My final thoughts

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It will always boil down to memorization.

I have a very old version of IT and ran the compilation for VR (helps improve accruacy), but there is no way I could remember all the different phrases they have. I'm lucky I remember the traditional chfx = congestive heart failure.

My main complaints with QA are when the individual QA's opinion regarding commas and such affect my QA scores, with the threat of deductions to pay, withholding of raises, benefits, etc.  I did actually receive a payroll deduction once, but it was due to the QA's error.  Thankfully, I discovered their error and was able to prove it.  It was extremely inconvenient, however, because I received no advanced notice that my entire paycheck would be reduced by 15%, and I had to wait for the next paycheck to receive the correction.  I also resigned that position based on the rude treatment I received from the payroll department and the subsequent hassles that I experienced while proving the QA's error.

Again, it seems that QA has very little to do with patient care or document accuracy.  Recently, there was a big controversy with our QA regarding the proper way to indicate military time.  QA had decided that a colon was required and deducted points because I did not use a colon for '1925 hours', while the BOS indicated that a colon was not required and the customer specs didn't specify anything about it.

I have some Stedman books, but it galls me when a company says that Stedmans is THE SOURCE.  Most of the time, I have found answers on good Internet sources; accuracy is easily confirmed.  My books are not easily searchable, and I have not invested in the electronic versions.  Also, I have found discrepancies/inconsistencies between different Stedmans books.  I just purchased my BOS Second Edition 3 years ago, along with the PDF searchable version.  I'm not anxious to purchase the Third Edition so soon.

Again, I believe that all this stuff is more about control than about providing accurate reports for the benefit of the patients.  IMHO, there is more than one accurate way to form a sentence, and this QA grading process is a bunch of unfair baloney.  If the dictators were grading according to a similar QA process, it may seem more fair.

Maybe the persons who began the QA points/grading process were just bored and needed some drama.  Or maybe the objective, again, was simply to devise a method/excuse to reduce MT pay and prevent payout of benefits?

You are right Fingers/Carole, I am not an MT.  I am a consultant for many big businesses.  All businesses are the same, in it to make money.  The bottom line is that the MT biz is going downhill consistently.  Those of you who are happy with your jobs, benefits, pay scale.... GREAT!  But what about the tons that are not.  Do you not care for your fellow American!!  It won't be long and you will ALL have the same problem.  Pay cut and fixes other VR and off-shore work.  I did not come here to start any war, only to open eyes, that it is imperative to stop the AAMT type who do nothing for you and organize yourselves to get accomplished what is necessary to keep your pay and benefits going up, NOT down and out of the country or to VR with you doing the corrections.  There is nothing wrong with making things easier with VR, but you should still get paid for your expertise while transitioning to this.  VR will NEVER be able to take the place of the qualified MT. 

I hope in some small way I did something good here.  My intentions were in the right place.  I wish you ALL well and full pockets!!

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I have got my foot pedal to work with Express Scribe.  Now, how do I get the dictation over to it?  I received the dictations through email attachment. 

THANKS SO VERY VERY MUCH!!!

My ex is willing to leave me on his health insurance.  Is it legal to do this?  Will we get ourselves in trouble if he doesn't take me off? 

notify them that you will be filing complaints with the Department of Labor, the BBB, the FTC, the state attorney general's office, and small claims court.

Is there any kind soul out there who recorded it on either VHS or DVD who could send me a copy???? I would pay shipping! He wants to go on ebay and "buy" it, but I told him that one of these kind ladies from mtstars will help him out!

I personally have never seen the show. We were in another state visiting MY family and bless my husband's heart - I remember where we were last Monday night - sitting in my aunt's living room in the middle of no where in Oklahoma. Poor guy. He was so kind and nice, but I bet the whole night he was really upset because he knew he was missing THE SHOW of the decade! I had no clue this was going on....LOL

Any takers?????

While I feel empathy for her family wondering what happened and wanting closure, frankly I'm tired of hearing about the case on the news, and that we have tied up FBI and even the military resources to look for her.  We have people that go missing in the US every day... and people visiting countries disappear - and you only hear about the ones who have families that are rich or well connected with the media. 

In my town there's a college girl who has been missing for over a week and it finally made the newspaper in a small blurb today.  This girl missed a flight to visit her family for a vacation and hasn't been seen or heard from since then, and her family says this isn't like her and that she was excited about the vacation.  Are they getting the attention this chick in Aruba is getting?  No.... because they're an average middle classed family.

I do know how you feel.  There are a few things I've done to cut that type of sress down...

I'm not sure what your company is like, but for mine, we have a primary account, and many people also have secondaries (mine is so busy that I don't usually need back-up work, so I have one major account).  It pulls from several clinics, but with a pool of about 20 or 30 dictators, after awhile, you get the hang of even the hardest ones.  There are some dictators that are just really bad, and I struggle with.  When I can't figure something out, rather than spending 10 hours searching and struggling, I use blanks.  I give it a good faith effort, as best as I can, and then I move on.  Since I usually clip along at a good pace and am pretty confident in 99% of the work I do, I don't let myself feel bad for sending something to an editor, if I truly don't know what it is.  Of course, I do the research, but if I'm looking for something for more than a few minutes, it's been too long.

You may need to look for a different account/specialty or even a new company, if you think that is the problem.  I know that, at one point, I ended up moving from a difficult but high-paying account to an account that paid less, but I was more comfortable with.  I ended up making more with the lower-paying account, because I wasn't having to stop every 2 seconds, and I wasn't tearing my hair out, and ending up in tears at the end of the day.  Of course, people should move up as they feel ready for that, but perhaps you need a workload that doesn't create so much extra work for you.

Those are just some thoughts, but you CAN do it.  Be proactive in finding a situation that works for you.  You are more of an asset to your job when you are comfortable and not stressing and struggling.

Hang in there!

 I would want to know what type of docs run the clinic - whether anesthesiologists, physiatrists, ortho, neurology, etc, as this will guide the typical direction of the dictation.   Because pain med Rx writing is always under scrutiny, there will probably be a fair amount of repetition for every pt on medicolegal issues.  Most, but not all, of my experience is with neuro/physiatry-based pain management.   For both these, I found the doc more likely to do further workup, which leads to much longer and involved reports. In the middle would be those docs who do extensive review of the patient's history and only minimal further testing.   The extreme other side of the coin are those, what I call, in/out pain clinics where the pt shows up every 30 days, re-signs their drug contract, has their BP checked and leaves with a new Rx.   I would always expect the initial H/P to be extensive and the f/u notes relatively brief.  Typically lots of phone call documentation and referral/followup letters or information.   Anesthesiologists lean more toward a lot of injectable therapies, blocks, epidurals, etc., at least initially, putting more of an op bent on their practices. 

As far as interesting, pain patients are very repetitive in their complaints and their needs.  Typically,  by the time a pt gets to a pain management practice, the cause of their pain has already been extensively worked up.  There are true chronic pain sufferers and those who are drug-seeking only.  Things do get interesting with the latter because they are very creative when it comes to trying to con or manipulate the docs.   If I were in your shoes, my first question would be what speciality of docs run the clinic.  As far as job security, it is way up there for legit practices.  More often than not, the average family doc is not willing to prescribe pain meds beyond a certain amount of time/quantity and feel forced to refer the pt to a pain  management practice in order to protect themselves from the medicolegal aspects of the business.    Hope something here helps - best of luck to you. 

Homosexuals as well as other "minorites" have been treated as second class citizens for so long now.  Let them be proud of it!  Do I think they go a bit far sometimes?  I sure do!  But I don't have a problem with it.  If a same sex couple wants to hold hands on the street then let them.  We don't need to stare in disgust and shield our eyes.  They are just trying to have the same freedoms as we have.  Discrimination is alive and well even today.  I know this because I have gay friends and hear about it all the time.  I feel that as long as you are happy and living your own lives then then let them be.  I know many "straight" people who are living in dead-end marriages,  completely unhappy and not doing a darn thing about it.  But their union is so much more sacred?  I think it's hogwash.  We are all different.  Let's celebrate those differences, not put others down because they aren't "fitting the mold" of what's acceptable.

I'm looking forward to Rosie being on The View.  I don't think she'll slam her sexual orientation down our throats at all.  She has very precise views, yes.  And she will talk about them.  She's VERY political and I feel that has nothing to do with her orientation.  SHe's given and helped raise MILLIONS for children and others who are less fortunate than her.  So why is it any time Rosie comes up people automatically make fun of her being gay?  Get over it people.  SHe's a person just like you and me.  jeesh!!!

My 15 YO daughter has a part-time job...she works 2 days a week at a local fast food restaurant.  Her best friend, on the other hand, doesn't work.  Her mom thinks she shouldn't work until she gets out of high school. I say, that's up to her, but I think it's to her daughter's disadvantage.

It was my daughter's idea to get a job, we didn't push her into it. She likes going shopping, movies, Starbuck's, and loves having her own money to do it with.

Now, her BF just turned 16 and her parents (she has 4 of them...my daughter only has 2!) bought her a car and set her up with her own checking account to pay for the gas. She has no responsibilities whatsoever, which drives me up the wall!

Oh BTW, she just got her license YESTERDAY...and last night, she was driving around to Wal-Mart, Target, Starbuck's...ALONE...with her 10 YO brother in the car with her...and we live in a small, but very busy part of town...you know, one main road that leads to everything! Is it just me or is this crazy?

Opinions please, as I know y'all have 'em!

I had no formal training.  I lost my job and my future mother-in-law was an MT with her own business.  I asked her to train me and she did.  For three years I drove over 50 miles one way 3-4 times a week to work in her office.  I feel it was better training that I could have ever gotten from any school. 

My MIL has told me she had many people try doing transcription without experience and I was the only one who worked out.  She even had people with training who didn’t do as well as me.  I believe it truly depends on the person and you should know right away if she will work out or not.  You have to have an ear for it and that can’t be trained.  You have to have good English skills and you have to be willing to work very hard.

It is possible.  It will take a lot of work on both your parts.  My MIL knew from the beginning that I would work out compared to what she had seen before.  You should know this too and be prepared to cut your losses if you feel she isn’t the right person for this field.

If you get your own accounts the charge is usually less than that of a large nationals or even semi-large nationals and that is why they will lean towards you.  You don;t have the overhead of a large national and can charge less and still make great money.  Also they sometimes like having only one person handle the account.  You learn that account, make your shortcuts and you can really produce the lines.  Since I don't have the overhead of an outside office, employee benefits, etc. I do pass those savings onto the doctors and I still make a great living.  (Hitting over 5K this month and that is just me not my IC's)   And yes it is possible as in the past two months I picked up two accounts and just heard about one yesterday and these are tapes with pick up and delivery but the pay is very good and I will take them.  As for taxes, all the nationals do is to hold out your money for you to pay your taxes (with the exception of your 7.5 SS) and you just have to plan for that and budget and be strignent about putting the money aside.  With all of the write-offs I have so much more usable income with by husiness and being an IC than being an employee.  It is not MORE EXPENSIVE.  You are just in charge of holding out your taxes.  Go for it but I do not think you should go into it thinking you will get the 18 to 20 cpl that nationals charge.  But that is me. 

Patti