Has anyone ever heard from Longtime MT about the tips and tricks.

• Has anyone ever heard from Longtime MT about the tips and tricks. - Nyer
  • I found this recently (sm) - Newbie
  • Nope. I got an email from her saying it would be - after the first of the year - then nothing. nm

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I recently started working on the Emdate Inscribe platform. It is a little more cumbersome to maneuver than what I am used to, and I was wondering if any of you seasoned Emdat MTs might share any tips or tricks you've found to speed yourself up using this system?  I've had a couple "glitches" with the function to look up/paste doctor names, for example, and not being able to close out the "prior transcriptions" box because there's no X! Not too much help from the MT company so thought I'd try here - any tips will be greatly appreciated, or if you know of any websites or other resources.  You can respond here or to my email and thank you in advance!

Hi,

I want to say a word about the "tricks of the trade lady" (for purpose of ID protection). I have worked with this MT in the acute hospital hospital setting with major ESL.  She does indeed, many times exceed a 2000/day line count.  She had been top producer of over 35 MT's.  This is no joke and a FACT.  If you have further questions regarding the ligitmacy of this MT, please fell free to e-mail me for further clarification.

Thank and have a great MT kinda day!  The chick woman.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane! I once knew a senior MT who originally worked off of WAX CYLINDERS ("by 1902 the brown wax cylinder was eclipsed by the molded black wax cylinder. A typical recording on a black wax cylinder was about 2 minutes.") At the end of her shift, part of her job was to scrape the cylinders clean for the next day's recording! I started out on noncorrecting IBM Selectrics and reel-to-reel tapes...then correcting Selectrics, but we had to make multiple copies with carbon paper and blue, pink, yellow, goldenrod, and white correction fluids...then the 1-line display Olivetti...then the Wang, Raytheon and Xerox behemoths. Also, I still have my original 1973 Sloane's Medical Word Book  Now I use a highspeed internet home-based LAN with VOIP and a KVM switch...guess the only thing that hasn't evolved is the quality of dictation! Kudos to all of you MTs out there from this 30+ year veteran. We've come a long way baby! 

I have seen a LOT of posts on here for people asking how to get their lines.  Some are having trouble even hitting lower numbers like 1000-1400.  I have been working for a long time on a little book of tips, "Maximizing Line Counts:  30 Tips in 30 Days."  I started this at the request of my boss who wanted to give it to all existing employees as well as new hires.  I am interested to know if there are any transcriptionists who would like to have something like this.

First of all, if you go into advanced search in Google, it gives you tons of "criteria" you can work with.

The asterisk "*" is the wildcard.  If you were looking for a medication that was 20 mg, you could put * 20 mg into Google and it would start listing all meds that were 20 mg.  If you put:  No wheezes, rales, or *, Google would give suggestions on what would fit here. 

If you are looking for an either or, the OR (capitalized) searches for both.  Like "side effects, aspirin OR tylenol"  This entry would bring up both.

If you type in "define:  words" (two spaces after define) it will list all dictionaries the word is in.   Google also has a calculator, does conversions, all kinds of things, just have to look on the Google site.

Hope this helps answer some questions--

Rebekah

I'm not an expert but this has worked for me.

Since I am the primary breadwinner of the household, I made the whole family a part of the budget process.  We have two kids left at home (2 grown and gone) and I still manage to pay them their allowance (10.00 per week each). 

How about we start there.   I have a Chore Chart on a dry erase board on the fridge (so they see it every single time they hit the fridge) with the name of the chore written in permanent marker so they can't erase it, then put the initial of the one responsible for that chore that day.   If, at the end of the day, those chores are NOT done?  They get a black X in the box next to the chore.   Only their initials are written in dry erase so I can change that around from time to time.

If they miss doing their chores 2 days out of the week, they get NO allowance.  If they argue or procrastinate, that gets 1 check. If they get 2 checks by the chore, then that is the same as not doing the chore and they don't get the credit for it. Even if they eventually get it done, they still don't get credit that day because they procrastinated OR argued about it.  Pay day is Friday.  

Time is money people and I don't have the time to clean as I should, they are old enough, and they want money too.   I don't give money for movies, candy, or trips to the dollar store.  They now have their own and are learning to budget.

Sometimes I give them bonuses too for doing an inventory of the freezer, pantry, organizing the cupboards, etc... Helps us keep track of the things we have for the next step.

MENUS ~ If you get Woman's Day Magazine or First, or anything like them that have the monthly menu calendars in them?  PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THEM.   They can save you BIG $$ on your food bills.

My kids are horribly picky eaters and meal planning has saved me a lot of money.  I now have them sit down with me, look over these meal planning calendars and see if it is something they would like.  If they put it on OUR calendar, they initial it, and we make our grocery list.  If the time comes for a particular meal and they turn their nose up at it, I send them to the calendar to see if they initialed that day.  If they did.... Eat it! PERIOD.  (by the way, I never put anything on the calendar that they don't agree with so, after a few months of doing this, there is never any more turning the nose up at dinner time - HA  fixed their wagon!)

We also do a mass cook and freeze fest now and then.  The kids get into it too.  Very easy for them. THey are 12 and 13 so I have the meal calendar taped to the inside door of the pantry.  When I'm working, they can go look and see what's on the calendar for that day, pull it out of the freezer, and put it in the oven.  I have written the temp and time for each one next to the item on the calendar.  Works out fine.

Power bills... Yikes - LIGHTS OUT.  When I go to bed, every light in the house is OFF except the porch light, the little light above the stove, and the nightlight in the hall across from the kids rooms. 

GAS- Holy Smokes.   Up to 2.79/gal here now.   No extra drives to here and there for anything.  If you just want a cold pop to drink cuz it's hot?  Make iced tea instead.  Not worth that kinda money for a wasted trip to the mini mart.  Just plan better the next time.  The kids want to go to the pool or their friend's house... pump up the bike tire kids and grab the walkies.   I make my kids take walkie talkies (Cobra brand 5-mile radius at WalMart for 80.00 and WELL worth it.)

One last little tidbit....  SAVE your receipts for EVERYTHING for at least 2 months then compare them after the end of that 2 months when you have learned to tighten up the wallet a bit and see the difference for yourself.  Makes it really worth your while.

I have cut enough fat out of excess spending in the past year to put away 400.00 or more every month into a savings account that I can use for emergencies, vacations, whatever.

By the way... Would be a good idea to have a forum JUST for Budgeting and Money Saving ideas here wouldn't it.  Administrators????  How about it?

Gladly 

Hey guys:

Does anyone have any ideas or tricks to make work more pleasant??  Been doing this a long (too long) time, and the isolation is getting to me.  Any ideas?

Thanks all.

I am looking to get back into the field after a 12 year break to raise my kids.  Any advice on how to get my foot in the door or who might hire me?  I have over 10 years experience in out-patient radiology.

Thanks.

I work on Edit Script and the average pay for most companies seems to be .04 cpl.  I get .0425.  Your production really depends on the account you have, the dicator and you learining the shortcut keys.  I still have a hard time not using the mouse!  But on the other hand, I am not a stong typist, so I prefer VR over typing.  If I had to do straight typing I probably would not make it in this business, so VR is the way for me.  I had to switch companies because my first one had difficult dictators and I was not making much money.  Things are better now, but still a work in progress.  One suggestion I will make is that you use the Escription forum for productivity tips and also there is a link that will tell you of your progress if you log into it.  The system can read your skills as you use it and give you a report on your progress.  It will tell you if you are using the mouse too much, etc.  It really is a great system with a lot of great tools for MTs.

Hang in there---Sue

I definitely would not say I'm at the top.  I get distracted like many with surfing, chatting, etc during my work time.  Honestly, if my work ethic was more strict, I could make another 20-30,000 a year. 

I use IT as my expander.  I am not an Expander queen.  I use them and add all the time but I'm not obsessed with it - but it definitely saves me time and worth every penny 10 fold.  I use my Stedman's Elec Dictionary - another total must have for this job. 

You're going to make more money if you know your specialty and your doctors.  I try to get work where I can do the same doctors regularly.  I would not take a position where there is a huge pool of doctors.  I make the money on my single doctor accounts where I can get regulars and build up speed the fastest.  Even accounts with 4 to 5 doctors you can easily build up speed on. 

Don't settle for cr*p jobs.  As I said earlier, there are better paying companies out there.  Makes me extremely irritated to see companies posting for slave wages wanting so much experience and basically offering nothing in return but the chance to make $5 an hour.  I won't even test until I know what the rate will be.  And honestly, the best companies have the shortest or no test. 

Keystrokes and MDI may look good compared to most bigger companies, but I personally wouldn't work for them.  There are better places, but you have to be willing to do some research and go beyond what everyone else does.   

I am looking for tips to make my typing faster. For example, auto corrects, quick cut and pastes, etc. Any ideas?

Okay, since so many of us are being transitioned into VR, I thought it might be helpful to start a thread discussing helpful tips on how to be more productive with VR. 

For some dictators (the ones that have the "good" VR come through), I have found that reading through the report and changing it to go more with accounts specifics gets me through it faster than trying to change while listening. 

I also like to use ctrl + lft arrow key to skip by words instead of by letters. 

Other than that . . . I really suck at VR, which is why I am hoping to see if anyone has tips or suggestions on how to help make all MTs more productive on VR. 

TIA.