Doctors patrolling themselves? What a joke! They barely have time to see ALL their patients....
Posted By: LOL! on 2006-06-29
In Reply to: Opinions as facts - just an MT
Doctors today are totally incompetent for the most part. YOU cannot worry about it when it comes to transcribing their gawd awful reports. THAT is between the patient and the doc. Just knock the report out as fast as you can and make sure it's accurate and then after that, forget about it.
The docs make the big bucks - you don't! Let THEM worry about things that will eventually catch up with them, one of which is called the Karma bug, and that little bug ALWAYS bites those who don't deal fairly right in the butt! And big time, too! 
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Not sure when doctors graduate their patients but
I have boys and we stopped when my oldest was 11 because they always made them strip down to their undies for checkups and checked their privates and I didn't feel that was necessary and my boys hated it.
How does outsourcing dictation allow doctors to see more patients?
In an article in the MT News section, it states this. Do they really need to see more patients? Most of them herd them in and out like cows.
Your first statement is a joke. Doctors are NOT totally
Feeling like a little bitty individual, are we?
Grow up.
The clock does play into how much time is spent with patients
The way the CPT codes bill insurance have guidelines for the physicians built into them that give amounts of time spent with the patient (in addition to certain information covered in the ROS/PE), especially in consultations (whether inpatient or out), hospital discharge codes and critical care time (inpatient or out).
Yes, that computer is in fact billing the insurance company because it not only saves not having to pay an MT, it bypasses a billing clerk (eliminating that salary), and if the doctor's office space is paid for by a hospital, that file is sent to the hospital's database where a *scrubber* compares what the MD submits versus coding guidelines. If it is an independent office, the MD can upload all that day's billing before he walks out the door and leave it unattended to update patient accounts and reconcile the days money intake.
In a nut shell, your doctor is no longer just practicing medicine. Your MD is doing the documentation and billing and saving money on two warm bodies.
I understand your concern as I see it more and more in today's medical care, but yes, this is the way things are going. I am fortunate that my MD has been very computer literate for a long time, so the amount of time he spends with his laptop is minimal. Once he enters the info, he kicks his shoes back and we chat and get into a deeper discussion both professionally and personally (we've known each other a long time). Give your MD a chance to play catch up to what he or she is doing with that computer and you should see a more relaxed physician soon.
Good luck.
I do reports all the time where patients have asthma, COPD, emphysema, and
even cancer and continue to smoke. In our local paper they are following a woman in her battle with cancer. She continues to smoke, as does her husband. They were broke before the cancer diagnosis, having to borrow daughter's babysitting money to pay bills. Just think how much money they've blown on cigarettes.
I've even known one man with a trach who smoked through his trach.
Doctors do that all the time
Doctors get on a dictation machine and start dictating under someone else's name/login - all day long sometimes. If they don't state their name (many don't) and you're a newbie on the account, you'll never know the difference.
I've had to correct over 50 reports at a time when I worked in-house and the doc showed up before I did. They're not all that embarrassed or sorry about it, either.
doctors vacation time
I am an IC for a clinic. I really like it but for one thing.
I have to wait around all day to see if he is going to upload that day. I have to work some at night and during the day so it's not like I can plan to do anything at all because I don't know when I will have a report. Also with holidays. On Thanksgiving he stated that he was going to be gone but the people in the office wouldn't/couldn't verify so I was kind of stuck waiting to see if he was going to be in.
Is this normal? Does anybody have it set up so they know when their doctor is going on vacation? I really don't think it is too much to ask for.
Thanks
Time to change doctors!
...
yeah but just barely - sm
I used to do closer to 60K.
Lots of contributing factors to my declining earnings. VR and subsequent reduction in line rate for VR work, then there are also personal issues.
Time for me to get out.
Well I do. AHP barely scratches the
surface of what an MT needs to know, even to begin one specialty like radiology. I know because I took an AHP graduate on. She was an older lady with excellent English skills, but I was shocked at how little her schooling had covered of medical terminology. This was with me working in the same room. If she'd been trying to work from home, it would have been a huge waste of time for a QA department that couldn't give her the one-on-one attention she needed. I only needed temporary help, so I don't if she found employment after the 2 months or so she worked with me. MTs who didn't go to a good school and can succeed starting out these days are few and far between. Anybody trying it is asking for a long, unhappy road.
Gene....who was barely even on the show.
A bit disappointed about that whole thing. But what about Uncle *June* shooting Tony! That was a shock.
I worked as one, too. It paid my bills. Barely.
I hated that job because I could so totally empathize with the people I was collecting from. Plus, we had to be real hardnoses. The thing is that our "numbers" were tied to our bonuses. The more you collected, the more money you made. I lasted 9 months and received two raises and promotions to keep me there before finally finding another job. By that time, I had developed sleeping problems and an ulcer and started smoking again.
We never got short, barely was able to take 2 days off around Christmas.
x
I can barely type I'm laughing so hard
Yes, you are going to get slammed for saying some of that stuff, but it is Hilarry-ious!!! And, oh so true. Oh, my side hurts!
Barely working 20 hours a week...sm
I have worked for this company for over a year now. I love the account. I love the work. I am used to it and don't want to think about going elsewhere but I am not making squat I don't get paid by the hour I was just letting you know that is the amount of time I am getting to work due to the fact there is not enough work. I have never been able to get full time work here but more that this. I don't know whether to stick it out or look elsewhere. I only have 1-1/2 years exp so I don't have a lot of options with less than 2 years exp. I don't know what I should do. I have asked about a secondary account, but they said they don't need help on any of their other accounts. Anyone else in this boat? What to do?  
I have IE set to display text size as largest, yet this font is so tiny I can barely see it.
x
we should just once, as patients (sm)
go to the dr's office and waste THEIR time!!! Let them know how it feels for a change. But then again, the doc wouldn't wait two seconds on a patient, now would they? Wow, whatta double standard! 
Patients
On a really bad day, I feel like a vampire for making money off of other people's misfortunes.
Maybe sometimes we have too much time to think! I don't know.
Just because 2 patients have the
same dx does not mean they are treated the same and symtoms are the same in many dxs. Do you have your degree?
Well, too bad that they have 30 patients - sm
to see so they don't want to spell things out. Do they cut corners on patient care, as well, when they have 30 patients to see - or is that reserved for us peon MTs? So they're "frustrated" with 30 patients - well, cut your patient load! We're not paid to "guess" or have to look up everything they don't feel like spelling, especially other doc's names. Just won't do it.
By the way, I wonder if they know how many documents we have to type a day (30 maybe?) to even eke out simple minimal wage - but that's OK, I suppose, compared to their 5 or 6-figure salaries.
Just give everybody the bum's rush because you have 30 patients. Suppose we did the same?
A party for our patients...
Every year, the staff in our clinic takes it on ourselves to throw a party for our patients. We all cook finger food, make snack trays, cookies, baked good, cheezes, bread, meat trays, the works. We have breakfast foods and lunch foods. We decorate tables in our lobby to spread this out on. We usually do this one day a week for the four weeks before Christmas so many patients will get to enjoy it. We have coffee, hot chocolate, orange juice, cokes and punch. We have fruits and dips....something for everyone, even diabetics. The patients are touched that we go to the trouble and we are touched by how much they love it! These patients have gone through enough suffering with their diseases and some are elderly and don't have family members. Some tell us this is their only Christmas! We have been doing this several years now and the patients are beginning to tell us to be sure we appoint them to return on the days we are having our "Christmas spread." I just thought I'd share the Christmas party that means the most to me... and this is definitely it! Just the look on their faces as they are enjoying it is Christmas to me.
It is not our job to judges the patients sm
or why or where they seek treatment. It is our job to transcribe the dictated reports. If you don't like the healthcare system, then go out and change it.
Just how many lives do YOUR patients have?
Apparently mine have more than one because I have one dictator who likes to use the following phrase: Patient was told that he might have death and loss of current life. 
Now we have to insist patients
being treated are actually examined before treatment is rendered?
Wasn't it bad enough medicine when ER docs would proclaim a diagnosis before exam, only to have to backpedal after taking a look?? I guess if they are going to do things in that order, doing physical exams is going to result in their looking stuupid, so their solution is not to do that part.
Big grrrr.
If the patients were aware of that, they could
nm
Do any of you ever feel sad for the patients?
Maybe it is because I am on my period and am more emotional than usual, but today typing all these terminal cancer reports is making me want to cry. I feel so sad for the patient and their families. I just cannot imagine being told that I only have a few months left of my life. And the doctors sound so cold about it. I know they are very used to it....I just know that I could never be a doctor. I could never get used to telling someone they are going to die.
A question regarding patients' rights
I was just wondering this. My mother was recently sent to a "liver specialist" who is local gastrointestinal doctor because of concern over persistently elevated liver function tests. He drew a LOT of blood work on her and only told her that it looks like she might have a fatty liver. He set her up to come back in six weeks to "get the results of her lab tests." SIX WEEKS! With her being very concerned, of course, we immediately searched the net and found out that fatty liver occurs in patients 1). who drink alcohol (she never has), 2). Patients who are overweight (she is not) or 3). Patients with diabetes (she hasn't got that, either). It says that a liver biopsy is how they find this out. He never mentioned doing one of those. My question is.. would a physician want to wait 6 weeks to find out lab results? You know it doesn't take 6 weeks to get the results back, they probably had them back within a day or two. In the meantime, she is stressing big time about what could be wrong.
No thanks. Anorexic geriatrics patients don't do it for me.
x
Very true, but a list of patients?
An invoice by the patient? Some clients need to do their own book keeping. It is bad enough you have to worry about the content of the reports. To have to retype a patient name into an invoice with the line count is utterly ridiculous especially as an IC. IC's get taken advantage of. As an IC, yes you should be charging for "everything". If you're an employee, they can put it under "other duties as needed". Business is business. If it takes more time, that takes more money. End of story. Don't do nothing for nothing. Your clients sure do not. They go all this time with this Transcriptionist with her invoicing and then all of a sudden decide they want each patient name and line count? Cut me a break. You don't think there should be a charge for that? You can work for free, but I certainly WILL NOT! To make statements like be paid to walk to the computer is really being a bit of a smarty pants in my opinion. Keep it to yourself if you want to work for free, most people don't! Have a great day making nothing to do A LOT!
I read it... does it mean US patients would have to travel - nm
.
A lot of physicians refer to their patients
as heterosexual or having same sex partners, it is very relevant in some aspects, as in exposure to AIDS/HIV, etc.
New Doctor, some patients already typed
I got a new doctor. They girl who had been working for him left him in a big mess, undone dictations, etc. The office gave me a flashdrive to do with about 30 patients on it over the holiday weekend. Today they've told me ten patients had already been typed, how did I want to handle that? It seems they don't want to pay me for these. My husband says to bite the bullet and not charge them, since this is a new account and I'd like to keep it, is possible. What do you think? I know it's a land of confusion there from what is done to what is not done. Thanks!
It's called BEING FAIR TO PATIENTS
. Why should patient care suffer?! The patients haven't done anything wrong, even if management sucks. I thought that's what MTs were ultimately hired to benefit, the patients.
And that is because the GYN forgets to tell his patients that when changing pills you have to use an
alternate method of birth control for a month until the new level of hormones in the pills kick in, whether higher or lower. That is how come so many get pregnant on the "pill." The facts...my cousin is GYN and he tells all of his patients that.
Just wondering, for you MTSOs, about how many patients/reports per day...
For, say, an orthopedic surgeon, or a family practice doctor. Or, maybe, how many minutes of transcription on average per day.
THANKS.
these are the docs that I don't think care about their patients. my opinion. nm
ss
We need actual examples of patients harmed by outsourcing
to take to the media. Then we could probably get enough interest for someone to do an expose on it.
I wasn't clear. I guess patients' names is what irks me the most. SM
and you know how famous they are for dictating "Krenazcyssky, Jane, that's J-A-N-E.
neat web site 'chemo angels'. Help cancer patients
http://www.chemoangels.com/
My nurse said most patients make calls with their cell, no problem
x
Is this a joke?
You are a joke!
I would bet the farm that you are in management or just someone playing on this board, because I know the facts, my dear, and MQ DOES NOT PAY FOR SPACES and lots of other quirks are out there that we do not YET know about.
If you don't think the joke is
Why don't you just head to Walmart now and go buy yourself a new sense of humor - LOL LOL LOL
what a joke
or go to Walmart. The field is now paying close to minimum wage for newbies,really! At 6 cents per line and 100 to 150 lines per hour,it only equals 6 to 9 dollars an hour. That is great pay.......in India!
Joke of the Day
It's a beautiful day in the neighbor. Sun shining, have been outside with my short sleeved scubs, sat on the porch drinking coffee. TAT is 15 minutes, life's good. Check e-mail and my lead thinks so too. She sent this joke and I had to share it...
THE SHORTEST FAIRY TALE EVER TOLD
Once upon a time, a girl asked a guy "Will you marry me?"
The guy said, "NO!"
And the girl lived happily ever after and went shopping, dancing, drank cocktails, always had a clean house, never had to cook, had sex with whomever she pleased and farted whenever she wanted.
THE END
IT WAS A JOKE!!!
No sore loser here. I could care less.
BOS ... what a joke!
What is most comical to me is that the BOS in one edition says "abc" is correct and in another changes its mind and says "xyz" is correct. My view is they need to keep "making up" stuff in order to keep publushing something to make money!! Now don't get me wrong, some of their information is good information, but, IMO, some is definitely not.
is this a joke or serious??? i can't tell! (nm)
///
it most certainly was not a joke...sm
and did you even open up that post of mine and go to the link I provided with an explanation and a diagram of exactly how to do the Lion Hatha Yoga exercise for TMJ?
Sheesh............incomplete are ye? *rofl*
It has to be a joke. Please tell me it is
nm
What a joke . . .
 Got an offer for a job -- specialty that I just love, but only 5 cents a line? Come on now! I have over 2 years just in this one field of transcription. Plus they expect me to pay for malpractice insurance? Okay 5 cents a line at 100 lines an hour for example -- less than the state minimum wage plus I am supposed to pay for malpractice insurance. Hey -- I'm not the doctor! Doctors are leaving my state because they cannot afford malpractice insurance. Get real.
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