Familiar work and keeping a pace
Posted By: Previously made decent pay on 2007-09-11
In Reply to: Secrets of Highly Successful MTs? Please share! - RSG
When I was put on work I knew well and could get a pace or rhythm going, I made very good money and got done in a reasonable amount of time and had a life. Now, I'm jerked around from one style to another, unfamiliar doctors, etc. The result is I make considerably less money and work too many hours or sometimes just stop working for awhile out of a feeling of hopelessness.
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Keeping work in US
Because I always believed Americans respected law and they paid on time. I never visited this site MTStars even, but when I did because of all the circumstances that this lady led me into, I found out it happens regularly to other US MTs too and that Americans are no different.
Does this act like a metronome to help you keep up a good pace?? nm
s
My pace has really slowed down since I've gotten older...
Sorry to tell you that - I know it is not good news. It has definitely not been for me. I hate having to work longer hours to make the same money just because my fingers won't move right all the time. I am only 40 and have been doing this for almost 17 years. Have had to learn to use Expanders like crazy!
Also, I am going to school now so that I can get out of transcription before time to retire so that I can have some kind of future in my old age instead of sitting in front of a screen all day.
Thoughts on snail's pace feeling/dizziness w/IT
I'm not sure there's a solution for your dizzy feeling looking at both the lines and the advisories. My own advice to the people I trained to use IT was that (a) you have get used to it, so use it first day maybe an hour at most, then go on with your day, doing a little more each day and (b) don't think of the advisories as static, but rather fluid. The program is asking you "Do you want fries with that?" so don't stress out over the choices. if you don't choose one of the options, no biggie, kwim?
Also in my own experience and that of what others have told me, at first you feel like you are absolutely crawling along, losing speed and time, and yet if you stick with it, gradually advancing your time with it and trying to relax into its phrase system, eventually you find that you are doing more.
The first couple days with the IT, the advisories really stressed me out, but thinking of the "you want fries..." question helped me to relax about it some. I look down when I feel like it, and not when I don't or if I'm feeling rushed or something.
Good for you. Sounds very interesting and a good chance of pace - sm
but I live in the northeast and not much need for that where I live. I also live in a small town so that limits my options. I have spent the last couple of years as a substitute teacher to supplement my MT job and just completed 4-1/2 months as a long term sub which I enjoyed and was a change of pace from MT. The only problem is as a sub or ed tech you only get paid during the school year so I would have to keep my MT job for summers and school vacations. With the way things are going in the MT world I hate to rely solely on that. I don't want to find myself without any job whatsoever.
Thanks for all the responses.
A tip for keeping up..lol
I have MSN and it has "news" stories on there and I can customize it to how I like it. I believe other ISPs have it as well. I typically do not watch news because I have depressive disorder and there is never GOOD news (or at least very rarely) so better to just do it this way. LOL.
Log keeping
Sorry for the delay in responding, when I get typing I "get in the zone." LOL! Here is my code for keeping a log of my job IDs. It may be different depending on which platform you are typing on. I type on Enterprise (Webmedx).
{@KEY Alt+Z}{@PAUSE 2}{@KEY Alt+J}{@KEY Ctrl+C}{@KEY Alt+Z}{@PAUSE 2}{@KEY LWin}{@PAUSE 2}{@KEY N}{@PAUSE 2}{@KEY Alt+F}{@PAUSE 2}{@KEY O}{@PAUSE 2}{@KEY Tab}{@KEY Tab}{@KEY Tab}{@KEY Tab}{@KEY Tab}{@KEY Tab}{@KEY Tab}{@KEY Tab}{@KEY Enter}{@KEY Alt+N}joblog.txt{@KEY Alt+O}{@KEY Ctrl+End}{@KEY Enter}{@PAUSE 2}{@KEY Ctrl+V}{@KEY Ctrl+S}{@KEY Alt+F}{@KEY X}
SH will do very complex tasks, you just have to tell it exactly what to do! There are some downloads available on their wesite also. I did not think any of them helped me, but you never know! Hope this helped.
keeping mail
There is an option in the Imail to have all mail forwarded, all you have to do is put in your personal email address and all Imail is automatically forwarded to you, easy as pie!!!
No pity from me, you are keeping yourself down.
So this company is hiring when there is no work, so they are misrepresenting themselves. You know that, so get out. How is whining on this board dealing with the situation? Any new hires will find it out soon enough and hopefully have the sense to leave. All the "discussing" in the world isnt going to pay your bills. And besides, no one said you couldn't discuss, just go do it on a blog where someone is going to care. We are getting sick of whiners who refuse to help themselves by taking action.
Keeping any child
I disagree. I would much rather home school a child than send them into what passes for education today. I support the mothers who home school!
Keeping faith
When I am facing adversity (everyday), I often think about all of the times in the past that I felt like giving up for one reason or another. No matter how bad the situation was...SOMETHING worked out. When I say worked out, I don't necessarily mean it worked out the way I wanted it to.
Example: I was in a situation where I was behind on my car payments and tried every avenue available to try to come up with the money. I prayed some serious prayers hoping for a miracle. Well, my car was repossessed. I now had terrible credit and didn't know what I was going to do. At this time, I was working outside of the home and had a 6 year old who had to be taken to and picked up from school. My car was repossed on a Wednesday and on Friday I found a guy in the newspaper classifieds who was selling an 8 year old toyota for $3000. I did not have this kind of money. I called him and asked if he would consider taking payments on the car and I explained my situation to him. He told me he did not know me and could not take payments. I went to bed that night in tears. At about 11pm that night my phone rang and it was the guy asking for my address. He had had a change of heart and wanted to bring me the car. Not only did he reduce the price of the car, but after I had made 3 payments on the car he called me and told me he wanted to come by and do a bill of sale so I could have the car (no more payments).
Another.. I also had lots of trouble with my young son in school. He has been suspended 3 times for excessive talking, getting out of his seat and being disrespectful. He is now in the third grade. I took him to the doctor one day and saw four disabled kids in the waiting room. Two of them were much older than my son, wearing diapers and in special wheelchairs. It may sound foolish, but, I was thankful that my son is healthy and able to run around to get into trouble. Some of us think we are going through a lot, but we really aren't when you compare your situation to someone else's. Life isn't easy for most people. Be thankful that things are as well as they are.
I have several other examples, but I'll spare you. My point is...we are still living and breathing and whether we realize it or not, things always "work out". I still have that car which is still very reliable and has gotten me where I needed to go. It's not nearly as nice as the car I lost but I was and am still very thankful to you know who for that situation. Hang in there guys.
And you keeping watching, don't you?
Why anyone would watch that show is beyond me, but to each his own. All 3 of those judges are nutty in their own way. If Simon had a Brookly accent instead of a British accent, no one would find him charming. Paula has always been a little looney - remember when she was married to Emilio Estevez?
All this friction between Simon and Paula is just a publicity stunt.
keeping track
Maybe that is a personal thing if you keep track of who the doc dictates and who he doesn't dictate for. All I know is that they can take it for granted and you can spend lots of time if you're not careful. Could it be a doc in Ravenna?
Keeping files
In the process of cleaning my office, I found at least 600 floppy discs with work that I have done over the years - some as long ago as 10 years ago. Would like to "dump" all of these and more, but am not sure how long one needs to keep files especially for accounts they no longer do. Is there a good "rule of thumb"?
Thank you.
Log keeping glitches
Sorry, I forgot to mention that notepad has to be used, not word pad. Also, note pad has to be the only program on your start menu that starts with the letter N.
More info on log keeping
I guess I got up too early this morning, my brain is not firing on all cyliders today. (Been up since 3 a.m.)
Okay here goes:
Requirements:
- The Notepad program needs to be listed in the Start Menu (it must be the only thing listed in the Start menu that begins with the letter “N”, please rename anything else beginning with “N”).
- A file needs to be created from within Notepad named joblog.txt and saved to the desktop – one time only
- Save the file at the end of your shift – by a different name –clear out the joblog.txt file to be used for your next shift
If you experience trouble with this entry working, you may need to increase the pauses within the entry.
I'm keeping a watch
on the MT Reference style guide. I think it will be better when it's done than the printed BOS.
Keeping the following post going...
Okay...here goes...
So, currently I work in-house at my local hospital. (Probably shouldn't mention this cuz it's rude, but just trying to give accurate information)..I make 16.47 an hour, plus benefits. I love my job and it is supporting me and my husband (who is in college at the time...graduating in JUNE!!!)...So, it's worth it. However, I have to deal with a LOT of crap from the other MTs in-house. Lots of bitterness, competitiveness, bi*chiness, etc. I am dealing with it because I know I am not going to do this forever. Which brings me to my next point:
Don't stay in this job for a long time!!! You won't go anywhere with it, if anything you will probably get laid off due to outsourcing. I, myself, am starting school for medical coding. I will be done with school ($2000) in June and then get started in my new career. If have been a medical Transcriptionist for 6 years and have done everything from psychiatric to internal medicine to sleep studies as an IC (and it's not worth being and IC in my opinion because of all the taxes you have to pay...big bucks) and my best job yet has been working in-house at my current job. However, like I said, MTing is not going to get you anywhere fast. If you want a job that takes you to the next level, go into coding. There are a lot more career opportunities out there and you can eventually work from home being a coder as well.
If I had to do it over I would have gone straight into coding (except for the fact that I got a lot of medical experience working as an MT). Good luck to all of you who decide to stick with MTing, but I don't think it will reward you in the future. I believe it is a dying profession and we all need to move on while the opportunity is here.
I pray for all of us to be able to support ourselves and our family! I know it's tough out there and we all are struggling to make end's meat. Just keep on keepin on and we'll all make it through some how.
Keeping reports...
There was a thread this week about someone saying they kept reports as a sample of their ability. Everyone claimed this was against the HIPPA rules.
Well here we have an ad, and I hope I don't get in trouble, for posting this, but see below:
Let me know if you have experience in the field of neurosurgery and if you can, please provide work samples. If I get the information and qualifications quickly, we may have a chance to win this contract, and work for you.
Thanks!
Now, to me that sounds like you would need to send sample reports. Am I wrong here? I guess this proves that it is okay to save reports as long as the demographic information is deleted and it becomes basically a "sample report."
Just my 2 cents...
Right-it has nothing to do with keeping up with technology... sm
if it means compatibility with a company platform.
Exactly! Because you got familiar with VR....
It is difficult to switch from stRaight to editing, Back an forth, back and forth, this is so TRUE!
And all the various accounts with the different clients' specifics.
It was a matter of keeping the accounts
Didnt they say they had to because the work was out of TAT?
I am keeping a list of all the rotten
dictators I have typed over the last 10 years or more. Not the ones who try but have problems, but mostly the non-ESLs who are just sloppy and inconsiderate pigs. When I retire, I am calling each of them and telling them exactly what I think of them and how it really reflects on what kind of inconsiderate person they are. I can't wait for 2 months to pass!!!!!!!!!!!!!
td = 10/13/2005. in IT I just keeping adding them as td.
dd
More important to me is keeping my financial
info within the US. HIPAA allows many uses of unidentiable medical records to be distributed in many ways even within the US, not to mention overseas. There is no law that keeps my financial information confidential and within the boundaries of the US. Very little truly identifible information to connect medicall record A with a particular person other than by name is sent anywhere, even to MTSOs within the US.
Who wants my medical information? The College of Surgeons to help them identify ethnicities and trends in cancers, the AARP to help target demographic groups for products they sponsor and to "represent" when they pay their professional lobbying group in DC, the auto industry to decide my premiums, and on and on.
I got a Walmart credit card, was 7 days late in sending in my $10 minimum payment and got a call from India for collections. ???? Mailed in the account balance and closed the account. Then called all my credit companies to find out where their call centers were located. I now have only financial business with companies who keep my records in the US. That is my choice. There ARE 2 cases of people who sold US financial records being proscecuted by the Indian government and a total of 5 people are in jail for this.
To the OP, share with us your thoughts.
Michael: You've been missing a lot of work. Peter: I wouldn't really say I've been missing it.
are you not interested in keeping up to date
If not, then the Stedman's Work At Home is not for you. If on the other hand, you are interested in staying abreast of new technology and updates to words, then it is worth the money. For example, you may not be aware than LLW updated it's Stedman Spellcheck and the words in it are spelled more accurately than the words in the word books published before mid 2004. You may find errors in Stedman books that you will not find in the Work At Home package. You also get to ask about words you cannot document. I have used this feature and gotten an answer within an hour.
Very useful resource for the low price.
Keeping good thoughts for u nm
.
It sounds like your frustration is keeping you with
Companies do not seek out single people to put on the worst accounts, nor 2-income families for their best accounts.
We all have good and bad dictators.
Sounds like you need a good break. Hope you can arrange that soon.
Getting CMT may be least of it, keeping up with credits and renewel
zzzz
Keeping with the movie theme........
share with me the good movies you have seen in the past year (I like to get PayPerView and have picked some STRANGE stuff lately!!!)
Thanks!!!! 
I think keeping animals caged
or "boxed in" and this includes, birds, snakes, turtles, and yes, keeping cats inside a house for their entire life cheats them of being able to live in their natural environment and doing what comes naturally to their species. Their exercise is greatly reduced and so is their instinctive behavior to feed, hunt or whatever it is they do. How would you like to live inside a box for your entire life? Just my opinion, you are entitled to yours.
I have been on since 3 a.m. without a problem, so perhaps maybe the ISP is having problems keeping t
more help, but I truly have not had a problem. Hey, try this.....take down your modem and router for 30 seconds and restart and see if that fixes the connection. Who knows what happens with the "gremlins" but sometimes it just works better when we start fresh.
Hey, cool trick for log keeping. Can you tell us how you do it? :) nm
s
Keeping up cert costs too
I was a CMT for 20 years before I finally let it go. Only one company I worked for in all that time paid extra for the CMT; then they were bought by Medquist who didn't care. If you ever change companies - voluntarily or otherwise - the CMT may no longer bring you extra cash. Remember, too, that you'll have to pay to keep up the cert. I went to the conventions every year. They ran me at least $1000 then with registration, airfare, hotel, food, ground transportion, etc. Worked in-house then, and my employers didn't reimburse. I was *lucky* I could get my vacation then. It would probably be more now; everything else is. If you don't have PTO where you work, then it will cost you what you would have made for those days as well. Perhaps you're lucky and have a strong local chapter that will provide you CEs for much less cost and aggravation. If you use the articles in the Journal, it will still cost. Plus, it's not just any credit-worthy activity, it's one from column A, two from column B, etc. It makes it much harder to get what you need (which may or may not have anything to do with what you REALLY need to improve your skills). I didn't regret it while I was doing it, but I wouldn't do it again unless forced. I hoped for 20 years that it would mean more than *personal satisfaction*, but it never did.
Have you ever thought about keeping track... SM
of the reports you send to QA and then going back later and looking them over? I'm sorry, but when there are 300 jobs in the QA queue, we cannot possibly send feedback on each and every report. Most of us are on production just like you or have production quotas we have to meet just like you. At some point the MT must take responsibility for her work and do her own research. It isn't enough that we get sent reports with 20 or more blanks because a lazy MT didn't feel like do the research, but now we have to make sure we email that same lazy MT and give her the answers that she should have been able to find in the first place?
In my opinion, once an MT leaves 20 blanks or more in report, the QA person is basically transcribing that report. The MT should get docked those lines. I have seen reports with 80 blanks in them --- 80 BLANKS! Tell me that MT isn't just being lazy!
QA is abused by a lot of MTs. They use us to finish their work and give them free lines. They use us to do their research. They are used to be handed free answers on these online word boards -- word boards, I might add, that are usually manned by QA people lending a helping hand. I used to frequent the word boards and offer answers, not anymore. Just try to explain to someone how to find the answer to the question instead of just handing it to them on the word board and you are met with hostility.
I've given up. This us versus them mentality is perpetuated by the MTs not by QA and I'm so tired of hearing it. If you want a better relationship with QA, get better at your job.
Not familiar with a dropdown box . . .
Are you referring to F9 to get line count?
If you are familiar with this forum at all
then you should have enough insight to realize that posting such vague information without any shred of credibility will get you a less-than-desired response.
Either way, even if it IS true - what kind of friend shares such an important secret? What kind of employee leaks information?
Hmm...sounds familiar sm
Is this company out of Texas, perhaps.
Sounds familiar.
Feast or famine.
sounds familiar
I'm drowning in paper. I have piles everywhere, including my bedroom floor and dresser. I used to be very organized and couldn't stand clutter, I don't know what happened. I live with three other "messies", husband and two of three children. I think I just gave up. I usually can find things, but it bugs me a lot. Can't seem to get myself to clean it up. This has a psychological basis I'm sure. I'm not lazy, otherwise I keep a really neat, clean house. Stressed out maybe the reason, just don't know where to start first when I do have some time to myself. It's always something.
sounds so familiar!!
I guess most office atmospheres are like that...it sounds so similar to what I had worked with until I went home...and boy am I glad I did!!! I am a social person, but absolutely do not miss the office crud!!! Now I have been doing home repairs and "fixing" up my new "office" as well as getting out a couple of nights a week. Also spending more time focusing on my needs, i.e. pampering myself more!
We are attracted to what is familiar to us
Womanizers, alcoholics, workaholics, rage-aholics...if our dad was one, there seems to be a good chance we find ourselves married to a replica of him. At 48, I decided just to be alone as every man I found myself with was a psycholoanalysts' worst nightmare (these men rarely seek help and rarely change in my observation).
Anyone familiar with FTP Navigator?
I downloaded version 7.0 but now what? I got the files I wanted but they open in notepad. Is this right? Are they now in my PC and can I view them in a word processing program? Thanks.
Not familiar with SIM message, however,
I have found that if I am persistent and patient with their customer service line, eventually I will get through and get an answer to my question/problem. There is a yahoo group for tracfone users and I have found them to be very helpful also, especially with codes for more minutes, etc. Someone there is probaby familiar with that SIM message. Hope this helps.
Websense - anyone familiar with?
Something called Websense has decided it is my own personal internet sentinel and blocks various websites. I don't know who/what this is and I have not authorized it to do so. Anyone know anything about it? How to get rid of it or shut it off?
Sorry.. I am not familiar w/ExText
Thought maybe it had its own shortcut program. 
Also, not familiar w/ Vonage, but ..sm
If there is any kind of option for pulse vs. tone dialing. If Vonage is set up for pulse dialing, it might be that the station isn't recognizing the ID # when you enter it. That's a longshot, since most are now all set to tone by default, but it's an idea.
Anyone familiar with Olympus DS-30?
I need to find digital recorders for a few doctors. I am looking at the DS 30, but want to make sure its a decent recorder, but don't want to spend too much $$. They want to email me the digital files--so I was wondering if this recorder is pretty easy to use/set up?
Thanks for any info
Sounds familiar...
There's that 7 years again, me too. Would agree with much you say. Are you elsewhere now and do you like it?
Thanks for the info! So is anyone familiar with... SM
VoIP companies called Phone Power or ITP? I've decided against Magic Jack because of the problems. I did some research and found the two above companies were pretty reasonable or maybe I should just stick with Vonage?
MRT Services - anyone familiar with them?
Anyone ever heard of MRT Services? I saw them online. Please provide feedback.
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