Offshore concerns
Posted By: Rukmani on 2006-02-05
In Reply to: Sadly, I agree that more and more jobs are going to go to 3rd world countries. However, that is not - going to make them smarter. nm
They are smart , and that is why the jobs are going to them! Jobs don't make people smarter; smart people do their jobs well. If you don't believe this then you must question the wisdom of the American MTSOs and companies that outsource. As I have said before, all Indian MTs are not bad and all US MTs are not good. I've seen excellent quality from India and poor quality from the US - that's the other side of the story which none of you wants to see, let alone admit.
This is why I call US MTs insular. If you will only look outside of your own town/state/country you will see how the world has changed and the so-called developing countries have advanced in many ways.
The problem with the US is it has been functioning too long in a cocoon, sheltered and protected. But with the coming of the global age, competiton has become fierce and jobs are moving overseas and it is now finding it difficult to cope in this new business climate.
You say "sadly" because it affects you but have you ever wondered how Indians like it when American companies dump poor quality goods on them and Indian businesses have to shut shop because they can't bear the competition? Of course most of you would not have heard that pesticides were found in bottles of a premier American brand of soft drink sold in India!
Instead of treating "offshoring" as some terrible phenomenon, it is high time US MTs learned to accept the situation because this is the New Age Economy where everything is decided in competition.
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Please post offshore topics on Offshore Concerns board. (NM)
Thank you.
Goldbird
Offshore concerns blog
I mentioned this a few messages below, but the blog has its first post. I am NOT supporting any Ad things on there and will not be making anything off this.
http://violatingamerica.blogspot.com/
If you have a link that would be useful to others to write their gov't reps, companies, news sources, etc, feel free to post them or e-mail me so i can get them up there. I am also looking for any news stories or any information we can get. One way or the other, we might be able to make a difference.
Please use Offshore Concerns board for those topics. (NM)
Goldbird
be sure to mention HIPAA concerns with offshore...nm
..
Interesting info on Offshore Concerns board
OSI offshores and that is why they can't keep quality MTs
In Reply to: Today, I landed a client that was using and Indian service. They said the service - Kansas MTSO sm
The MTs they do keep are basically no more accurate than the Indians. The QA department is a joke because they hire people fresh out of MT school. It is a sad company and is destined to fail if they don't start thinking more about quality than keeping the brownnosers happy. This could be true for other companies that offshore as well.
D I T T O D I T T O
Taking 2 polls on offshore concerns board
Please participate!
Thank you!
d~
Comedy Stop & Offshore Concerns were the last 2 boards to be changed over to the new format.
Archives will be available soon.
This thread belongs on Offshore Concerns; thread locked. (NM)
Goldbird
sometimes this concerns me as well
I talked with my account managers about the future of MT and does she really feel there is a shortage. On the 1 hand she said yes there is a lack of qualified MTs, but what she also did say is that those with experience have more job security, which makes sense.
For ideas, have you ever thought of possibly becoming a paralegal or perhaps a legal secretary? Also, what about maybe delving into possible general transcription? I did a bit of that myself and it was not too bad. At least some of the skills you have learned being a Transcriptionist can still be used. I always try to keep a mental list of 5 different "paths" I could pursue if things got bad, but luckily things have never gotten to that point.
Like I said in my heading, sometimes the future of MT concerns me, but the reality is there is no such thing as a stable job anymore. I also got into transcription during my college years, 2 year actually. I ended up completing my AA as well and went on to pursue a degree in IT with an emphasis in networking, but it really bored me to death. Your family should not look at you like you did not succeed. So many people that I know from friends and family all think it is so great that I get to work at home and do so well for myself.
concerns--sm
I tend to agree with the other poster below. Do not discuss things with your mother. You already know how she is going to react and it only serves to aggravate you. If you have genuine concerns about your aunt or any other family member's health, try to address it to the doctor directly. As far as your mother goes, it sounds to me like you are seeking her approval and acknowledgement for your accomplishments. Apparently you are not going to get that. I have a mother who is the same way and it angered me to the point where I confronted her a couple of times about it. It only caused alot of hurt and anger when I did that, so now I just turn the other cheek and try to ignore it. The only person you have to prove yourself to is you and the good Lord. Since He already knows your worth, you need to work on your own. Don't look to others to validate your worth. You don't need to. You are already special. :^) Have a good day, and think positive thoughts of yourself and your abilities.
Concerns/questions
As always, if you have concerns/questions/comments regarding DSG, I have an open door policy. Please feel free to contact me at kdenson@dsg-inc.net.
Thank you.
You are an IC -- state your concerns
You need to get some faith in yourself. If you are an IC and if you agreed on a certain rate of pay, they need to adhere to that. If you have a plumber come and work for you and you don't agree with his rate of pay, you cannot halfway through the job decide to pay him less. It is the same thing. I give an offer to my IC's and if they want to work for that they can but I cannot suddenly change halfway through without re-negotiating with them and they must agree to a lower rate, etc. So if you agreeed fine -- accept it but if they just did it, don't. It is hard around the holidays but is appears you are not making that much anyway so what do you have to lose especially if they took away half of your job. You need to read and see what an IC actually means and if they are calling the shots you are an employee and can raise a little bit of trouble for them. But talk to them as sometimes until you stand up to them, they will walk all over you.
Your concerns are valid, unfortunately : (
EMR and voice recognition has put me out of a job. On my former job, there was one other Transcriptionist besides me. Because she had been there longer, she got what was left over after most of the docs jumped on the voice recognition bandwagon. They use Dragon Naturally Speaking. I have seen it at work myself and it is quite accurate. There is no editing being done on their work. Now, I'm doing a job that is just that, a JOB. I enjoy transcribing and am looking for another job, but MT jobs seem to be few and far between where I am. I can't get high speed internet where I live, so most services are out. I may move onto a different career if something doesn't come around soon. I thought about legal transcription. Anyone have experience with that?
Outsourcing Concerns
Did any of you watch the special the other night on identity theft? I think it was maybe on Dateline. If so, you heard them say the identity theft ring reaches far beyond the shores of the US. It involves many of the countries that are receiving outsourced transcription work.
The first thought that came to mind when watching that was our medical records. I often have dictation that gives me a SSN and DOB. I also often have dictation on a new patient giving me other details, such as where the individual works, how many children they have, etc. I always get their height, weight and race. With these details, the individuals being outsourced to have everything they need to supply a terrorist or identity theft ring information to enable them to pose as someone else. This is very frightening to me!
What do we do? How do we wake America up to what we're facing? Sure, we can write our elected officials, but you all know as well as I do that such correspondence falls upon deaf ears. Does anyone have any suggestions on where we go from here? At this point, it isn't only about losing our jobs, its about national security.
What concerns me about newbies is
that often they write these excited posts and reveal how tiny their working English vocabulary is. That's a terrible place to start out from. I try to be polite, but I do remember being a newbie for hospital work and how appalled the trainer was with the other MTs who had tiny English vocabularies. She about dropped her teeth because the first time I had to spell shotty adenopathy I spelled it right. I couldn't believe anybody would think "shoddy adenopathy" would make any sense. It's not logical.
How do you train people to THINK and be logical in their transcription? Those are things the person should bring to the table if they want to go into a career in the written word. Then you can build on that logic as you interpret MD slurring.
I've had similar concerns
about blacklisting. After all, anybody can see how easy it would be to paint a dark picture of a company on this board so why wouldn't companies have a similar board somewhere to do the same with employees? I think the answer is because it would be considered blacklisting which would likely violate some employment laws and it would be too difficult to keep it a secret. But I could be wrong.
Faxing and HIPAA concerns
I need to know the regulations imposed by HIPAA for MTSOs faxing medical reports to referring doctors. Thanks.
Of course they do. That was one of the concerns about Medquist. Info from the VA
was going offshore. The info included the location of the soldier's troop when he was wounded in combat and more.
Know is old post - but valid concerns
I don't kow what they could do to help you RE: Katrina but companies need to verify the NEED to cut back or do it across the board, at least in the department / job level. I worked for this company for 6 yr & had several cuts in my take home. The platforms used became slower & slower because of the amazing amt of data in the programs. I had 3 gig memory & STILL took forever & you aren't making a dime for that several minute while a report is sending & the next coming in & then doing the demographic page.
I've been trying to find out if there was anything of that investigation - I never did get that paper that so many other employees got. And I had a definite beef.
Anything an MT can do when you have grave concerns about patient care?
Is there anything at all an MT can do when you have grave concerns about the care a patient is receiving? I know the answer to this is probably no, but I am so completely frustrated with my one of "my" doctors right now. I know that one of his patients is not receiving the proper care, and I am really worried for this patient. I wish I could contact the patient's mother and let her know my concerns, but I know that is not allowed and I would be fired for doing so. I know that I'm not anywhere near as smart as a doctor, but my son has the same condition that this patient does and I know that the patient is not receiving the proper care or even the correct diagnosis. It is hard to go into all of the details for confidentiality reasons. I just know, 100% sure, that this patient deserves better care than he is receiving.
Sometimes the virtual world that we work in is great, and other times it really stinks. If I were working in the doctor's office I could gently share my concerns (maybe I would still be fired but I could give it a shot). Here in this virtual world where the doctors don't even know I exist I can do absolutely nothing.
I'm just so frustrated at the doctor and so very worried for this patient.
Take your medical degree into the office and voice your concerns.
How do you know the patient isn't getting the proper care? No two patients are alike, just because your child has the same condition doesn't mean anything. This parent probably has googled her child's condition and is working along with the doctor. As an MT, you should not talk about any patient even with the other people in the office. It is confidential information and very unprofessional.
You do know that they offshore, right?? Despite what they tell you -
about the hospitals asking, other hospitals have no idea that the accounts are being transcribed offshore!
They offshore and looking to do more. I have
nearly 20 years' experience in acute care, can do even the most difficult ESLs and they offered me 8 cpl, 8.5 cpl over 18,000 lines/pay period.
does not offshore
AccuStat Carolinas does not for any of their clients
They offshore. nm
Try not to offshore.
They might get it done faster/cheaper, but it is going to look like crap. How happy would your clients be then?
All About Offshore
Sending the work offshore can and does work for a couple of reasons.
Firstly the time zone difference, while the US sleeps we are transcribing and the reports back on the specialists' desks, so to speak, when they arrive at work the next morning.
I do not take issue with the fact that you want to keep the work on your shores, but I do take issue with the fact that you think the rest of the world is Third World and incapable of producing work of a high standard. Believe me, there is a world out there and its name is not the US, contrary to what you might think.
A.
Even if they never offshore....sm
when their contracts renew they will be competing against the offshoring companies and the companies offshore already who will bid them under the table and they'll lose the account.
There are several interesting threads, articles, and blogs across the internet concerning the dying industry of the small MTSOs because of not having the capital to keep up with the technology and equipment needed and the decreasing line rates and increasing turnaround times that the facilities are demanding - and big national companies can offer them these things, so they can blow the small MTSOs out of the water.
There is no such thing as security in any job, but the MT industry is on even shakier ground. When your small MTSO has to sell out or loses their contracts and you lose your $36/hour client, you will find that very hard to replace when you go out into the new world of MT and try to find a comparable job today... there just aren't many out there and those that are have hundreds of MTs applying for them.
Now that's getting real...
Offshore
This is sooooooo not true. I work an afternoon shift and have friends/coworkers who work the midnight shift. Despite, this, even during the day shifts, the company we work for is sending all of the easy work offshore, leaving us domestic suckers to do ALL of the ESLs and otherwise hard work. This work was being stripped off daily, in ever increasing amounts --- now it is gone completely. Most of us do not mind doing all of the work as it comes --- but it absolutely sucks that we are being treated this way.
Offshore VR (sm)
I would think so. Personally, I think VR is better suited to newbie MT's and non-English-speaking transcriptionists because VR has a tendency to get the medical words right while totally mangling sentence structure, grammar, proper nouns, and other nuances of transcription that are more easily picked up by novices. Since the medical words have a better track record in VR, it thus becomes easier to bring in low-paid trainees.
Are you offshore?
Your grammer is soooooo bad, I can't take you seriously.
Oh, I have too, for offshore ads. But not U.S.
Oh so you are another offshore supporter?
Sounds like YOU may be the creep.
Offshore Ad on this site?
I was just over on the State Boards forum and saw an Ad for AAAMT saying they charge 5.9 cents per line. Unless they have monkeys working for bananas, they must have offshore workers because we could not put bread on the table for what they would have to pay after Charging 5.9 cents per line. They offer everything that the big MTSOs offer at 1/3rd to 1/4th the price so I think we can be sure they are not hiring US MTs. I believe MTSOs usually pay the MT around one-third what they charge so at 5.9 cents per line, we would be making around 2 cents a line. Ads like this make me question this site's loyalty to US MTs. 
You are offshore and got caught.
/
Nope, even more would end up offshore.
//
They also offshore to Trinidad.
y
Transcend does not offshore
but they are going to voice recognition which has a lot of bugs along with a paycut to about 4 cents a line. There are some other posts on this page about good companies because somebody else asked about them and they made a decision about it. It is probably your best answer. Sorry about the job loss. Why do things always happen around the holidays? Good luck to you.
Don't they offshore big time?
I've never worked there, but I've heard they will undercut American MTs just to send the work overseas.
I beg to differ, OSi DOES offshore.
Or, trying to kid, it is a very well known fact that OSi offshores.
They OFFSHORE and are wanting to do even more.
Pay not that good. I have 20 years' experience in acute care, can do ESLs and was only offered 8 cpl.
Which companies do we know do NOT offshore?
x
re: Which companies do we know do NOT offshore?
Transcend.
Amphion Does Not Offshore
www.amphionmedical.com
They offshore, pay is average. nm
Cymed-offshore
Well, thank you! You just answered a question I asked Cymed.....and they never answered! 
offshore crap
P
If all they had was the offshore companies
to transcribe, do you know how unhappy the M.D.'s would be. They are already complaining. There would be enough jobs if no one worked for the offshoring ones. Idealistic? Yes, but.............
if they use the BOS on offshore sites.
If so, the AAMT must be making a killing.
Offshore telemarketers
I had one call for Direct TV. I answered the phone and he was having a conversation with his buddy in their native language. I said hello about 3 times before he said hello. I said hello again and he hung up. I called the number on the caller ID back and another foreigner answered, asking if he could help me. I told him I didn't know, they called me. "Well your number has been selected to receive a free system. How many TVs do you have?" I told him I wasn't interested. "Is it because you have cable?" I told him no. Then he asked if there was any particular reason. I paused a minute and said no, not wanting to be mean. But I think the next time, I will be getting the number for the corporate HQ and contacting the company directly and filing a complaint.
And you wonder why people offshore...
"As soon as company has to place these kind of restrictions they will need to bite the bullet and hire employees"... when people get to be too much a pain in the a--, they WON'T bite the bullet and hire employees, they'll hire Indian MT's. Do you know what a PAIN it is to do the government forms that come with employee status? YIKE.
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