Good research skills the best skill an MT
Posted By: should have. nm on 2007-12-31
In Reply to: yes that's how I learned - sa
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Just good parenting skills -nm
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Good for you, Linda! SM First, editing's a desirable trend. Higher skill, easier SM
I feel it may be like a train about to rush around the bend at me.
For the discussion, editing is a higher skill and it's easier on the hands--absolutely no carpal tunnel problems since I started editing. And the WAGES ARE ABOUT THE SAME--you go through approximately twice as much dictation (some people more, some less depending on talent) in the same time it would take to transcribe it and get paid half as much for that amount of dictation, ending up without a drop in wages from editing. This is fair and market-driven.
Fewer editors would be needed, but some would be needed for the stinkers, even scary-good as VR gets with most dictators.
The big threat is from the electronic medical record, where physicians and their assistants check boxes on a handheld device they carry around with them and there is NO text report to come to us at all. England has had this for some years; go look and see how MTs are doing on the Emerald Isle.
No Chicken Little here, guys, AND not burying my head in the sand either. I don't have a view into the future, but the one thing that's clear is the future will require developing new skills, professional or trade level, of one kind or another. I just hope and pray it doesn't require going back to suits and office politics. School's okay, even at my age, but am guilty of putting it off to see if I'm going to be allowed to continue pretty much as is until I'm too old to work...huh--maybe there's some sand obscuring the picture after all. Best wishes.
Would state you are a fast learner with good computer skills
and able to pick up things quickly once you are shown. Good luck!!
No doubt!! MTs should be good at research.
Why would anyone just ASSume that someone is lying? Sad.
I find myself willing to research more for good dictators...SM
if I get a lazy, mushmouth speedtalker, I don't bother much. I mean, I definitely strive for accuracy with what I *can* hear, but if there are unintelligible parts, I leave a blank rather than playing it over and over and over and trying to get it. If they obviously don't give a rip, why should I?
Maybe a bad attitude, but why should I gyp myself out of $$ because some a$$ can't be bothered to E-NUN-CI-ATE!!
transcriptions have a skill also
as far as looking up addresses go!
There's a shortage of US MT's because the skill is becoming obsolete
Schools don't even encourage anyone to get into this field anymore because they don't want to have someone take a course and then be out of work in a few years when this skill goes the same direction that shorthand did several decades back.
Like someone said on the Company board, education is the key. Don't allow yourself to be a one-trick pony and learn how to do something else while you can.
MTs with less skill s/b paid less with that money going to the best
I can do xxxx but it makes me sick when the slackers get the exact same pay as me. Please don't give me the xxxx story that I can make more by being more efficient.
This is all part of transcription and the skill
I have had in all of my years of experience many types of dictators. I can honestly say that I have had ESL dictators that were better than your run of the mill American dictators. We are a melting pot, and what's funny to me is that so many make comments about an MTSO sending ESL dicators offshore, yet we have Mexican, Chinese, and Indian restaurants that we eat from and love the food. I think we need to somehow learn to embrace the ESL dictators. I had an ESL that was the most lovely physician. He knew that his dictation was difficult and was always willing to answer questions and would take the extra time to explain why he stated this or that. 
Upping the skill ante.
You might go online and look at Oak Horizons. They have an excellent reputation and are affordable. Also check VO-Technical schools for grammar as they are less expensive but adequate and junior colleges in your area. Good luck and good for you in improving your quality.
If you believe editing is a HIGHER skill, then why are we being paid
Failing national skill test
This is to Vicki. Please do not be discouraged. The MAJORITY of the companies out there (most of them advertising here) actually DO NOT want experienced MT's. They are looking for the stay-at-home mom (not critizing, wish I could be one) that do not actually have to carry an active part in family income. If you are experienced you would actually produce (imagine that-isn't that why we are working cpl?) and that would cost them money. Where a newbie makes the minimal amount for a time and that makes them happy. Not to say that they would not be on the newbie's butt to produce 98%+ etc.
I have 30 years experience, and I have failed tests from a national company. I have kept myself updated over the years and extremely computer literate, and had been in charge of staffing before they recently outsourced our workflow to India, so it is not a case of not accepting the "new ways" of doing things. Many of the "new" AAMT guidelines are grossly incorrect according to the major hospital system that I represent.
Just my say. Thank you.
If I had just one other skill that allowed me to pay for my modest lifestyle, I'd utilize it.
Maybe it is the 20 yrs in this business. I now have tinnitus, am absolutely sure that sitting for 8-10 hours a day is having a detrimental effect on my health, am more anxiety ridden now that there is very little job security and I am a sole operation here in my little world, have arm and hand fatigue (it's a freakin miracle I do not have CTS yet). I just really do not enjoy doing this as I used to. I have to really force myself to stay focused and am really really trying to find some joy in it by realizing other people have tedious jobs just as I do that they must also dislike.
B.S. in HIM, no MT school, OTJ training for that skill, but the HIM classes for the knowledge. nm
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It depends on your skill level, your speed, your ability to do the
nm
Editing is the higher skill since it's more brain work,, AND SM
the computers are taking over the finger work. That and practitioners entering directly into the electronic medical record mean that most traditional transcription jobs before too long will be a thing of the past.
So I'd recommend you go directly to editing since you'll end up doing that anyway. If there's a future in this, it's going to be with a higher level of medical knowledge and a more expanded involvement in medical records beyond merely editing dictation, but likely including that.
Plus, with editing you'll be in at least twice as many reports as if you were transcribing them, which means you'll get much more experience more quickly. Whether you'll lose some benefit from not typing every word out I don't know, but you will spend a lot less time getting verbage you don't need to learn on paper. I.e., instead of typing some version of, "The patient presented to the emergency room by private automobile with a complaint of" a few hundred times a week,...you don't.
Do commit to developing an expansion base that will cut the Keystrokes it takes to do your work to the very minimum. As long as anyone's paid on a production basis, and as long as we're using keyboards, someone using 5 keystrokes to make 2 edits will BOTH make a lot more money than someone who takes 9 keystrokes to make one correction AND be a much more valuable productive worker--i.e., worth keeping on and developing as most traditional jobs disappear.
And do sign up for more medical classes, the ones people preparing for nursing and medical school take.
Whether you'll make more or less money one way or the other right now probably depends more than anything on the particular talents you bring to the job and the particular skills you choose to develop. Unlike the previous poster who does better transcribing, I make more editing, but I'm a fast reader and a slow keyboarder, so the less my income depends on what my fingers are capable of the better. Best wishes!
Yes! We're talking critical skill developement here! nmx
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Totally agree. They're no longer paying for this so-called skill
and that's part of the reason the quality is down.
This is a very basic computer skill/concept. You copy files to another drive using Explorer.
There are very detailed instructions in the Help files that accompany Windows. You can read those for more information.
Basically, you open Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer). Locate the files you want to copy, highlight and right mouse click. Choose Copy. Now, find the location where you want to copy these files (usually another drive like D: or H:, whereever the flash/jump/thumb drive is located) and paste the files there.
people skills
I beg to differ. I agree with the OP - your post was rude and condescending. I see no evidence of people skills in anything you wrote or in the "tone" of your post.
Also, your reply had nothing to do with her post. She was sharing good news about a hiring phase going on right now. Too bad you are so miserable that you cannot even recognize when one human being is sharing good news with others.
From what I have seen and experienced with MTSOs in the last 2 years (28 years in this business), there are many owners, managers and supervisors with no clue about how to deal with their employees.
SO, maybe you are the one who needs to find another business.
Looking to upgrade skills, though sm
just for personal reasons, as I'm still working, etc. I see Medword has a 9 specialty CD set for $269, and of course there is the SUM Advanced package but that's $840. My goal is to be more employable by just broadening my skills as I've only been doing ER and clinic for years (going on 10); however, I'm certainly not made of money! ;) Do you think the Medword one would be okay or a waste of money? I've heard great things about the SUM program but do you think it's really necessary?
Thanks for your thoughts!
I hope your MT skills
This is where your skills really come into play.
It will drive you mad if you let it. Sometimes even the doctor is unfamiliar with the med especially specialists. I have found that on an occasional basis. 
$$ should have nothing to do with your skills and conscientiousness. (sm)
you sound like one of the ones who is relatively new to the field (within the last 10 years) who pumps out reports, doesn't spell correctly, and doesn't like being corrected. Am I right?
Gap in spelling skills, too.
I have noted that misspelled words are everywhere; spelling skills are apparently no longer valued (and I'm talking people with advanced degrees with atrocious spelling and grammar). I need to go to the dentist and get some teeth fixed from clenching my jaws so tightly whenever a doctor says things like "he itched himself".
not too sure of skills, need advice
Just wondering if any of you have experienced a lot of "knocks" starting out in transcription. I took an at-home course in 98 and finally got hired in 2000 and trained in office for 8 months. I worked at home for about 3 months then my husband divorced me. I continued to work in the medical field for the next 4 years, doing work in a hospital that included med term and typing with 98% accuracy or actual transcription. My problem is when I find a job my feedback is that I am leaving little words out, or not paying close enought attention to detail. What can I do to improve this? the only thing I can think of is just keep practicing but I can't keep an actual transcripton job long enough! What do I do? 
Looking to strengthen skills...
I have been in the field for 7 years with the same account (IM and Family Practice.) Looking to strengthen my skills. The areas I feel I need improvement in are grammer, proofing (something I have done very little of), and a stronger understanding of terminology. If you have any advice on where to go from here. I do not need a full transcription course, but does anyone offer a "refresher" and/or practice dictation in different specialties. Thanks so much!!
What if you were an LPN with not so hot typing skills?
Would that duty still be required of you? Sounds like you are not that busy as an LPN. Small office? This was not in your original job description? I would ask about a pay increase along with the duty increase.
thanks...just knowing there are others, same age bracket, skills, etc...does help...
like you, I LOVE this job, and actually chose it - not the other way around. Fortunately, it has not cost me anything, really, like the other poster mentioned; but I too am scared.
It is always upsetting when you life changes because of things out of your control...at our age, we are from the times when people had one job until they retired. I know that is history, but man, this way is ridiculous. Flying from job to job, no continuity, no structure. What good can come of this anyway.
like the other poster mentioned, who cares about us anyway, really. the rich only care about getting richer, and that crap about giving the tax cuts to the rich and they will 'share it' - what a bunch of fools we have been.
thanks for sharing!
Advice on expanding my skills..
If I want to specialize in Orthopedic or Cardiology or some other specialty, what is the best way to do this? I currently only do ER.
Would I have to enroll in an on-line school or can I just use practice tapes?
Any advice is appreciated!!
Need fast skills update
Need books/tapes to upgrade skills to do acute care work. Any advice on materials I can purchase. Going back to school is not an option right now.
Test your typing skills
http://www.arcadespot.net/play-1126.html
If your DD has previous skills she can post
resume on the on-line sites like monster.com. There are few jobs that are legit. If they require $$ upfront you can bet they are a scam.
A board to discuss how MT skills can
be transitioned into another line of work couldn't hurt. No matter how secure any job or profession appears to be, the situation can change at any time. That is the reality of the workplace with mergers, technology, etc.
One of the the worst career management errors is to become complacent. I can look back on seventeen years in this profession. It has changed, and not to our advantage. I can't predict the future, but it would be naive not to at least consider other options.
If you are confident of your skills, testing
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The people who hate QA are the ones with bad skills and cannot type for nothing!
Maybe these people should learn how to bring their scores up instead of thinking their mistakes are right!
Maybe if you spend more time honing your skills and
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She fears because of her own lack of transcription skills, sm
not because the ESL doctors do not give good patient care. If you are not up to the job of transcribing the reports, then you should not try to do it. But do not blame poor patient care on the ESL doctors.
Your account is too easy for your skills would be my thought.
For instance, you are making very good money easily while other MTs may be on a more difficult account and making less. You may one day be looked at as a person to move into another more challenging account to keep you in the curve of pay for MTs. That would be fair, actually, when you think about it.
failed skills test for national sm
Hi all. I have been an MT for 10 years and took a skills test for a national and FAILED.
Oh my goodness, talk about a slap in the face! All I know is they require 90% accuracy and apparently I failed that.
It has me questioning my skills at this point. PLEASE tell me others of you have had this problem!
Thanks
low level, low income, low education, low coping skills.
birds of a feather flock together FOR THE MOST PART. why don't rich people move to trailer parks? the mentality. why do low income people stay low income? no education. why no education? no forward thinking as to why some people can make money and others don't. sorry if you don't like it, but stats don't lie. do a google search. there are certain neighborhoods that have income levels, education levels, crime rates. these low income housing units, trailer park, section 8, apartments that do not require credit checks have higher crime rates, lower education levels and lower incomes. google will answer all your questions regarding stats. why do you think some neighborhoods are more valuable than others? where i live the same house could be in one neighborhood and be more valuable than a house sitting in another neighborhood that is zoned for trailer parks. why is that? go figure.
Absolutely! Wonderful hobby and your skills will only improve.
I started knitting, quit for a year when I got discouraged because I couldn't fix my mistakes easily, then went back, determined to learn the craft. For me, what was wonderful was when I automatically could recognize what was right and wrong, and fix it easily. Now, I have more yarn than I could ever use, and more projects started than I'll ever finish. It's a lifetime hobby. There'll never be enough yarn.
I started MT to gain skills to eventually work....sm
outside my home. I was working another small business from home too and had been home for 13 years total. My MT skills got me a job as a secretary for the Army. My first position didn't pay a lot, but it was still about $3.50 more an hour than I could find anywhere else locally. In August 2006, with promotions etc., I will have had total increases in salary of 45% in two years. My next move is to start taking some college courses (which my employer will pay for) and applying for positions with a more defined career field. Having a hard time figuring out which field, as I have a lot of options/opportunity.
Working from home served a huge purpose, but since DH is also self-employed, my current job adds a lot of security to our family in terms of health/life insurance, retirement, paid vacations, etc. I added up the cost of all my paid benefits vs. paying out of pocket as an independent contractor, and they were worth another 35 - 40% of my salary, which will increase once I start taking college classes.
If you are not looking in the medical field, gear your resume towards your other skills. MTs have a myriad of skills (research, computer, organizational, listening, following instructions, bookkeeping). If you are an independent contractor, you are more than an MT, you are a small business owner, which puts a host of additional skills on your plate. Get creative and look at some on-line resumes in different fields, you will probably be surprised how many skills you have.
When I decided to look for a job, I researched all the highest paying companies/opportunities within the distance I was willing to travel and only applied to those companies. It took about a year and a few interviews, but I eventually got exactly what I was looking for. I still get calls from some of the places I interviewed/applied offering jobs.
I think one reason MTs find it hard to have diverse skills (s/m)
is that for all these years we have been pigeonholed into just one specialty - typing medical reports. When I started MT at my organization, we had a variety of duties. Now we just sit and type. Interestingly, the few who got promotions within or out of the MT department were the ones who weren't too smart, and not very good MTs. The good MTs were kept where they were needed - doing transcription work only. And the smart ones are considered a threat to management, so they have no hope of ever advancing.
I've been to night school to try to broaden my computer skills, and the community college system is totally not on the cutting edge. Everytime I learned something useful, it became obsolete before we could ever implment it in our workplace.
I've looked into changing fields, and one of the big stumbling blocks is all the prerequisites for just about any field of study. Many of them involve the math & science classes I was steered away from due to my gender. (This was the 60s, remember... it was still legal to discriminate back then.) I looked into training as a veterinary technician, and working full-time and going to night school, getting all the classes in that I missed in high school was going to eat up about 4-5 years. It would probably take even longer to get into the vet-tech program. By the time I graduated, I would probably be in my early 70's. What veterinary hospital is going to want to hire a 70 year old newbie who will either retire or die before she's even learned the ropes at the new job?
Meanwhile, what ticks me off is that MT's are expected to have a very broad knowledge of English, medical terminology and computers, and be whiz-bang typists as well. And yet the same people that want speed, accuracy and experience, don't want to pay squat for it.
With your people skills, you'll stay unemployed. nm
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Dictators/Docs should be rated on their dictation skills!
I get so tired of hearing how hard everyone thinks it's up to the MT to keep trying to decipher poor dictation--that the CMT credential would actually help with that! I have a feeling most MTs probably wouldn't do better/worse if the had the CMT credential. I'm convinced most of us do just fine without a CMT credential if you could just understand many of the darned docs with their poor dictation techniques. How about if they were rated based on their dictation competency! Would it help if we could classify the ones that dictate with speeds like a runaway train, their poor sentence structure, ESL language incompetencies, slurring, mumbling, chewing, etc., so even a marginally competent MT could get the a document transcribed. That's where they should put the onus of responsibility for getting better quality work. My thoughts.
Sounds like a great way to use the skills you already have, but you have a real career with a future
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Valuable post, thanks. MT plus Skills Upgrade minus Complaining = Dollars. NM
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Yeah, we have no skills or intelligence whatsoever. We just fill in blanks! Geez! A monkey can le
Is that all you do, type? It's not all I do either. I have to know what I'm talking about, apparently you don't because you can just leave blanks!
I don't need to research what I said SM
and you are right that many people cannot afford the insurance, but guess what--I couldn't afford insurance on what I make as an MT even if my company offered it. WM is not perfect. I worked for them for many years, and my husband is still mgmt for them. We both have seen things that we did not agree with, but I don't necessarily agree with everything I see in MT either or any other company for that matter. I can go in Target and find things that aren't right. I can go in any of the grocery stores and see things that aren't right. WM gets a lot of bad press because of its size, some of it deserved, some not, but you can't believe everything you hear from your WM newsgroup.
Did YOU do any research on this???
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