Article in Advance

• Article in Advance - jami
  • Mandatory credentialing - Janie
    • CMT (Indian MTs have discount) - cinde
      • No you are not! I'm a single mom and I'm trying to make a house payment, pay utilities.... SM - Tinks
        • Why certify in anything? Isn't that just - paying money for nothing for yourself?
        • I've been thinking a lot about coding - (sm)
        • Happy for you - I always thought about that as well... - cinde
    • The REAL credential was the ART a few years back - real credential
      • I've always wondered what made them do away with the ART? SM - Tinks
    • Don't be under the assumption that credentialing - lynbelbel
    • I develop professionally every single day and I don't have to pay $300... - Tinks
      • I agree. I am not certified. - I don't think forking over money to an
  • I read that article. What a joke! Paid a premium for CMT? Well if you consider 8 cpl plus one cen - Tinks
    • I have the RHIA (more than RHIT) and I don't get any extra! nm - R
  • Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) - K
  • A non CMT who oughta be... - cartwheel
    • no, don't think so - sm
  • CMT never did get anyone much more money. They still want to pay 5-8 cents a line, no matter how mu - not me
    • It did for me. I get 1 cpl more than the top paid MTs - plus I got a $500 bonus for passing and my test pa
      • and didn't you pay over $300 for CMT test? - all evens out.......nm
      • Well - just depends on what the top paid MTs - Indy-MT
  • AHDI is the new name for the AAMT. - More companies do offer CMT bonuses.

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about how wonderful it is to train Indians to do our job.  OH YAAAYYY, LET'S HERE IT FOR SPHERIS AND HEALTHSCRIBE   Let's give a big whoopie and cheer them on while they continue to post for transcriptionists on this board and yet outsource and TRAIN Indians to do our job.  I guess I'm angry about the article on other levels, such as the fact that it seems that Advance magazine is constantly promoting offshore transcription.  This is not the first time they have printed articles like this. 

Our hospital used Spheris and Cbay and we spent hours up hours redoing the reports, yet these companies got paid in full.  Where is the logic in that?  Thank God, administration wised up and brought the work back in.  Now we can go back to doing what we've always done ... OUR OWN TRANSCRIPTION ACCURATELY!

which discusses the 3-fold test that the IRS is using instead of the former 20-factor list.

I know of very few MTSOs which really treat ICs like ICs. 

My best friend successfully challenged the company she worked for -- she got unemployment and a nice tax credit; the company owner got hit with huge penalties. 

I am wondering what it takes to advance to another position in the MT field.  I've been an MT for about 13 years, acute care for 12 of those years.  I'm tired of typing and have done QA as well, but the pay is horrible.  What does it take to move up the ladder to another position, such as MT supervisor or account manager?  I'm just curious. I know there are probably many more qualified people than I out there for any such position, but curiosity has got me as to the general qualifications and average salaries of each.  Anyone know?  Thanks....

Cover story:  Are MTs Paid Fairly.  This story needs rebuttals.  (I don't know if I spelled that right -- too mad to look it up.)  There is another article about MTing as well as some good letters to the editor.  No, I didn't write them.  Not promoting self.

Look, this magazine wants feedback.  Controversy creates publicity which creates readership.  Please think about sending your own letters to the editor.  Write what you write here.  Let more people involved in our field know your thoughts whether they be MTs or not. 

No, I don't work for ADVANCE.  I'm just an MT just like most of you.  I just want our voices to be heard by more people who call the shots that affect us.  This is one venue.  Even if you don't like the publication, fight back and make your voices heard!!!  What a lot of you write here would be fantastic letters to the Editor which would reach a wider spectrum of our associates than this forum for MTs.  We've got to keep the topic of the MT situation HOT in the media.  You can submit articles to them as well.  Get busy, PLEASE!!

I will  write a letter...

Plus shift diff and bonus, plus $1000 sign-on bonus, and relocation $. What a great offer if it's true.

detailing how disgusted you are with the fact that they are promoting offshore training and offshoring transcription.  This is the third article on this sort of topic that the magazine has done in a year. 

I find this particularly offensive because so many hospitals/medical record departments get the magazine and if they see this, then companies like Spheris, CBay, Healthscribe, and others will be getting called to come do their transcription!

So please, don't cancel your subscription, just voice your opinion and comments.  Thank you.

that spelled how why, but here are some of my reasons:

1. In all their years in existence, the AAMT has yet to make life easier for the AMERICAN MT.  In fact, the state of MT in this country is worse than I have seen it in a very long time. 

2.  The AAMT chose to align themselves with MTIA whose board of directors is largely composed of Indians.  They also support offshoring and have adopted the motto "work smarter" which to them means pay hundreds of dollars for a CMT that most companies will not even acknowledge and then hundreds more dollars to join AAMT yearly to get their crappy publications.

3.  They are now certifying offshore MTs.  Yes, nothing like opening the cover of the AMERICAN Association for Medical Transcription and seeing the names of the Indians who have received their CMT. 

4. I get less pay than I did 20 years ago and offshoring is the main reason.  So pardon me if I am a little testy that I just paid so much money to an organization who stabbed me in the back.

5. I certainly think they SHOULD change their name to something else.  How about the I SOLD THE AMERICAN MT DOWN THE RIVER ASSOCIATION FOR MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION.  Bitter?  You bet.  Gosh, they made so many promises and all they did was take our money for a piece of paper rarely recognized by anyone at the same time extending a hand to the reason I am making less money than I did 20 years ago!  

6.  It's a bloated association full of lots of people who "do things."  Everything except stick up for the American MT. 

7. Oh yes, and the BOS is ridiculous.

I'm 57, learned on the job 28 years ago.  I can out transcribe people half my age.  I have no arthritis, no carpal tunnel syndrome, no fibromyalgia and only occasionally get a crick in my neck from my job.   My QA score is 100%, has been for years, and I type 90 wpm, transcribe 200 lph at least and that's on an account that is almost all ESL.   I could do this job another 20 or 30 years if I wanted to (barring sickness or accident that could happen at any age).

As far as the AAMT rep saying younger people are not lining up for this job - have they done anything to market MT to younger people?  I'm sure a lot of high school kids or even community college people would be interested in this work if they were educated about it. 

One last thought - the people they are offshoring this work to in India, Pakistan, Trinidad, the Philippines, are not spring chickens!!! 

I for one am sick of AAMT trying to justify their greediness by blaming their victims, the US MTs.

My first thoughts were like you, just another way to cheat us.  But then when I considered the possibility (trying to be kind here) that some companies are not giving us full credit for every character typed (as in perhaps counting 3 Keystrokes as 1 as has been mentioned here before), then even if they didn't pay us for spaces, we might make more in such a situation if they had to pay us for every single black character.  They can't hide that from us!  In other words, they would not be able to manipulate the line counting as much as I think they are doing now.  Now how much they would pay us for every black character might differ from company to company, but I think this might work in our favor overall.  If pay based on production is better for us than an hourly wage, we need to find what works most to our advantage.   And with the difference there is out there now in line counts from one company to another, pay by character might help us. 

And yes, even if it is a template, every character should still count as well as spaces, returns, tabs, demographic insertion, and also for our knowledge which comes into play every single time we keep the dictators from sounding like idiots and/or catching their mistakes.  Let's face it -- we do at least basic editing too, folks.  We are NOT just typists!  We should be reimbursed for our knowledge as well as production.   We're not donating our time to a charity here.  This is a way of making a living.  We should be paid for whatever we do for the company we work for, just like in any other job.  This might be a step in the right direction. 

I am cautiously almost hopeful. 

Read this

New Orleans: A Disaster Waiting to Happen
by George E. Curry
NNPA columnist
Originally posted 9/1/2005

I am angry. I am angry at the mayor of New Orleans. I am angry at the governor of Louisiana. I am angry at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). I am angry at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), now part of the Department of Homeland Security. I am angry at George W. Bush. I am angry because they were warned last November that New Orleans was one of the “Disasters Waiting to Happen” – and did nothing about it. Consequently, hundreds, if not thousands, of people are dead. Needlessly.

In an eerie prediction of what happened as a result of Hurricane Katrina, an article titled, “What if Hurricane Ivan Had Not Missed New Orleans?” was published in the Natural Hazards Observer, a major journal headquartered at the University of Colorado in Boulder. It was written by Shirley Laska of the Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology at the University of New Orleans. In other words, this was an article written by a reputable author in a reputable national publication that should have been read by people involved in disaster relief. If they had taken heed, many of the dead in New Orleans would be alive today.

Under the headline, “What if Ivan Had Hit New Orleans?” the author wrote, “New Orleans was spared this time, but had it not been, Hurricane Ivan would have:

- Pushed a 17-foot storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain;

- Caused the levees between the lake and the city to overtop and fill the city ‘bowl’ with water from lake levee to river levee, in some places as deep as 20 feet;

- Flooded the north shore suburbs as much as seven miles inland; and

- Inundated inhabited areas south of the Mississippi River.

“Up to 80 percent of the structures in these flooded areas would have been severely damaged from wind and water. The potential for such extensive flooding and the resulting damage is the result of a levee system that is unable to keep up with the increasing flood threats from a rapidly eroding coastline and thus unable to protect the ever-subsiding landscape.”

Until I read this article, I had said one of the positive things that I hoped would come out of this disaster is that relief experts would realize that they need to make special provisions for the poor, elderly and homeless. In essence, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Now, however, I realize that there is no benefit in doubt.

The warning was there in black and white:

“For those without means, the medically challenged, residents without personal transportation, and the homeless, evacuation requires significant assistance.”

Laska spelled it out in even more detail.

During Hurricane Ivan in 2004, she continues, ‘Residents who did not have personal transportation were unable to evacuate even if they wanted to.
Approximately 120,000 residents (51,000 housing units x 2.4 persons/unit) do not have cars.

“A proposal made after the evacuation from Hurricane Georges to use public transit buses to assist in their evacuation out of the city was not implemented for Ivan. If Ivan had struck New Orleans directly it is estimated that 40-60,000 residents of the area would have perished.”

The additional problem of people having the means to leave, but refusing to do so was addressed in the article.

“Researchers have estimated that prior to a ‘big one,’ approximately 700,000 residents of the greater New Orleans area (out of 1.2 million) would evacuate,” Laska wrote. “In the case of Hurricane Ivan, officials estimate that up to 600,000 evacuated from metropolitan New Orleans between daybreak on Monday, September 13 and noon on Wednesday, September 13, when the storm turned and major roads started to clear…

“The fact that 600,000 residents evacuated means an equal number did not. Recent evacuation surveys show that two thirds of nonevacuees with the means to evacuate chose not to leave because they felt safe in their homes. Other nonevacuees with means relied on a cultural tradition of not leaving or were discouraged by negative experiences with past evacuations.”

Those that dismiss environmentalists as kooks, should pay special attention to the observations about marshes.

“Loss of the coastal marshes that dampened earlier storm surges puts the city at increasing risk to hurricanes,” the article noted. “Eighty years of substantial river leveeing has prevented spring flood deposition of new layers of sediment into the marshes, and a similarly lengthy period of marsh excavation activities related to oil and gas exploration and transportation canals for the petrochemical industry have threatened marsh integrity.”

Using the Hurricane Ivan model to predict what would happen if a major hurricane struck New Orleans, Laska wrote: “Should this disaster become a reality, it would undoubtedly be one of the greatest disasters, if not the greatest, to hit the United States, with estimated costs exceeding 100 billion dollars. According to the Red Cross, such an event could be even more devastating than a major earthquake in California. Survivors would have to endure conditions never before experienced in a North American disaster.”

It ended, “The hurricane scenario for New Orleans that these conveying risks portend is almost unimaginable. Hurricane Ivan had the potential to make the unthinkable a reality. Next time New Orleans may not be so fortunate.”


George E. Curry is editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service and BlackPressUSA.com. He appears on National Public Radio (NPR) three times a week as part of “News and Notes with Ed Gordon.” In addition, his radio commentary is syndicated each week by Capitol Radio News Service (301/588-1993). To contact Curry or to book him for a speaking engagement, go to his Web site, www.georgecurry.com.