Inside gives a summary of cuts about to come
Posted By: SM on 2006-06-12
In Reply to: Cranky staff is not your imagination. - SM
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House Passes Budget Bill with Biggest Cuts in Medicaid, Medicare
Cuts $99.3 billion over 10 years - 27% from Medicaid, 23% from Medicare.
Feb. 1, 2006 – It's done. The House has passed and sent to President Bush the budget reconciliation bill that was strongly opposed by most senior citizen advocacy groups and newspaper editorials due to the deep cuts it makes in Medicaid and Medicare. It was a very close vote – 216 to 214. The bill cuts the budget by $38.8 billion over five years – 50 percent of the cuts are in Medicaid and Medicare.
Related Stories
Final House Vote on Budget Bill Could Cut Billions from Senior Programs
Passage expected Wednesday to cut Medicare, Medicaid
Jan. 30, 2006 – The Budget Reconciliation Bill, which many see as making drastic cuts in government programs for senior citizens – Medicaid and Medicare, is expected to hit the House floor on Wednesday for a final vote, the day after the President's State of the Union address. As reported today by the Capitol Hill Watch at KaiserNet.org, the bill will reduce federal spending by $99.3 billion over 10 years, with half of that coming from these senior programs. The Congressional Budget Office analysis says premiums for Medicaid beneficiaries in the bill could cause 110,000 to lose coverage by 2015. Read more...
Senate Budget Chair Calls for More Cuts in Medicare
Republicans to recycle old failed issues in 2006
Jan. 26, 2006 – The Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee is calling for more cuts in health care programs in fiscal 2007, which includes Medicare, according to The Daily Health Policy Report by KaiserNetwork.org, which cites CQ Today. The daily news summary says Republicans will also be targeting health care proposals this year, but most are proposals that have failed in the past. Read more...
• Homecare Industry Rallying Support to Kill Reconciliation Act
• Television Campaign to Stop Health Care Cuts for Seniors Launched by AFSCME
• Vote on Budget Set for Feb. 1; Senior Groups Seek to Sway GOP Moderates
The House first passed the bill on Dec. 19, 2005, by a vote of 212-206. It went to the Senate, where it passed by only one vote – 51-50. Due to procedural changes in the Senate, it had to go back to the House for this final vote. There was intensive lobbying by the senior citizen advocates and others since the Senate vote on Dec. 21, 2005, but they came only four votes closer.
The final vote was mostly along party lines, with Republicans supporting the bill and Democrats in opposition.
AARP CEO, Bill Novelli, quickly issued the following statement:
"Last night, in his State of the Union Address, the President said, "Keeping America competitive requires affordable health care. Our government has a responsibility to help provide health care for the poor and the elderly, and we are meeting that responsibility."
"Today the U.S. House of Representatives has turned a cold shoulder to that responsibility by further limiting eligibility for Medicaid, a program that serves the neediest -- the disabled, children, the poor and the elderly. It also approved a provision in its budget that will deny long-term care coverage to those who give money to charities, churches and family members in need.
"Working with our members, AARP will continue the fight to have this ill-conceived policy reversed."
The bill would save $99.3 billion over 10 years, with half of that coming from Medicaid and Medicare - 27% from Medicaid and 23% from Medicare.
There's also $1 billion in new spending to extend an income subsidy program for dairy farmers and a reprieve for physicians who had faced a 4 percent cut in Medicare fees, according to the Associated Press.
A major boost to opponents was an estimate issued by the Congressional Budget Office estimating that 45,000 Medicaid beneficiaries would lose their coverage in FY 2010 because of higher premiums in the bill. The CBO report also estimated 65,000 beneficiaries would lose coverage in FY 2015.
Children would account for 60% of the Medicaid beneficiaries who would lose coverage, according to the report.
The report also estimates that 13 million Medicaid beneficiaries would have new or higher copayments for services such as physician visits and hospital care. In addition, 13 million Medicaid beneficiaries would pay more for prescription drugs by 2010, and 20 million would pay more by 2015, the report states.
According to the report, "About 80% of the savings from higher cost-sharing would be due to decreased use of services." The report estimates that 1.3 million Medicaid beneficiaries would have to pay premiums and that 1.6 million would lose benefits, most likely for dental, vision and mental health services.
In addition, the report estimates that 15% of Medicaid long-term care beneficiaries would have their coverage delayed because of additional restrictions on asset transfers.
The asset transfer provisions in the bill would impose punitive new restrictions on the ability of the elderly to transfer assets before qualifying for Medicaid coverage of nursing home care. (Click here to read these provisions.)
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Death summary on someone who...
had died for the same disease as my dad, lymphoma. The summary went through the last month of her life and the hospital stay. At that time, my dad was not in the hospital, but was showing these same signs. So, I knew what was forthcoming for him. And, needless to say, it happened the same way with very few changes. Talk about a tear jerker and a tough one to type.
Discharge summary TAT?
What is the minimum and maximum TAT for discharge summaries have you had?
Death summary
Dr. dictates:
Reason for Death: Incompatibility with life.
Under the summary points
This statement was my favorite, and I do hope a lot of companies read this survey and learn from it!
"Speech-recognition technology is only a transcription tool, and not a transcription replacement. The job involves too much professional intelligence and sense-making ability to have it migrate completely to speech recognition."
I honestly don't think a company should be able to lower our rate of pay because of VR...We are still responsible for sitting and listening and correcting mistakes...although I have been fortunate enough not to have my company have any accounts that use VR yet...but I have a friend and her company is doing VR, and her rate of pay is ridiculous!
Short Stay Summary
For those of you who work in acute care, work type does your facility use for short stay summary? HP or DS?
Years ago I did a death summary by a GI doc.
I don't think GI docs are used to having patient's die and I don't know if it was his first patient to die not, but he was crying so hard at the end of thedictation it was hard for him to dictate. I think he was in his second year of practice, so around 30. I can't remember he if made a statement or not, but I'll always remember him crying.
Same here. Separate worktype for Short Stay Summary.
x
We got cuts when we went to VR.
nm
And we got cuts when we went on DQS.
 Actually, I guess you can't say they gave us an actual pay cut, HOWEVER, you sure don't make the money you made on the old platform. That also isn't true because you can make the same money - it just takes LOTS longer. In my eyes, that is a pay cut.
MQ pay cuts
I'm rather new to this board, so forgive me if this has already been discussed. I work for MQ as a SE and received the "letter" but I know nothing about pay cuts. Have I missed something?
Yes, they do so many more cuts because...
they have to do them so fast to keep up the quota. I reluctantly took my 2 kids there a couple weeks ago and yet again (it happened a couple years ago too), they could not even trim a child's hair. I actually had to send my daughter back to the chair because there were long pieces of hair hanging down past the level of her hair. My other daughter looked like she went 3 rounds with a weed whacker... I had to pay more money to have it fixed at another place. This was 2 different stylists, more than one event. They are know in the stylist world as "chop shops" I have gone cheap and I have paid more and I can definitely tell the difference.
There need to be cuts
What's wrong with someone receiving medicaid paying a copayment? I hear grumbling over this all the time, but you sure see some of them in the grocery store buying an expensive 24 pack of beer, yet they want to complain over paying a 10.00 copay? Medicaid was designed to be temporary assistance, not a way of life. I have no problem with helping lower income, but not handouts. I have neighbors in their 20s, healthy as horses, who don't even try to work. They have 4 children with them, the husband has 2 by other women, and they collect 700 a month in stamps plus 300 in cash because she claims he doesn't live there. They do NOTHING, nada
As for Medicare, I believe if retirees make over a certain income they should not be eligible at all. I read that even retired movie stars worth millions of dollars get full medicare benefits.
Cuts
I used to work for Kodak and as most everybody knows they went through years of layoffs and always around this time of year. The reasoning for it was that the department heads had to have their budgets in for the following year and so you had to cut everyone before the new year started. It sucks but that is they way corporate America works.
Dee
MQ pay cuts, My Two Cents
When MQ first bought up the smaller co. I was with, all of the accounts were still intact. I was pleased when my office (Baltimore now, but at that time, still in the Herndon area) offered up increased pay differential for an extremely difficult account.. hallelujah, I thought... and thought that all the worries I had about the Big Bad MT Company eating up the small company I was with were maybe unwarranted. I jumped on this opportunity to actually get paid for doing more difficult work - but was told by my supervisor, well, you already make too much money per line (actually, per 1,000 characters at the time). She of course welcomed me to the account at regular pay - I passed!
Add in that I have not had a pay raise since this same time frame (7 years) ... not exactly a direct pay cut, I guess, and add in the seemingly unprovable decreased pay over the last 7 years... well, that's my 2 Cents. None of it makes sense.
Possible pay cuts, my experience so far
I have been with MQ since 1998 and have 20 years experience as an MT, editor, and MT instructor. I currently make 10 cents per line and in past yrs have been told I am at the top of various tiers also, so not eligible for raise (for life??) bonuses (some, not all), etc. I too received the letter mentioned above, the one about rewarding "YOU for your skill and performance."
I am still on INET, though attempted without success to move to DQS (only have dial-up available where I live, and the ADT searches and other processes were a nightmare without some sort of high-speed internet). In the process of almost going to DQS, my pay conversion remained the same, 10 cents per line. Though this may sound higher than others are making, I have been making the same thing for 8 years now - but yes, compared to what I see on this board that other MQ-ers are making who have same experience or more, I am grateful and surprised. The company I was with that MQ bought out gave us decent raises, and I had just received one before MQ acquired us, and it carried over, thankfully. Little did I know it would be my last raise for that many years.
Anyway, I eventually will have to go to DQS even on dial-up, pay an arm and a leg for satellite, or quit and go to a new company - all options, woohoo, involve pay cuts. I can't even imagine an additional pay cut for ASR, as this makes no sense to me. ASR is an AID, no different than Expander programs (do we get paid less for other things that make us more productive??!) We should get paid for whatever characters/lines we modify on an ASR report and get paid the same as we would for doing straight MT work. Maybe this has already been said here, sorry if repeat!
So, I am wondering what they will knock my pay down to when I finally get over to DQS and get put on the ASR reports... I'm not sure I will accept this pay cut either.
On another note, I am glad for those of you who are getting paid so well by MQ, have great supervisors, have lots of work, and just love DQS - that is great, it truly is. But, it's simply not that way for a lot of the rest of us. I appreciate being able to speak of my true experience here on this board. So, thanks for listening.
MQ pay cuts, more info
I just got a call from Corporate and I asked them specifically if they were going to cut the charges to the client the same amount of the pay cuts to the employees and she said Yes, they are............... I found that interesting  as long as it is indeed true.
She only cuts 3. By hand. That's all.
x
Short cuts
Ctrl U - underline
Ctrl A - blocks all
Ctrl S - saves
Ctrl X - deletes
Ctrl C- copies
Ctrl V - pastes
. . . and my favorite Ctrl Z - brings back something you accidental delete.
I hardly ever use my mouse as it breaks my rhythm and slows me down. If I think of anymore I will send them your way. Did you know that if you hold down your Ctrl key and use the arrows you can move around a document that way?
short-cuts
I've lost my short-cuts...could I have hit a key on my keyboard? Thanks!!
ME versus MT, the pay cuts only apply to
those who do ASR (automated speech recognition), now being referred to by MQ at ME (Medical Editors). If you do not do ASR it would not apply, if you do you should receive a letter stating a 20% pay cut for same, or option to quit doing it at all and just do MT.
That is true of ANY job. Cuts happen everywhere.
Companies do the same thing consumers do: Look for ways to get the most for less. It's actually a rather natural process.
Any job can change in its direction, its stability, etc., as our economic, technologic and global relationship status change constantly.
The only security anyone has is to be prepared with continuing education in more than 1 field, low debt load, high savings -- really living within your means, and keep good insurance.
JMO
We do use dx for diagnosis, and all the short cuts expanders
dd
Radiology MTs - Major cuts in outpatient
imaging by Congress - called the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Signed by Bush in December. Over five years will amount to 20 Billion dollars cut from outpatient imaging payments for Medicare and medicaid patients. This will have a ripple effect. Private insurers soon will follow suit. Posted the DRA but it was removed by Administrator.... This will have a detrimental effect on us all, as cuts will begin occurring in every aspect of radiology.
Here is a comprehensive article. Please do not remove this post for one day, Administrator. This will impact MTs in radiology significantly.
imagingBiz.com - The Information Service of the Imaging Center Institute
This way works, too, but using the ;yo or ;py cuts down on hitting the spacebar
nn
Cuts in medicare and medicaid are about to take place
I have mentioned this but it was always deleted as I think the monitor thought I was talking politics.
There will be a marked decline in coverage for services to medicare and medicaid patients and I believe to offset this, medical facilities are finding ways to cut costs.
The cuts will be significant. You could do a Google search for Deficit Reduction Act. Radiology will be most severely hit, especially stand alone facilities.
DQS short-cuts to Word 2003? HELP!
Does anyone know how to do this. I have been searching and searching for info and cannot find anything. Please help! Thanks. 
Acusis is giving workers 30% pay cuts?
XX
Love the serrated bread knife! Cuts everything!! nm
s
Please back you info up. Pay cuts have not been announced. Have you received a letter? nm.
nm.
Ummm--read her post again, please--it don't say *keyboard* short cuts..it says *word* shortcuts
duh!
Depends on the file format of the Short Cuts file.
ShortHand comes with a utility file that can import various formats. You can get that file with the trial download of SH.
Depends on the file format of the Short Cuts file.
ShortHand comes with a utility file that can import various formats. You can get that file with the trial download of SH.
10% to 15% MTs are cutting pay cuts or thats how much they are cutting from everyone's pay?
Know any good companys that are hiring? LOL
Yes, see inside
Go to Google and type in Career Step and Andrews School. These are the two best. Most companies will hire grads from these schools right out of training. Good luck to you! 
on to or onto? See inside
She fell directly on to/onto her buttocks and since that time has been experiencing lower back pain.
Inside.
I was hired by MQ to work at home. It took four months for me to complete the program. I passed MQ's test and was hired as a regular employee, not a trainee or intern. They were confident I could do the job based on my test scores and previous nonmedical work experience.
Do they have both? (see inside)
I'm an SE with them. Yep, I have a schedule but it's compacted into 3 days. I'm allowed to work all I want past my line requirement. Usually, I do get on at the end of the payperiod to see what extra dollars I can get on my check. I was encouraged to do that.
My prod sup said that they especially have so many people who won't pull their schedules and won't cover weekends that she'd never deny me work.
Didn't know they had ICs as well. Thought SEs like me were the only ICs MQ had.
Learned something new!
Inside
Not just AAMT, doc preference, client preference, standard of the year
Don't look inside,
x
We used to have one inside and one out
but now we live in a small condo, so just one...
See inside
http://www.onelook.com
This has all the dictionaries if you are in doubt of a word. One of the best sources around. Also includes medical dictionaries too, though arousable is not one I would look in the medical dictionary for as it can be verified in Webster's or any of the other good dictionaries.
Hi! See inside
I think you can make more money on clinic notes as they are easier...even though you usually get less per line, you can usually pump out the lines quicker. There was a recent discussion on the hosp/clinic board about this. Here is the addy, but I'll add the link below too.
http://forum.mtstars.com/medical_transcription/v/9/80.html
See Inside Please
http://www.icq.com/img/friendship/static/card_16961_rs.swf
See inside. sm
Decent pay but the worst accounts ever to work on! If you have EXCELLENT ESL experience you will do okay.
see inside
Some accounts use wav pedal, some use C-phone. You can probably rent either from them if you don't have one. You use your own computer.
See inside.
It was from Jan. 3rd. It read:
It is so easy to convince yourself you cannot make as much money at a different company or on a different account, or never find anything better, so you stay where you are, taking all the abuse in the world. In management, this is called the Golden Handcuff, and they rely on it to keep the same employees, never give a raise, never give respect, and just continue to walk all over you.
In this profession you are very mobile if you can transcribe at all. It may take a month to get used to a new system, a new account, or whatever, but your self respect is worth it in the end. There are a lot of companies out there that actually do appreciate employees, and it certainly does not seem to be any of the companies who are mentioned frequently on these boards.
I changed jobs about a month ago, thought I would never learn, but in a week I was making far more with a small MTSO than I ever did with a large company. Treat yourself to a new beginning and a new year.
Hope this helps.
see inside--sm
http://www.hipaa.org
do a Google search for mp count, could not find it in my favorites folder. Or try mpcount.com should bring it up.
No and yes....Please see inside
I am saying that this horrible thing could have been prevented. My sister woke up in the morning to her partially eaten chickens (whch are actually her pets) because the coyotes got to them. She called feed stores and even the county to find a way to solve the problem. Somewhere along the way someone gave her the following idea. Her husband and some friends dug down a couple feet into the ground and put plywood straight down into the ground around the chicken coop. This has worked 100%.
I am saying that if this was the first time her dogs had gotten out, there would've been no fault to her. But, since this wasn't the first time she could have fixed the problem. Worst case scenerio she could have a pen for the dogs to keep them in.
I hesitated in even responding because I knew I would get the reaction you gave, but if this could prevent her other dog from being a victim it is worth it (or any other dog for that matter).
My heart breaks for her.
See inside
I envisioned renting a studio in the little town near by. My radiology job I have now is with a national and I am making about 50G together with the PT job but...PAC system has just been installed and VR is being introduced. Imaging facilities are facing cuts in Medicare patients (20% of business) so I know they will look at transcription for cuts.
I am still contemplating this. They need 13 and so I think I have a few months to consider this. Am in Visalia.
Yes, the atmosphere is a consideration as well. Where are you working if I may ask?
Yes; see inside.
For you to send e-mail to another poster, they must have filled out the e-mail section in posting. You would click on "Reply By E-Mail" and send your e-mail.
If you want to receive e-mail, do as you have done so that the "Reply By E-Mail" option is available.
If you have any questions, let me know and I'll help you.
Goldbird
Yes. See inside
If you are starting a thread: Enter your e-mail address in the e-mail field and then check the box that says "Notify me on above e-mail address if someone replies to my post".
If you are replying to a post and want to be notified of further replies, do not use "Post QUICK reply". Instead, scroll down a little further and click on the button that says "Post a reply to this message", and follow the same steps as for starting a thread.
Let me know if you have any problems or questions.
Goldbird
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