I guess it's a no-no to ask questions about the board.

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

/

I just recently went back to work in the office at a local hospital. We type in both Meditech and Cerner, depending on what you are typing, i.e. Medical Records reports versus Radiology.  We are currently typing blindly in Meditech, meaning we do not have access to our line counts and must depend on management to give us our totals.  In Cerner, we are able to run a line count report and print out a hard copy of our line counts at the end of the day.

We are finding that 800 lines in Cerner equals about 500 lines in Meditech.  We are not paid per line nor do we have an incentive plan, but we have a new HIM Director who would like to institute an incentive plan and the administrator over our department has laid down the law and decreed that all transcriptionists not making minimum in the department will be written up.  Problem is according to Meditech line totals that we have been given, that would be about half the department.

The transcription supervisor has taken our concerns to the new director who told the MT Supervisor to hold off on writing people and has taken home all the line counts from the last month and she is going over them with a fine tooth comb this weekend.

I am not a very trusting soul by nature, so I am doing a little research on my own.  I've been in this business for about 15 years.  I started out in a hospital and have worked for a few services at home and am now back in the hospital setting.  So I know a few things about line count and I consider myself to be pretty well informed on trends and technology in the industry.   I would like to walk into our next department meeting armed with as much knowledge as possible.  So I have come up with some questions that I would like some fellow MTs to answer, give opinions, and maybe even direct me to websites or individuals who could give me a better understanding of Meditech and Cerner.  Here are my questions:

1. Is it possible for an MT to have access to her line count in Meditech or is strictly a management function?  Any MTs that work in Meditech on this board, do you currently have access to your line counts and if so, how do you check them?  Is it an option on the main menu after you log into Meditech?


2. How is a line defined in Meditech?  (i.e. 65 cpl, with spaces, without spaces)


3. How is a line defined in Cerner?


4. What abbreviation Expanders work with both Meditech and Cerner?


5. Examples of incentive plans (if anyone would like to share that with me that would be great, if not I completely understand).


6. Measuring productivity by minutes of dictation versus typed lines.




1. What would be the minimum minutes required for an 8-hour day?


2. How would one structure an incentive program based on minutes?

I was thinking of presenting the idea that we keep track of productivity using minutes instead of lines since there is such a discrepancy in Meditech.  I also worry that if an incentive plan is put into place and we are still typing blind into Meditech, what's to keep management from shaving off a few lines here and there?

Feel free to email me or post here any responses.  Either is fine.  I really appreciate any input, comments, or just plain old supportive posts would be nice too! 

I need opinions please...I work on a very small account with just a handful of ladies.  Because of the nature of the software (trying not to get too specific here) we can see who is working online and what reports they are working on in real-time...

We have one cherrypicker on the account.  Instead of using FIFO method, she retrieves the reports by author ID - usually picking the better dictators of course.  She knows I busted her and she did admit to it in on our work e-mail (not too bright) which I am saving just in case she gets out of hand - so far I'm still able to make money since really most of the dictators aren't bad. 

But every night it's starting to wear on me since she's screwing up turnaround time.  I don't really want to cause a big uproar being that it is such a small account and I need to work with her almost every night usually one on one.

What would you all do?  I want to handle this as delicate and professional as possible because we can't really afford to lose anyone on this account.  In other words, I refuse to stoop to her level by cherrypicking right back.

My boss has asked me several times why so-and-so does so much more than I do...I just bite my lip at that point but one of these days I think I might explode and just open up a can of worms....

i am very interested in taking courses on mt and would like some help in guiding me in the right direction....can someone help me on that