Good analysis. Mass mutiny, new unsuspecting

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It will always boil down to memorization.

I have a very old version of IT and ran the compilation for VR (helps improve accruacy), but there is no way I could remember all the different phrases they have. I'm lucky I remember the traditional chfx = congestive heart failure.

you definitely should take the at home job. You will make significantly more money as long as you actually are on the keyboard. I think it's a surprise sometime as to how much time is actually spent transcribing and how much is wandering around. If you time yourself at home, just to take the laundry out of the dryer can add up to 10 minutes in no time. So take that into consideration. You won't get paid for 8 hours - you'll only be paid when your fingers are actually making contact with the keyboard.  Check your line production at work if you can to get an idea of how many lines you are actually cranking out in a day.

Now, that being said, you need to take a good long look at what is coming down the pike for MT. In all reality, MT is not going to last until you retire. Don't forget, what is left of MT is going to have to be either a) spread around amongst all of us or b) competed for by all of us. When there are more MT's than MT jobs, you can bet pay and working conditions is going to go down. So right now, while you have a job, you need to be thinking and planning where you are going to be when you lose your MT job and can't find another - or at least another that pays decent...Ask yourself, what would I do if next year I lose my job? and start exploring options that way. Me - I'm enrolled full time in nursing school for a BSN. I wasn't sure I could go back to school at 46, but I am and doing it quite successfully, no less. I still have at least 15 more years to work before retirement...so just plan ahead...

I usually do a mass mailing out to those clinics/solo docs/specialists with one to two in an office - usually 100 to 150 flyers, brochures.  Then if anyone calls or if there are offices I am interested in picking up or know do have companies do their dictation, I stop by with a dozen cookies --homemade and leave with a brochure.  Gotta get past the receptionist and sometimes that is the way to do it.  I try to go at times I know the offices are not the busiest, right before afternoon hours, right before lunch, etc.  I have gotten inquiries from perhaps 5 to 7% of my mailings, which they tell me is quite high and have picked up my last two accounts from mailings/call backs, etc.  They have all stayed with me.  I have not done a mailing in close to five to six years because I have had my accounts for so long.   But that is what I did.  I am thinking of getting my nephews and on a Saturday morning putting flyers underneath office doors in several medical buildings we have that are next to the hospitals here in Portland.   Also send out to orthodontists, psychologists, counselors, podiatrists, chiropractors, etc.  If you can do digital, then send flyers out to outlying smaller cities where no one delivers or picks up.   There are accounts out there just gotta dig for them sometimes.   But be willing to do it all, pick-up, deliver, printing, envelopes, copies, to get your foot in the door and then word of mouth works very well.   Good luck. 

Patti

Anyone else with Sten-tel on the ASP platform out of work or is it just me that is sitting here twiddling my thumbs?

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.    

that have proven their worth. Andrews, MTEC and even Career Step, but I would not choose a school that has spammed the internet in every crack there is as the one you have mentioned.  Find some graduates and see what they have to say.  Go to mtchat.com and do a search of this school. 

I know that what you are doing is a major undertaking.  Just remember that this is what you want and that you CAN do it!  It won't be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but once you have accomplished it, you will truly know what you are capable of.  I think you are very brave.  Please know that all of us are pulling for you and are here to help you if you need it.  Go to the hospital if you are feeling at all unsure or unstable.  Don't give up because the reward will be great.  Please let us know how you are doing.

Pulling for you!