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It is clinic ortho notes , same doctor, very easy dictator

Posted By: Tracey on 2007-12-12
In Reply to: Too many variables - Patti

I am supposed to be p/t and he dictates between 30-50 min a day, many times 50-70 min even. It takes me many hours since I am a newbie. The paychecks just don't seem worth it for the amount of time that I am putting in.



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clinic is not walk-in or ER notes; it is clinic
could be a small clinic with just famiy practice, internal medicine, maybe physical therapy, or it could be like mine, large, every speciality, cardio, nephro, neuro, ortho, endo, surgery, ENT, podiatry, ophtho, derm...
I just got a really great job typing ortho notes and NO ESL! Yippee!
ppppppppp
Pay question $2/page--ortho clinic
This is a subcontracting position.  Is this good?  I usually get paid by the line so I am clueless.  Thanks in advance!
I think clinic/ ER notes sm

would be a good place to start, either working as an IC/employee for a national or getting your own accounts.


 


Good luck!


Do you get more LPH with clinic notes or Ops? nm
x
only clinic notes can have
an actual name in a report.  hospital reports should never have an actual name but instead just have * the patient *.  hipaa rules.
Yes, it is clinic notes...sm
I also have an extensive list of Expanders that I wouldn't doubt was well over 20,000. I've been building it for the last 11 years working at home. I don't even type out the word with (wi).

I appreciate your response and the boost.
Clinic notes

Mostly clinic notes from my experience:


S - subjective


O - objective


A - assessment


P - plan


 


Clinic notes
I have always done acute care.  If you get a good line rate, could you make good money doing cardiology clinic notes.  I was not sure since you have letters too. 
I do clinic notes...sm
Clinic notes are a lot easier to do. The letters are very easy. If you have good rate of pay then you should make as much money. I do general surgery clinic notes and letters. The only problem I have with clinic notes is you will run out of work. It is according to if it just that one clinic or not you work on. But they can only see so many patients in a day. And if they do surgeries to then they aren't always in the office to see patients all day. So I don't always have enough work. But to remedy that I have another job too. So if I run out on one I work on the other. But if you have plenty of work there is no reason to me you couldn't make good money. My problem is just having enough work.
I do clinic notes also
I love them. They are very easy and I have a lot of normals that I use. I don't have any problems keeping busy with work. The doctor's I work for sometimes see 50 patients a day total. And I don't worry about having no work because I'm an employee and if there's no work I still get paid.
I think clinic notes are boring, you have the same

number of doctors usually and for the most part there isn't a lot of medical terminology and they have lots of normals, which is good because they you can have lots of macros/expanders to help, but I like learning from my dictation.  With clinic notes I did know when viruses/illnesses were going around and what the standard treatment was, so I could try some of the same treatments if we got sick without a doctor visit, just after a while they were just boring.  I much prefer acute care. I have lots of dictators so I don't get sick of hearing one doctor all day, although occasionally I do get a slew of the same dictator, the terminology is constantly changing, new drugs, new equipment, new procedures, etc.


 


Some have said clinic, some op notes, some ER, depends on what you
s
Clinic notes questions
I see lots of jobs looking for clinic notes. I have only done acute care. What exactly are clinic notes? Are they office visits by specialty? Also is the pay for clinics typically higher, lower, the same for acute care?

Thanks.
Depends on clinic notes, sm
I really think it depends on the type of clinic notes you transribed.  I went from transcribing very detailed and lengthy multispecialtiy outpatient clinic notes for a major teaching hospital to transcribing acute care, mainly op notes, for another hospital, and it seemed to make the transition, although I felt very confident after about 3 months.  But if you were transcribing clinic notes for just a regular outpatient clinic or clinics (well child checkups, lots of cold and flu, etc) you may have a longer transition period.  It really just depends on whether it's a teaching hospital, the number of dictators, etc?  You CAN do it though--it is all a matter of mindset.  If it IS a teaching hospital or they have an ophthalmology department, I would definitely recommend getting the Stedman's Ophthalmology book.  That made my transition SO much easier, that book, and the Stedman's Equipment Words.  Good luck.  Just give yourself 3-6 months to get acclimated to the op notes, number of doctors/residents, etc., don't pressure yourself to get it right away, and make copies of each report for every dictator--it will save you in the long run because they usually say the same things.  Good Luck!!
I do much better $ wise with clinic notes
I have local office accounts and also work part-time for a national. The repetitive nature of doing the same dictator day in and day out increases my production at least 30-50%; more expanders, more normals, familiar terminology, etc.

Right now I am averaging $25.00+ an hour on my local notes, and less than $12.00 with my national acute care. I do have more taxes and such with my locals as it is 1099 income but I still come out much better on clinic notes.

good luck!
LOVE clinic notes
I do clinic work and I LOVE it.  I transcribe for 3 docs.  There are 4 girls on the acct.  And we ALWAYS have work.  When I am bored on Saturdays or Sundays, I sit down and type for a few hours.  Rarely is the server empty by Monday morning.  I have never been at a loss for work.  It is so repetitive and easy.  Each doctor has his own way of talking and I have tons of shortcuts for each doc in my autocorrect in Word.  So easy, so fast, so fun!
Clinic notes are less detailed normally
than acute care/hospital reports. They are limited to that 1 speciality with only sparse mentioned normally of other medical conditions not pertaining to the clinic visit. However, in acute care, you have to be aware of drugs, generic versus brand, correct dosages, all types of medical conditions, problems, side effects, lab values (a working knowledge of correct and invalid values dictated in case the doctor is in error), and "all" specialities. That is just a few of the things required for acute care transcription.

Many MTSOs looking for acute care MTs will not consider someone who has only been in a "clinic" per se because the MT has only been possibly working in 1 speciality. You need a broad overall knowledge to work in acute care as you never know from 1 report to the other what is going to be thrown at you. In the clinic setting, the MT can be isolated from anything new that has cropped up, especially if in a clinic for a number of years.
clinic notes to acute care

Has anyone gone from doing clinic notes for different specialities to acute care in a hospital?  I have been a Transcriptionist for four years and lost most of my work to India.  I went back to medical billing for about 5 months and have been offered a position to work at home for a hospital.  I never did hospital work.  This will exclude lab and X-ray reports.  I am a little scared.  Any good sites to brush up on for documents or any words of wisdom?


Thanks!!



I was getting $3 a page 12 years ago. But $2 might not be bad for VERY short clinic notes.

Whew! I just left clinic notes after 4 years..sm.
and got back into acute care. My momentum is back and I feel like I'm part of the medical process again. I guess I just like acute care better. I can never go back to clinic notes. I can't deal with those 20-second charts. Took me longer to get in the chart than to type it. The company I WAS with had such a screwed up demo screen if you made 1 mistake you got put on probation. Just toooooo much for me.

IMO, that is.
Wow, 600 lines from 30 minutes of clinic/chart notes - sm
The most I would squeeze out of that would be 350 probably. You must have one fast talking doctor. You are also very fast if you can do 600 lines in one hour, or else you have it macroed/expanded to death and there is very little actual typing so that is why you can do so much in such a small amount of time.
I am working today but i don't get extra pay. just behind on clinic notes and trying to catch up
between cooking.
I get close to 9 cpl as an IC doing clinic notes. No chance of raise unless I find my own accounts
x
Easy work, more like clinic, very low pay.
x
How would you handle clinic notes coming up missing after you've delivered them to the facility?

I type the clinic notes at home, print them, verify the all notes printed, place them in a manila envelope clearly marked with the clinic name and dictator doctor's name and date of clinic.  I then deliver the notes to the lead Transcriptionist at the hospital which manages the clinics.  She in turn distributes them to the clinics. 


The last two weeks, I have gotten several calls from the lead MT that I give the work too that clinics are calling saying they are missing certain notes from certain days which is impossible because I type all notes for a specific day in one large document and print them out together.  There is no way that some are printing and some are not.  Plus I ALWAYS verify that each note printed.  Today, she called and said there were missing notes from two different days.


Then there is the issue of my work being typed by someone in the hospital.  When I deliver work I get a print out of what's on the system as far as clinic notes.  It is a worktype specific list that only I am supposed type.  There are a couple of doctors who dictate all their notes in one looooong job.  There were two very long jobs on my list, but were never pooled to me.  When I enter the specific job number, it says they have been transcribed.  In one instance, the dictator dictated half on one job and half on another.  I typed one job and the other just magically got transcribed.  When I've called to ask who's typing these reports, no one seems to know.


These ladies in this particular transcription department are not a friendly bunch.  I have felt that they sort of resent the fact that I am doing work from home while they have to come in and type.  I think they are wondering why they aren't allowed to work from home.  The work I do is very easy clinic work and would be pretty easy lines for one of them to do just to pad their line counts.


I have a meeting tomorrow with the HIM director who contracted with me about TAT and I know they want a shorter TAT than the agreed upon 24 to 48 hours and I know she is going to want me to make more deliveries than the three I do a week now.  I have asked that they set up a remote printer for me so I can print from home that way delivery isn't an issue anymore, but they act like this can't be done which I know it can be done.


I'm about to cut this account loose, but it's such easy work.  It's just that I'm running into brick walls at this place.


 


Thanks for listening to me whine! 


Personally, I am more productive with OPs because much of OP notes are repetitive and it is easy
create abbreviation expanders.  I like radiology too for the same reason, but I'm not quite as productive with radiology because the reports are so short.
I did a clinic account once and this one doctor was
majorly ADD (we diagnosed him - LOL).  He would lay the phone down and look through the filing cabinet or his desk drawers, dictating the whole time.   There were almost as many blanks in his report as words. 
He is a Mayo Clinic doctor - he does a ton...
.....
I stopped going to the doctor since our clinic
decided to outsource transcription services and lay off the entire department. I don't want my medical records leaving this state. If I do need medical care, I'll go to the ER or an independent physician. The problem is that nobody knows or understands what happens to their medical records.
My mistake, I am not thinking tonight, I actually make 11.5 cpl, clinic notes. I earn my money thou
nm
try starting with a doctor's office or small clinic.
x
For this account, I charge 0.12 cpl. It is very easy clinic stuff with good dictators, but ...

I also do tapes which are horrible so I'm considering upping my line rate especially if all this aggravation keeps up.  When I first took the work, I thought I was being fair because the work was so easy, but then they asked me to do tapes and then work specific hours, print and deliver work three times a week.  I wish I would have addressed more than TAT and line rate in the original contract.  I do charge them a $5 per delivery fee because of gas prices, but still I think I'm getting the shaft.


Oh well, live and learn.  I am negotiating for a local doctor's office here in my hometown, small one doctor office, and I'm here to tell you I will be negotiated every little detail right down to paper and toner charges!


Agree it's the dictator's report and the dictator's call. NM
nm
And you'll almost never get just Op notes. Probably get mixed acute care - op notes, discharge su
s
The easy answer, taking all the easy work and
x
Call your doctor - this is not a doctor forum! nm
x
You know the difference between God and a doctor? God doesn't think he's a doctor. nm
X
Well, Word is easy to buy and easy to install. Word 97 works great. Cheap. SM
I still would not work anywhere I could not use a spell checker with grammar checker and a Steadman's Medical Spell Checker.

IF they want people to TRANSCRIBE MEDICAL REPORTS, then I guess they better get the programs they need.

It's like probably 110% easier to buy and install Word 97 than to try to program their own programming. And, yes, I do mean Microsoft Word 97. Why? Because you can install it unlimited times, in case you need to install the operating system again. And it has a few features that Microsoft, in its un-wisdom, took away in Word 2000 and 20003 and 2007. So, yes, I'd go with Word 97 for its cheapness and it works better than the later versions. Just my opinion, with 20 years experience being an MT. So what if they "don't have it" on their computer? It's easy to get.
pt ortho
There is a post on job seeker's board for part-time ortho or p.r.n. I am not sure if it is filled yet or not. You will have to scroll down a ways to find it.
and if you can do ortho, you then can...sm
do radiology and then neurology and rheumatology......it all kind of links together in that way, at least for me 28 years ago is how it went....ortho to radiology to neurology and rheumatology and now today I can do it all........I especially love infectious dz, oncology, and I do not like OB/GYN nor eyes. 
ortho help

 


I imagine it's pseudarthrosis .. not pseudOarthrosis. 


W/C and Ortho
I have five years experience in both; work done is for the state of CA, although I do not live there. Every specialty has its own terminology, etc. It should not be too difficult a transition, but it could be challenging to make lines until you become familiar with it.
Ortho
I've done ortho and acute care so far.

I like ortho the best, probably because I started out doing that. They have such a huge number of strangely-named signs and tests though that just slay me!

ER reports sound like they might be interesting. Seems like you'd hear it all doing those!
Ortho help


Due to account reassigment I am now going to be doing strictly orhto accounts.


I do have Instant Text and several Stedmans such as phrases but no specific specialty books.  


I am wondering if the Ortho Word Book is something I should purchase?


I am also wondering about some the ABCZ products?


I welcome any suggestions.


Thanks!


ortho help

I have done ortho clinic in the past, just not 100% of the time.


I previously did multispcialty for many years which mostly consisted of family practice with an occational specialty thrown in to break the monotomy.


I would not say I am nervous about 100% ortho but I am "cautiously optimistic". Since it seems likeall I would be doing in the immediate future I was wondering if I should invest in the books etc.


Thanks for the input and offer to help.


Ortho
IMHO Ortho is the easiest of all unless it's urology.  An ortho book mighth make it easier for you...like Stedman's.  If you do ops think carpenter...hammer, screws, nails, etc.  You can use the Stedman's Word Book to look up say "screw" or "Pin" or "nail" to get the specific name.  I would highly recommend it.  Good luck to ya.
Easy easy money they are!

I don't mind seeing those puppies filter in at all.  Same for H&Ps.  They are always different though, so can't really pop in the same pre-formatted autotext, but it's usually WHAMMO 2-3 pages at a time.  Give them a shot...you may just be pleasantly surprised! 



I am looking for prn ortho work. Can anyone help me?

ortho work
what area?
OJT training (especially for ortho)
I think cardiology may get a little more complicated (or not) depending where you work. I think orthopedics is probably easy enough for you to pick up on the job considering your experience. I would try for OJT. Good luck!