My 1995 edition (called the 1st edition by most)

• has anyone learned that their QA - sm
  • Believe it or not.... - sm
    • 2nd edition over 600 pages long....sm - what? The 1st edition is 85 pages long
      • My 1995 edition (called the 1st edition by most) - of the BOS... sm
        • You are 100% correct - It's the GOLD one...sm - what? The 1st edition is 85 pages long
      • Maybe so, but ultimately it is the client - who decides...nm
        • you too are absolutely correct! Client pref rules..NM - what? The 1st edition is 85 pages long

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For those who do not have the 3rd edition of AAMT BOS, thought I would let you know the changes.  Just got my copy.   I think some of them will take a lot of reeducation.  I do QA, and I know how hard it has been to move everyone toward putting 3-cm lesion.  Now we have to tell them it is wrong!  Sigh....

* Dropping the use of hyphens with numeric values and metric units when forming compound modifies (2 cm incision rather than 2-cm incision)

*Dropping the use of periods in most lowercased Latin abbreviations, like legal abbreviations (et al, eg, ie, viz, etc) and literary reference abbreviations (p, pp, sec)

*Continued trend toward dropping the use of periods with abbreviated personal and coutesy titles unless it is known that the person in question prefers the inclusion of a period (Dr, Mrs, Jr, Sr)

*Dropping the use of a comma to separate a person's last name from titles, such as Jr, Sr, or roman numerals following a person's last name from titles, such as John H Smith III.

*The inclusion of a space between the numeric value and the degree symbol when expressing temperature values and their scales (using degree sign)

*Dropping the space between parameters when expressing TNM staging for malignant tumors (T2N1M0 rather than T2 N1 M0 OR T2, N1, M1)

*Dropping the use of subscripts with EEG electrode references.

u dont know how much i appreciated this bit of orientation. I just started my first oficial transcription job at a nephrologist office. I'm so proud of myself after trying in within two years to KICK my foot in the door. This week has been tough but I'm learning and quickly catching on. I just cant wait till I can effortlessly fly through my reports. Thanks for the advise. I will purchase my book through ebay tonight.

thank you again,

rookie

value to your books that have the misprinted cover, with your name spelled incorrectly? 

Look what I found:

Hey!  I just paid over $60 for this dang BOS (my new employer requires I have one), so I'm studying it diligently, and on page 297 they're referring to Salter-Harris fractures as "Slater-Harris".  Thought I was going nuts, checked Stedman's and they say its Salter.  Am worried there are other errors in it, and I won't know it!  Do they publish their bloopers anywhere? 

I'm not a member of AAMT (and probably never will be, I'm not a joiner), but I'm pretty doggone disgusted I just shelled out that kind of money for published errors, especially after reading repeatedly in the book how regular MTs aren't worthy of putting letters after their name unless they've been certified by the all-knowing AAMT!  Guess I'd never pass their test since I'd say Salter-Harris instead of Slater!

Anyway, I feel ripped off, especially since all editors/employers act like the AAMT is holy like the pope!  Thanks for listening to me vent!

I am a new MT, I was wondering if anyone was selling any "AAMT Book of Style-2nd Edition" or the CD Rom version? Also looking for a current Medical Spellchecker?

Please let me know

Angie

angifogg@aol.com

Those broads at the AHDI or whatever it is called now have too much time on their hands!  They need to get real jobs.  Get back out there in the trenches, have someone QA the crap out their work, and see how they like every changing quicksand of MT.

Wasn't even done with schooling yet, but picked up a doctor for $.12 a line, clinic work.

Then went to a hospital in house to get more experience at ? wages (don't remember) and at the same time, picked up my second account for ENT employee w/o benefits for $200 a month (yeah, that's cheap) but it gave me experience.

Family member got sick, had to quit the hospital after 4 months, but they asked me to be the guinea pig for on-line transcribing. It worked and they kept me for 9-1/2 years at $3500 a month (no line rate, MINUTE rate- their choice). I also worked for the ENT service for 5 years and my own doc... well I'm still with him. He forced me to up my rates (yeah, that's right). He yelled at me for not charging more. He is now charged $16.5/65 cpl and he is happy. Huh? Where do you find a doctor like that?

I tried to quit the hospital to go with a national service but the hospital wanted me to stay, so I still worked for them part time for another 2 years. Then I had it with everybody and quit all of them except my own doc. It's been 15 years with him and I don't intend to give him up.

Have I been lucky? You bet!!! I have to say, for all those that don't want to work in house, there are lots of opportunities to go on your own. I got the ENT job and could have had a job with urology, orthopedics, gastroenterology and/or physical therapy had I not been only one person. 

I could have stayed an IC but needed medical insurance, so went with the national service. Private medical insurance was absolutely kiling me.

Wasn't even done with schooling yet, but picked up a doctor for $.12 a line, clinic work.

Then went to a hospital in house to get more experience at ? wages (don't remember) and at the same time, picked up my second account for ENT employee w/o benefits for $200 a month (yeah, that's cheap) but it gave me experience.

Family member got sick, had to quit the hospital after 4 months, but they asked me to be the guinea pig for on-line transcribing. It worked and they kept me for 9-1/2 years at $3500 a month (no line rate, MINUTE rate- their choice). I also worked for the ENT service for 5 years and my own doc... well I'm still with him. He forced me to up my rates (yeah, that's right). He yelled at me for not charging more. He is now charged $16.5/65 cpl and he is happy. Huh? Where do you find a doctor like that?

I tried to quit the hospital to go with a national service but the hospital wanted me to stay, so I still worked for them part time for another 2 years. Then I had it with everybody and quit all of them except my own doc. It's been 15 years with him and I don't intend to give him up.

Have I been lucky? You bet!!! I have to say, for all those that don't want to work in house, there are lots of opportunities to go on your own. I got the ENT job and could have had a job with urology, orthopedics, gastroenterology and/or physical therapy had I not been only one person. FYI, when a doctor needs a Transcriptionist to do their work, they look to hospital MTs first. All my co-workers at the hospital had jobs on the side.

I could have stayed an IC but needed medical insurance, so went with the national service. Private medical insurance was absolutely kiling me.

At that time, I charged $3 a page. I had no trouble getting that amount, and most books would be around 200-300 pages. I was a lot faster back then and could crank out a book in a couple days.

After I would type it, I would have the author check everything out and would make changes for an editing charge. If the error was mine, then no charge, but if he wanted changes, I charged editing.

There is a bit of a difference with books (unless it changed now). You would have to follow a manuscript style of writing so the book could go straight to the publishing company without the publishing company setting it up, which would cost the author more bucks.

I had worked for a publishing company that generated university textbooks back in the late 80s and that was really profitable. On those books, I was paid by the character! Sadly, my computer crashed and had to give it up. Computers back then ran around $2500 and there weren't too many gurus around to fix them. It was buy another one or do without. I had to do without since I had young'uns at that time and just couldn't spare the cash.

Hope this helps....and, BTW, if I could get back into this type of work again, I'd jump in really quick, especially the textbooks. You also get "a college education" for free.

Like you and so many others, I have watched my wages as both an IC and an employee go down, down, down.  I worked for a company owned by an MT.  She paid very good wages but sold the company to an Indian company, who got rid of all the Americans except for a few who would accept very low pay.  It's funny...clients want 100% accuracy but they don't want to pay for it.  They agree that they can't just randomly pluck people off the street to do MT, that they have to hire experienced or trained people.  But they don't want to pay us for our experience or our training.  I am doing my last MT job. I have my bachelor degree almost completed and I'm outta here.  The lack of respect for MTs, from employers, other MTs, from offshore companies, from clients, from AAMT, is so disheartening.

Changes were gradual.  First, we were allowed to start working at home at 12 cpl, instead of the hourly wage.  We still were employees and had the same benefits.  This saved the hospital money in overhead and we were all happy.  Then they started using outsourcing services for holidays and weekends.  Gradually, the whole MT dept was phased out and we had the option of going with the service handling the hospital transcription or finding another job.  The service kept us at this rate of pay for a short time and then gradually started implementing "incentive bonuses" and lowering the line rate of pay.  It evolved over the years to what it is today.  Starting line rates were lower and incentive bonuses done away with.  Health insurance is contingent on production, but their platforms crash regularly (as do many, many others) and we either have to work extra to make up the loss or just eat the financial loss altogether.  The services overhire to make sure that their TAT is met, which means unstable availability of work, which in turn affects production, in turn affecting benefits. 

The logic today behind all the changes is the "lack of experienced MTs in the U.S.", thus the need to hire people outside the country, who have even LESS experience with the English language and slang medical terms, at half the price of hiring American MTs.  The MT field in general has to be able to compete and so must lower their rates to keep clients from going offshore at half price.  And now with the advent of VR, the MTSOs using it try to justify the cut in line rate to the fact that we're no longer "typing", we're "just editing."  It's been a gradual evolution, but not in a positive direction.

And in all of this, AAMT has not come to the aid of the transcriptionist.  It has furthered the promotion of offshoring and has developed ways to enhance the MTs adjustment to VR instead of enhancing the MTs value and amount of worked involved in VR.  When the AAMT doesn't step up for the very ones it says it represents, why would the ones using the services respect, understand, or value the MT either?  

They can't provide anything in writing.

Nobody knows anything - keep telling you to call your supervisor.

I smell something worse than New Orleans coming from NJ.

That might explain why I didn't get such good results on my search.