." You're moving through a procedure or a test, and when you're done, your done.
I got into radiology without knowing anything about it and was the team leader within months. Just make sure you have a good reference or two, know your bones, muscles, and physiology, be willing to look up names of isotopes, machines, etc., and you'll do great!
Per Line for Other Specialties?
Hi! I'm new to the forum and was wondering if any of you experts are familiar with the rates for specialties other than medical? I've been approached to do some court work and general transcription, but they need a 65-character line rate and I have no clue what the going rate - or a fair rate - is for subs. Any suggestions? Thanks bunches!
Have a blessed Sunday,
Faith
RE: so many docs/specialties
The national I contract with has me on one account in one specialty. I was doing another specialty as a second, but there wasn't enough work. Is there any way you can request doing just one practice or specialty, or am I misunderstanding how other companies do things? This is the first MT job I've had, so I'm not familiar with the norms of the field. I can imagine if each doctor has different formatting how it would further complicate things, too.
accounts/specialties
I've been an MT for 2 years. My experience is mainly in orthopaedics. I'm looking to get on with a new company, but I'm worried about the difficulty factor of making that leap. Obviously I don't have the unrealistic expectation that the new company would assign me just an orthopaedics account, and I wouldn't want that because I want to learn something new. I would say give me cardiology, GI, GU, but don't give me cardiology, GI, GU, obstetrics, psychiatry, ophthalmology, neurology, oncology, and on and on. So I'd like to take on more than just orthopaedics but not too much either. Question for you all, how many accounts are you typically assigned to and how many specialties are you expected to know? Thanks.
Speed, experience, specialties, programs. Go with
s
Lots of other factors too. They might need MTs with specific specialties or high-speed only or FT o
It seems to go in waves. Lots of radiology jobs, then none. Lots of operative note jobs, then none. Lots of oncology jobs, then none. Then lots of openings again.
I just got high-speed in my subdivision; I think this will open a lot of doors for me that were not open previously. Dial-up only hurt me pretty bad in terms of who would hire me. Could not get flat fee long distance either, so I was a recruiter's nightmare. I was ready to move. Now I can get both through Comcast. Doing the happy dance in MN!!!
That's a possibility. sm
But the ones I was referring to in my first post were questions from people already hired and were posted on their company board. I couldn't believe how many that were asking the simplest questions that should have been learned in school or at least after a few months on a previous job. How do they get hired without experience? But maybe it's like you say, they lie on the interview and cheat on the employment test. Even on some of the other word boards there are a lot of questions about things that should already be known if hired.
I think there is also the possibility...
of a Rodney King riot that will make said riot look like a picnic. I pray so much I'm wrong.
Job Possibility
I have possible job opportunity as an MT working for a hospital, at-home, $15.64/hour, with incentive pay over 70 minutes of dictation, weighted, so $1.10 for each report after the 70 minutes. Does this make sense? I didn't want to sound like a dummy when talking with these folks. Would someone please explain? For hard dictation (YIKES ESLs!), it is 150 weighted. Is this a good deal or not? About how many minutes is 70? 
Job Possibility
This job is at Memorial Medical Center in Modesto, California. Thanks for the information. 
job possibility
-take it quick
Job Possibility
Thanks to everyone for the responses. This hospital has 2 openings (Memorial Medical Center, Modesto, CA). One is for a "lead MT," which, I'm sure, pays more. Good luck to ya. 
This opens up the possibility of
identify theft. What if they do not keep the info in a secure location. Employees could get access to it. What if somebody hacked into their system. How secure are their files and system. I don't truse anybody.I would quit before I gave this information to anybody. You could very easily have credit cards opened in your name, etc.
That I don't know. Could be possibility. Never thought of that. nm
X
Extra work possibility
Just wanted to post something that might help those of you looking for work... while I realize this is a medical transcription board, with our work being outsourced more and more each day, we have to do what we have to do to earn a paycheck.
After talking with a police officer and hearing how many hours they spend doing written reports of calls/incidents, I mentioned that it was too bad they could not dictate their reports and have them transcribed. He really liked the idea and so did I as I thought more about it. I finally scheduled an appointment with the Chief of Police and made a proposal to him. I had to do some research -- average pay per hour of a police officer x hours per day spent writing reports, etc, -- but that was not too difficult to get.
To make a long story short -- he tried this with a couple of his officers on their lengthy and very detailed reports.
Because it allows more time for actually being a police officer instead of being tied up writing illegible reports by hand, they love the idea.
I submitted my bid, which was approved, and the contract was signed. There is never a dull moment with this!
Joint tenderness is another possibility.
dd
another possibility is it got lost in the shuffle
With all the names for the bride to keep track of (half of them being all new to her) , its very possible that your name just got lost in the shuffle. I've seen it happen many times where a thank you card got lost, or an invitation was never sent simply due to an oversight. As a recent bride, I can say that I started writing my thanks-you's the moment we got back from our honeymoon and I was so nervous that I may have accidentally missed someone when writing 150+ thank you's, it happens sometimes. My cousin didn't get their thank you's sent out until nearly a year after their wedding, it took me a moment to figure out what they were thanking me for because it had been so long! lol
Anyway, moral of the story is, give it sometime. She may still be working on writing her thank you's. If you find out that other people have already received theirs, ask the bride's mother (who is your friend if I read your post correctly), it may have just gotten lost in the shuffle. I'm sure the bride would want to know that you did not receive your thank you card so that she could apologize & correct the oversight, I know if it were me, I would want to know if one of my guests did not receive theirs!
you left out the possibility of information
being used for identity theft - Americans can understand this and might be a little more against the idea of their records being used for that. I have one doc who copies everything to his patient and so their home address is included along with everything else. Shudder!!!
We need to hope we can stop illegal entrance into the US - I'm looking at cutting lawns in my golden years instead of transcription!!
A possibility would be ischemic bowel disease.
There is also the possibility that someone was standing in line for an elderly person, again
we don't know cause we are not there.
Depends on which fingers it is. Guyon's canal syndrome is another possibility.nm
x
Hospital where I worked cut raises from 12% possibility to 6% with excellent review. Which means
dd
Tapes
Can you reuse the same tapes (standard size) over and over? I have been for a while and I was wondering if they eventually get bad.
Thanks!
Tapes
Tapes are great, they fly. Working for a national also, 50% of the time and tapes the other 50%. Enjoy the tapes much more, make much better money (gross line count, not 65 ch). Have always set my word expansions up in Word itself. That way, no matter who I work for I use my own version of Word and my expansions are always there. Enjoy the tapes. Hope this helps. PS. They print at the site for me.
This happens a lot with tapes too.
I have noticed that with digital there are more safeguards. When the office downloads the files to their computer they usually save it on their computer. Once they send it to you, you save it to your computer too. Sometimes the doctor erases the file before all this happens, but when the doctor erased a part of a tape there was no backup then either.
From below regarding tapes
Okay, I started typing today on tapes picked up yesterday. (I deliver between 10 and noon) So I could have done then yesterday but had graduation for nephew. So I started today at 5 o'clock and it is now close to 11. I have typed, printed, showered, made deliveries and pick-ups, went to bank, know what I have to do tomorrow and made $201. No sudden files sent, no sporadic files sent, have the complete day's dictation , and can schedule the rest of the day and tomorrow morning the way that I want. So this works for me and I appreciate the input from Tikki and all, but will keep doing this if they want to continue to use tapes. All my accounts are within a 4 mile radius from each other and the majority at one of the hospital medical buildings so it takes me 35 minutes to do the deliveries from walking out my front door and coming back through. I respect everyone's opinion and hopefuly you respect mine. I get exercise as it is half a mile from my car to home round trip. -- Live on the river in a floating home. Patti
I'm still doing tapes too!
Some docs don't like to change. If you have a good relationship with the office staff, then they shouldn't have a problem using digital. Most doctors do not want voice recognition because they want their reports edited. If the doctor is a taper user, he very well may adjust to digital and just have his secretaries upload the dictation to send to you. You may have to spend some time in the office instructing them on how to do it. You may want to Google "FTP sites", and see where that leads. Good luck!!!! 
sum tapes
Does anyone still use the Sum Tapes and Transcript keys for practice? If so, what is the copyright date on them? Mine are 1994. They seem to be a little out dated. Does anyone have any newer ones?
tapes
I agree, I do tape accounts, a small one, but they do treat me well. I also type straight from the doctors notes on a major account, nice people, too. We make a good living.
Tapes
I have had that happen a couple of times and I have a friend that just transfers the entire tape to a new casing and attachs that. Only rarely have we lost any dictation or have it become so distorted that we can't hear it. Perhaps a couple of sentences. Guess I have been lucky. But again, I would write to Maxwell and tell them that you got a bad batch or lot number. Good luck.
YES you can fix the tapes yourself
see entry above; OPERATE ON THE TAPES.
tapes to wav/mp3
there is a program online - inexpensive - that you hook you tape player up to your computer, play the tape and have ability to modify the tape sounds, editing etc - play it as a wav or mp3. Polderbit is the one I use - you can Google - tape to wav and many will come up
tapes
I have been with them for 10 years and they have only asked for me to reprint twice, that's not bad.
You have tapes -- how do you log in
Guess I am a little slow. You type from tapes, you deliver back on paper, how do they know when you log in???? You don't have to log in to retrieve the dictation nor send it so please explain to me. Guess my old age is catching up with me as I don't understand.
Tapes
This may be a sillyquestion, but I have always worked digital, so I don't know this. How are tapes played with a foot pedal? Thanks
Tapes.....
That sounds really HIPAA compliant.
Tapes
You're right, this isn't very common anymore. However, people do still do it. Myself included. I charge by page. I charge $5 a page. This is how it works: I type everything in Word, then get the line count from the Word statistics. I divide this by 55 (55 lines per page) and multiply by 5. This is how I bill. I just make up a bill in Word and sent it to the clinic twice a month. You will have to get a machine with a foot pedal that plays cassettes though, and those are not cheap, but you can make pretty good money if you charge this way.
GOOD LUCK!
Erased tapes
They request that I erase the tapes and I have disabled my erase on my machine, I just accidentally somehow picked up two tapes that were not yet transcribed -- I have two bins -- two different colors --but was in a hurry and picked up the wrong ones and pushed them right through the eraser. Today when I went to transcribe I found two tapes that had already been done in the "To be transcribed" bin and had been delivered and the ones that I knew had to be done were nowhere found and so I am by process of elimination assuming that is what I did. I remember erasing two tapes and it was the wrong two tapes. I am so organized and have always had this fear and so after nearly 20 years it finally came true -- one I could accept but both of them -- that is the problem. But can't fix it now. Thanks for your input.
Erased tapes
Good for you!
Maxell Tapes
Just thought you would find this of interest. I know we don't use tapes too much, but all these years of trying to fix broken tapes - I contacted Maxell about a tape that blew off the spool on side B. They guarantee their tapes, just mail back to them at a N.J. address - link below - via regular mail from NV to N.J., and it was returned within 3 days - not only do they fix it for free - but send it back via Federal Express, at their expense + give you a free tape. Wow! Joyce
http://www.maxell-usa.com/Content/Pages/Page.asp?Section=maxellusa&department=aboutus&Line=maxellcorp&Product=contact
How about the docs that use the tapes sm
to dictate, then use the call in system, put the phone by the recorder and re-record the whole stinking tape via the call in. To me, that is the worst. It turns out to be 30-40 minutes of dictation and they sound like they are dictating from the grave. Yuk.
practice tapes sm
As usual, your answers are so much appreciated. I love this site, helping others is so important, I do it whenever I can as well. I believe in karma. Thanks again!
I was on my way to pick up tapes. nm
nm
Practice tapes from?
I have heard practice tapes some give out that are almost perfect dictation- definitely not what you run into when you transcribe. Are you doing the "goodie" tapes or are they the real McCoy? The practice ones I have heard put in their periods, paragraph. Ha, very seldom hear that in real. What kind of work will you do, speciality or the 4s? I have my equipment as fast as it can possibly go and my salary has gone down in the past 4 years 20,000$ from the constant outsourcing the companies are doing. My speed is between 130-140 wpm and I make good only because I have my nose to the grindstone most of the day. By the way, independent as well but my company asked me for certain hours and which days. I have seen numerous posts on here saying you do not have to do it -but I wanted to work for this particular place and I accept it.
practice tapes from...
Practice tapes are real; slurring run-on sentences, gurgling muffled words, you name it. But, she gave me the printed reports to go with them, so if I really get stuck, i can look at them and find the answer. If you don't mind my asking, how long have you been in this, and what's your cpl? You work for an agency? Yes, my speed is concerning me. Thanks for your reply.
Maxell tapes
Just FYI - if they break, Maxell will repair, send back via FedEx and give you a new tape - beats Dr. having to redictate, if you are still working with tapes. Joyce
I just had to comment on the tapes...sm
I've been MTing for 10+ years and just in the last 1-2 years the tapes the docs have used are coming off the spool at the end of the tape. My doc got so mad and asked me to fix if I could. I would take these things apart and Scotch tape the tape back onto the spool. I have fixed about 10 of these now. Some were Maxell and some Sony I think. I wonder if any of you have had this happen. That's all. Just thought I'd share.
CAN'T UNSCREW SOME TAPES
Unfortunately, some of the newer tapes don't "unscrew" anymore, or at least there are no screws there. Last time I paid someone to fix one it was $85.00. I used to fix these myself, but wonder if anyone knows how open the newer tapes without screws?
copying tapes
We did that for awhile because I was trying to help a friend to start out in the business and I also gave work to other people on the internet, but it is a lot of work. Thank God, my husband did most of the work, but thanks, but no thanks.
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