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Cherrypicking - such a cute description for theft.

Posted By: (NM) It should be taken more seriously. on 2008-11-26
In Reply to: cherrypicking - cj

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identity theft
Hey, I just saw that someone else is posting as "Nymt", whereas my handle is "nymt" all lower case. This may cause some confusion and I have no idea who was first. Any takers? No animosity, I promise.
Identity Theft - sm
The process of identity theft is one of gathering bits of information from various sources. Everyone will find Mitnick's book, "The Art of Deception" very entertaining and perhaps even frightening in this respect.

Small bits of information can be used to garner others that are more compromising. That's the bottom line.

But your resume itself can be enough, depending on the question that the fraudster wants to answer. For instance, what if the "phony" job ad was simply placed by an MT company in order to find out which of their employees are out there looking for jobs?

I get calls from "employers" wanting to "check references" on people. I always get their phone number, verify it, and then call them back. However, I'd bet that most do not take these precautions, so if I have your resume I can start to call your previous employers, tell them you've applied for a job and, believe it or not, if I'm skilled at social engineering, get your former supervisor to tell me a LOT of things you'd never suspect.

Bottom line: Guard your privacy like a mother lion guards her cubs.


THEFT? That's going a bit far and is unfair..sm

While I agree that cherry-picking is not fair, either, I wouldn't go as far as to call it "theft".  The MT is doing the same work, a day's or line's pay for a day's (or line's) pay.  If you were to go to a store sale, and someone else were to pick out the most desirable items first, would you also call that stealing? 


More importantly, I would not blame your fellow MT.  (They are trying to put food on the table the same as everyone else.)  I would blame the crappy, thoughtless dictators, and those who have made outsourcing possible, thus leaving all the crap work for us "cherry-picking" MTs.


This is tantamount to complicity in a theft.
This could have been an opportunity: It took someone elses time (=money) to acquire that nephrology office as a customer. It took your employer time/money to train you. Surely your initial reaction must have at least slightly been that there was something wrong with this picture. You should have said, hmmmm, its sounds interesting but can I have a week to think it over? Then you could have used this as an opportunity to educate or remind this customer about what they are getting for their fees to the transcription service: You could have taken that week to gather some examples of dictation errors that were caught by you and your co-workers on their particular account, especially those of a risk management nature (thereby potentially saving their butts from lawsuits = $$$). You might have asked around if anyone had any funny blooper type words or phrases on the nephrology account, & demonstrated how the company you work for was conscientious enough to reword these, possibly avoiding embarrassment to the doctors these were dictated by. You could have visited AAMT's website listing the MT job description and picked out some factoids the average doctor office business manager would not know about the skill level of MTs capable of transcribing nephrology dictation. If your company and/or co-workers were involved in continuing education (which you pretty much have to be), you could have calculated the approximate total number of hours per year you and your co-workers spend on continuing education, resulting in the quality of the work they were receiving, and that this was included at no extra cost to them. This could have been printed up all fancy & presented to them by yourself or someone at the company you work for, and they could have walked away reassured and happy how much money they are saving by staying with the current service. If after all that, they went and pulled the same stunt with another MT, and your company lost the account and the MT, the company should have just said good riddance. Oh wait, I guess that is partly what happened!
identity theft HAS happened - sm
I know of two transcriptionists that were arrested for identity theft. It took a long, long, long time to catch them, but they were finally caught. Also, I worked at a hospital that decided to outsource, and we tried telling the director that some of the doctors dictate SS# on the report to ensure that we have the right patient, and that that could pose a problem with outsourcing. But they didn't want to hear it or correct it.


Theft $400 and above is a felony in most places
Did you call the police where they live/where you sent the equipment? Threaten them with it in email (go to readnotify.com and sign up for the trial and you can see if and when they open your email). After that, do it. Call the police and file charges. That is BS and they need to pay the consequences.
Identity Theft is one reason
The medical records have SS#'s, full names, addresses, depending on header info it can have employer's name or ins. info. It is hard enough to prove/solve/control identity theft in our own country let alone coming out of other countries. That along with the mistakes in the reports that can have a very drastic effect on a patient's care/life. AND if you don't mind the work being done overseas for a fraction of what you are paid so that you no longer have a job...it can't get much more obvious than no paycheck coming in.
How would the info from our resumes be used for identity theft?
I guess I don't understand it. My social is not on my resume. Only my name and phone number and previous employers. How would one use this info to gain enough info to use my identity? I am just curious.
I saw a special about theft in the post office years ago. SM
This isn't saying they all do it, but luggage handlers and post office employees have a high rate of left.  I bought a really cool Video Now XP for my granddaughter. The tracking information says it reached my local post office and they scanned it in there.  They say they never saw it even though they scanned it in.  Someone there has a really nice present for someone this year and they didn't pay for it either.  Disgusting.
They might if they realized with SS# on medical records, identify theft could happen. nm
x
Your job description probably
has a statement similar to  AND OTHER DUTIES AS ASSIGNED . I would suggest that you have them lighten up your transcription requirements, however, for the period of time you are working on the transition process. If you are missing out on incentive while doing this other work, then definitely, I would request my average pay for this period of time. It would not be fair for you to in effect take a pay cut to help them out in this process. Otherwise with pay being equal, I would welcome with open arms a temporary break from transcription, know what I mean?  Good luck to you.
In your job description, there is probably

and "other duties as needed."  So, that would cover the Excel grid.  In the Meditech system, I used to have to associate charges to the report.  If the charges were not there, then I had to put them in myself, go back to the report, and then associate.  This was onsite hourly job.


So, I guess the answer to your question is no, you probably are not just supposed to do transcription.  The doctor obviously needs you to do the billing grid or they wouldn't have asked in the first place.


Good luck...  It is all part of the business. 


Here is the IRS description...

that I explained above :






Business Percentage



To find the business percentage, compare the size of the part of your home that you use for business to your whole house. Use the resulting percentage to figure the business part of the expenses for operating your entire home.


You can use any reasonable method to determine the business percentage. The following are two commonly used methods for figuring the percentage.





  1. Divide the area (length multiplied by the width) used for business by the total area of your home.



  2. If the rooms in your home are all about the same size, you can divide the number of rooms used for business by the total number of rooms in your home.




Example 1.






  • Your office is 240 square feet (12 feet × 20 feet).



  • Your home is 1,200 square feet.



  • Your office is 20% (240 ÷ 1,200) of the total area of your home.



  • Your business percentage is 20%.




Example 2.






  • You use one room in your home for business.



  • Your home has 10 rooms, all about equal size.



  • Your office is 10% (1 ÷ 10) of the total area of your home.



  • Your business percentage is 10%.


Use lines 1–7 of Form 8829, or lines 1–3 on the Worksheet To Figure the Deduction for Business Use of Your Home (near the end of this publication) to figure your business percentage.

Good description, I'm sure!
It was about 6 years ago in an outdoor arena. My daughter was probably 14 and son was 19. What stories they came back with!!

...the drunk that fell on their dad, the rockin' 40-somethings, the great music... and the aroma LOL.

Most of all they loved the the music. My daughter had just started making the circuit of the current music concerts. The Who was quite a different experience for her. No crowd surfing LOL
They better get that description straight
Im sure that they made a mistake but that really is not helping on our self esteem. Maybe we could write our representatives to rectify the problem?
Very accurate description...
Your post is exactly right! Great post! (A physician friend made the same comparison--that he only needed to know one specialty while the MT must be familiar with all--great post!)
Help me decipher this pay description.
Chronial Transcriptions:  MT daily:  Line rates based on 55 black character line, 0.08-0.09 DOE and test results.  Let me venture a guess.  A 55-black character line would mean 55 strokes, spaces not counted?   DOE?  What's that?  I thought that was the (US) Department of Energy. 
That's not a standard description, so
you can only be sure by asking the person who used it.
I believe your description is correct (sm)
I have been doing SR (speech recognition) for a couple of years now. You may find that some dictators are very close to what shows up on the screen and others way off. I find that speeding up the voice and keeping my cursor right where the voice is (usually Ctrl right arrow, but yours may be different) helps me to make corrections quickly. If they talk real slow, look ahead a little and make obvious corrections before you get there. For repeated mistakes that the VR doesn't correct, make your own correction expansions to add on to the end of a word to change it to what you want so you don't have to change the whole thing. These are things I have picked up on the boards and have helped a lot.

I noticed at first that I could sit for longer periods of time than with transcribing because it went faster. You get into a rhythm pretty quickly and move fast, but you need to because VR is usually paid at a lower rate even though the same level of expertise is required (grrr). The trick is not getting too bored with it, which the looking ahead as they talk helps me with.

Hope this is helpful.


Are you kidding? If this is not the description of accident, I don't know what is

According to your description of accident, this is it!  What could possibly be foreseen about this?  Ther is no way that this is the fault of the parents?  While you certainly can bring a 2-year-old to the hospital, how feasible is it if the labor is anything more than 2 hours?  DUH!  You just CANNOT bring a 2-year-old to the hospital while having another baby.  Obviously, the parents had great confidence in their friends ability to watch their child.  


The person significantly at fault is the driver.  So much so, in fact, that it is illegal to hit somebody and run!!  Please don't give any excuses for the driver.  I had a bird fly into the windshield of my car and it literally shook the car (a minivan), so don't tell me that someone would not feel more than a "board in the road" when running over a 2-year-old!  Give me a break!



Google INFJ and you will get a description. nm
nm
FDP_2006 sent me an E-mail with description:

Anyone know what this is?  It has an attachment so I am not going to open it unless I am positive it isn't a link to a madman's web page.


Thanks!


Well, maybe vertically was the wrong description
how about round and round, as opposed to side to side??
Description of any pus (no matter where it is coming from)

Drivel is a perfect description!
And, oh my,my, how very ''narrow minded'' of U.S. MTs to object to having their jobs given away and their wages stagnate! Your post is right on!
great description. Never thought sm
of it that way. But sure seems like there is more QA than there use to be. That could be because there are so many new MTs (not knocking the newbies) that the companies are hiring for less money than they deserve so they can get cheap labor. That and the biggest problem, OUTSOURCING!
Does that new job description pass some of your duties to others so
you can do the transcription? If not, I guess I'd have to prove to them it can't be done in the same amount of time and look for another job while I'm doing that. After all, you'll still have to look for another job to supplement the lost income at home, right? If they're not passing some of your duties on to others, their request is out of line and completely sets you up for failure. Who needs that kind of pressure in their life?




saw it on monster-- "a too good to be true" job description-
for info and see what kind of a response I get. Don't want to send my resume unless it seems legit. I have 2 jobs now, just fishing for something better.
cherrypicking
what company are you speaking of? kc1
Cherrypicking
You are correct about Cherrypicking. It should not be occurring. If you believe that there is a problem with Cherrypicking, you should contact your technical support person and tell them to change the settings for the "Q" button. If they don't fix the problem, you should be sure to contact eScription. They have a method to stop Cherrypicking.

Good luck!
cherrypicking
That is horrible advice. We don't all do it and it is the fastest way to lose respect of your employer and your fellow workers. You have to take the good with the bad and every good, seasoned Transcriptionist knows that.
cherrypicking
I do not think that cherrypickers can get away with this for a long time, because every report has a trail to see what happened with it.
cherrypicking
I need to vent. I work for a really nice company, have been with them for several years, and really like my work. Lately a couple of new people were hired, and it is obvious they are cherrypicking. Tough dictators get refused/sent back to pool. On our platform, we can tell when a job is sent back. If you are one of those people, why do you think you have the right to pick and choose your work and leave the crap for everyone else. it is only fair to take the jobs as they come. We will all get some good, some bad. Would you like the shoe on the other foot - you get stuck with all the crappy dictators? I am asking here, please do the work as it is assigned. Play fair, will ya? I have seen people post on this subject before but had never experienced it. Now I know why prior posters were so PO'ed about it. It kills the line count for the day, every day, while the new kid on the block is raking it in. Whoever you are, I hope the boss confronts you and assigns you all the junk for a while or fires your butt so those of us who have worked there for years can continue with the jobs we have loved for so long. You are ruining it for everyone else. Okay, vented. back to work. wonder what is in the pool now.
Get a Google Toolbar, description and link enclosed
I have a Google search toolbar at the top of my browser.  It's a small line like the address bar but it says Google beside it and I just type in my searches there instead of going to Google first, etc.  I've found it very easy to use.  Of course, as with anything there are extra parts to the program, I just added the basic tool bar and went to options and only kept the parts of it that I wanted on my toolbar.  It makes searching a whole lot easier, all I need to do is bring up the internet and my search is at the top.
In Description Field type {@KEY Left}-year-old
In Keyword, type
yo, OR yof, yom, yog, yow

In Description Field, type:
{@KEY Left}-year-old

I use the following as well:

{@KEY Left}-year-old-female,
{@KEY-year-old male,
{@KEY Left}-year-old gentleman,
{@KEY Left}-year-old woman, etc.

Good luck rebuilding your ShortHand. I back mine up to a little portable drive on a keychain, I'd be lost without my ShortHand.

Wise

cherrypicking hurts EVERYONE sm
you are supposed to be part of a team! Do you even know or care what that means?  As the other poster stated, SHAME ON YOU!
Cherrypicking at end of shift
What about when you just have a little bit of time left on your shift and you want to shuffle through and pick up some short jobs instead of the 25-minute psych report or the long consult that will put you way over your shift?
Another fine cherrypicking day.
Man, would I love to go on all day about this company and the cherrypickers here.  This is totally 100% unbelievable that they let people do this every single day. 
No cherrypicking allowed here, but....

I know some reports do get shot back into the pool now and then.  Luckily for me, they're nearly always LONG reports by my favorite dictators (ESLs are my specialty), so I don't complain at all.   However, the rule here, which is hard to enforce, is that any skipped jobs or cherrypicking is grounds for being severely chastised for the first offense and immediate termination for the second. 


IMO, why not just type it and be done with it????   Doing that takes less time than anything else, and time is $.


I agree that it's cherrypicking. sm

I don't mean this to be harsh, but if you're going to be a Transcriptionist for a company instead of having your own accounts, you need to be willing to do ALL of the dictators. Why would it be fair for you to pass over the difficult authors, take just the easy ones, and leave the hard work for the others? What makes you think anyone else wants to do them either?


Question about cherrypicking...

I'm on a new account that uses the Lanier. I really think there has been some major cherrypicking going on the past 2 days, but I have no clue how. I'd like to ask my boss about this, but am afraid to stir the pot as I'm so new. However, this is very, very frustrating. I thought I'd start out and see if anyone knows if people can cherrypick such a system. If not, it is all in my head then.


Any advise would be appreciated.


Cherrypicking by proxy...sm
 All good and well in a hospital setting: Everyone knows what work comes out, when it comes out, who has done what, etc. What about home MTs?  I know for a fact that my account (a rather large one encompassing 2 or 3 hospitals and seldom getting the same dictator the same week) has predominantly good dictators for the Basic 4 and at the beginning (about 2 years ago since I started) made a pretty good line count.  Now it seems my shift (late evening) has virtually 99-100% ESL dictators.  Now some of these were just dictated, some were dictated 12 hours prior....but whoever gets to assign them assigns a high priority number rating so we can't skip over them.  I don't mind doing my share of bad dictators as long as everyone does theirs, and if even ONE MT gets to reject a particular job or "cherry pick", EVERYONE should be able to do it.  But I'm not going to be singled out to get all the crap dictation at the whim of the work router when I know this is only a small percentage of the work available on that account. I wonder who gets the good stuff?
They are not griping about just cherrypicking, the point of this
whole post was how can an MT who works for Softscript get that many lines when the rest of us had our SPACES TAKEN AWAY AND LINE COUNTS ARE FALLING, WITHOUT BEING TOLD WHEN IT WAS DONE.  We are told on an almost daily basis that the "line count" server is down and will catch up.  GUESS WHAT, IT NEVER DOES.  Although, apparently it does for a select FEW, aka the positive posts on here.
It sounds like you need to look for another job. I do not tolerate cherrypicking at all. If a

company I'm working for is allowing it and I find out about it, I'm gone.  I work too hard to put up with a services poor business habits.


Jane Harner


You are one paranoid woman (?), rather obsessing over cherrypicking.

Her post had not the slightest to do with cherrypicking, you have egg on your face, and you SHOULD apologize. Though I doubt you will, as you get to hide behind your anonymity.


Why does it have to be cherrypicking? The person just asked a question?
x
that should be sympathize, man, my eyes are bad these days...also, about the cherrypicking...
how do people know that, if they are not doing it themselves...in my experience, those who complain the worst about that are usually doing it themselves...

that is my opinion.
my apologies...I agree with you on THAT part about cherrypicking...
had that happen first-hand my first year of transcription...supervisor took all normals, easy dictators, etc., all to score points with the Medical Director - constantly making everyone think she was some kind of wizard on the keyboard (haha, it is funny now, but all of us in the office knew exactly what she was doing...)
Okay, am I completely loopy, or was there a post about cherrypicking?
Just curious, because I responded, or so I thought, and now I do not see any mention of it...anyone know? Thanks!
I was referring to slamming the cherrypicking post
nm
My thoughts on cherrypicking - newbies please read

Cherrypicking isn't right for the obvious reasons.  But another thing, and this is what I decided early on, it's best to just sit down and learn to do those hard dictators, especially if there's QA or somebody else around to help you.  Because someday you may be in a position where you HAVE to type that dictator, either because it's assigned to you or it's a stat and you're the only one available.  It's too late to say you can't do it, especially if you've been on the account for a long time and are expected to know the dictators by then.   I don't ever want to be in that position.  That's just my opinion.