Advice on free or cheap MT software, please

Dear Medical Transcriptionists,

In honor of National Medical Transcription Week (May 14 - 20), Spellex Corporation has started another contest in addition to our Spelling Quiz.

Spellex Corporation will give away two free copies of Spellex AccuCount, our new line count program to two lucky MTs. Other participants will receive a 30% discount on selected Spellex products.

To win your free copy of Spellex AccuCount, simply be the 5^th or 10^th MT to download Spellex AccuCount and send us a review. 

Please visit www.spellex.com/downloads/select.asp?Version=accucount to download a trial version of Spellex AccuCount.

Once you have reviewed the program, please send your review to mtweek@spellex.com.  Please make specific references to the program in your review.

If you’re not the 5^th or 10^th reviewer, you can still save!  All medical transcriptionists who send us a review are eligible for a 30% discount on any Spellex single user product during National MT week.

Once again, congratulations to all Medical Transcriptionists for the important work you do!

Spellex Corporation
www.spellex.com

Needing to replace my old computer for a new one. I need to get a really deal on a really fast computer. Help, please, with your experiences.

why pay for anything, right?

Except that is AGAINST THE LAW!!!

I have been an MT for over 10 years.  I also am getting burnt out, tired of my job, day in day.  However, I do love transcription and make excellent money at it, have grossed over $50,000 per year the last 5 years.  I decided to go back to nursing school and am very happy with my choice.  However, over these 10 years of transcription I have had my ups and downs.  My biggest issue with being at home working is lack of socialization, being home day in and day out with just the kids and the animals really gets to a person, sure hubby is home at night and thinks working from home is the easy life, thus the return to school and boy has my overall enjoyment of life changed once I realized I was the problem, not everyone else and I needed to find myself again.

Anyway, my biggest advice to you three-fold:

1.  Get into counseling for yourself, find out who you are and what your needs are, whether or not you think you need to, I sense you are feeling overwhelmed and need someone other than your family to talk to that can be nonjudgmental to your feelings and needs.

2.  If you're only making $100 after you pay preschool you can either keep doing it and be miserable, or quit because you are lucky enough to have a husband who can support the family without your income. (See how fast his mind changes just by losing the income you do have as to whether your job means anything.)  Or look for a different company or office that you like more and are more productive if you really want to do transcription (lots of fish in the sea as far as companies).

3.  Find a local "mom's" group where you can get out and socialize.  MOPS (mother's of preschoolers) is an excellent one that is nationwide, they have a website.  Also Mom2Mom is in a lot of areas.  They provide a once a week time for moms with kids the same age to get together, socialize, (some offer spirtual guidance some don't) and each week a different mom takes a turn watching everyone else's children at the facility that hosts it so the other moms can talk about things they have in common.  Every stay-at-home and work-from-home mom needs to socialize with adults, without their kids, or they will have a nervous breakdown eventually no matter how much they love their kids.

Sorry so long but it does get better but you have to take the first step at making yourself happy.

to upgrade to the latest technology.  I remember using DOS forever and WP 5.1 forever because the MTSOs were too cheap to invest any money in state of the art technology.

There are services that use Vista, but harder to find.

They absolutely don't care about quality or any of that jazz, which is why I have always wondered why we as an industry keep beating each other up over issues that doctors couldn't care less about. Not that I think we should all just transcribe any old way we want, but it seems like we act like the slaves out in the mud pit slapping each other around about how much or how little straw to use for the bricks while the slavedriver sits on the side line with the whip completely content with end product either way.

I suppose the answer most would give is that we should take pride in the quality of our work whether they (the doctors) do or not, but I can't get passed the notion that these are the same individuals that the powers that be seem so intent on pleasing and are also the same individuals who would see us all in the soup lines tomorrow looking for the next homeless shelter to sleep in if they had their way. They (the medical profession) will not think twice about putting all transcriptionists out of business at their first opportunity, and yet we as an industry continue to bow to their ridiculous and uninformed demands concerning how to do what we do or their complaints about how much we charge or that we shouldn't charge for line count generated by short forms or macros, etc. They have no clue how many times their butts get saved by transcriptionists on a daily basis.

I've never met a transcriptionist who wouldn't readily agree with the notion that we are part of the health care team, and yet many of us continue to act like we still work for the doctors instead of the patient. Oh well, go figure.

Just venting as well.

the plastic surgeon charges $400 per session no matter what part of the body, mine was the chin and one brown spot, oh and in between the eyebrows (which the dr who didn't own the practice charged me HALF that).  That doctor is more experienced in laser than the doctor who owns the practice (who wouldn't have charged me at all *lol*).

Someday when I am rich (hey, I can dream, now can't I???  *LOL*) I will go back and have the chin done over and over again *lol*