A question for cherry-pickers and rule-breakers
Posted By: Curious MT on 2009-04-23
In Reply to:
If there are any cherry-pickers (or those who disobey company policy) and get mad when they are written up out there reading this, I have a question.
What do you expect to happen to you for pulling stunts like cherry-picking or not calling in sick (no-show), a cookie?! I had a fellow MT (ex-coworker who works for another company) call me furious about being written up the other day, for not calling in sick. Well too bad so sad, I thought. There are accounts with TAT to meet, and MTs who cherry-pick or pull a no-show are partially responsible.
I am a lead and I have positively had it with MTs pulling shenanigans like this and complaining and whining when they get caught and reprimanded. Either suck it up and shape up, or find another line of work. This type of MT reminds me of the bratty kid on the playground who picks on everyone and goes crying to the teacher when another kid gets enough and knocks the crap out of him.
Complete Discussion Below: marks the location of current message within thread
The messages you are viewing
are archived/old. To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select
the boards given in left menu
Other related messages found in our database
To all you CHERRY PICKERS...This one's for you!
I have been struggling all morning transcribing STAT reports that are OUT of turn-around. Not to mention that these STAT reports are dictated by the worst ESL I've ever done. Meanwhile, everytime I go in to grab a new dictation, I can't help but notice a certain CHERRY PICKER grabbing up every current report dictated by the best.
So if there are any cherry pickers out there bold enough to answer my question, could you please just tell me why??? What gives you the right? Do you not even realize what you are doing to the rest of us? Why not just join in and divide the misery for a while so we can all have a decent line count at the end of the day? GRRR.
Thanks for letting me vent...
Cherry pickers
This has always been a problem in this field unfortunately, when I first started the work was assigned to us but with technology changing, it started to be work pools and the bad dictators started coming. Unfortunately the people who cherry pick are only hurting themselves, yeah it may be good for the paycheck but it is not helping their skills and one day, they will be the only one on the account for one reason or another and their production will take a real nose dive. We had a a person do this continually on one position I had years ago and eventually the supervisor started routing the bad dictators to her for a week or so and believe me, the cherry picking stopped real fast.
What do you do about cherry pickers
How do you all deal with cherry pickers on pool accounts where there are several MTs working on the same account? What I mean is, some MTs take the best work, even when it's not the next work to be taken, leaving the worst dictators for the ethical MTs. Any suggestions? (Talking to the MTSO doesn't seem to help, even though they have rules against this.)
cherry pickers will stll be around. I for one am and can do SM
ESLs, Neurology, Cardiology and Ops. When I'm on radiology I cherry pick since I get paid by report and do just fine :)
FIRE THE CHERRY PICKERS
They ought to track down your email and find out who you are and fire your arse!!!!
tank the cherry pickers
Cherry picking sure hurts the hospitals because they are waiting on these reports and if the cherry picker skips over, then if no one else is on-line, its gonna take a while to do those reports..so it hurts the hospital and the trans service..and the patient, which is supposedly what we are all about..LEGAL ACCURATE MEDICAL RECORDS..I cant believe that a cherry picker would even post here..I would be too ashamed to admit that I shaft my coworkers, the hospital and trans service I work for..
Cherry pickers should be FIRED!!
If your co-worker was any kind of a true MT she would grow up and do whatever came up in her q. Tell your supervisor! I wish I knew this idiots phone number. It really ticks me off when people cherry pick. You have my sympathy girl.
Service owners/cherry pickers
Why do service owners never seem to notice cherry pickers? Even going to great lengths to deny there are any in their group?
Cherry pickers really make me angry! SM
I work at-home for a fairly small community hospital. We have maybe four ESLs on staff at this hospital. We all have the capability of looking up what reports are on the system and we are allowed to self assign provided we do not abuse it. The powers that be decided to allow us to have this capability because on second shift and weekends there may be occasion where a report is needed stat and there is no one in the department to assign it and so the person needing the report can simply check to see what MT's are on the system typing and email one of us and we can self assign and do the report. ![](https://forum.mtstars.com/smileys/angryfire.gif)
I usually work first shift, but this week I am filling in for another girl and working second shift. It is me and one other MT on second. I plugging along and I get rather lengthy consult by an ESL doctor we all kind of dislike doing because A) He is an ESL dictator and B) All his reports are looooooooong! So, I get an 8 min consult and I type it, takes me about 20 minutes. Then, a couple of reports later I get another consult, same dictator, 10 minutes long. Now, I'm thinking okay what's the other girl doing. So check on her and she is sitting on the same report she was on when I got the first 8 minute consult. Her report is a 4 minute H&P by a very American, very good dictator. So I type the second, 10 minute consult, with just a little irritation nagging me. A few reports later I get yet another 15 minute consult by the same ESL dictator. Now I'm steamed. I look at the job list again and find that she is STILL on the same 4 minute report she has been on for the last hour and a half! Presumably she has been waiting for me to clear out all the offending dictations so she doesn't get stuck with one!
So now I'm considering letting the supervisor know because it just burns me up when someone treats their co-workers so unfairly. If she's doing it do me, she's done it to everyone. But I'm afraid if I gripe about her to management, they will simply take away our self-assign capability and take away our ability to see what is on the system and I hate to penalize everyone because of one person's self-serving and unfair attitude.
What would you all do?
I totally agree! Thanks to the cherry pickers...
there are days when all I get are 100% ESLs. It's so bad, I practically have a foreign accent by the end of my shift! Seriously, this has a huge impact on my income. Race has nothing to do with it. Just trying to pay the bills!
I totally agree! Thanks to the cherry pickers...
there are days when all I get are 100% ESLs. It's so bad, I practically have a foreign accent by the end of my shift! Seriously, this has a huge impact on my income. Race has nothing to do with it. Just trying to pay the bills!
I will do everything in my power to have cherry-pickers fired
because it's not fair to the MTs who do give a ____. I owe it to the good MTs to not let the sorry ones get away with it.
Do any of you who continuously get the reports that cherry-pickers pass over ever
This entire morning I have gotten nothing but leftovers from yesterday that no one else wanted to do. I am at the point where I am going to start sending them back, too, so I can make a decent line count. Whatcha think? Then no one will be doing them and maybe the MTSO do something about it (ha ha ha ha ha).
![](https://forum.mtstars.com/smileys/pulling_hair.gif)
Anyone want to share what companies allows cherry pickers? I am in between jobs and looking ..
I do not want to work for a company that allows that..
Can you give us a hint you work for? I'm sick of cherry pickers too
You just know they are giving you all the crap they dont want.
I wonder if the cherry pickers will be out of work when all the good speaking American doctors are
Gee, I will still be working because I'm grasping these ESLs pretty dang good, right along with ops and cardiology reports.
I respectfully disagree. The BEST is CHERRY cake with cherry drizzle. YUMboooooooooooooooyyyy!
In all due respect, some of you MTs need to relax and chill on these issues of "cherry pickers
VR or Indian MTs. I have been in this business for over 25 years now, and this is the very nature of this business. Work is always pooled around according to WHO is doing the pooling. If you're an MT who always helps out cheerfully, always willing to give help where needed, sure, you're probably gonna get rewarded by having some sweet dictators routed to your pool. If you're the pooler and your friend is the recipient, you're probably gonna tend to give your friend some cake dictators. If, on the other hand, you're pooling work, and there's a cranky, whining, complaining MT, you're probably gonna just happen to send her some of those wonderful marble-mouthed dictators. There is ALWAYS someone at the start of the process, doling out the work to someone -directing it where THEY want it to go for whatever reason. Same thing in the old days of tapes - tapes were handed out according to whoever was handing them out! Then C-phones, and work would be diverted to your "line", and now the internet. I don't know if you are all new to the field, or just forgetful, but this is the nature of the industry. So many are so paranoid and blaming cherry pickers, Indians, or who knows! Most cherry pickers don't even have to cherry pick. The GOOD work goes to the GOOD workers. Its simple. So, be nice, have a good attitude, and do your job. You're far more likely to get good dictators that way then dreaming up conspiracy theories or looking to blame the invisible cherry pickers. You can look to those over you in authority, and really should perhaps put a little reflection on WHY you are getting the garbage over and over. It sure can't hurt to try to look at it another way, cause its really not all as complex and complicated to figure out as you would like! Look to yourselves before always, always blaming those cherry picking Indian VR MTs! Start tomorrow with a NEW attitude. Or, if its too late at your job, maybe start fresh somewhere else! I doubt it would hurt, and you sure might find yourselves with a new attitude and on the receiving end of some good reports!
You RULE!
What a win-win situation!
I wish the animal shelters took better care of our pets (since they are a part of the government and all). I don't know why those shelters smell so bad; the shelter in my county stinks so bad that you are constantly aware of it. Taking care of displaced or hurt animals should be a big part of their job, and they could take measures to ensure the animals don't get sick. I understand all about their being overworked, but then someone should report to the higher ups what is needed, and then there should be no problem meeting those needs.
In a neighboring county where I live, the public went toe-to-toe with the director over the animal division; demanding answers about the operations and procedures. (That director said he needed a new building, but the public thought the changes should be made in their operations and procedures.
When I want a dog, I always adopt (so far over the years I've adopted 2 beagles).
Nice post!
First rule of being an MT
That's what I was taught. Everyone is in the same boat and has to take the bad with the good. Refusing to do the hard stuff makes it worse for the other MTs on that account, and they will not appreciate it. Until the problem doctors go poof and disappear, nobody has the right to say they can shove all the bad jobs onto the next MT because THEY are here to make money (everyone is, and someone has to type it). And there is such a thing as Karma - one day you might log on to find ALL the work is the dictator you dread, because all the MTs that came on before you felt entitled to leave the crap work for YOU. You really won't make any money on that shift, as opposed to doing a few bad jobs each shift. So type them as you get them, like the rest of us.
If everyone got together and went to management about the problem guy, that's one thing (and yes, we all feel this way about at least one doctor). Deciding you don't have to do it because you don't want to is quite another, and often grounds for disciplinary action. Work is often just that, hard work, and with time and practice it becomes easier. Nobody promised you a rose garden, challenges are what this job entails.
MY first rule, before being MT. is I have to
x
The first rule of being self-employed is that
you set your own line rate. However, we all know that NONE of the MTSOs hiring IC MTs allow us to set our own rate. They "offer" a rate, and we accept if it's OK.
I worked for a real cheapo doctor when I first started out. He paid hourly and kept riding my backside to type faster because he only wanted to pay for the actual time dictated instead of the time it took to transcribe. More than once I told him that it takes an average of 3:1 typing to talking ratio to get it done. It worked out to be $.03 per line. I dropped him like a bad habit. He bounced through a few other transcriptionists who all quit on him before he wound up having to pay to outsource to a service.
as a general rule...
I use an "f" after any abbreviation that I want to expand. I just use the standard abbreviation plus f, so I do not forget what they are. My ShortHand is full of things like this.
ex: cbcf tcpf tshf
Works for me!
date rule
Thanks. My mind just blanked and I couldn't remember. It seems like it has changed so often over the years!
I have been an MT for 33 years and the rule has always been...sm
to use mg when preceeded by a number.
and there are so many exceptions to all those rule! lol
that's the english language for ya! I really don't know.
My rule for semicolons
is that if the two statements support each other and each statement could be a separate sentence, I use a semicolon. Example: He underwent an ultrasound in March 1999; AT THAT time he was noted to have BPH. The sentence you asked about should be done like 'NM'says: He underwent an ultrasound in March 1999, at which time he was noted to have BPH.
Thought that was already a rule
Hmm...I thought that that was already in effect, that no US Govt transcription contracts could go overseas/be outsourced - at least the V.A. has that standard in place...
I was always told as a general rule
it was double. Most of the time, however, I think it is slightly over that.
Rule Books and AAMT
AAMT sure brought this profession to the forefront. However, when they started publishing their own Bible (BOS) there are a lot of grammatical errors in there. Also, the styles they use are not accepted in this part of the country and will be considered "errors" by the client, hospital or clinician who do not want their reports set up in this manner. It is wrong to test people on a style that is not accepted in their part of the country. You are only forcing people to learn a "new style" which the facility in your area will consider completely wrong. Then the private company will comply with that particular hospital and change the set-up. Sadly, the person who took the test and did not use the BOS has a lousy score and is not considered for the job although s/he meets the set-up criteria for hospitals in the area where they live. Go figure, spend all that money for the book, or just test and get 100 per cent and then study the style of the facility who is paying for the work and then be 100 per cent right. Don't judge all tests by style, wait and see what the hospital is paying you wants for the style. You are putting the cart before the horse. Been in long enough to know that the BOS is absolutely not the "Bible" and the testing companies should take this into consideration. You could study this book until you're blind and then have to "unlearn" it to comply with the paying $$$ facility who is the ultimate "boss" of how the work will be turned in and accepted. Kabish? If I turn in a discharge summary in my local hospital according to the BOS style, I would be considered a total idiot. If I used the local hospital style for testing nationally, I would probably rate a 65% on what the hospital would consider 100% correct for style and grammar. Can't win.
It's the AAMT new BOS rule on numbers.
x
you two are the exception to the mommy rule(sm)
Most MT mommies got into this business solely for the purpose of staying at home and making a little extra cash on the side. They try to juggle the kids and MT and the diaper changes always come before that STAT report. And, yeah, I know what I'm talking about because I used to work in the hospital and that was always the way with the at-home mommy MTs. There was always an excuse as to why they couldn't do this or couldn't do that.
Well, my husband and I rule the menu here.
We're sure not going to let the kids do it, otherwise it would be pizza, tacos, and hot dogs daily and everyone would keel over from clogged arteries at the age of 30! Beside, like Kikki said, it's not good to let the kids call the shots. That's why the good Lord made parents!
No one said the kids should rule the menu
But if you love your kids then you understand that they are people too, with their own tastebuds. Just because they might have a suggestion doesn't automatically make it JUNK. Just different.
Trust me, my kids know who the boss is. Geez!!!!!
My rule of thumb is a $100 minimum
Of course, closer relatives and friends receive more, but always at least $100 for graduations, wedding gifts, etc. when someone is an acquaintance.
General rule is 3-5% a year. sm
If you currently get 8 cpl, ask for a raise up to 8.25 or 8.5 cpl, that almost covers cost of living and inflation.
Generic numbers here to show the math based on the 8 cpl with the raises:
200 lph at 8.00 cpl = $16 hourly/$33,280 yearly
200 lph at 8.25 cpl = $16.50 hourly/$34,320 yearly
200 lph at 8.50 cpl = $17.00 hourly/$35,360 yearly
When you ask for a raise, provide them with verifiable data to prove you DESERVE a raise. Say you are 99% accurate, remind them. If you type 250 lph or more, remind them. If you work OT on days off, remind them. If you come at them with your homework done and good reason to give you more, they will be more apt to say yes. (I have never been turned down for a raise, once even got more than I actually was looking for because I didn't specify how much of a raise I was wanting.)
Please cite the HIPAA rule. Thanks
x
The HIPAA Privacy Rule...(sm)
...requires a covered entity to make "reasonable efforts to limit use, disclosure of, and requests for PHI to the minimum necessary to accomplish the intended purpose." The only AHA-approved HIPAA training program, HIPAA Academy, specifically states in its training materials that HIPAA intends that personal information be limited to document headers unless absolutely required I will quote page 4-56:
"In practice, we expect the minimum-necessary requirement to lead to compartmentalization of the medical record so that one portion of the record (the body of the report) may be readily disclosed for one purpose without compromising the privacy of the entire record."
By limiting PHI to headers, reports can easily be redacted of personal information; when the PHI is scattered throughout the reports, this information cannot be redacted.
First rule of computers: Whenever anything goes wrong...
....reboot!
That will take care of about 95% of problems.
If you have two identical toolbars, then you may need to go to View, then Toolbars, and then Customize (way down at the bottom of the list). On the Toolbars tab, see what is checked.
If both Standard and Formatting are checked, this is where you may have your duplicate. Try unchecking either one of those and see if that puts your toolbar back the way you want it.
If that doesn't work, come back and we'll try again!
My company has a 2-minute rule
We are supposed to spend around 2 minutes looking for something. If we can't find anything, we blank it; my boss says that's what they pay their QA for.
I like your company...good rule/sm
Some places make you feel like if you don't search and search then you are inadequate. But I don't get paid to research, I get paid to type. I will research a reasonable amount of time and that is it.
HIPAA Privacy Rule
http://www.aafp.org/fpm/20021100/35theh.html
cherry
This is unbelievable. You should have really complained
your boss.
Guide for HIPAA PRivacy Rule
Covers for Stedman's books are designed by the graphic artist who works with them.
OLD typing rule I have in my head, whether it is accurate I do not know, hence I said IF---nm
x
You are the exception, not the rule, when it comes to kids w/o fathers.
x
My family now has a hard and fast rule... (lm)
Nobody who is incapacitated/confused/at all unaware is EVER alone in the hospital.
Family comes from all over if we have to, but that's what you do. Family takes care of each other no matter the inconvenience, and having good friends, good neighbors, and a good church helps, too.
We learned that after my father suffered a head injury and was confused and combative and kept trying to get out of his bed, pull out his IV, etc. Someone from the family was with him most all of the time. Family only left when someone from the church or a friend or a neighbor came to stay. (The church had people sign up to come stay with him so that we could get a break, and neighbors would just show up and say "go get something to eat. NOW! ". God bless them all...)
Thank God, my father made an almost complete recovery. He has some personality changes and hearing loss, but nothing we all can't handle. I would NEVER leave a loved one alone in the hospital unless they were FULLY alert and oriented.
Rule of thumb - THERE'S NO FREE LUNCH
If you don't want to do much, don't expect to make much. That's just the way it is.
Rule of thumb in the NE is October & April when
the time changes. Daylight Savings starts in April and Standard Time in October. It always works for me. Change all the clocks and change all the batteries.
For those who haven't done so yet, though, better get changing. ![](https://forum.mtstars.com/smileys/smirlove2.gif)
Personally, I like the new rule. I think it looks terrible to type
The patient has had intermittent diarrhea for four to five days.
Instead of:
The patient has had intermittent diarrhea for 4-5 days. Do much easier to 'quickly read' the number of days as 4-5.
You are an exception to the rule. After 20 years, I'd like to be making
dd
|