I've been thinking about a job change recently
Posted By: perkymt on 2008-11-12
In Reply to: Need advice about changing jobs. sm - CrispyCritterMT
I've only been in this biz for about 13 years, but now that my last one is off to school, I'm also thinking about a career change. I live in a very rural area as well, so I understand completely what you mean about people thinking $8 an hour is a good wage.
One thing I'd like to suggest is looking into a state job. We have 2 state prisons in my area (about a 20-minute commute) and both hire medical transcriptionists as well as medical records personnel. These jobs generally start out at about $12 to $15 an hour plus state benefits, which in my state are the best bennies anywhere. The jobs that require coding certification pay even more. I would highly recommend that you look on the internet for state civil service jobs in your state. You'd be surprised at the opportunities in the medical field.
I'm considering this option myself but want to wait until next fall, after I have the summer to spend with my kids (and so I don't start out "in the hole" because of babysitting expenses) and to have time to look into getting my coding cert. I graduated from a business school with an Associate's in medical secretarial and did a lot of coding prior to working from home. I used to do billing for a very large rehab facility, so I don't think it will be too hard to brush up on my skills.
Anyway, good luck and let me know if this (a state job) pans out for you. Most people have no idea these kinds of jobs are even out there (I didn't). 
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You know what? I did just recently change that option
that must be it. Previously, it was set to not check capitalized words and I changed it for the same reason you did. Thanks. Guess I'll just have to live with the annoyance.
You have to change your way of thinking about phrases in IT. sm
Think first letter of each word instead of full words and your phrases will come up. No memorizing unless you want to put customized shorts in IT. I watch the advisory lines more than my document window so my eyes don't cross. I just wouldn't work without IT because my productivity went way up in a really short time.
Thinking of trying to make a change...
I've been working now for nearly a year. Mostly I have done podiatry and clinic notes. I'm thinking of making a change to radiology or neuro/phsyc. Any tips on how to do this? I know podiatry terms and rarely have to look anything up anymore, but there doesn't seem to be much work out there for the subspecialty. Any advice would be great. I've been applying to every ad I see, but no replies yet.
I know a lot of new MTs go into acute care, but I'm finding I am far more productive working with one specialty rather than acute care or clinic notes.
Any advice? Thanks.
Oh, working in-office isn't an option because of where I live.
Thinking of a career change.
I am thinking about going back to school but I want to start off small. I looked into CNA classes at a local community college but I also found they have medication aide classes. I was wondering if it would be appropriate to call a potential employer and ask if there is a big job market out any of these, what they pay would be and what they expect out of their workers. I really know what a certified nurses aide entails, I was one 10 years ago but not quite sure about a medication aide.
Thinking about career change..court reporter
Have any of you ever thought about court reporting or gone through court reporting school? From what I have read they make more money than transcriptionists and there are jobs to work from home too in captioning for television and movies.
I've seen the same recently...
"work pools were changed recently" was what I was told and now finding myself with the accents....luckily since I work on 85% during my full time job during the day the accents on this part time account are a piece of cake. I did have a funny experience last night on my last report...
I pulled in an echo that someone apparently abandoned because they couldn't do it. It was an ESL but not a difficult ESL.....
The doctor dictated....."Normal mitral valve........NO MORE MITRAL VALVE was transcribed ....then pericardial effusion.....THE PATIENT WANTS DIVERSION was typed..... !
I've seen a few recently that are sm
upgraded to work with Vista, but not many. I think there are too many quirks with Vista (my opinion) and not everyone is ready to upgrade their systems to be compatible. If you work IC, buy a computer with XP and write it off on taxes.
i've done it recently as carry-on
and had no problems, not even any q's.
I've recently heard a LOT about corruption in NO as well,
including politicians and police. These terrible things that we've seen on TV are actual everyday occurrances in NO on a NORMAL day, not just springing up since the hurricane and tragedy.
We're talking about 2 separate tragedies, first the hurricane THEN the breakdown of the levee system (an accident waiting ot happen IMO and the opinion of several other people). I have a friend in LA who tells me they've had problems with this levee previoiusly, had gotten money to fix it, but somebodies deep pockets (sounds like some MT companies) got a little fuller through the process and the repairs were not done as they should be. THE NO government KNEW there was going to be a breech in the levee system soon, I think it just happened sooner than they thought it would. OF course, NOBODY is going to be investigating this now.....they have bigger problems to deal with and more than anyone can handle right now.
With that said, I thought the NO government did try to get people to leave. THERE are STILL people that WON'T! How absurd is that????!! Death and sludge all around you and you CHOOSE to stay....even though it means you may die. I heard several reports on the TV with the NO mayor telling people to LEAVE the CITY, they didn't want to until it was too late. The Super Dome was supposed to be a place of refuge for elderly and sick.....not everyone. It certainly turned out to be a BAD idea all the way around.
All in all, I think the government there did TOO LITTLE TOO LATE and the people surely SUFFERED. These people will have a long recovery ahead, no matter where they decide to make their homes, and I'd be real curious to know how many WILL NOT go back to NO just because of this tragedy.
Only 7 or 8 cpl for clinic and acute unless they've changed recently. nm
s
I've used it before, but when trying to access home page recently,
s
I've been thinking about you all day
I know you must be really conflicted but I really wouldn't be confrontive towards her (your mileage may vary). If you get confrontive, you just validate the continuation of the issue and help to keep it going. It is HER issue to be friends with that person, not yours. You say your marriage is the strongest that it has ever been. If that is so, then I hope you can share your feelings of betrayal with your husband. See, if you confront her, you are going to be pushing for HIM or HER to take sides and maybe he needs your strength to find his feet and be able to pull towards you instead of towards her. I have always thought that in laws (and own family, actually) should only know a limited amount about your personsal relationship with your spose for this very reason. They feel they need to fix it and with all her "advice" it sounds like she was maybe trying to fix your faults and blame you for making your husband want to stray.
Take away her power over your relationship. Work it out with your husband. It wasn't until I got to the point where I really did not care AT ALL what my MIL thought about me that she started respecting me and treating me better (still didn't stop her from gossiping behind my back!); however, when she tried to give advice, I would cut her off at the knees and refuse to be a part in it. When she tried to manipulate, I suddenly found things to end the conversation, leave, get off the phone, ask if she needed help with cleaning her bathroom with my nose curled up, whatever it took to send the message I had no interest in giving her any power over me. Sometimes she wouldn't talk to me for 2 or 3 months at a time, and those were blessed months 
Walk off that anger, clean out the bathrooms and talk WITH your spouse.
I've been thinking about you too, please let us know how you are.
I've been thinking about this..
How about if they start asking patients when they are admitted to the hospital if they consent to their medical information being sent to another country???? Surely the patients should be made aware of this fact and make that decision, no?
I've been thinking of doing that myself - sm
I would think you would need the wireless software for your keyboard and mouse installed on both computers, then also the adaptor/transmitter on both CPUs. I am just about to buy a new CPU myself and do this, figured I have to go to a regular keyboard and mouse though, which is fine though I will miss the freedom of no wires.
I've been thinking about this lately
There is a big difference between old-timers and newbies.
Those of us who have been doing this for a while got into the field because the work interested us and matched our natural skill (grammar nerds and liked to type and naturally curious and would research stuff in big medical books just because we were intrigued) set well.
It seems like the newbs get into this TO WORK FROM HOME. Doesn't matter what the work is, they just want to work from home. I hear newbs say things like, "I don't like English," or "I'm not good at punctuation." (!!) This is the job, people!!
I actually knew a woman who was going back to school to be an MT. She was deaf (literally--had bilateral hearing aids), had a back injury that made it so she wouldn't be able to sit for long periods, and couldn't string together a sentence on paper if her life depended on it. What are these people thinking??!! Mercifully, she dropped out after receiving marks in the 30s and 40s on her first several tests.
Yeah, I've been thinking about that lately.
We just had a new Starbucks open up here, but it's 10 miles away from my house. No way am I going to drive that far. They only pay their managers $8 an hour. As it is, both times I've been in there, they've messed up my order and the drink wasn't even hot. Yuck. Lukewarm mocha latte.
I've been thinking of getting my own accts but
I'm worried about not being able to find coverage when I want to take a vacation.
How do you handle this with all the accounts that you have or do you have to take your work with you?
I've been thinking a lot about coding
but I'm curious about the future of coding, mainly on the basis of outsourcing for not only MTs, but also so many other professions. I honestly think I would love coding, but worry that anything I can do at home (whether I do it or not) could also be done overseas, and I worry about getting a job (from what I've read, it seems as difficult as MT to get into), so just have been very reluctant to make the change.
I really would love to see a followup from you about how you make out, and wish you much luck with both the exam and your coding career!
I've been seriously thinking about it. I actually like my company this year.
However, I have no money because work is slow and my kids and bills come first. I've been thinking about baking cookies and candies to mail. The people I would like to give the gift to work at home anyway, so sending it to corporate HQ wouldn't accomplish gifting those I want to thank. I can't afford to send individual gifts to each of them. Plus, a little part of me considers buying things for your supervisor to be brown-nosing.
you raised a point I've been thinking about
With the use of Expanders becoming the norm now - at least from our end of things - I can't help but wonder if eventually that could really backfire on us.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit if a lot of docs, hospitals, etc. really don't have a clue that a lot of the line counts they're being charged for really weren't transcribed -- and when/if they do find out, I wonder how many will have the same reaction as your doctor.
I know expanders are necessary to meet line count quotas, but where are we going to be if the clients decide they only want to pay for actual keystrokes.
Do it! Make the change! I've mentored a few AHP newbies &
s
I've worked for svl places that said to change it back to 100% before sending, so it must affect
s
Even 4.5 is too low. doctors do not change - they still hem and haw, change, change stuff along wit
It is just not enough for the work. Speech is great on the wrists but you are not just reading what is typed, you are making a lot of changes. I have a hard time doubling a lot of days with all the changes I have to make. Just my opinion.
Speaking of Kenny Chesney, is anyone thinking what I am thinking? see message
When I hear the words, "annulment" and "fraud" in the same sentence, I can only think of one thing. Anybody else thinking the same thing?
Don't change. I had to change back to cable. SuddenLink DSL stinks! nm
nm
Change provider vs change to business plan
In your place, I would seriously consider changing providers if there were others available in your area, but I'd ask around about their service quality first. It may not be any better. If there are no other providers, then consider changing your service package to a business account rather than residential. They're usually more expensive, but they also tend to get faster service if there's a problem.
Last summer, I had no electricity for 3 days due to severe storms, but there were some 600,000 in the same boat with me. We just had to wait it out. It's a downside of working at home.
change attitude, change life
The first thing you need to change is that defeatist attitude! I know that's hard at times like this, but that's when you need to most.
I won't go into detail, but my financial situation is also at an all-time low, we couldn't even exchange gifts., daughter in hospital twice, & no med insurance)..but then I heard about how much worse things were for others around me this season. Now I'm thankful instead!
I use EXText with my current job and I've used at a couple of other jobs I've had. I've ne
used DocQscribe, but I have used Meditech, Cerner, Vianeta, the Precyse platform (I can't remember the name), Dolbey, and Lanier platform I think was called Cequence (?).
Out of all the different platforms I have typed on, I have liked EXText the best. In my opinion, it's very user friendly, easy to learn, and I really like ESP which is the built in abbreviation expander. Plus it is very easy to create your own normals which I love. My fingers literally never leave the keyboard because there are macro keys for everything. You can use your mouse if you prefer or learn the function macros. I love it. I think I'm more productive on EXText than with any other platform.
Get out while you can. Things will *never* change unless you change them. (nt)
NO... Just recently.....
my sister came home to a real disaster. She left for work at the beginning of a thunderstorm and came home to find everything blown out in her house and scorched burnt wallpaper in places on the walls. Apparently the lightening hit the Invisible Fence wire around the perimeter of her property, traveled into the garage where the power box for the fence was, and breached her circuit box and traveled up into the sockets in the house. She lost TVs, her computer, all sorts of items which were destroyed. I'd unplug and wait it out.
i just recently became SE
and all i can tell you is that when i talked with my accountant about what to do with the 401k that i already have, knowing my situation, she gave no indication of there being a problem maintaining this as an SE.
I recently got one because I could not
adjust to the earphones my company sent. I got mine from the Dictation Store and they were $9, but shipping is about $8. I just got standard shipping and I think it took 2 days to get it, though I'm on the same coast.
I had one of those recently.
Foot pedals wouldn't work (I tried several). Keyboard keys (F1, etc.) wouldn't work. I ended up using the mouse on media player to stop, start, and back up the dictations. Obviously it takes much longer to transcribe anything that way because it's a pain in the neck to use the mouse to operate the player, and you're much more prone to make mistakes because of the clumsiness and hassle involved.
The test I took was very easy (radiology). They graded it the same as if I had had full use of a foot pedal and no technical difficulties. There were a few simple errors that were obviously the result of not being able to quickly back up and re-listen to things. They also counted off for minor stylistic "errors" even though they did not make it known anywhere that they required the use of a specific set of style guidelines on the test (presumably the BOS). I now regret taking that test at all under those ridiculous circumstances.
In the end I concluded that they either didn't know how to administer a test or it was all designed to be an ambush to stifle the MTs they had decided they didn't like and weren't about to sign a contract with. Or both. In any case, I would never choose to work with a place that incompetent or that nasty anyway.
I have done several recently and
every single one of them required you to type it into Word 2003 and email it in so that they can read it.
Maybe you were testing with bigger companies than I was, though and they have some other way to test.
Why does it seem that VR/SR has just recently taken off
it just really seems like in the last few months everyone on here has been forced to go VR (I know not ALL of you), but the majority. My work had one account on VR last year and now ALL accounts are within the just the past months. Why all of a sudden are we getting bombarded with it. It doesn't seem to matter what company or what platform, but it is taking us by storm. I happen to like VR myself, but WOW its exploding!! Want your opinion as to why "all of a sudden"?
From what I have seen recently,
they are hiring people with little or no experience and getting rid of the ones who have tons of experience and can learn quickly and can start producing at the get go. They advertise for experienced MTs with acute care experience but they are not keeping them. They even laugh and joke about it.
I have investigated recently-
checking up the corporate ladder and with tech people, all of us in MQ get paid for spaces within a section/paragraph, naturally not the blank line between sections/paragraphs. That was one of the motives for insisting we stop double spaces after periods and colons(:). It adds up.
I was just recently hired by
Transcend and am receiving the equipment today or tomorrow, will train next week. I would not worry about the interview if I were you. She was very nice and we had a nice talk. I am leaving MQ. Welcome.
I checked it out recently (sm)
If I weren't already in my senior year of college and on a different path, I'd definitely check it out. The average income was something like 45K (salary.com).
I'd not worry about competition. MT is considered hard for newbies to break into, but we did that, didn't we? Where there's a will, there's a way.
I'd definitely consider it if I were you. Frankly, getting out of the house sounds really nice to me.
I think there was something recently posted about this
company.
I recently met someone who has a friend who took a
6-week course, is working at home with all the work she can handle. Of course I don't believe this, but this is what she said.
I found this recently (sm)
See link
Not unless something has changed recently...
I have worked at a job where I had to use both the Lanier and a Dictaphone. They are two very separate things.
anyone recently take the cmt exam?
thank you.
Oh, they did for me! I just recently plugged my
instead of my junky speakers, and what a difference!!! Can't believe I've gone this long thinking that it was DQS that was all the problem with the degradation in sound quality since going from using a C-phone.
I assume that better speakers would have to make a difference, because mine are super cheap. But for now I'm just staying with my headphones through the computer speaker plug (and with a Turtle Beach Audio Device as well now).
Someone asked this recently and several
mentioned the same reasonably priced vacuum (yes, some also loved their Dyson's, but I'm with you on the price). Sorry, I can't remember which one it was (maybe a Eureka something???), but I do remember the same one coming up three or four times in the thread. Search the archives. Good luck to you! (p.s. I'm coming back to search the archives myself when I'm ready to buy again).
this happened to me recently :)
Hold down either the Ctl key or the Alt key and then hit either your right or left arrow depending on which way you want it to move. It only happened to me once, so if that doesn't work, play around with holding Clt+Alt and possibly Shift with the arrow, but that was how I got mine back after my 3 YO granddaughter played with it.
Happy Holiday!
I recently did this and went back to being
IC status. I did not enjoy being an employee, yes the tax thing is a pain in the butt, but being an employee with this particular company was horrible!! I vote for the IC position unless you don't mind being restricted on time off, emergencies etc. Just my opinion though, good luck with your decision.
just recently transitioned myself
from decades of being an 'employee' to a SE. I just wish i would have done it many many years ago. The freedom from time clocks, schedules etc is well worth the bene's i gave up. If one puts it all together (add bene's to gross pay), i don't make as much money, but that's really my fault, because now many days i work 6 or 6-1/2 hr instead of 8. But my quality of life is so much more. You sure want to set aside money for taxes though, and i made a savings acct for just that. Hope you make the right decision for you!!
Recently started using
Meditech for a new hospital account (acute care and rad) Compared to WP and/or Word,(or even DocQscribe) it's like pushing a truck up hill with one hand. Easy to use but very cluncky and requires more Keystrokes for any function than any other platform that I've used. No doubt it (or you) gets faster with use, but I'm not impressed.
PS It has an awkward spell check - not case sensitive, does not pick up transpositions, takes 3 keystrokes to make a correction instead of 1 as in WP or Word.
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