I went to career step & graduated 3 yrs ago. I think it prepared me well.
Posted By: peanut on 2005-12-20
In Reply to: Have a friend looking into MT school. Not sure which one is best. - MI-MT
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Career Step
Hi - have any of you received your training from Career Step? If so, would you recommend the program? Thanks for you feedback.
career step
I am considering going to Career Step. I have been working as an MT for a few months now, but I do not feel that the course I took prepared me for the "real" world of transcription. My only question is that I also noticed the price diff in these online courses. That is primarily the reason why I am choosing to go with Career Step. MTec seems like a good school, but they are 3x as much. Will I get just as good an education?
Career Step
It's true, you get what you pay for. Andrews is #1, M-Tec is #2, and Career Step is a distant 3rd.
Career Step
I am attending Career Step. I have also been hired as a MT while still attending. I think the course is good. Good luck!!
M-Tec and Career Step
xx
Career Step
is the largest online school of medical transcription. You can join their forum even if you are not a student so that you can see for yourself what the grads in the forum say about their training. They are in there talking about their jobs all the time. Big companies like Spheris and Medquist and Transolutions hire CS graduates.
Career Step
Have you been to Career Step's website. It is a very friendly community there and you would get lots of support on their forums. www.careerstep.com.
Is Career Step it?!
Any graduates of Career Step? Any information about how you felt about your experience would be greatly appreciated. I was so impressed by the website and information that I have received in the mail. I make $10/hr now in an office job. What are the chances that I can meet this as a grad?
Career Step is IT!
Hi,
I'm a CS graduate and would HIGHLY recommend them. I was so well prepared, I received a job offer in less than 24 hours from one of the top employers, AND I was able to start out in acute care as a grad.
Email me if you have additional questions. CS ROCKS!!!!
Look at Career Step
If you know the content you can take the tests.
Career Step
Career Step is one of the top 3 AHDI-approved schools. If you work well independently at your own pace, it may be a good program for you. It is an online course. I know from experience that employers will hire for at-home transcription work immediately after graduation from CS.
Re: Career Step
Hello,
I just began the Career Step Online Training Course a couple of weeks ago. You answered a question to a concern that I had from the very start. I wondered if they really help the student transition into an at-home MT position upon completion of the course. You stated that "from experience" you can say that they get you to work right after graduation.
If you don't mind me asking, can you give me some feedback on your experience with Career Step, please? How long did it take you to complete the course? How long after completion did you obtain employment at home? Is it fairly easy to understand what the physician is saying as you transcribe? How do they prefer to pay their at home employees? Those are examples of questions I have.
Looking forward to hearing from you! :)
Dianne
Career Step
Don't listen to that "only Andrews or M-TEC" line. Career Step has a great program for much less money, and they do place their graduates.
Career Step?
I have over five years experience in psychiatric transcription. I started at a counseling facility with no experience or training -- just a good command of the English language and a good typist.
Anyway, I went about five years doing no transcription. I recently got a home position doing psych trans. again. I would like to continue working for this company, but broaden my skills in acute/medical. Of course, there is some medical in psych transcription, but limited.
My question is: Has anyone here been through Career Step and is it worth the money? Also, do you think it would benefit, or should I just try to gain experience as I go?
Thanks!!
Career Step
Career Step is a great program for people who prefer self-directed independent study. It is one of the top 3 schools and is approved by AHDI. You do get jobs afer completing the CS final. I had a job within a few days and have had no problems since then finding MT work.
Career Step
Hi. Has anyone used the Career Step program for medical transcription? I am currently working for MQ and received my training while in high school, but my fiance is going to be training with them soon. I was wondering if it was easy to find a job afterward and how you liked the course?
CanScribe/Career Step
Hi,
I'm thinking of taking the CanScribe course, which is the Canadian equivalent to the Career Step program. I was wondering if there are others out there that have taken this program. I would like to get some feedback from those who have. Also, for those of you who are in Canada, what are the work from home opportunities like for MT? I don't want to go through all this and then have little prospect for employment in the end.
Thanks.
Go to M-Tec...more expensive than Career Step, but...
you will be a graduate of THE TOP SCHOOL. You will have many job offers and will be able to chose the one that fits you best. You can't go wrong with M-Tec.
Andrews is also very good. Career Step, while not in the scam-school category, is just a distant, very distant, third place in the MT school race.
Andrews or Career Step?
My SIL is really interesting in taking an MT course. I gave her the phone numbers for both of these schools. She is undecided about which one to go with. It looks like Career Step will be less money, but I've heard Andrews graduates seem to get hired more quickly and are getting the better jobs. Does anybody have experience with either of these schools that can offer some input? Any information would be welcome and appreciated! Thanks!
Career Step has a Coding course
Hi hillbilly!
I am a MT graduate of Career Step but know they have a Coding course as well. I found that CS prepares you extremely well and is definitely worth the $!!!
Go to my website for a packet on the Coding class - www.MTinTexas.com. Feel free to email me and I can get you more information!
Good luck to you!!!
coding course from Career Step
Hi moonlight,
I would recommend checking out Career Step. You can have info mailed to you from my website ... www.MTinTexas.com. Good luck to you!!! :)
Career Step...Regrets?
Anyone go through the Career Step course and then regret it?
Career Step is on myspace now
Just telling you guys if you were grads or whatever, in case you are interested. A CS student friend of mine told me about it today. I went through CS and I loved it. Anyway, like I said, in case you are a myspacer.
myspace.com/careerstep
courses with Career Step
Have you seen the new issue of Women For Hire and the article about MT, how you can be making up to $32/hour and "you control how much you make." They also suggest you go to AHDI website for more info.
Career Step Coding
Has anyone done this course through CareerStep? What did you think? Were you able to get a job when you finished? How long did it take you? TIA
Andrews and Career Step have the best reputations
nm
Is Career Step a legitimate program?
Just finished my certificate at a local college. I probably spent $1000 or more and can't get hired. Just wondering if Career Step would be a waste of $$$ and time?
Andrews, M-TEC, Career Step, in that order.
x
Career Step Foot Pedal
Can anyone tell me what type of foot pedal Career Step uses. I have a friend who is accepting an at-home transcription position and she needs to purchase a foot pedal. She saw one on E-bay and it states that it is a Career Step foot pedal, however, that is all it says. She is needing to purchase an IN-USB-1 foot pedal. TIA
Not anymore. Only Career Step grads without experience
nm
A number of the nationals will hire straight out of Career Step ...
nm
I need step-by-step instructions to make a macro in word that aligns automatic numbered list to the
HELP!!!!! Thanks in advance.
One small step for MTs, one giant step for the US! -nm
.
Follow his directions step-by-step.
Once the Macro is in place, you can add it to your toolbar by right clicking on the toolbar you want it to appear on. Choose customize (bottom of menu). Click on the Command tab and choose Macros from the left-hand side of the box. Find Normal.NewMacros.GetLineStrictCount from the right-hand side of the box. Left mouse click on that macro one time and hold the button down. Drag the command to the toolbar in the location where you want it to be. You should now see a large box with the entire name of the macro inside. Right click on that box for the drop-down menu to change the appearance of that button and you're in business.
Better to take a step up than a step backwards.
Congratulations!
Help! I need step-by-step instructions for MS
When the dictator says "same" for the postop diagnosis, do I have to highlight, copy, and paste from the preop diagnosis, or is there a simple one-step keystone that can be done to automatically copy (hope that makes sense).
CAREER versus JOB--lovin' my CAREER
Career definition:
1. an occupation or profession, esp. one requiring special training, followed as one's lifework:
2. a person's progress or general course of action through life or through a phase of life, as in some profession or undertaking.
3. success in a profession, occupation, etc.
Job definition:
1. A specific task done as part of one's occupation or for an agreed price
2. post of employment; full-time or part-time position: She was seeking a job as an editor.
3. anything a person is expected or obliged to do; duty; responsibility.
Hence, medical transcription requires special training. This is a CAREER.
The report we transcribe is a job with a job number.
I love this CAREER and am proud to be in my 12th year as a medical transcriptionist. I'm not rich, but my consistent $18 to $20 per hour equivalent is pretty darn good in this small town where the cost of living is pretty low.
LOVING MY CAREER!!!! :)
Career? this thing is not a career anymore...sm
this is a sweat shop job right up there with all the illegal sweat shops out there.
Right now, i have no other choice but to do this "job" because with my disabilities, no other place will hire me and I especially cannot work out of the home anymore. Until I can get disability, I guess I will continue to do this job, until we are all phased out by Indian MTs and VR.
Graduated from....
Mandarin High School, Jacksonville, FL
not everyone is like this - my kid graduated
Not everyone buys into/bought into the changes you describe. My kid bought the car with $$ saved/earned when 17. Outside of that, worked full time/still does and goes to school and expects nothing but to move forward in the life and strives to do so.
And we are not a poor family either - just didn't and don't buy into commercialism of every occasion in this country.
Graduated from M-TEC
It cost me about $2600 when I graduated in 2001. Right out of school I made excellent, unheard of money by being paid on a gross line. I was able to top out at around 60K after 4 years, increasing steadily each year. I worked about 60 hours a week, as I knew when these accounts went away I would make *regular* money. They did after 4 years. I now make around 28K a year and work 30 hours a week. You may want to stay where you are!!
I graduated from AHP
Just about 12 years ago I graduated from At-Home Professions and am still doing transcription. I've worked for Medquist for 8 years and worked for a hospital before that. So now you've met a graduate of AHP who is able to do the job. I've learned far more with on-the-job training than I ever did through the program, but just wanted to let you know there are a few of us oddball AHP graduates who are actually productive...
Prepared
Bravo! Well said. I live in Florida. I heard Jeb Bush say the other day that people had plenty of time to stock up for at least 3 days. I cheered - he is so right! I'm tired of all the whining from all the "victims" in this country - people need to take responsibility for their own lives and get on with it. The government should help the people who truly need it - handicapped, elderly, sickly of all ages, but healthy people who take handouts are just irresponsibile and reprehensible.
and be prepared
All I know is in VA they zapped the heck out of me and I had to get a business license to boot. Employee status is a little more restrictive but Im getting money back not paying out over 2000 a year..
18 here. Graduated and then married
two weeks later, still with the same man 16 years later.
I graduated in 1989 (sm)
Good to see someone from back home, though! :)
I graduated CS and do have regrets
The reasons are the same as you have read elsewhere. There are no instructors, but rather an impersonal "grader" that you aren't quite sure you can trust since what might be right one time is wrong the next. There are errors in the material that can make you end up looking like a fool. I had nitroglycerine in my spell check on word for a year before I realized I had added it from a cut and paste report taken out of FOMS and was incorrect. Of course, that is only one example of many. I could go on and on, but I won't. All in all, it is inferior, and I wish I had gone to M-Tec or Andrews so that I could have started out excellently instead of clawing my way there of my own volition.
Fed govt should have been prepared.
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Los Angeles Times
Despite Warnings, Washington Failed to Fund Levee Projects
By Richard A. Serrano and Nicole Gaouette Times Staff Writers Sun Sep 4, 7:55 AM ET
WASHINGTON — For years, Washington had been warned that doom lurked just beyond the levees. And for years, the White House and Congress had dickered over how much money to put into shoring up century-old dikes and carrying out newer flood control projects to protect the city of New Orleans.
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As recently as three months ago, the alarms were sounding — and being brushed aside.
In late May, the New Orleans district of the Army Corps of Engineers formally notified Washington that hurricane storm surges could knock out two of the big pumping stations that must operate night and day even under normal conditions to keep the city dry.
Also, the Corps said, several levees had settled and would soon need to be raised. And it reminded Washington that an ambitious flood-control study proposed four years before remained just that — a written proposal never put into action for lack of funding.
What a powerful hurricane could do to New Orleans and the area's critical transportation, energy and petrochemical facilities had been well understood. So now, nearly a week into the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, hard questions are being raised about Washington officials who crossed their fingers and counted on luck once too often. The reasons the city's defenses were not strengthened enough to handle such a storm are deeply rooted in the politics and bureaucracy of Washington.
With the advantage of hindsight, the miscues seem even broader. Construction proposals were often underfunded or not completed. Washington officials could never agree on how much money would be needed to protect New Orleans. And there hung in the air a false sense of security that a storm like Katrina was a long shot anyway.
As a result, when the immediate crisis eases and inquiries into what went wrong begin, there is likely to be responsibility and blame enough for almost every institution in Washington, including the White House, Congress, the Army Corps of Engineers and a host of other federal agencies.
For example, Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the Corps commander, conceded Friday that the government had known the New Orleans levees could never withstand a hurricane higher than a Category 3. Corps officials shuddered, he said, when they realized that Katrina was barreling down on the Gulf Coast with the vastly greater destructive force of a Category 5 — the strongest type of hurricane.
Washington, he said, had rolled the dice.
Rather than come up with the extra millions of dollars needed to make the city safer, officials believed that such a devastating storm was a small probability and that, with the level of protection that had been funded, "99.5% of the time this would work."
Unfortunately, Strock said, "we did not address the 0.5%."
Corps officials said the floodwaters breached at two spots: the 17th Street Canal Levee and the London Avenue Canal Levee. Connie Gillette, a Corps spokeswoman, said Saturday there never had been any plans or funds allocated to shore up those spots — another sign the government expected them to hold.
Nevertheless, the Corps hardly was alone in failing to address what it meant to have a major metropolitan area situated mostly below sea level, sitting squarely in the middle of the Gulf Coast's Hurricane Alley.
Many federal, state and local flood improvement officials kept asking for more dollars for more ambitious protection projects. But the White House kept scaling down those requests. And each time, although congressional leaders were more generous with funding than the White House, the House and Senate never got anywhere near to approving the amounts that experts had said was needed.
What happened this year was typical: Local levee and flood prevention officials, along with Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.), asked for $78 million in project funds.
President Bush offered them less than half that — $30 million. Congress ended up authorizing $36.5 million.
Since Bush took office in 2001, local experts and Landrieu have asked for just short of $500 million. Altogether, Bush in his yearly budgets asked for $166 million, and Congress approved about $250 million.
These budget decisions reflect a reality in Washington: to act with an eye toward short-term political rewards instead of making long-term investments to deal with problems.
Vincent Gawronski, an assistant professor at Birmingham Southern College in Alabama who studies the political impact of natural disasters, said the lost chances to shore up the levees were a classic example of government leaders who, although meaning well, clashed over priorities.
"Elected politicians are in office for a limited amount of time and with a limited amount of money, and they don't really have a long-term vision for spending it," he said.
"So you spend your pot of money where you feel you're going to get the most political support so you can get reelected. It's very difficult to think long-term. If you invest in these levees, is that going to show an immediate return or does it take away from anything else?"
Gawronski said flood control projects do not have the appeal of other endeavors, such as cancer research and police protection. At the same time, Congress habitually approves billions of dollars for highways and bridges and other infrastructure that politically benefits individual congressmen.
Gawronski called it inexcusable for the United States to have been "gambling so long" that the old levee system in New Orleans would hold.
"Disasters are often low probability, high consequence events, so there's a gamble there," he said. "It's not going to happen on my watch, there's the potential it might, but I'll bet it won't."
In the case of New Orleans and flood control, another factor was at work: the reputation of the Corps of Engineers. Over the years, many in Washington had come to regard the Corps as an out-of-control agency that championed huge projects and sometimes exaggerated need and benefits.
The Corps began as a tiny regiment during the Revolutionary War era; it now employs about 35,000 people to build dams, deepen harbors, dig ditches and erect seawalls, among other things. But critics say some projects are make-work boondoggles.
In 2000, Corps leaders were found to have manipulated an economic study to justify a Mississippi River project that would have cost billions. The agency also launched a secret growth initiative to boost its budget by 50%. And the
Pentagon found in 2000 that the Corps' cost-benefit analyses were systematically skewed to warrant large-scale construction projects.
As a result, said a senior staffer with the Senate Appropriations Committee who spoke on condition of anonymity, requests by the Corps for flood control money were especially vulnerable to budget cutting. "A lot of people just look at it as pork," said the staffer.
The Bush administration's former budget director, Mitch Daniels, was known as an aggressive advocate for Corps reform who cast a skeptical eye on its budget requests.
"The Army Corps of Engineers has a very large budget, and it has grown a lot over recent years," Daniels, now the governor of Indiana, said. "To the extent there's been any limitation of [the Corps'] budget, it has to do with previous tendencies to build marinas and things that don't have much to do with preparing us for disaster."
The Bush White House maintains it never ignored the security needs of the Gulf Coast. "Flood control has been a priority of this administration from Day One," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.
He said hundreds of millions of dollars were spent in the New Orleans area in recent years for flood prevention, and he said the failure of the levees was not a matter of money so much as a problem with drawing the right plans for the dike work and other improvements.
"It's been more of a design issue with the levees," he said.
Other administration officials said there were not enough construction companies and equipment to handle all the work that had been proposed.
John Paul Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, who has responsibility for the Corps of Engineers, said: "It's true, we cannot accomplish all of our projects at full funding all the time. I think that's true of any agency, particularly any public works agency, but we had a lot of work underway in New Orleans, and I was personally supportive of it.
"As a native of Louisiana," Woodley said, "I understand the problems associated with flooding in New Orleans. I don't think there's any lack of support for flood control projects in New Orleans, particularly within the context of other projects around the country."
On Capitol Hill in recent years, several Democrats warned that more money should be marked for the protection of New Orleans. For instance, in September 2004, Landrieu said she was tired of hearing there was no money to do more work on levees.
"We're told, can't do it this year. Don't have enough money. It's not a high enough priority," she said in a Senate speech. "Well, I know when it's going to get to be a high enough priority."
She then told of a New Orleans emergency worker who had collected several thousand body bags in the event of a major flood. "Let's hope that never happens," she said.
But in May 2004, then Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he had visited the levees as a guest of Landrieu and believed them adequate.
He praised the ancient water pumps for keeping the waters from cascading into the city, proclaiming them "these old, old pumps that hadn't been changed since before the turn of the century, that still keep New Orleans dry."
"It was as clean as a restaurant," he added. "These big old pumps work."
Today, eight of those 22 pumps are underwater and inoperable.
Over the years, several projects either were short-changed or never got started. The Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project was authorized by Congress after a rainstorm killed six people in May 1995. It was to be finished in 10 years, but funding reductions prevented its completion before Katrina struck.
The Army Corps of Engineers did spend $430 million to renovate pumping stations and shore up the levees. But experts said the project fell behind schedule after funding was reduced in 2003 and 2004.
The Lake Pontchartrain Project was a $750-million Corps operation for new levees and beefed-up pumping stations. Because of funding cuts, it was only 80% complete when the hurricane hit.
The project that never was started was an examination of storm surges from large hurricanes. Congress approved the study but did not allocate the funds for it.
In May, AL Naomi, the Corps' senior project manager for the New Orleans district, reminded political and business leaders and emergency management officials that a Category 4 or 5 hurricane was always possible. After that meeting, Walter Brooks, the regional planning commission director, came away shaking his head.
"We've learned that we're not as safe as we thought we were," he told the local newspaper, the Times-Picayune.
Last week, Corps commander Strock defended past work, saying, it was his "personal and professional assessment" that work in New Orleans was never underfunded. What he meant by that, he explained, was that no one expected such a large disaster before all the renovations and other improvements could be completed.
"That was as good as it was going to get," he said. " We knew that it would protect from a Category 3 hurricane. In fact, it has been through a number of Category 3 hurricanes."
But, he said, Katrina's intensity "simply exceeded the design capacity of the levee."
Asked whether in hindsight he wished more had been done, Strock said: "I really don't express surprise in my business. We don't sit around and say 'Gee whiz.' "
Times staff writer Mary Curtius contributed to this report.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20050904/ts_latimes/despitewarningswashingtonfailedtofundleveeprojects
Be prepared to pay big bucks - nm
nm
Also true... but bid low and be prepared to do it yourself...sm
because the lower you bid, the less likely you're going to find a quality MT who will do it for you for less that what you bid it.
That's all I'm saying. I know that's the way it's going... it's going that way everywhere... doesn't mean we have to take the lower pay. There are good paying jobs out there, you just have to look a little harder to find them. There are MTSOs who won't bid too low to pay their good MTs a decent rate and they should be commended.
Not difficult if you are prepared sm
but also you have to be prepared to stick it out until your income picks up. You're not going to come out of the box making huge bucks right away. I find that MT is something you either love or you hate, no inbetween. Read the boards and look at the comments. Check out the new MT/student board and see what they're saying. Quite honestly, anyone that has asked me about going into MT recently I've suggested they find another career as MT ain't what it used to be. Good luck to you though.
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