Do you know any IC transcriptionists or friends who work in doctors' offices?
Posted By: MTinNC on 2008-06-28
In Reply to: How does one get started with no exp. but has education? - Renee
That is how I got started. A good friend worked for herself and had no coverage for vacations. I covered a vacation, then a day or two a week, which eventually worked into full time. I also did prn work for local offices.
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Doctors' offices, not hospitals
Sounds like the OP is referring to doctors' offices and not hospitals. If we took the initiative and talked to local doctors in our area, perhaps they might be interested in having their work done in a more "personalized" fashion. We don't know unless we try.
I think the hospitals might be a "lost cause" in this regard because they are run by financial people and not the physicians themselves, but I think I will start making some appointments (which I need to do, anyway!) and query my physicians about who does their work. I think the office managers might brush me off, but I do not believe the physicians would.
I do agree with the OP that we all need to try to take back the medical transcription field ourselves and get it out of the hands of big business.
Small doctors' offices do!
My second job is for a small (3-physician) specialty office. I am paid by the hour at a nice hourly rate. I was also paid hourly when I worked in-house last year at a specialty practice. I got this job initially by asking the doctor personally who did their transcription when my daughter had a check-up appointment there.
Really, your best bet is to do some networking and research on local offices in your own community. A lot of small doctors' offices do not want to mess with big nationals and prefer a local dependable transcriptionist. As a poster below had suggested, offer to do a SMALL portion of their work for free on a trial basis.
I know what you mean about being burned out, though! I hope you find what you are looking for.
Most doctors offices are like that because they are not open on the weekend...
and work doesn't start trickling in until late monday afternoon/evening so why bother waiting around, just take the day off!!!
Contracts do no good. Doctors' offices break them
I had contracts with my physicians. I put thousands and thousands of dollars into new equipment because they asked for it, trained several transcriptionists at $5,000 a piece, and then they went EMR within a few months despite the contract. They had been setting the EMR up the whole time. Even when I found out about it through a third person, it was still denied. Do not count on contracts. Just because they sign something does not mean they will abide by it.
How much do most people charge for doing IC work for doc offices, just
What program is good to use for line counting?
I was thinking 13/cents a line? Is that undercharging? I have to remember that I have to pay my overhead so even though 13 sounds high, I have to pay equipment, equipment, equipment.
help
They are and that is why we dont have work then. They bring in other offices and run your office out
of work because too many people are on the account then. Make sense. Nope.
I, too, work for MQ out of one of their CA offices - 7 years now. Steady workflow sm
I wouldn't say I don't run out of work, but maybe 3 times a year I do. Just depends. Around school time beginning I do. May pay is probably above average because the company I worked for that MQ bought paid really well.
I have had absolutely no problems with MQ, though the things I keep hearing and seeing do bother me that I belong to a co. like this. But personally, they've been too good to me.
I guess not all offices are the same, for sure!
Contact the unemployment offices of the state in which you work.
See Wikipedia "unemployment benefits" for an excellent discussion. To determine your eligibility, try contacting the unemployment offices of the state in which you work--start with the state to which your employer pays state income taxes on your wages. They should be able to point you in the right direction. Good luck to you.
It is mostly trial and error! Lots of foot work, go to their offices, ask for the OM and see if the
x
RMAs/CMAs usally work in physician offices as the office nurse.
x
I used to work in a clinic, and have friends who do now.
7 years ago I worked in a clinic and lost the job when the clinic joined a larger physician group who outsourced transcription. I went to work for the company they were using then. With that change I almost doubled my income. That MTSO later went out of business. Ironically, now I work for the MTSO who currently has that account. Some of my coworkers with the first company have gone to work for a large clinic in the area who has brought some MT work back in-house. They took a cut in pay but have better benefits and much better hours. I have found that you pretty much have to be in the right place at the right time, or know somebody. The first clinic job I got was when I went to apply at the local hospital and the director at the hospital sent me over to the clinic. Almost all of the opportunities I have gotten over the years have come from knowing someone. Sometimes the best thing to do is to ask around. I know a lot of transcriptionists in the area, and several people who work in clinics in the area. This is where I get most of my leads.
I have some good friends that still work there. n/m
X
Where I used to work, 50% of the doctors never
So true, work for some doctors and clinics also and many are now
jumping on the save lots of money and offshore bandwagon! We just can't win. It's over everyone :(
I work with eScripting doctors and love it. sm
However, some of them are such conscientious dictators AND the machine has them down so pat that, if they were in charge of their own dictation--like independent practitioners--routing their reports through an editing service might turn out to be completely unnecessary. Office staff could give them a quick glance-over instead. I know nothing about the business end of this, just what I'm seeing on the screen.
And, yes, I was also really intrigued to see that some of the most horrible-sounding dictators quickly developed a very good working relationship with the machine. For sure, accents are totally irrelevant as the machine doesn't know they exist--if a practitioner can't get his tongue around h's and r's and always pronounces "heart" as "et" the machine thinks that's the way it's supposed to be pronounced--by that doctor.
I do much prefer editing over transcribing-fits my skill set better, but undoubtedly fewer editors than transcribers per report will be rquired in future.
I work for doctors directly, no QA, so I always proof.
.
The worst doctors are on VR where I work, all of them at the hospital
I do not get it when certain physicians are not on VR or the companies say they are not on VR. I disagree with what you say about VR not being able to handle them because I am grateful to have VR handle the ESLs.
I guess because I work for a local group of doctors
I have an overabundance of work and would love a break. Too back I can't subcontract work (I'm an employee). I have had as many as 250 patients in one week. Today is a low day with just 26 patients coming in, but a lot of days it's upwards of 50 patients so I have 50 reports to type in a given day.
You're rude. That being said... Some people just work alone for a couple doctors and don't
s
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.
Friends, really miss Friends :-(
Joey just isn't the same for me 
Offices are different.
Your supervisor should be able to email you a rundown. My office has many different incentives, in fact, I have a hard time keeping track of them!
Why are all offices not ran the same?
x
One of the Ohio offices
I'd rather not say which. Been there years.... it's gotten worse, not better!
How do you change offices?
?
it seems to be all offices, have you signed
up for IPAY? I have not gotten a check yet either, but there is a statement there for 09/02 which obviously is not a regular paycheck
incompetent offices
Geez Mandy, you must work for the same place I did before I left LOL.
Offices need not comply .. but
we find that most do for the continuity in care issues that any practitioner faces.
Can anyone tell me how they like working for the NE Region of MQ as all offices in the NE are
going there one by one as the local offices close down. What are the people like to work for there and the QA people as far as feedback on things. Thanks
So they are consolidating offices, big deal.. it's a
c
I don't know about now, but they used to have local field offices. sm
A friend of mine had a problem, and she went in and talked face to face with a really nice person, who helped her through it. If you're close to an office, and if they still have them, that might be your best bet. Good luck.
I think the MDs that care in their offices or clinics sm
keep their trans in-house. My personal MD does and overseas every last little detail and she is tough! The ones who dont want to mess with it go to a service and let the service take responsibility. So neither will care....IMHO
My experiences with home offices...
I used to have my office in the living room. It was really difficult for me and my family.
I moved it into the dining room ... again, was just a bad fit and crowded/cramped everything.
Finally I moved it to my bedroom. Now at first, I had my desk sitting out in the open and it became depressing. While I enjoyed the privacy and quiet (I could actually shut my door), it was all I saw when I was in my bedroom. That blank monitor staring at me, either making me feel guilty by not working more or making me dread going to work.
Soooo, then I got creative and I've been thrilled every since.
I pulled all of my clothes out of my closet and bought a beautiful armoire with drawers and a rod in the top to hang clothes. Beautiful asset to my bedroom.
I purchased a smaller but very nice desk and fit it right inside my closet. I have a lovely little lamp on my desk, streamlined all my paperwork to a minimum and put as much as I could live without (in tangible form) on the computer. Have a small vase I keep fresh but cheap flowers in. All I have is in the closet and I can close it up out of sight when I am done. I can store my books up on the shelf above plus I have a small CD player up there to play soft music while I work.
I did not want an ugly office chair anymore. I really liked my upholstered chair in my bedroom. So I had my son put rollers on it and now it is my chair. When I'm not working, I just turn it and angle it into the corner like it has always been...when I need to work, I just sit and slide right under my desk.
I could not be happier with this set up and it has been this way just over a year now.
I get copies of the schedule from the offices. sm
you are an IC, so you can call the shots. You can let them know that if you don't receive the work by a certain time, you will assume there is none, something of that sort. If you need a day off, give them advance notice and don't "ask" them for it, because you are an IC so you set your own schedule per IRS rules. You do not need their permission, per se. Obviously, we accommodate the docs as much as possible to keep the accounts, but only to a certain extent. We shouldn't be on call for them 24/7, either. They wouldn't wait all day for a patient that may or may not show (and sometimes even charge if the patient is a no-show!!) If you wait and wait for work, play their game and put it in writing that you will charge for your time -- and then DO it. A few extra charges on the old invoice will likely bring about a change. ;)
Even with the schedules provided, the docs can and do change them at the last minute, so there's no way you can ever know for sure, but at least you can have SOME idea what's going on if they provide them. The way I see it, if he tells you he will be out, then that's what you go by. Even if the staff can't verify it (strange, since most docs are highly reachable by staff), you've heard it straight from the horse's mouth so if you want to take that opportunity to have a day off, let the staff know you'll be off that day, period.
If the doc changes his mind and comes in that day, well, I'd still take the day off if I made plans. Keep that saying in mind that poor planning on their part does not constitute an emergency on your part. If they don't like it, then maybe they'll make better future efforts to keep you in the loop.
Whether hospitals or independent offices,
I'm speaking from experience.
Age of transcriptionists
61/female/married 40 years/ 11 grands
How many men transcriptionists
are out there? Have been noticing a few men's names lately and was curious as to how many men transcriptionists there are.
M.D. transcriptionists
The doctors who are supposedly training for transcription have degrees in ayurvedic medicine and homeopathy. Neither has much to do with western medicine. And, can they type? Some of this sounds like bluster to me.
MS transcriptionists
Hi guys. I put this on the state boards, but I don't think anybody reads those. Are there any MTs from Clarksdale, MS or around that area? Love to hear from you.
Low Pay for Transcriptionists
I am 57 and have been transcribing for 28 years. I recently moved from California to South Carolina. I was doing VERY well there working in a clinic, but since moving here I am living at the poverty level. Even with my experience they started me at $ 10.00 an hour. I've checked all hospitals in the area and none pay any better. This is very disappointing. I've applied all over the place, and nobody seems interested. And working for 7 to 8 cents for a 65 character line is like giving your time away for nothing and 3 to 5 cents per line for editing. At 57 I am in bad health, have spent my life transcribing, and don't know how to do anything else. I plan to enroll in school in the fall to learn a different trade.
Hey VTS transcriptionists! DQS still down
Now BizGroup, too. Just keeps gettin better and better. I know that MQ is huge, but we are teeny-weeny, and this is day two with no work...gettin really frustrated.
MQ offices- If there is an MQ office in your city/state, is it possible to
apply for an MQ job outside of your state? I think I have been blacklisted from the MQ here in Birmingham, AL. I worked part-time for them when they first setup an office here, and they were named Transcription Limited, I believe. They only paid 6-7 cpl at that time. Well I worked for them a couple years and then opportunity came where I could work for another transcription company, and I am assuming was a competitor to them in the Birmingham market. Mind you, I left in good standing (so I thought), two-weeks notice and all, and was an exceptional employee, but years later, every time I have tried to apply through them, I get turned down. So I am wondering if I could work for another MQ office outside of Alabama, or will they refer me to the Birmingham office?
I get .135/.13/.16/.195 direct from hospitals or doctor offices.
.
go solicit medical buildings/offices...nm
So tired of dealing with incompetent offices...
they just emailed me for the upteenth time for a stat report that I already sent to them 40 minutes ago. Wouldn't you think they'd check to see if they had it first!?! Constantly emailing me questioning what they've sent me and when. Why can't she keep logs like I do!?! Doesn't take a rocket scientist! Can't remember from day to day to send me patient lists. Don't know what the heck she does with incomplete reports I've sent because doc doesn't give a name of messes up his dictation and cuts half of it off. I'll get a call a couple of weeks later saying doc insists he dictated on so and so, but they never got the report. I'm the one who has to go back and search for the nameless reports and match up the the patient they're missing with diagnoses, age etc., then tell her that's the one I sent you on that date that was incomplete. Why can't she figure that out!!! If I functioned like they do, I wouldn't last a week! Sorry, had to vent.....
I am an IC and my accounts are clinics and doctor's offices
So I have weekends off unless the docs dictate late on Friday, in which case I have the choice of working late on Friday or getting the work done over the weekend.
With clinic work, you don't have the constant flow that you have with a hospital. You can't work harder or longer hours to make more money. There is a specific amount of work, and when it's done, that's it. Your income will fluctuate. But if you're willing to put up with that - you can have your weekends off.
Start by calling your personal doc offices. Probably
s
There are so much better accounts out there. Start calling offices sm
to get new accounts, let this one go, and don't look back.
I have in this situation many years ago. Believe me, I learned along the way. There are dream clients out there and there are these type.
I have found in my 25 years experience in MT, 18 of those working as an IC, that as one door closes, another one opens.
are you implying that transcriptionists
that work for MQ are less professional??
meant transcriptionists!
nm
Retiring transcriptionists
I retired at age 62 after sixteen full time years and twenty part and full time years. I worked in a fast-paced institution doing all types of transcription. Believe me it took a toll on my hands and wrists. I now suffer burning tendinitis in my right wrist with deQuervain tendinitis in my thumb.
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