Home     Contact Us    
Main Board Job Seeker's Board Job Wanted Board Resume Bank Company Board Word Help Medquist New MTs Classifieds Offshore Concerns VR/Speech Recognition Tech Help Coding/Medical Billing
Gab Board Politics Comedy Stop Health Issues
ADVERTISEMENT




Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

I prefer short ones...get sleepy if they are too long

Posted By: NCMT on 2006-06-12
In Reply to: Which would you rather do, and why? - mac

and I have to listen to the dictator drone on and on.


Complete Discussion Below: marks the location of current message within thread

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


Other related messages found in our database

I prefer short reports. With the exception of a couple of
the most wonderful dictators (who really should give lessons on dictating) I find that long reports make me sleepy and looking for any excuse to get up.  I type in batches and don't have to save each report individually so having a bunch of reports doesn't add a lot of time.  I have found too that most of the short reports (I do Ops/procedures) are things that I have lots of normals/macros for so it goes really fast.
Long short forms vs short short forms

Carla,


A long short form is usually easier to remember. So I would definitely assign the short forms as suggested by Kelli:
SmithCThead
SmithCTabdomen
etc


In most Expander programs you would opt for a short short form as you have to type the whole short form before you can expand.
In Instant Text you don't have to type the whole short form: you type the first two letters of your long short form and then you can type any of the following letters.
So in this case you would type smcth for the first one, smcta, and you may also type smhead, smabd


This is possible when you use the Instant Text marker key to expand. If you use the space bar to expand, you may be better off assigning the initials as suggested in the second response, as you would not be able to "jump ahead".


Marianne


Here is the long and short of it
Most of the time gross line comes out pretty darn close to 65 characters unless you do addresses and a lot of numbered lists. If you uses lists, you may lose out. If not you will probably gain a little. You will really have to evaluate how your notes are normally set up.

Personally, after being somewhere for 3 years and doing a good job, I would expect a lot more that 8 cents per line gross or otherise. Just me.
short, can't type with them long and also wear
contacts so long nails are a hazard, not to mention a hygiene issue.  
long and short term fixes
Keep ants from coming back by washing the area they were invading with ammonia to kill the scent they leave as a trail.

White flour (the kind you bake with) put over an ant hill (thick coat)or on the floor where they are invading, etc. will make the ants move to another place, but does not kill them, but is fast for getting rid of a big colony in your back yard.

Green Light is a commercial product that will kill the ants like Tarro does, but is not as fast as making them move somewhere else.
If you need short-term long distance...
while searching for a new long distance plan, you can try onesuite.com.
Will DQS work with dial-up (short-term). How long
nm
sleepy
I had this happen to me and finally got checked out. I also had muscle aches, bone pain in the winter, ate to get energy-- turned out to be a vitamin D deficiency. Sometimes we MTs don't get out enough. Lol. Go to the doc (or NP in my case), tell them your symptoms. I had to go on a hefty dose for 2 weeks to start feeling better but WOW. My appetite is totally back to normal too and I am not tired all the time. Just something to try.
sleepy time
I have that problem.  I only have it with MQ however.  I work another MT job and it doesn't seem to bother me.  For me it is extreme frustration, boredom, and not caring for my job and not feeling fulfilled.  I think for me it is psychosomatic.  I sit down here to work and start yawning but I could spend 4 hours in my garden and be wide awake.  Are you happy with your job? 
made me HUNGRY and SLEEPY
i gained 5 pounds in 2 weeks - could not stop eating, could not stop sleeping. i know 2 other people on it who have gone off of it for those reasons. at first, at the lowest dose, while i was on a tapering dose of lexapro along with the cymbalta, i felt great. when it was just the cymbalta at a higher dose, it bit me. lexapro has worked wonders for me. but everyone has their own response to meds - this is just my experience. only you and your doctor can decide. hope this helps.
I used Short Keys, not Short hand for Bayscribe, it worked fine.
x
Everyday thing for me. I work till sleepy, then set my SM

phone not my clock to ring. I get about 5 hours every night, have for years.


Tired all the time and sleepy during the day even after an eight hour nights rest. Does anyone else
have this problem? Is it a vitamin deficiency in age 40 and over?
Ditto, short ERs or short OPs....short anything! sm
And I especially don't like long OPs, they are the most boring for me, and the doctors pause a lot cause they have to think more. I just want to be done with it! Next!!! ; )
I hate Instant Text. It is expensive, long long learning
curve, and too much distraction for me.
How long should I wait after applying for a position before I follow-up. It has been as long as two
without hearing from some.  Just wondering if I should send an e-mail to follow-up to see if they received my resume or not.  I don't want to offend anyone but feel two weeks should be long enough for someone to at least acknowledge my resume and that I have applied for a position.  Right now I would accept anything even a note saying no thanks.  Any advice would be appreciated.  I haven't had to apply for a job for the past 10 years so I am a bit rusty at this.  Thanks again for any advice. 
I prefer IC . . .
simply because of the flexibility. I don't want to feel chained to my computer. To me, one of the reasons to work from home is the freedom it provides. I also find I have a lot to write off at tax time and have never had a problem tax-wise. I don't need the benefits and don't want the company control that comes with being an employee.


Neither...I prefer
my taxes to pay for defense of this nation, protection of its citizens through federal regulatory agencies, police, fire and emergency rescue programs, libraries, public schools, educational assistance for anyone who needs it, assistance for those who cannot help themselves, drug and medical research, paved streets, streetlights, utilities, assistance for new business startups, and few other oddities.
How would you prefer - sm
Wondering if you have any suggestions for a better way? What would make it easier for you?
ME vs MT WHAT DO YOU PREFER

and why.


 


I prefer only the ................NM

I prefer
by far short reports.  Doing long reports, well, I just feel like I'm being held hostage, KWIM?
I much prefer sm
to work for a company and let them hustle up the work, provide the system and equipment, and get paid by the line. Maybe if I were 20 and not 60, but I find that by getting your own accounts, you lose a lot of money.  I prefer transcribing fast, and being paid for just that.  No setup.  No delivery or pickup.  No office managers to deal with.  Pure profit all the way.
I prefer IT.
xxx
I just prefer it.
There is so much wrong information out there that I like to look in my books first. I also hand write in "sounds like" in there so I can find oddly spelled things. Plus it is a business expense. ;-)
Most will prefer DSL for
security reasons I believe and specifically say "no satellite". It is one of the downsides of living in a beautiful rural area.


I prefer...
Quick Look Drug Book but not actually the book, the CD version, that way you do not have to get off computer, grab book, and manually look up the med you need. You just click on to get into the information, type in name, or a version of it, and it automatically pops up with everything you need to know, including what it is used for, and doses applicable...so much quicker.
I prefer my ESL
over the English speaking mush mouth one that sounds like she drunk when she transcribes or the one who talks so low I can barely hear him with the sound on as high as it can go.
Myself, I prefer sm

Stedman's surgical equipment book.  The Surgery Word book is pretty well useless, but the equipment book is fabulous.


I have had a Tessier's and I gave it away, found it completely useless.


I prefer it
I cant sit for 8 hours. I have to break my work up into 2-4 hours at a time.
Congrats! How long have you been a MLS and how long did you study for the test!

Please see message. I have three daughters with long, long hair.
I also have long hair down to my waist and my three girls have hair that long too. My daughter brought them home from school last year. I was devestated and grossed out!!!! I have never had to deal with lice. Anyway, we did the treatments and two of my girls broke out in a severe rash with the OTC stuff. Their little heads were so sore!! I thought I was being meticulous with eggs, only to find them hatching again down the road. A nurse at the pediatricians office suggested I try oil to suffocate them since my girls were allergic to the lice solution. I bought a huge bottle of veggie oil and dumped it on all three heads, plus my own. I then wrapped the heads in platic wrap and then a towel. I left this on for 30 minutes. It takes a while to wash out the oil, but we never, ever had the lice or eggs again!!! If you try this, make sure you put on an old shirt and put a towel around your shoulders. Obviously we were desperate, but we all have such long hair and very thick hair so I was willing to try anything. And I figured there was no chemicals involved so that was pretty safe. And it sure did help my littles ones since their scalps were pretty raw from the solution. Hope this helps and Good luck!
It's been a long, long time since I've used a C-phone, sm
but I do think jobs can be paused.
I prefer In-Hock Rd.
dd
I certainly prefer Word but......
I have become accustomed to it. It is not too difficult to learn and overall I don't feel a bad program. I have used DQS as well and I think Emdat's InScribe offers more options from what I see.

My biggest complaint is the spellcheck. I copy/paste and save all my reports in Word and spellcheck in Word as it catches errors that InScribe's spellcheck does not.

Also, I do not use their Expander - I use Instant Text which I love.
I have done both and prefer IC because I can write
everything off. You have to be very diligent about receipts and setting aside tax money though.

The only real difference in pay between the two is 7.25% for social security (self employment. You have to put aside the taxes rather than have the company pay them for you but either way, that tax money comes out of your check not the company's pocket.
I also prefer in-house

... but I am doing radiology.  I worked at home doing hospital work for 4-5 years, and it wasn't interesting enough.  There wasn't enough variety for me.  I could see problems that I would be sooooo good at fixing if I was working in-house, but there was no way for me to have an impact on quality issues working at home.  I now get to improve the referrer database, look at the future schedule to look for missing referrer names, work with schedulers, techs and radiologists, and just do lots of little things that really add polish to our business, and are very satisfying to me. 


To each her own. 


I prefer VR, MTg for 28 years....nm

thanks but prefer programs not from...

She does prefer that I type in EMR
but said she we would discuss what would work best for both of us. Thanks for the info, that was the kind of thing I needed to know.
I prefer the CD. I can travel with my
job and used a laptop.  I am able to have all my references available because I have them on the computer.  Stedman's only allows 2 downloads though, so if you are one who may have lots of computer issues where you will need to reload your computer a coupld of times a year or if you  might want to resell then CDs wouldn't be the way to go.  The books you can find used on the classified board.

You can use www.drugs.com as a drug reference.

There aren't a separate set of books for clinic work, but I would recommend a book called Sloane's Medical Word Book by Ellen Drake.  It is a large book with all the specialities and while obviously not as thorough as the Stedman's books, the terminology used in clinic work isn't as technical as acute care and will probably be good enough for you.   I haven't looked at Stedman's lately but they may have a similar book. 
prefer books

I prefer reference books, as all my work stays in one spot in my office.  Have tried the CDs in the past but didn't care for them.  I can understand wanting the convenience of having everything on a laptop since it sounds like you move around frequently.  Guess it depends on the work sutation.


I prefer ESLs

I personally prefer an ESL to a native English speaker any day of the week.  At least I know with an ESL, I am dealing with a tougher ear level, a level not many folks can do or are willing to do, and 99% of the time, they happen to be the best dictators out there, they don't rush their dictation or speak half-thoughts/utter a sound that means 10 words, they do their best to speak clearly...all I need to do is learn their accent and clean up their grammar. 


I have only 1 current ESL who speed talks with a thick accent...Just 1 of out say 50+ that I handle between 5 acute care accounts.  I handle a lot more ESLs than that due to the logistics of 3 accounts being major city hospitals, but I didn't want it to seem an inflated, BS number. 


In the long run, my willingness and desire to deal with ESLs allows me to build my ear skills further.  When it comes time to job hunt, that little line on my resume, Heavy ESL experience gets my foot in the door to show what I am able to hear and do, making me a bit more marketable.  Don't get me wrong, MOST ESLs I can handle.  Russian accent still leaves me saying WHAT?!?!  but hey, at least I am willing to try to step up to that battle to conquer and learn them.


I worked for a company that NO ONE wanted to transcribe the 52 ESLs.  I kid you not.  The TAT on those files was disgusting.  MTs would actually refuse to transcribe them.  I took them on, they became my primary workload, my preferred work.  I'd log in for the day, my supervisor would ask me what I wanted for "breakfast" as she read me off the list of who she had.  I had the freedom to choose back then, and let me tell you, it was CAKE, I was loving it and laughing all the way to the bank.  My queue for the day was set with just about 120 minutes of assorted accents, my daily line requirement, as a part timer, exceeded the full-time requirement.  I never ran out of work, I never NEEDED to worked late, never felt pressured, and didn't have to worry about leaving a blank, for it became clear to my supervisor/QA/team leader, as well as the CMT/owner, that if I couldn't get that blank, there was no way they could either.   I took care of my supervisor/QA/team leader and she took care of me, we were in a win-win situation.  But, that job is gone now, as the company folded and closed its doors.  My comfort zone is gone.


Currently, I work for 2 nationals.  They do not filter and distribute files broken down between ESL and native English speakers.  I pull my daily workloads from a pool, so I never know who I will end up with.  It's in my own best interest NOT to shy away from an accent.


I prefer the CDs but use the books...
because I can pass the books on to new recruits who may not be able to afford a lot of new reference materials right off the bat.
Getting into QA prefer hourly
Do you know which MT companies pay QA by hour? Also who would be willing to train a QA person. I have been an MT 10 years and would like to get into QA...I have excellent editing skills and have worked in-house, IC, home-based employee and have an associates degree in science (pre-nursing classes).
I actually prefer the variety to doing the same old - sm
thing day in and day out. The downside, of course, is that you don't get the line counts, what with all the research, backing up & listening again to the difficult dictators, and not using full-page templates because every report is different. It took a long time to get to the point where I was comfortable with this much variety, and now actually enjoy it. Unfortunately, the average MTSO's pay scale doesn't reflect that. So I guess there are 2 choices: Be bored to tears and make more money by mass-producing 'McDictation', as I call it, or be mentally stimulated, and continue to learn, doing harder accounts, but making Third World wages.
I'm with you sister; I'd much prefer using my pc
rather than any company provided one. We are not children here, but professionals. I need to have a watchdog hovering over my shoulder documenting every single site I click on to keep as ammunition to eventually fire me for misuse of their pc.

I've seen the pcs these companies provide for their employees -- like they are doing them such a big favor. BULLSHID! The pcs are refurbished pieces of junk, which they deduct a rental amount from your already poverty-striken paycheck. Nationals: Keep your pcs -- they are worthless pieces of crap.
used to prefer stethoscope
but now find i just don't want anything inside my ears at all -- didn't want to mess with batteries, so found (on ebay) some Bose over-the-ear kind. Very good sound, very comfortable ear cushion, long cord, great swivel ear/headband part and they passively block outside sound very well.
If IC, use which ever you prefer; most of the Nationals
xx
you say that like there is something wrong with that - prefer them to bulldozers.nm
:)
i hear ya. I prefer being tucked away
Nonhostile, nonstressed, maybe just a little goofy.  I think we lose our thick skin working alone for so long.  I start college next week, I better find some people armor.