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• New learning website! Visible body... - toomuchfun

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As of the recent AHDI/AAMT annual meeting, it appears that the method of line-counting known as VBC (visible black characters) is becoming a trend.

All MTs should read the following report from Perspectives in HIM, February 14, 2007.

I just read an article about this in the Advance mag I get biweekly.  It seems the MTIA, AHIMA, and the AAMT are endorsing the VBC method of measuring productivity for transcription.  Basically, that means they don't want to pay for spaces.  So they are finding another way of screwing with our money. 

I know there are several services out there that don't pay for spaces now and quite frankly I won't work for a company that doesn't pay for spaces.  I'm a firm believer that transcriptionists should get paid for every single keystroke, but that rarely if ever happens.  Now with those three major industry organizations endorsing not counting spaces, it may be the case that all services will adopt the VBC method and we are all going to lose.

Oh, the AAMT says that the VBC method will create a "level playing field throughout the industry" and allow for a "great opportunity for the industry to engage in a real discussion about the inherent value of transcribing and how pricing under the new defintion should reflect that value."  The AAMT also states that MTSOs should consider an MT's "critical thinking skills and interpretive judgment" when discussing compensation.

Yeah right.  Like MTSOs have been considering anything more than the bottom line and pumping up there pocketbooks.  To them we are machines.  I'm tellin' ya medical transcription is circling the drain. 

Yes, that problem brings you right back to the lack of early stimulation, schooling success, etc.  You can offer the world, but just like the "horse to water", you can only do so much in getting people to accept education and work hard at it to be successful.  It is NOT a solution to have people work at McDonalds, and unless they are literate, other options are just not going to work.  I would guess that all states have vocational training in community colleges that provide tuition assistance, scholarships, and financial aid for those in need, but again, the ambition and dedication to finish something like that needs to come from the individual.  Also, chasing down dead beat "fathers" is fine, but maybe young girls/women need to be smarter about taking reproductive chances.  Nobody died not having sex.  Perhaps more education in that arena is something the government could do.  But again, you can only lead a horse to water, and people ultimately have to be responsible.  We need to stop sugar coating the facts in our society in fear of offending somebody.  The facts are that blacks are disproportionately more impoverished in America, but they also have babies at a 70% out-of-wedlock birth rate, and that is a problem.

Finally have given in and am switching from WP to MSWord. I work from home. If anyone has any encouraging words about MSWord, I certainly would like to hear them. So far, I am going crazy, i.e., I have put in "gray boxes" but when I enter my autocorrect short cut for the "shell", my cursor goes to the bottom of the page and I have to page up 2-3 times. I am missing something?

Any help would be so very much appreciated

Thank you.... bw...

I used SH for a year. To me, it was like AutoCorrect, which I used to love, but IT does so much more. I've been using IT for about a year. There are so many things you can do with it that you can't do with SH.

As the other poster said, check out the productivity website and you will fiind zillions of ideas.

I had an in-house job for 3 years, hired in off the street, no experience.  Three months later, another girl hired in, same situation.  Paid hourly, no ESL, and we had the opportunity to talk to the doctors in person about any issue.

By the time I left, I was the highest producer in the office.  She was still struggling with the simplest words and phrases, still asking the same questions she asked the week she hired in, still needing help from somebody else all day long. She would cry from frustration because she couldn't get her act together.  Other people that hired in after her got the hang of it much faster and were soon helping her too.  I asked management on many occasions why they just didn't show her the door, and they said I was being harsh and that some people just couldn't learn as fast as others.  I wonder why she didn't just go find a different kind of job instead of hanging around driving herself and everyone else nuts.

In time it all gets better.  Usually.  Some people aren't cut out to be MTs, for them it never gets better.  I felt the way you do when I started out in-house (no former training).  But I was stubborn, and I learned, and knew I was getting better.  Then I started working at home - BIG learning curve, had no idea my hospital job was so easy!  But I was stubborn, and I learned and improved.  Next job - more learning.  New accounts with constantly changing specifics - keep learning.  In this job, you learn every day - a new phrase, a new production tip, the fact that you've been spelling something wrong, etc.

Just take a deep breath and realize they are trying to help you.  Thank them for every correction, because its what they need you to do.  Make a lot of notes.  And you can and will improve, if you're stubborn enough to make your investment pay.

You can actually reset your computer from qwerty to dvorak, then just change out the key locations on the keyboard instead of buying a new keyboard.  I just really don't feel like relearning anything right now.  The fastest typist in the world uses the dvorak keyboard, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.