I took your challenge today
Posted By: MI-MT on 2008-10-17
In Reply to: A challenge... - Amanda
and I buckled down as well and I got in 1 hour and 28 minutes 824 lines!!!! Yes, it was an easy doctor, but that is all the work I have today is from him. That gives me $43.95/hr. Wish I could have him all day. I'll try to average out the day if I get anyone else in.
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If you are up to the challenge
with SS
OH. Now you want more challenge...
But you also state it was a small account. Why do they only assign you to ONE account? Cross training for others is out? Is it a small account and "NOT ENOUGH WORK" as you initially stated, or now it's because you can "DO IT IN (YOUR) SLEEP".
LOL
Now, that is a challenge
it seems that going into the petites section gets you into the clothes that are made for the younger kids. I totally feel your pain. If anyone out there has any suggestions that would be great. Like you, I'm short and small-boned. Finding age-appropriate clothes is a real toughy! :-)
It was the challenge
Used to be, I felt like I was playing some sort of computer game, trying every day to "win" by increasing my line count, overcoming the ESL's and unintelligible speedtalkers. But when the greedy companies and corporations took over, they started stacking the odds against us, the game was fixed and it wasn't fun anymore. Set yourself some new goals, financial or imagination-stretching. Remember, you have a life, and this is not it, just the means.
A challenge to all MT's....sm
I feel that we've said it all - the rest is just blah, blah, blah! Yeah, we need a place to vent but how about we challenge ourselves - each and every one of us try to find someone in the public eye to whom we should all individually write! If someone, say, at 20/20, 60 minutes, etc. were to get hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of well-written and well edited letters enunciating each and every point; from why all off-shore transcription should be illegal (it is against HIPAA), to how little we (the transcriptionist) is really getting paid, to how much each IC or at-home employee actually saves the physician or hospital or clinic, etc. than we will have some attention put on the industry. Another big point to investigate is just how much these national (and international) companies pay their chief operating officers, etc. What used to be a viable career has become nearly impossible to continue. If anyone thinks that a national effort to attact the necessary attention to our problem is a good idea, respond here and let's see if we can get a letter written that we can all forward to our state senators as well as to the media. A MEDIA BLITZ will either make us or brake us - we'll either get what we deserve or we'll all lose to off-shore transcriptionists (which we're doing anyway)! A one day work strike nationally would work well too and would get a lot of media attention! Particularly on a Wednesday (middle of the week) but all need to agree to lose one day's pay...but don't worry, the companies will be desperate and put us all to work on the weekend to catch up (at our regular rate, of course)! What do YOU think?
You like to challenge?
Ridiculous ego.
Challenge yourself - sm
One of the four doctors I do has an accent - Indian - and the others "speak English". I would much rather do the accent than put up with the sloppy, slurry, lazy way the others dictate. I have found that once you do an "accent" the next one is easier. Don't be intimated - give it a try - challenge yourself - it's part of life.
A challenge...
Okay folks... I like everybody else have seen my pay go down lately and have been complaining about having to work more to get the work done; I also see people talking about how many hours a day they have to work to get their lines for the day and how it equals minimum wage, etc.
Well, I went to the store and bought a cheap timer. I set it every hour for 55 minutes and I would take a 5 minute break at the end of that 55 minutes. I did not move my butt from the chair during that first 55 minutes - just typed. No phone calls, no surfing the web, no answering people's yells, no TV, no laundry, no dishes, NOTHING, NADA, just typing. Here are my results -
165 minutes (2 hours and 45 minutes) and I got 1129 lines. That averages out to be 410 lines an hour. For my pay, that is $41 an hour.
My challenge is to each of you who say you are not getting your work done to try this yourself and post your results and let's see what happens...
Should we all take an MT challenge?
We all realize that our situations are different and within our own accounts can be so very different on different days. (Oh, how I hate those days when I would swear my line count will be great and it turns out to be lower than the day before when I felt I didn't work nearly as hard!)
But what we can do to see how much time we are wasting is to do the same challenge for a week straight. We will likely have a variety of work to deal with and can see how much different our line counts end up.
I have noticed I tend to get up from my chair more, out of stress and frustration, when I am having a tough dicatator or subject matter. I tend to want to check my email after sending a job because there are several seconds before I can open the next dictation. I probably lose some time there (beyond the pause time).
It would be interesting to see how much different things turn out for us all. Not the acutal line counts (since situations are so much different), but the increases we end up with.
Anyone want to try this for a week and see how we end up next weekend?
I agree. I would see it as a challenge. I took a
college class where they posted everyone's ID# and then grades for each test/assignment, etc. You could see where you stood. It was a self-paced course and seeing that a couple of people had already whizzed through and were almost done, and with HIGH scores, made me want to pick up the pace and make sure MY scores were presentable. I didn't want anyone looking at my anonymous scores and saying "What is that person's problem?" I ended up not at the top but near the top. Some people just didn't even turn in assignments at all and had big fat 0s and poor scores on the test and I was thinking "Uh, what was the point in paying for this class if you're not going to try to get a decent grade?" 
Okay, I took your challenge, Amanda. SM
ME: Below-average typing talent. Sad but true. I'm a clutz. Use an expander, though.
I'm paid good but not top-level industry rates.
I work 35 hours per week, not 40.
So-so account, lots of ESL, mixed transcription and editing.
CHALLENGE: Worked in my usual manner for two hours of average work flow, i.e., not fast or slow. One coffee-refill break.
RESULTS: 291 lines per hour X my pay plus incentive = $32/hour = $56K/year for a 35/hour week.
IF I worked 40 hrs/wk, that would be $64K, but I prefer not to. Like you, I do prefer to work fairly intensively while I am working as a tradeoff to a shorter workday.
Good post, Amanda! Back to work now.
Amanda's Challenge
Until two days ago, I had several accounts. One of those accounts I used to smile and call "butta." (As in butter). I've been an MT for close to 30 yrs, Amanda, and this account that was taken away from me had tons of challenging ORs, not colonoscopies, etc. I made great line count--now I have an account that is populated by physicians who don't organize their thoughts before they start dictating, open their mouths and spew absolute nonsense (and the patient's safety is OUR responsibility-HAH). One doc in particular says each sentence at least three times and changes each version subtly (on a verbatim account, yet), leaves sentences dangling, hops all over the place and in general is a pain in the butt. You know, Amanda, I challenge myself every working day and with this latest smack in the head by my employer, I'm thinking of asking my doctor for antidepressants. You're a Republican, Amanda, and you have to act like this general mistreatment of MTs over the last five or so years is our own fault. Sorry, honey, the Obama sign stays on my front lawn.
What do politics have to do with this challenge?
I feel bad that you lost your account, but you don't need to be taking your anger out on other people and start calling them Republicans and blaming her for your belief of the mistreatment of MTs. This was a simple challenge on how to make more money and spend your time wisely.
Definitely challenge it - I've heard of others who have
asked for a review and they were then found to have passed. Go for it.
OP notes are a challenge - just depends if you are determined enough
to learn how to do them. After doing DS, HP, CR and Clinic Notes, I was asked by former National to try to do about 20 OP reports. I was terrified !! Thought I had a good grasp of anatomy, physiolgy, etc, but I'll swear I ended up looking up every instrument, suture, needle, forceps, retractor, etc., & hate to guess how many hours I spent doing those 20 reports (that was before internet resources & my salary was dependent on how much work I did !!). Going from Clinic Notes, etc., to OP reports is not an easy transition - there is a vast difference. I did struggle in the beginning & know it took me a good 6 months before I became comfortable transcribing them. For me, it has ended up being for my benefit. That National, from that time on, only assigned me OP reports. Having since left original National & having searched for a job with different companies stating that I specialized in OP reports, I received unexpected offers at a higher than average cpl pay !
Don't be disillusioned thinking that you can apply for a job doing OP reports after doing Clinic Notes if you have no experience doing such. If you don't have an opportunity to try to learn them in your present job & you're interested in learning such, you might consider getting the SUM practice tapes that have original OP dictation. Just depends on how much you want to learn their terminology & how much effort you're willing to put forth :o) :o).
take Amanda's challenge. it's down a lot of posts with a fire tag.NM
no message.
I'd gladly take the challenge if there was any freaking WORK to do..!
x
I will challenge the law. I am paid by piece work and that is excluded.
sheesh
I challenge you all to host a Halloween/Fall party at your house this year! sm
 You will have an eyeball! I mean, ball.
This will be my 1st, usually my sister-in-law does it. I picked up A Taste of Home's Halloween issue and if that doesn't inspire you to do something this fall, then you might be dead...pun intended.
For dessert I am going to make little witches that will make a neat centerpiece. Here's how you do it: Take 16 large marshmallows, oreo cookies, coconut slivers (for the hair that you dye green with food coloring), Hershey kisses and peanut butter cups (miniature) that will be the top of her hat (place candies on top of oreo chocolate cookie (minus one side of cookie and the frosting). Use pretzels for her broomstick. These things are so cute I can hardly stand it.
2. Spider cupcakes. Use chocolate EVERYTHING and for the legs use 8 small pieces of licorice dangling from the cupcake and anything small and red for the eys (M&M minis) or red icing.
There are tons of ideas and recipes. The main dish will be Witch's Brew Stew and it looks awesome! If you want the recipe, email me. If not, then drop dead.
Oh, and for the kiddies, I will be playing games like pin the stem on the pumpkin and bobbing for body parts (will probably call this game something else), but you fill up a large tin bucket, stain the water black and put things in inside. Each kid takes turns using their hands to try to find 3 things you tell them to find in this nasty mixture of stuff using their HANDS, not mouth.....
So, get your invitations out, dust off your printers and have fun! I'm doing this mid-month, not on Halloween since I am a Christian and we don't celebrate Halloween.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
HELP with Shorthand. Suddenly today when I tried to start work today.sm
my ShortHand would type only the first letter of an expansion and then take all the letters away! I checked and the Type It button is grayed out! I have restarted the computer and looked on the Shorthand Help menu but can find nothing that applies. Can anyone please help me ASAP? I am lost without it! TIA
Perhaps you are right. This one is dated today. The original article was on Yahoo today also with
But this article states it would only affect new customers right now. So I am upset over nothing. I went through heck with BellSouth when they charged me a surcharge of an extra 50 a month and then would write a letter saying I had to switch to a long distance service and pay by the minute because of my "excessive" use. They told me the unlimited charge was for an average of an hour a day not somebody who worked out of their home and I needed to switch a business plan at over 200 a month charge. I switched over to cable because of that and then to read that cable was going to charging on a per use fee and not a flat monthly fee it upset me. It is the nature of our work, VR, only paying for VBC, having headers and footers taken away, now being charged for being on line, etc. It just seems that everything is done to keep to insure less money.
Blasted cold out today. It was 104 degrees last week, but it's 40 degrees today with rain.
However, I do like cozy days like today when I don't have to go anywhere. I'm done working, the house is clean, there's chili on the stove for dinner already, and I'm just putzing around. I think I'll go bake some jalapeno cheese bread to go with the chili.
I am going to see it today!!
nm
Usually twice a day for about 10-15 min BUT today I seem
to have been here more. I'm getting behind though and going to cut outta here until I'm done for the day! LOL
Just a lot of information to pass along to some who really seem to want to know.
WE HAD 73 TODAY!
I don't think I'd make it down south. We had high 90s with humidity for 16 days straight and that was bad enough. Glad it is cool again. 
Don't buy gas today
e-mail because of the high prices and this a national boycott. Wondering if anyone else received or heard this.
doing well today
Just did 1343 lines in 170 minutes but that includes printing, 24 envelopes, looking up names, getting on here three times, doing 3 E-mails to my subcontractor -- at 0.11 per gross line. So I am happy today.
I got another job! For example today
the cherrypicker on the account is not working for some reason so I'm expected to stop working my other job to cover her butt, but that doesn't happen anymore! MDI plays a lot of games, IMO. I am only staying until I know for sure my other job doesn't turn out like them.
Being out of work on my account happens daily. It probably depends on what account you are on.
Experiences are different for everyone. Good luck.
Today, that would mean
Today and many other days. Personally, I think that this is really becoming ridiculous. I'm a car buff and I'm sure that there are many other MTs who are as well, but, I'm sure that people who don't give a darn about cars don't want to come to MTStars and have to sort through tons of posts on cars.
No difference with pets. I don't own any pets and have no desire to do so. If I want to read about pets and whose leg or thigh they are humping and why...I'd go to a pet board somewhere on the internet.
Please, give us a break.
I had this one today...
DOCTOR: "Please send a CC to her primary care physician. I do not know who that is, but send him or her a copy anyway."
No other reports exist for this patient.
Yes, in my spare time I'm a psychic! 
Today was my first day
and I only lost about 250 lines from norm. Real easy to get the hang of, though. (with my notes, anyway :) Good luck!
Today is 6/6/6.
 The devil made me do it!
I had one today too
The doctor said he weights 325 pounds which is (and then he kind of hesitated and then said "too much." (he'll usually say which is up or down so many pounds.) At least some of the doctors say something different than the norm.
Had a doc today that...
had a perfectly understandable conversation with one of the nurses after he had logged on to dictate. I was stunned. I didn't think he could ever possibly speak at a reasonable pace. Of course when he was done with the nurse he had wasted so much precious time he had to dictate his note even faster than usual.
Something hit me today . . .
Recently I had to do a lot of paperwork to enroll my youngest in kindergarten for the 2007-2008 school year. They ask all sorts of questions about family history and specifically who has diabetes, heart disease, blindness, etc. Does this not violate the HIPAA laws? Do I have permission to disclose my grandmother’s health problems to the school? Or my mother’s and father’s? I never really thought about it when I enrolled my older child because I wasn’t a MT at the time and I never really had knowledge about HIPAA in those days. What do you all think about this?
Not my day today -- that is for sure!
 Living paycheck to paycheck these days with the cost of living being so hight and DH being on disability. Today I get my check in the mail – national company—and it does not have a signature on it! I called the office – of course the payroll department had left for the day – it was only 3 something in the afternoon. I was told to physically mail the check back to be signed and they would return it right away. Why not just cut me a new check and mail overnight? Really sick of this place lately. Never did get any resolution of the 60 odd lines I was cheated out of before only weeks ago. Lost a few days work over the last week because the system crashed. *Sigh* I just started a new job on the side. Hope this one has a better track record.
had one today . . .
it was a discharge summary - he said "the patient was admitted for some reason, I really don't know why". The patient was in for renal failure for Pete's sake.
Exactly! Today is my day off and I'm doing...
the laundry and housework, like I would if I were at an office all week. My work days are for working my 8 hours and then picking kids up from school to be with them. I wish half my family would also understand, not that they bother me during the day, but just at gatherings and such...I don't talk about my work. I really believe it's jealousy, and they wished they would have thought of that years ago. But I do agree, it's hard work to still do it at home, just minus the driving and office crap!
Went in today and they...
do want me to start out PT and then after a time, a month or so, would bring me on board full time, if all goes well. This will be at $15.00/hr. I'm excited--this is not what a lot of you make, I'm sure, but it's more (consistently) per hour than I've ever made before. Keeping my fingers crossed it will work out!
Thanks for the replies!
I'm on rad today, and I did get a bad
dictator. On top of that, on several reports he said oh on the one I just did on so and so, order number so and so go back and put such and such at so and so and then remove line so and so and change to such and such. This is not easy to do on Dictaphone EXText. (Not on voice recognition) ARG! I wanna choke him today! Lots of burps and yawns and sniff, snort, cough, hack, wheeze. He has a cold so it's been a real joy to do his dictation today. NOT!!!! 
Thank you. Need to do that today. nm
I'm off today. Want me to think of another
x
What I did today...sm
I had to call Bell South about my internet and DID NOT get someone in Mumbai. First, I thanked her for not being in India, then I told her how I despised speaking to someone in India or some other third-world country about whatever issue I am calling about, then I asked her if she knew that the medical records of American citizens are being transcribed in India, which includes much of their identifying information, and she did not know and did not like it. Next Monday night I am going to bring up the issue at a town hall meeting with one of our state senators and tell him that despite what ole BO says, I LIKE my job and WANT to keep it and do NOT want it offshored!
It's sad that some today consider
manners too much to ask, I agree.
we are not just talking about it more, there is more of it today --
I believe there is a direct connection to the pornography and sexual suggestivity everywhere we turn. I live in a teentsy sized town. I know of one man here who has done 2 prison terms for molestation. Now i learned this a.m. there is another 1-1/2 blocks away, level 3 offender, and yet another moving in across the street...it has always been around, but i am confident there is definitely MORE than ever also.
I can't believe what happened to me today
I was wanting to share this because I can't even believe it happened. I applied for a job at a company who advertizes on this board, took half the test and waited to take the rest, until the weekend. Meanwhile, I got a call for the place and said I did really good on the 1st half of the test and wanted to know if I was going to take the rest. I said I was as soon as the weekend came and I had time because it was the typing part and I knew it would take more time and concentration. She said she wanted to set up an interview with me though for Monday even though I didn't take the rest of the test yet. So I said okay. I took the rest of the test and had my interview on Monday. Tuesday I was offered a job with the company at the top pay level (she said she would recommend me for that job). I put in my resignation with my company and called her back to accept the job. She said thanks and would get with upper management and they would get with me to send me my equipment, etc. Fifteen minutes later, she called me back and said I was not going to be able to work on the level she offered me because my transcription part of the test was so bad and I had too many mistakes. Now, I've put my resignation in at my job and she has really put me in a spot. This just doesn't seem at all ethical, after offering me the job. She has really messed things up for this single mother.
Today's my birthday!!! sm
 just though I'd let ya'll know that! I'm 36!!! WooHoo!  Gonna be wastin' away in Margaritaville tonight! I've earned it!
$1.99 Wednesday, today $2.11 nm
.
off today and bored...
Gas up today again, 2.59 a galloon
xxxx
Today's my Mom's birthday. What do you get for someone
who has everything and needs nothing? I'm never sure which books she has read or not. She likes to pick out her own clothing. She has plenty of flowers and plants. She already has tons of stinky candles and bath stuff. I can't think of anything original. Any ideas? Thank you.
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