If you want to work at a local hospital or doctor's office, go to community college. Otherwise
Posted By: deb on 2007-09-21
In Reply to: medical transcription certification - Dale Carlyon
if you want to work from home, for a national company, you need to take the course from either Andrews School or M-TEC. It does you no good to save money by taking the Penn Foster course, because most companies will NOT hire grads from that school, it is a poor course and does NOT prepare you sufficiently for MT work.
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Your local community college...
It will cost a **** of a lot less, and your education will be just as good. Many will tell you that you only get help in job placement, externship, be ready to work, etc. via Andrews, etc., but that's just not true because they just don't know any better. Besides, that's a great sales pitch/gimmick, isn't it?
In learning this field, you need a classroom setting and hands' on experience/instruction. You'll see exactly what I mean when you get in the thick of it, or even starting out in learning it, for that matter.
I went to a local community college
I started working for a small local MTSO.
Local community college nm
x
Check out your local community college -SM
I can't speak for all of them, but the one I went to offered externship programs and job placements for their best and brightest students. An acquaintenance of mine also got her MT training at a local college, and they did the same thing. Be careful, however, of the online courses. They cost a lot of money - much, much more than your local college, and you won't get the hands-on training or be able to get your questions answered in a flash with them as you would in an actual college setting. Also, an associate's degree at a college is much more impressive than admitting you received your training via an online course. That, to me, just sounds so "fly by night." 
I vote for local community college.
If you attend a community college, it helps to network. If you do on-line training, you won't have the social part of your training. Also, it helps to try and find an on-site position at first to gain the knowledge although since you are already in a clerical position, you probably know more about anatomy and the hospital/medical setting than you even think. I wish you all the best. Another good thing about a local community college is that sometimes they know of great jobs because the teachers are also employed or know of jobs. You will have a certificate of training in an MT program, but a certified MT is done through the AAMT or whatever it is now, and is not worth the money in my opinion. You wind up after paying a few hundred dollars getting to put CMT after your name, but not when you transcribe a report. For example, even CMTs cannot put XXX/xxx, CMT if you catch my drift. 
I graduated from a local community college. sm
Had my first job before graduation but it was in-house with hourly pay and great benefits. Those are very hard to find anymore. I worked in-house for my first 2 years and then went on maternity leave picking up side work through a company for more income. Realized I was tripling my money going from hourly to production by that time, turned in my notice, and never looked back. Been at home ever since. If at all possible, in the beginning I would recommend to anyone to work inhouse even if it is for a transcription company. The value of having other "ears" is definitely not something to take for granted. I also learned as much as I could while getting that hourly pay as time is money when on production. I have to say I probably would not be near as proficient of an MT today had it not been all those hours learning and having another ear around to help out when stuck.
You bring up a point too though that I haven't really thought about before....With all the transcription being outsourced out of the office, it is only going to get much more difficult for anyone to get those breaks and get the required "experience" as a beginner.
I'm going to a local community college for culinary arts, I'm 52. nm
xxx
Your local community college. Just as good and a heckofalot cheaper!
Either one are 9 month courses at the local community college..worth a shot!
!!!
How about your local community college and save a heap of money & get just as good of an education?
Pharmacy tech 15 weeks, polysomnography 7 month course at local community college..worth a shot!
!!!
I'd suggest you look for a local doctor's office if you
want no ESL. If you do acute care you're going to have ESLs.
Depends on what kind of hospital? Large urban hospital or small community hospital? SM
Also, is it a large teaching hospital? If so you have to consider there will be A LOT of different residents dictating, usually a lot of ESLs at teaching hospitals, and the residents rotate out and new ones rotate in every summer. So you can't expect to get the same dictators and build up your macros because the dictators change all the time.
I would say 9 cpl would be a pretty good offer for a small to medium community hospital where you will be doing the same dictators on a daily basis. But for bigger, urban or teaching hospitals I would want at least 12 to 15 cpl.
I work for a local hospital,
not a company. I know to stay away from Transcend.
local hospital work
i moved from a large city to a small town and i'm thinking about doing what you did. try to go to work for the local hospital. would have to probably work a set schedule, but the town is small so it's not like i'd be driving a long distance and i could go home for lunch. i don't have benefits right now and that's scary, so i'm leaning that way.
I also work for a local hospital which is
growing in volume of work minute by minute. We have 52 remote transcriptions and still we need to send out work to two venders.
Who me? No, I work for a local nephrology office.
Never worked for Spheris.
I also went to a community college
and never had any problems finding a job. In fact, I got my first job at home before I was even finished with school. I took all my classes online and have worked from home for the past 3 years here with my kids. I say go for it!
Given by a community college? What school is
z
I was fortunate with community college
I took courses through my local community college's continuing education program. The instructors were people who worked in the medical field during the day and taught at night. By doing exceptionally well in the classes and being a model student, I was recommended by a couple of the instructors and got a start at the office where one instructor worked before I even finished my transcription class.
Once I got my foot in that first door, I've been working steadily and successfully ever since. I had only a couple of classes under my belt!
The approved schools are probably the best chance for work after graduation, but opportunities can arise wherever you train.
I went through Bellevue Community College
Also the CareerStep program online with once a month meetings if we lived close. Got a Sallie Mae grant. Got hired by MQ right out of school (after testing). Careerstep is one of the best schools and one of the only ones you can get hired straight out of school. I would not really recommend transcription anymore, though. It is not the job it used to be, paywise. Coding is still good pay I hear.
Everett Community College
online has a transcription course and since it is a community college, should be able to get financial aid. Try that. Google it.
I actually borrowed a set from the library at the community college here.
I used them as long as I needed to, then returned them.
I work in-house for doctor's office now and Love My Job!
Good Luck. I accepted an in-house position at a doctor's office after being laid off from a very large hospital. It is wonderful to be able to go and ask the doctor questions and get feedback directly from them. It really is the way to go now instead of working for the really big transcription companies. I feel like I am appreciated.
When I said vo-tech, I meant community college just in case you were wondering (nm)
nm
Went to community college too..had a job in-house within 2 months, the first and only place I applie
//
community college. those online courses/schools are not very good and
very expensive.
but don't do it just to work at home.
Hi! Went through a similar thing at a smaller community hospital....sm
in the state...all the same set-up as you stated, but the coders, who shared our office, were also the darlings of the hospital and were treated differently. When pressed for an answer, the head of HIM said that between us, the coders were seen differently because they were responsible for bringing lots and lots of money into the hospital, their coding "properly" translated in to billing, which translated into $$$ for the hospital...all the while, the coders, in part, depended on back-up from our department when trying to decide which code was most appropriate. Since your working conditions would be changing if you are sent home, I think it is entirely reasonable and very intelligent to ask them for a new job description, I always love to have things in writing for future reference. You sound like a very productive MT, so don't worry...I didn't have to worry about speech recognition at this hospital cutting down on pay, but is there an HIM head whom you could all have a small meeting with to clarify these questions? It would be nice to put your mind at ease. Hope it all works out and you have the best of BOTH worlds, Granny!
My SIL finished a course at a local college
She got a job on-site and could be sent home, but she has decided to cross-train for a management position. If she takes it, the salary is $65,000.00 per year. So tell me there isn't money in this business. She just finished her course!!!
I went to a local business college which sucked.
My first job was a p.r.n. position with a local hospital filling in for vacations and people off sick. That's where the real education came from.
See if your local college has an MT program that you can just take certain units of, like terminol
s
I probably read about it on MSN or someone mentioned it to me. Maybe call local college or JUCO
?
Well, not really. In college I did a gruelng intership at a local express emergency clinic and got p
gas, lunch, uniform, etc., AND the head doctor ended up sexually harrassing me! I kid you not! So, I don't think anyone without any experience getting paid 3 cents to learn MT in their own home setting is half bad.....It could be worse. They could ask you to do it for free.
PS: My college major was nursing.
local hospital
I work for a local hospital that have all transcriptionists at home except for radiology. I have been working from home with them for about 8 years now. We are hourly employees and clock in and out on computer. We also have an incentive program (which used to be good, but they changed transcription platforms and it's not that good anymore), but it's better than having to drive into the hospital every day. I love it!
local hospital
I worked for local hospital for 11 years, then they decided to go to ASR and the Q took over their account! Seems like most hospitals are finding it more cost-effective to send it to large company with ASR!
I had a local hospital do the same s/m
even after explaining to them what E&O really meant. Their previous transcription company had E&O, but that was because they had to have it for their copying services as well and the transcription just fell under it. I found that Farmers carries it, but it was around $1,500 for a year. They did have payment plans though too.
Best of luck!
If you are that slow, why don't you stop in some local doctor's offices, pt, chiropractic, etc
do their backlog? That has always kept me extremely busy.
So did I!!! I left a local hospital
because I thought I could make more money working for the nationals. Ugh, I threw away a good thing. I tried to go back, but they said I'd have to start all over at the bottom working night shift again. Not gonna happen. Well, chin up, things will get better.
at my local hospital, they always call the
I think that is pretty standard. Calling by the first name only would be rather confusing. Especially if it is a busy hospital with a waiting room that is always full, like our local hospital.
I have a "questionable behavior" story for you! I went to the walk-in clinic held at our local hospital b/c I was having pain in my pinky finger. The waiting room was packed, as always. I go in, see the doc, and he tells me to go back to the waiting room until they call my name again. After a few mins in the waiting room, he calls my name & I get up thinking he was going to bring me into a room to privately give me my diagnosis. NOPE! The dope says it to me, loudly - not at all in a whispering tone, in the middle of the waiting room for everyone to hear!! He said "I think it is some kind of fungal infection" His actions were not only humiliating, but wrong! It was not an infection, rather a blood clot that developed on my nerve that needed to be removed surgically! Now, that, I think qualifies for a HIPAA violation!!  (Yes I did file a complaint with the Patient Care Rep)
Local Hospital Accounts
I actually work for a Hospital Transcription Dept. My advice is to ask for the supervisor of transcription or Director as they usually have one or the other.
I actually had a person(who I know was from an outsourcing company from overseas) called and aske me if we were doing any outsourcing. We told her we were not interested, but I actually do send some out to an outsourcing company already. Just wasn't going to do that.
Alot of hospitals around where I live usually are small and have in house transcriptionists. The only reason we have our outsourcing is for people on vacation and when some emergency comes up and we fall short.
Carla
local hospital accounts
do any of you IC people have any tips on what is the best approach on how to find out info on who does transcription for local hospitals? Thanks!
I worked at a local hospital
It had its good points and bad points. The good being it paid better and had better benefits than most outsourcing companies. We had a 4 tier incentive program. The lowest pay being 0.087 and the highest being 0.10 cpl. You had a choice of working in-house or at home and we were all paid the same either way. Also, if there was little work or no work you had the choice of using PTO or working in medical records at an hourly rate which gave us a little break from MT and a feel for something else.
The bad, if you were at home they would pull you in at any time just because. Also, at home we had a lot of problems with their computer locking up, getting kicked off the VPN, slow moving from one screen to the next etc. The tech support always blamed it on our ISP. Also, they always made sure you never moved up to the next pay tier. Only their favorite ones could do that. They made excuses of why you cannot move up even though the numbers were there. The one they used on me was that I took off a day during the last 6 weeks. They told another girl she walked around in the halls and talked too much to bump to the next level. However, if you did not get your line count they were all over moving you down. 
Look at your local hospital's websites
jobs open. The reason you don't see them advertised is a lot of hospitals outsource all their dictation. But some still have in-house (or at home) MTs.
When I worked at a local hospital
this happened. I just transcribed it like any other report. I would not even mention it to the family member. When you work for a small local hospital it is bound to happen.
Wanna tell that to the local hospital MTs whose....sm
...staff was just decreased because EHR came to town? They were told only a few would be staying now because even in the hospital most reports could be handled by EHR. I think you need to reserve your opinion till we really find out what O has in mind for this field.
Doctor's office also in CT
I am also in CT in the Hartford area and I have not seen an MT job for ages. I used to work in a hospital for years in Hartford and saw a job on Career Builders.com. It has been there forever so not sure if it was ever filled.
Hopefully my doctor's office
hasn't sent anything there recently. Well maybe their place of employment will have to close and THEY will have to lose THEIR jobs. Karma sucks...
New doctor in the office
I picked up my work this morning from one of the four offices I type for (yes, some of us do still pick up work, I'm from ancient times, I know :). The doctor hired another doctor to work in his office with him. Don't you think it is not very nice not to let you know that? I'm grateful, and can use the extra money, but surprise surprise!
New doctor in the office
I also pick up tapes from 3 offices. I like doing it this way. I would be very happy if another doctor joined one of my groups. I guess it's better than the other way around.
I worked at home for the local hospital here.
It was fine. They paid hourly and provided equipment. We had plenty of work and had to stick to a set schedule. They do use a service or two for overflow, but it is strictly overflow. The hospital still has employees working at home. They don't ALL outsource. (And ironically, some hospitals are taking back their transcription and hiring in-house and at-home MTs!)
Had a doctor once at the hospital sm
fall asleep during dictating and he said to put barbecue sauce on the patient's wound and bake it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. He'll never live it down.
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