Dictators who change their mind
Posted By: Anna on 2006-12-15
In Reply to:
About 4 months ago I switched to a new account. The account is great in the fact that there are almost no ESL doctors. However, there are about 4-5 female dictators who have great difficulty in transcribing a report. They sit and think about what they are going to say for time periods of 30 seconds and above. They either speak incredibly slow or very fast. They also change their mind A LOT. They can change their mind multiple times in one sentence or change their mind and make me go back several paragraphs to fix something. One dictator says "okay, okay, okay" after each sentence as she searchs her files for the next thing she wants to say.
These dictators hurt my line count so much that I am putting in extra time to meet my line count. They can drag my usual hourly average of 180-200 down to 140-160 lines an hour. I have complained about them multiple times and my supervisor says that the company does pass on the complaints. The dictators do not change. I have tried speeding up the dictation on the slow dictators but this usually ends up distorting the sound or rewinding too much or too little and then I spend more time trying to get back to where I was!
I was wondering what others do in situations like this. I sure could use some help trying to make them go by faster so I don't spent my personal hours working on their dictations.
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YOU need to change your mind
You have deep issues that control the way you act and behave in the world. You are programmed to please and do GREAT, because that is just what you perceived to be the best path for you growing up. If I achieve, achieve, and do great, then I will be safe. Well guess what, you forgot to look at yourself and praise yourself and acknowledge it YOURSELF. Go back, find your SELF in there and say, what does ___ want? Stop the achieving and look at your soul. As you can see, blind achievements, however great, do not feed your soul. That is what is happening anyway, you have shut down and stopped. It is all happening unconsciously, though. Your self is trying to save yourself: pay attention. So, be conscious, ask, listen. Do not drink. That will only take you further away from YOU. YOU is what you are looking for. Meanwhile, count the blessing of your apartment. This is a safe cocoon for you to do your heart's work. Also, realize that you are one smart fellow, so all that work wasn't for nothing. The trick now is to find your heart and connect it to that.
Read this and you will change your mind
Pay scale looks pretty low to me, according to the owner who emailed employees with this: "Whether we think offshore labor is right or wrong, it has become a fact we cannot escape from. OSi will not actively pursue offshore labor contracts, but we have made the decision to experiment with using some offshore labor to save this large OSi client from going elsewhere. We believe this is the best decision for our employees assigned to this account and the company because this account is growing and we can assign the offshore part to the future increases and not have to reassign any OSi MTs. OSi is committed to continue using US MTs for the majority of their work and we will continue to resist going offshore."
If you want to work for a company with incompetent and unqualified management on power trips GO FOR IT.
OMG! Don't just change your mind immediately because of a few negative women!
Your first instincts were CORRECT - stay home with your baby! Your baby needs YOU - not some total stranger raising him for the majority of its life. PLEASE don't listen to the negativity. This board is the worst place for that, really. Go to any other MT board and you'll get tons of encouraging words. It makes NO sense that your baby would be better off without you. Think about your words. You have to know in your heart that that's not true. I learned the business and taught myself (horrors on this board as well) when my first child was born, and was transcribing by the time she was 6 months old, again, many days holding her on my lap for a half hour or so. But they take NAPS all the time, especially that young. You work out an easy schedule around the baby, and it DOES work, if you want it to work. Please feel free to email me and I'll answer any questions you may have, or just talk further about all this. The MTs on this board are very hostile - even to anyone new who wants to be an MT. It makes no sense at all - as I thought the purpose of this board was to be mentors for MTs entering the field. But its not that at all. The majority hate new MTs, hate newbie students - oh, they really freak about that - like this job is capable of only being done by THEM, and forget kids - NOT a favorite topic. Very sad, and very shallow. Since time began, the WHOLE BASIS of MTing at home was to be with the kids. Period. How on earth a mother could work home and then ship her kids off to daycare is so beyond me that I can't even begin to figure it out. But, that's the sad majority of our screwed up society today - have kids, and then immediately ship them off at 6 weeks old, to be raised by daycare and then the public school system. Parents and kids pass like ships in the night, but who cares, right?  At least Mom gets to stay comfy at home.
Why not neurter? Google anal adenomas on male dogs and you might change your mind. Neutering
:+
Not always. Tongue stumblers. New dictators. Speedy and lazy dictators.
D
Even 4.5 is too low. doctors do not change - they still hem and haw, change, change stuff along wit
It is just not enough for the work. Speech is great on the wrists but you are not just reading what is typed, you are making a lot of changes. I have a hard time doubling a lot of days with all the changes I have to make. Just my opinion.
?? Bad dictators are bad dictators regardless of their mother language.
wonder when people will just get over it and do what they can and move on.
Don't change. I had to change back to cable. SuddenLink DSL stinks! nm
nm
Your mind was in the gutter up there with sauteed stool, too. Would you please take your mind out of
Change provider vs change to business plan
In your place, I would seriously consider changing providers if there were others available in your area, but I'd ask around about their service quality first. It may not be any better. If there are no other providers, then consider changing your service package to a business account rather than residential. They're usually more expensive, but they also tend to get faster service if there's a problem.
Last summer, I had no electricity for 3 days due to severe storms, but there were some 600,000 in the same boat with me. We just had to wait it out. It's a downside of working at home.
change attitude, change life
The first thing you need to change is that defeatist attitude! I know that's hard at times like this, but that's when you need to most.
I won't go into detail, but my financial situation is also at an all-time low, we couldn't even exchange gifts., daughter in hospital twice, & no med insurance)..but then I heard about how much worse things were for others around me this season. Now I'm thankful instead!
Get out while you can. Things will *never* change unless you change them. (nt)
how are they going to get used to all the dictators
if your source says they cherry pick and only do American dictators? Sounds like never. But you knew that.
PS: Are you absolutely sure your source has your best interest in mind with this detailed ratting on another person regarding Indian cherry picking doing non-Indian work?
Dictators who keep....
  
I'm having a bad day with dictators and got this in my
email. It cracked me up. It's a typo in a medical brief that a lawyer filed for a continuance. The typo is on the 2nd page.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0916051disk1.html
I have had dictators like that!
when most dictators were from the USA. nm
x
bad dictators sm
I can take an ESL more than I can take an American who speaks fast just to show off to his buddies or because he has a hot date and is dictating from his car or worse yet, if you can't understand him, he has an excuse why his report is incorrect, he can blame you for it. They do it, believe me, and they are the ones who should be shot down. Give me an ESL any day who says thank you very much and is trying hard to learn the language. Some of these fast-talking big shots could care less about us. I had one guy who could fit 15 discharge summaries on one side of a 15 minute tape and everyone would send him to me because I was the outside service. When he was spoken to, he just threw his head back and laughed. Ignorant!
dictators
don't you just love it when you have to turn up the volume to hear what the doctor is saying and then in the middle of the dictation he finally puts his mouth to the mic/phone, blasting your ears; so you turn it down then by the end of the report you have to turn it back up.......no wonder I have ringing in my ears sometime
Bad dictators
Chewing gum very loudly, blowing bubbles while dictating, drinking something and then chewing on the ice....all in the average day lately. Don't these people stop to think that someone has to listen to this? That they are chomping incessantly into someone's ears. No common sense. Maybe once, someone in authority should remind them that these are legal documents and need to be transcribed as accurately as possible, so no chewing, drinking, talking while yawning, etc.
Bad dictators
I have got to one-up y'all... there is a woman doctor in our group who actually takes her dictaphone INTO THE BATHROOM with her and, yes, that's right, uses the potty right while she's dictating...
ESL dictators
Maybe the ESL docs, knowing that the Transcriptionist must be having a difficult time with the language barrier, should hire an English speaking person to do their dictations. It would free up their time for being a doctor and seeing patient's, give a more accurate transcription, and a better quality report. Wha'cha think???
ESL dictators
Seems many MTs have this complaint. We should be told the correct percentage of ESL dictators BEFORE accepting a job. Imagine all the money a company would save by going over details with each new applicant honestly and thoroughly in the beginning instead of making the job sound good and then have a disappointed new employee, who will quit and the company will have to advertise and hire again. Advertising and training on a computer system is costly, including the time involved etc. The more a company can do to retain its employees, the more money it will save in the long run. Also, pay based on production, not quality of work, is counter productive. Imagine if each Transcriptionist was paid a salary and did quality work and no QA people were needed, except to pull random reports of new employees during the first 30-60 days or so. I feel there is too much QA and not enough emphasis put on quality reports from the beginning. Many transcriptionists feel, the QA people will fill in my blanks, yet they may be able to find the word/words themselves if production was not such a huge factor. But too many employees are trying to meet a line count. With a salary, you can establish a budget and know what to expect in your paycheck. I've transcribed for 25 years. I love my work. Since outsourcing and pay by production have been instituted, I feel pride in transcribing has suffered. Give an employee a job they can feel great about, benefits, and treat them with honesty, fairness, and respect and they will be glad to work for that kind of company. Hopefully, there are companies out there like this It's up to us to find the good companies.
Of note, 10 years ago transcriptionists were being paid around 10-11 cpl and $3.50-$4.00 a page. What happened, outsourcing!! We used to get a higher salary than coders, but not now. We need to keep our work in the USA.
Bad Dictators
I had my share of bad dictators this afternoon too! Is it full moon? I am sure I had your doctor's wife. LOL Can we band together and chart a bus to deliver them to the firing squad?? LOL At least maybe would could let the air out of the tires on their golf carts! Do these people listen to how bad they are???????
Dictators
OH PULEEEEZE spare me the whispering, breathy female docs who sound like they could talk all night on a phone sex line. I don't care what you sound like on the phone. Just TALK lady - spit it out. Am I mad or what? Gads I'm sick of these bimbos.
bad dictators
You ever wonder that when the powers that be become aware that you are making lines on low volume work days, they somehow sneak all the worse dictators your way? I have had bad dictators, none of them in sequential order, and am no where close to my lph this morning.
Dictators
 I could send you a lighter! Seriously, I have considered sending a voice copy to them to play after the fact, a day or two later, so they could see what they could understand of what they said!
BAD Dictators
Oh, you're not alone. They all must have spring fever or something. I have had more dead air than dictation on reports lately. If this keeps up the pay should not be by the line, but by the minutes listened to.
To all the dictators out there
SLOW DOWN! This is not a race. I cannot stand it when these dictators talk so fast that you cannot understand them. You know who you are, especially the cardiac dictators!!!!
Thanks for letting me vent. I get frustrated when my production goes in the toilet!
bad dictators
My huge pet peeve when it comes to dictators is them stopping to flip through the chart and not pushing the pause button. I mean I am just sitting there listening to dead air, wasting money while they find what they are looking for before they start talking again. How RUDE. I think all doctors should take Dictation 101 as part of their medical training before they get licensed. Speak clearly in complete sentences, speak at a fairly fast pace, and for heaven's sake.......hit the pause button if you have to stop dictating.
Bad dictators
IMHO, these are all due to the HIM department folks not training the docs properly. I worked at one hospital long enough to find out that the HIM department heads have total control over what type of dictation behavior is accepted, including the reports that are outsourced. It seems that, if the HIM departments for the various hospitals that outsource to us, or the office managers for the various doctors, would just care about what type of dictation we are getting, they would go out of their way to do something about it. I know they have plenty of time, cause these are the very ones who have no problem picking apart reports and complaining about missing commas!!
Bad dictators
Now my pet peeve.......dictators who say "go back and change" or "forget that last paragraph". You are essentially typing 2 reports and being compensated for only 1. Had 1 report today where CRNP did that 16 times.
Any suggestions welcome!
dictators
If MTs did the kind of job some dictators do they would be fired.
When dictators take a long time shuffling papers I just hold down my foot pedal down while awaiting the next words and check my email or read a paragraph in a book or do some upper body stretching exercises.
Recently I had a doc dictating over the barking of a dog. I wonder where he was? Or where the dog was?
What is it with these dictators..sm
They'll ...um and ...uh and ...er all through the patient history..wasting more and more of the MT's time than necessary .. with the occasional 30-45 second pause between each item to paper-shuffle (on OUR time). But when it comes to the MEDS and LABS, which are the mainstay of an H&P or consult, as other doctors will base patient care on the meds the patient is already taking or present lab results, they'll race through them at 78 rpm so as not to be understood or able to be transcribed without rewinding 4 or 5 times. Just because they can race-read medications or labs doesn't mean we can type them just as fast... I guess accuracy in these areas takes back seat. (Who cares where the patient moved here from or went to school?)
bad dictators
I think the shoe should be on the other foot. The doctors have absolutely no respect for what we do - we should be the ones giving THEM feedback - They will be the first ones to speak up if there is an error on the report when in fact, it is entirely their fault. We are intelligent, professional MTs, not magicians !!!!
The dictators that....
Have a pager sitting right beside the microphone and it continuously goes off, a shrill BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP right in my ear and they don't bother silencing it, turning it off, merely MOVING it away from the mic so that my ears are still intact, they just let it beep and keep on talking away.
What are your favorite dictators?
I like the ones who right when they begin dictating, turn around and speak directly into their armpit. Or how about the ones who carry on a complete conversation in English to the nurse next to them, then when they start dictating they sound like one of those auction guys who have had a few drinks?
Favorite dictators
I have one guy, who really seems nice, thank's you each time at the end of the report, apologises if he has to correct something he said, long reports, BUT, he usually dictates at home, while cooking,bathing the kids and NOW, we must have a new dog because we are deciding to train it while dictating .
It's a verbat account so I really should have put in all the "sits, stays, good dog..would have made a fortune.
BUT (again), if it were'nt for the fact that the ER he works in is over 140 miles away, I'd have been in the ER, requesting him, to treat me for my ruptured ear drum, when he must have forgot the doggie treats and this dog started barking, loud, blew my eardrums out, had to crank the volume wayyyyyyyyy down, could NOT hear him, except for the good dog's and sit, I'll play later
SS dictators and LINES.
I HAD a problem with Softscript period. Heard their sever is down again. Look out, line count will be changing again. Horrible communication. Horrible dictators. Never pain on time, NEVER. Dictators from hexx.
dictators on the phone
I agree--I have mentioned this endless times to my supervisor about dictators being on the cell phone, the worse that I have had was a dr at a baseball game, doing dictation on his cell phone, you could hear the other parents in the background cheering--sounded like a little league game and yes I did tell my supervisor and yes it is MQ and of yes, nothing was done
I love the ones that are on their cell phones and then drive thru a tunnel or put the top down
Fast dictators
When are these ******** doctors going to figure out that by dictating 100 miles per hour they are NOT going to get an accurate accounting of their patient encounter???? I feel like I'm being set up to fail. I don't care how much experience we transcriptionists have, if you're going to dictate a three page report if 1.5 minutes, SOMETHING is going to get missed or screwed up. I hope that extra three minutes they saved themselves throughout their busy day is worth it when the patient's chart gets the wrong data and somewhere down the line a big mistake is made. I've had a terrible morning, struggling with Mr. All-Important who dictates vital signs as one long rambling of numbers, never in the same order (one time it will be weight first, then pulse, blood pressure, respirations and the next time it will be blood pressure first, then weight, then respirations, then pulse) -- I've had it!!!!! I've got so many blanks in this batch of reports that I'm embarrased to turn them in.
Thanks for letting me vent. I'm not a bad transcriptionist.
I am so sick of ESL dictators!
 What a lousy day! I am sick to death of getting 100 different doctors a day and maybe one of them speak English. Makes for a very long frustrating day.
If we all would refuse to do bad dictators - what can they do about it?
Let them do them themselves or have their fair-haired Indians do them.
Let the mush-mouthed doctors get back mush-typed dictation. It would be fair.
Tonight I had so many questionable lab values it made me sick. I also got a non-ending stack of bad, foreign, indistinct, unable to speak English doctors --- you know the guys who end up at the bottom on last day of the payperiod.
I have gotten to the point that I want them to say "This isn't right!" and stomp their feet, because I want to go nose-to-nose with these jerks. Just mess with me suckers! I'm ready. I'm premenstrual and I'm ready.
Not yet, but some days I think some of the dictators I get are going to
The dictators are terrible. NM
:
Love new dictators, don't you? sm
Had one spend the whole time spelling everything. Not just meds either. She even spelled lumbosacral and anteriorly.
Very, very clear English spoken very, very slowly as if she were speaking to a child.
She did not, however, give the name of the patient or the date of service. All I knew was that he was a 36-year-old male that took M-O-T-R-I-N.
Gotta love it. Won't be long before she's mumbling while eating lunch. 
ALL dictators should be required to take a
dictation class taught by an experienced MT. This would surely help this problem.
If these dictators actually got verbatim
reports, they would probably have a stroke and need immediate medical attention. It is scary to think that these people dictating take care of us and our families. I certainly hope they are better at treating than they are at dictating.
Uncaring dictators
I'll bet they have an office manager, make an appointment either in-office or phone. Take/sent a typical tape for her to listen which STILL it is different -- to just listen to than transcribe and listen.
I presume you have asked for samples of old reports on all work types and dictators.
Say something like, in a kindly term, in order to transcribe and give you good service and maintain my business name integrity, I need to be able to HEAR. I would like to keep the rates the same, however, it is becoming difficult, I am just not able to generate a reasonable hourly income. I don't like sending in reports with blanks and would be happy to "fill in the blanks" but it would be necessary to charge .50 a minute of time. If left as is, my business name goes down the tubes having blanks left in circulating reports.
I'Please ask the staff to spend some thought on dictating clearly (each time) so I can maintain your current rates.
ESL Dictators-I must be backwards
The more I do the same ESL's, the less I CAN do them. I don't mind doing them as it is challenging, but getting the same ones day after day seems to wear me down and I can't think clearly, so it takes longer for me to finish a report. It used to take me 15-20 minutes to finish a report for a certain doctor, but now it may take as long as 45 minutes! I don't make sense to myself. LOL
The quality of the dictators is SM
pretty bad overall--even the Americans. I would say with most national services, the accounts are about 75% ESL (30% terrible ESL), 20% fast Americans who don't care and 5% really good gravy dictators.
This is for acute care dictation--large hospitals. Another problem is there are so many dictators in 1 facility that you hardly ever get the same ones day after day.
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