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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

I prefer to think of it as realizing my family is what is important.

Posted By: Home is what is important and where I want to be. on 2007-05-15
In Reply to: Do you find that this job makes you a social recluse? - Sara

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Ceramic is prettier, but very slippery, so depends what is more important to you and family
nm
I am. Realizing that I don't belong to the
stupid gross population that seems to be on this board lately!

How about a little class and finess, ladies. Oh wait, I forgot who I was talking to!

Get'r done...that's your motto. Larry the Cable Guy must be your president, huh?!
Duh..just realizing that you are posting again! More java needed. :) nm
s
family is family wheter 3 or 8 sm
i live in MA and $1200-$1400 a month is what good health insurance costs, ie $20-$40 copays.  it was just passed into law that if you live in MA you have to have medical insurance so without being self-employed, you can go right to BCBS etc and get a plan directly from the major health insurace companies, but for a family plan and a decent income bracket, forget it.  the prices are outragous.  right now my husband pays $120 a week for family plan and this is after his employer pays 30% of the total cost.  we have $20 copays, but we have a $2000 individual deductable per year with a $4000 family deductible cap.  so when my daughther needed her tonsils out, $2000 and when my son broke his arm, $2000.  someone on this board has to be able to tell you what they pay for insurance through their company as an employee.  good luck.
oh, sorry, yes that is important sm
the pay is average for a national.  I make $900/week. I think that's pretty darn good!
How important is it to you ...

How important is it to you that your US medical records are KEPT in the USA?


Does it matter to you?  Why or why not?


It's VERY important to me. I don't want anyone in the US much less
outside of the US knowing my business, financial, medical, or otherwise.  If I can't sue someone who has used my information for their personal gain then that is a problem for me.  It would cost me a fortune to sue someone overseas who say sold my information or threatened to put it on the Internet. 
How important is it
Very important. I am HIV and do not want that information going anywhere.
but TAT is what is important and OP...sm

stated that they were having a TAT problem prior - so?  TAT is promised, not met, and so the OP didn't meet her/his end of the bargain.  I promise 24-48 hour TAT and that's what they have been getting from me for nearly 10 years. 


A deal is a deal is a deal - whether on paper or not on paper - verbal contracts are also recognized - just ask Judge Judy *lol*


To the OP - I hope things go better for you truly - but remember this:  A promise made is a debt unpaid....that also is in regards to TAT.  Best of luck - things will turn around for you, I am hopeful. 


And this is important. sm

It varies state to state, I am sure.  You need to get the house out of your mother's name.  Where I live, the house has to come out of their name 2 YEARS before they can get in a decent nursing home.  There are a not of variables and when you are running to doctors, doing shopping for 2 people, cleaning, plus working full-time which no one realizes if you are an MT because you are "at home";  you really don't have time to keep all the plates spinning by yourself, with no help, and this issue about my mother's home should have been addressed a long, long time ago.


It's important to ask
questions of a potential employer but sounds like she overdid it.

Have to admit though she certainly doesn't lack confidence!
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.
It is amazing to me how self-important US MTs are ...
You want to point your finger toward offshoring companies using HIPAA as your miserable crutch; however, when it comes to ensuring the legitimacy of who YOU are to handle this sensitive, private, protected information -- well just forget it.

After all, I mean, YOU work at home. And you are a citizen of the US. And no US citizen EVER scammed the public, EVER stole identities, EVER did anything wrong. Talk about self-righteous and self-important. Hahaha

What's wrong? What are you afraid of? Someone might really find out about your lack of control over your own life?

No one has ANY idea what YOU are doing with this information either and if your attitudes and behavior on here were shown to physicians and your own employers (and probably your family and friends), many of you would be out - out of a job, out of respect, out of friends and maybe family, out of most of everything and everyone who has no idea what you are like when you feel your anonymous status is hidden.

I'm entitled to how I feel the same as you are. You might want to get prepared though -- time and the conditions in this world are rooting for my opinion.

With the increasing security risks, insurance costs, etc., in this world -- you might want to get busy cleaning up whatever it is you're hiding because the likelihood of you submitting yourselves to any/all of these things for a job is going up and fast.

Hahaha
If bathing is so important to him
then he could wear some swim trunks in the tub with her. I stated that in my last post also. He would still have the bonding time with her but would be covered so she wouldn't be exposed to that. That was also an idea that was posted by another poster that her brother does I think.
One important point: SM
Spheris insurance is PPO, meaning the insurance is not expensive, however, it does not cover the cost of everything or most things, as does HMO insurance. This is a very important fact. Otherwise, agree with above.
I believe it is important for children too..
That does still does not mean that since you made a mistake in your life that you are not entitled to the same rights as everyone else. Could've, should've, would've. We can point fingers and tell people what they should have done, but the fact is, they have rights like everyone else. Of course you tend to do better financially when you do things in the right order. Life does not always work like you want it to though. I myself got pregnant while on BC with a man I had been with for 4 years. I had my son before I got married. We got married when he was less than a month old. He was our only witness. We have since had another child. I have never been on assistance, but I am lucky enough that we have been able to work out our problems and keep our marriage intact. If I could do it all over again, I would have waited, of course. We have struggled quite a bit by having kids so young. Life just doesn't always work out how you want it to though. I want my daughter to get married first and then have children, as do all mothers. Those are things I will teach her too.
Actually, what the account wants is more important than the BOS.
They sign my paycheck and I will do what they request. Don't care much for the BOS and you need to come off your high horse tell everyone they must be consistent with everything.

Yes, consistency is nice, but if the account wants the numbers spelled out from 1-10 that is what the account is going to get - one, two, three, four, etc. They are the ones putting food on my table.


Thanks for that important bit of advice!
I have been going to try them but I will now wait until my next teeth cleaning next month. I NEVER would have given that a thought before. That would be awful to end up with yellow outlines!

Do you know how it might affect crowns??? I assume it will leave them the same color they are. Mine are a little lighter than my natural teeth.
Although MT accuracy is very important,
I think the source of dosing medication comes mostly from the physician's order sheet.  I agree with the other poster that a cascading effect is very possible when later dictation and charting is based on the previous records.  Also, there are other safeguards and checks made in terms of operations, and they would not be based simply on the H&P.  If a doctor bases any operation on just an H&P I would consider him incompetent.  This does not excuse the MT who is not careful in documentation. 
Get yourself a system...most important..
With Autocorrect, you have to remember everything!  So I had to come up with a system that I would remember them.  I use the letter *J* for anything that ends in *tion* or *sion,* the letter *Z* for endings with *ize* or *ization*, *x* for words that start with prefix of *ex*, for capitalizing abbreviations, such as HPI that you want to capitalize in a sentence, would be *xhpi.*  I use *U* as in uhpi to bring up History of Physical Illness when needed in a sentence, as *HPI* will come up all caps for headings.  I also have a system that I will use the first two letters of two words if I have already used the first letters of two words, such as *cp* for chest pain, *chpr* for chemistry profile.  If those first two letters are used for something, I go to the first three letters of the first word and the first two letters of the second word.  Also will use maybe the first four or five letters of a word.  Also, have phrases, such as *sdnh* for she does not have, *shnos* for she has not seen, and just a lot of those types of things. Saves a lot of time.  Also have, of course, what the docs constantly say, their little phrases they use all of the time.  However, I do forget I have some of these things in there, and have to keep refreshing myself as with about 5000 abbreviations, it gets wicked!!  But it really helps to have a system that helps you to remember what you have in there. 
Important - see message

I too use Smartype with 2003 and have the same problem, but I wouldn't give up and found out why.  What it is when you have a text box (when you jump around using the F11 key to fill in the box) you have to hit the delete key first before you type.  If you type without deleting the box first, it will freeze or lock up.


The same thing happens if you hightlight text and want to type over the text.  You have to hit delete first and then type.  If you highlight and then type without deleting the text, it will lock up.  I have trained myself to use the delete key at these times and rarely does it freeze up now.  Every now and then I'll forget or accidently do something that will trigger it to lock, but it is not very often.


You can use it, but you have to train yourself.  It is a Word problem I was told.  If you have any questions, e-mail me and I will try to help


Important ? re. digital(sm)
I get the heebie jeebies worrying that dictation will be erased/lost in the transfer. Is there any backup which will prevent this happening? Where I live if anything is lost, things fly and tempers flare. Scared to death of this happening. How wonderful that you are sharing, kudos to all of you. We need more of this helping attitude.
The MOST important question is.....

Very important - thanks for your post.
Take care of your kids and be flexible while they are still young.  Take the time because they grow so fast.  If that means losing a buck here and there, so be it.  I for one would not trade getting my son to his ballgame or being able to see my daughter receive an award at school for all of the money in the world.  I will carry those memories with me forever.  We can work on-site when our children are older and no longer need us so much.  What a great feeling!  Glad you are making the switch back/welcome once again!  We missed you!!!!  
Most important I think is spelling

Not the spelling police, but I thought your post was cute!  Seasoned????  How about proofing your typing?  Just kidding  .  I'm joking!!!


 


That's why it is so important that there is uniformity regarding...SM

style and format which the BOS has tried to do.  I don't always agree with the BOS, but at least it is trying to standardize things.  Things like spelling and terminology misuse are pretty much black and white -- either you spell correctly or you don't. 


Another practice that the MTSOs have gotten into is allowing the clients to dictate their preferences to the point where it is in direct opposition with the accepted norm and sometimes are just totally incorrect!   Facilities hire MTSO for their expertise in medical transcription and, therefore, should let us do what we do best rather telling us how to do our job.  I don't tell the doctor how to treat the patient and he shouldn't tell me how to do my job.


With the exception of formatting, the MTSOs should be giving the clients a copy of the rules and standards MTs follow.  I understand that formatting will change from client to client and in my opinion, that is an acceptable variation.


I worked for an MTSOs who contracted with a client -- a hospital -- whose transcriptionists had "always" typed gravida and para values in Roman numerals, i.e. gravida III, para II.  When the MTSO contracted with the hospital, the MTs typed it according to the BOS, but were quickly corrected by a file clerk in the HIM department stating we were doing it wrong.  Did the MTSO stick up for its MTs and say we follow the BOS and that is the accepted norma?  Nope.  An email went to the MTs saying that on this particular account gravida and para should be expressed as Roman numerals!


This shouldn't be happening!  We are professionals and should be treated as such.  We are not show dogs jumping through hoops!


So see, I'm not some evil QA person who lives to find errors.  I am a QA person who sees problems on both side of the issue!


IMPORTANT - Real VNC

Please ladies.  If a company ever ever ever installs this on your computer, get rid of it!  The program itself is for technical support but it also can enable a company to get into your system without your knowledge.  This happened to me and I caught someone from that company remotely taking over my keyboard and mouse! 


All they need to get in is your IP address and they can see your whole screen.  I was told by an independent IT person that they can log your Keystrokes and get your financial info if you have it stored.  I just had to change all of my banking and credit card accounts and run multiple scans on my computer.  I am an IC with my own computer and they installed this to run in the background as soon as I boot up the computer even though for tech support we used an entirely different program.


 Yes, I absolutely ended that contract, but I just wanted to let everyone know so the same does not happen to them. 


It depends on what is really important...s/m

I worked in an ER for 6 years (clerical) and have a sister and a brother-in-law that are nurses.  I also worked on the floor at the hospital and knew that I could never be a nurse.  Yes, my sister and brother-in-law make great money, but my sister never sleeps (works nights) and both miss holidays all the time.  this year, my brother-in-law works Christmas day (11a-11p) and new year's eve (11a-11p).  To me, no amount of money is worth missing the holidays with my kids.  if you don't have kids then maybe nursing is for you.  however, if you have kids and want to be able to go to school functions, not work holidays, and have the flexibility (I'm IC so work my OWN schedule), then I would definitely look into MT.  As far as the pay goes, I have only been doing MT for about 5 years and have made the same rate per line since starting.  I don't have company benefits (again, IC) but my home benefits outweight the hospital benefits i had when I worked there (not as an MT).  On some days (easy doctors), i can make as much as my sister (w/o her night shift) and other days I make average.  Sorry, going on and on...  but I would definitely consider experiencing each aspect of both fields before putting your money into schooling. 


PS:  Used to my computer fixing capitals at the beginning of sentences and fixing spelling errors (funny how we get so used to our autocorrect, huh). 


This is mot important issue, IMO.
x
DG, critically important, not just SM
an aid. In future no one will be able to make a living at this work without extensively using one, including specifically editing.

You tell the Expander to record the Keystrokes you use to do a correction dozens of times a day and then give those functions one- or two-key abbreviations. That way, a tap of a single key, or maybe 2 taps, will change the case of a letter (delete old one, shift+new letter) or insert the word "The" at the beginning of a sentence and then lower-case the first letter of the next word. A function key can be instructed to open a new screen and send a standard message to QA. That sort of thing.

And you will need a professional-quality expander to do the job.
nope don't think I am important sm
at all, but telling the truth. That is the problem with too many folks, too unwilling to do the work over the years to learn what they need to learn and do what needs to be done. Sorry if I hit a nerve but I didn't say anything that wasn't true!
To me, this is the most important finding: - sm
"The average transcription price ranges from 11.9 cents to 13.2 cents per line, depending on whether the services provided are onshore, offshore or a mix of both."

There are some problems with the methodologies used to produce these KLAS studies, but setting those aside what's instructive here is that around 10 years ago a different study showed the average industry price to be 14 to 17 cents per line. Offshoring and cutthroat competition, and to a much lesser degree technology, have resulted in lower prices, and that can only do one thing - put downward pressure on the wages paid to transcriptionists.

Predictably, then, wages in our segment of the healthcare industry have stagnated or declined, while in most other segments prices and wages have risen - in some cases much more rapidly than the rate of inflation.


Experience is more important than
what school you went to. Experience helps you pass the tests. I'd hire someone with hands-on experience & able to pass the test any day before I'd hire a newbie graduate from CareerStep, Andrews, etc. You'll do fine.
RE: Very important read !!
For those who could not see the URL, I hope you can see it in this mail and EVERYONE sh




Just something to think about. 


 




The link below will take you to a page explaining the House and Senate versions of the bill and a link to send an email to your representatives in Washington indicating that patients have the right to be made aware that their personal information and medical records are being sent overseas for transcription. The letter is already written for you!

http://www.rallycongress.com/support-fo ... formation/

ould act on this !!
A very important read !!
Just something to think about. 

 


The link below will take you to a page explaining the House and Senate versions of the bill and a link to send an email to your representatives in Washington indicating that patients have the right to be made aware that their personal information and medical records are being sent overseas for transcription. The letter is already written for you!

http://www.rallycongress.com/support-fo ... formation/

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.