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Opinions as facts

Posted By: just an MT on 2006-06-29
In Reply to: what? - lynn

I know what my job is - but I also know what the doctors job is and that is to provide adequate patient care, for which this particular doctor often does not do. I just hate having my initials on the reports. There are many times that I have thought of turning her in, but with doctors patrolling themselves it is unlikely that anything would ever become of it. One of her colleagues has a double-digit infection rate for knees, hips and backs - and somehow he is still in practice. At first I thought maybe these patients were seeking him as a second opinion or already had the infection until I looked further into their records - he works with the same group in the same OR and that is where the infection is coming from. I wish they would just shut them down. It is heartbreaking when a 20-something loses his leg due to an infection - and then the next three reports are also infected patients of his. Maybe I should just get out of this business. I think it has taken its toll.

Complete Discussion Below:

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DOCTOR STATES OPINION AS FACT - just an MT
- I totally understand - me
- who pays attention to those initials anyway? - I thought the report is docs responsibility.
- Well, the patient does have some control, actually. - Misha
- ohhh - LavenderMT
- You're the transcriptionist, not the consulting physician. - Let him do his job; you do yours.
- what? - lynn
  - Opinions as facts - just an MT
    - Doctors patrolling themselves? What a joke! They barely have time to see ALL their patients.... - LOL!
      - Your first statement is a joke. Doctors are NOT totally - incompetent. You're just paranoid and bitter.
        If she's like the rest of us MTs out there... - TeaL

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Those are not facts. Those are your opinions.
The fact is that most people here who own trailers, whether the trailer is in a park or not, OWN their trailer. It has nothing to do with education level or skills. The real scuzzy part of town is the lower south side with all the decrepit apartment buildings and homeless people wandering around from the shelter. Sorry, but the "facts" and "statistics" you are spouting simply do not hold water.

Facts? what FACTS?..MQ does not deal in Facts! Haven't you learned

they will be written in disappearing ink.

Make up a theory and build on it. That's the best fact you will have

from this joke of a corporation. It is a non-business. The more deep they get

into the world of transcription the more complicated and nonsensical it becomes.

We are so FAR removed at this point from what the job was originally designed to

do it's impossible to recognize the goal.

p.s. the original GOAL was: Transcribe what an English speaking physician dictated in place of him having to write it out. They were clear, distinct, and appreciative of the chance to get home to dinner on time instead of sitting writing notes for 2 hours after making rounds.

A lot of legal-ese, mumbo, jumbo, useless lab values garbled in a nurse cackling station in the hallway was not where they dictated - nor were they doing it in a car, on a boat, in the men's bathroom, or in the doctor's lounge with one eye on the football game. They were in the MR room in a soundproof cubby with their charts.

All a transcripionist did was put a tape in the machine, type the name of the patient as good as she could make out from the doctor's dictation - type the report - take the paper out of the typewriter, put a sticker on the bottom of the page HISTORY AND PHYSICAL and the like and put it in a stack for the MR clerk to put the Pat ID number and other info in the little box at bottom of the report.

If we couldn't make out what the doctor was saying, we could get up from our chair, go to the files 2 feet away, pull the chart, and look at the word, number, name of whatever we had question about.

We were not "bean counters", doing transcription as an after-thought. Ever since the time they put MTs in front of a computer we have become DATA ENTRY first and foremost, collecting information, and along with that trying to still PRODUCE the same amount of reports as we used to squeezed into the same 8 hours - while trying to now understand illiterate people calling themselves doctors and who have lost every bit of respect for the person at the other end of the dictation line and who have become for the most part rude buffoons hardly due the title of human being much less physician.

And to top it all off, now with all the added functions companies want from an MT they want to pay less.

He gave you FACTS, facts are no biased. GEEZ. nm
x

Here are the facts
They have 5 pay levels. The top level, which is where I stay no matter what it takes, pays 0.085 per line for a minimum of 225 lines/hour with an additional 0.05 per line on weekends. You don't have to work harder for the new bonuses. If I stay right where I am now putting less than 20% of my work on hold (the amount I put on hold is WAY less than that), I will make nice bonuses with the new QA. I like the money I make because I'm a single mother and have no backup income.

The facts
YOU need to give it up. Trust me, I am NOT MQLOVER. We are two different people with one very strong similarity and that is that we both enjoy working for MQ - is that so hard to understand? When she gets flamed it is usually because she is commenting how happy she is at MQ and when that happens that rubs me the wrong way because I agree with her!

WE ARE HAPPY AND NOT AFRAID TO ADMIT IT SO WHAT IS PROBLEM?

Get off the kick that we are the same person posting as two - because let the facts be told that is not true!

Just some facts sm
My original post is speaking of the definitions as we know them, not the terms themselves.

As a matter of fact, neither term is mentioned in the Bible. The only way we recognize what they are is from the way the Bible is describing the two.

Definition of astrology:

Divination using celestial bodies: the sun, moon, planets, and stars.

This description is mentioned in the Bible many times. One example:

"You are wearied with your many counsels; let them stand forth and save you, those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who at the new moons predict what shall befall you." Isaiah 47:13

Definition of astronomy:

The science of the celestial bodies: the Sun, the Moon, the planets, the stars and galaxies, and every other object in the universe.

The Hebrews were devout students of the wonders of the starry firmanent (Amos 5:8; Ps. 19). In the Book of Job, which is the oldest book of the Bible in all probability, the constellations are distinguished and named. Mention is made of the "morning star" (Rev. 2:28; comp. Isa. 14:12), the "seven stars" and "Pleiades," "Orion," "Arcturus," the "Great Bear" (Amos 5:8; Job 9:9; 38:31), "the crooked serpent," Draco (Job 26:13), the Dioscuri, or Gemini, "Castor and Pollux" (Acts 28:11). The stars were called "the host of heaven" (Isa. 40:26). (source: christianity.about.com)

When all is said and done, you have a free will to accept, disregard, believe, or disbelieve whatever you want to...granted by your Creator.

You also have the knowledge and the means to search out for yourself what is displeasing/incompatible with God and His Word. He will be the ultimate judge.

But don't be fooled, scripture does tell us that putting our faith and trust in the alignment of the planets and stars is divination, sorcery.

God said it, not me.

Thank you for these facts...
NM

The facts....

During the "season," the weather's great - the lines are long, and the prices are shooting through the roof.

During the summer, it's just the opposite, but the weather's so hot and humid you'd swear you've got steam coming out your ears.

Facts are facts . . . The AMA does not . . .

recognize the BOS as an authoritative guide for medical writing. Fact. No "personal feelings" are involved.

Now, my PERSONAL FEELINGS are that I hate to see people waste their money. Way too many MTSOs and MTs have been duped into believing the BOS is an authority.

And the facts....
do show that CMTs DO earn more money so someone is paying for it. That even showed up in the annual survey done by Advance. It just is. And sure many don't have that, and yet for each and every one of us, it is about CHOICE, and we do choose where we work.

Get the facts
I have been doing transcription for 3 years plus; in my past life I did hospital quality management. Something is missing in this industry, nobody manages anything objectively except how fast we get a report to the customer. I can't figure out how the MT world missed out on the whole QA thing when it is the biggest deal in how hospitals function. I guess as QA was becoming a very big deal from the standpoint of accreditation, the MTs were sneaking out the back door or there became so many variations on managing transcription, JCAHO just didn't feel like opening that can of worms. But, from my experience, background, and 20 years of forcing people to do it, I have concluded that it is the very reason the MT industry is in such chaos. This work is never managed by anything factual. Everyone is guessing at it. I even have to laugh at times wondering if anyone ever bothered to ask a physician if they even LIKE VR; all this time, effort, science, and and.. I rarely hear anything positive. It saves money? Does it? Based on what? Nobody evaluates my work in any detail that tells me anything. No other business involved in the written word sends off final products without it being edited, not spot checked, edited.. like the newspaper. They want perfection newpapers and novels, but we can send information off that has to do with life and death after we double check our work; everyone knows you can't proof your own work. That makes me crazy.

Well, I could do volumes on this. You just flat can't effect change by trying to talk people into it. Which, by the way, would be poor managing. If offshoring is so bad for all the reasons noted, we have to show them the money.

I'm a believer in walk the talk, so in my spare NOT time...I have put this website together so that we can begin to collect data, so we can begin to prove our points. I have one survey there now, but I'm just getting started. There will be many many. When there is some powerful information available, I'm going to start knocking on the doors of some entities who can make something happen (who probably should have been). Go have a look (and do a survey)!!

We have to dig deep about offshoring, really explore it, and get facts about it. I'd be interested in forcing the "big savings" issue into data because I keep wondering if the bean counters are counting in the USA hours spent fixing their work? No, that still shows up on our expense account.

Back to work.
www.medicaltranscriptionsurveys.com

I'd be interested to know if you have the facts on this
Not flaming at all, just would like to know what goes on, what they're not telling us. I've seen documentaries on how humanely they do it, by injection for cows and they give pain relievers to chickens. Am I being naive here?

I have my facts straight.
Comments by people on message boards don't matter. It's the BBB complaints and lawsuits that back up my facts. Of course, people are going to say good things about a product or service in order to sell, sell, sell. It's called damage control.

Get your facts straight
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-09-07-katrina-debit_x.htm

Anything else you care to complain about?

Facts and stats
Facts and stats are always interesting but fail to include things like the absolute lack of respect for what we do. When the medical records industry needed more MTs, the only innovative thing they have tried is sending the work offshore. No one in the industry has figured out that in order to attract and retain good MTs, you need to respect them, pay them what their worth and stop telling them they are a profession when their pay is based on piecework.

Um, yes, you can. Check your facts. nm
x

The REAL facts on EMR

This is in response to a post made earlier to the MT who wanted to know if EMR is doing away with MTs.

To answer your question, I would only direct you to the "job's wanted" board here, as well as to various other MT boards around. Seeing the vast number of companies who are screaming for qualified MTs should answer your question and put your fears to rest.

EMR is too expensive and cumbersome for the vast majority of docs to use. They will either have to pay big bucks for it and spend their time playing secretary or hire someone to do the input, which equals employee - benefits - paid vacation time - paid personal time, yada, yada, yada. WHERE'S THE SAVINGS? There is none.

If the doc wants to play secretary and input the info himself, he's cutting his own throat doing it as he's earning secretarial wages instead of M.D. wages.

EMR will not and never will wipe out our industry.

This is a crock - here are the facts about IQ

Okay, here are the facts for those who care (like me).

There are many standardized IQ tests. Some only go to 140. Some tests can go up to 180. So basically it depends on what IQ test was given just how relatively smart these people are. I seriously doubt any of these folks actually published something as personal as an IQ score and even if they did, I would question the validity. You cannot make a blanket statement when comparing IQs. One more time (for those who didn't read my last post) -- think about high IQs like this -- it is simply processing speed, just like your computer. Many IQ tests are auditory memory and/or processing skills -- i.e. you have $1.75 and three of the coins are dimes -- what are the other coins and how many of each. ..that type of thing. I stress that while IQ is important -- what is more important are other qualities such as character, learning from experience, attitude, resiliency, etc. I would also add that unfortunately research shows neurocognitive diseases such AD, etc. are very unkind to the extremely intelligent.

I have been a member of American Mensa for years....and find it to be a very valuable wealth of information -- ESPECIALLY in regard to the testing and studies they have done on gifted children. Very interesting research and publishing in their magazines of information on smart kiddos (like yours I am sure.)

: I left Houston and moved to Chicago increasing the average IQ of both places :)

AND if you are going to dis MENSA -- there is another organization called Intertel of which I am also a member whose IQ requirement is 99.9. What we actually do is covert -- but I am at last relieved that they can no longer harvest my eggs :)

Some interesting facts...

In 1960 the average yearly income was 4,743 dollars.

I'm looking in my 1960 Sears catalog right now:

Console television 23 inches - 429.00

Reel to reel tape player - 279.95

Gas range 289.00

13.8 cu ft (can you say SMALL?) refrigerator - 369.95

Can you see how expensive these things were back then in comparison to income? You can buy a really good sized refrigerator now for about 700 dollars on sale. That's not the fancy schmancy one, but it's very cheap compared to our average income. Same with everything else.

In my 1973 Sears catalog we have a microwave oven for 500 DOLLARS!

My point is, many things are very cheap now if you take a historical look at it.

Here's 2 facts- the Lap-Band.....sm

The risks of the Roux-en-Y include organ failure and death.

The risks of the Lap-Band do not include organ failure and death.

I type this everyday for 2 years now so the facts come from the professionals and not me.

your facts. not mine. nm
NM

Get your facts straight
"This whole mess" as you put it started long before Clinton became president. Also, remember he was dealing with a Republican congress, which is where NAFTA originated. Reagan was the culprit - it was during his decade of greed that America put itself up for the highest bid - like a lady of the night.

Oh, I do know the facts and the accounts
run out of work. Not clinic or ER work, so must be 2 different animals, or 2 different LTS.

Get your facts straight
I cannot believe how ignorant some of the comments in this section are. Physicians from other countries go to medical school in their own country. When they come to the United States, they must pass a Foreign Medical Graduate examination. In addition, they must complete their residency here in the U.S. They also must pass the test to obtain their medical license in the state in which they wish to practice. You don't just go to a mediocre school in another country and then come here and set up practice.

my facts to back it up are...
I have been doing this now for 16 years. I am not a newbie. And you all made my point. You are working when your children are napping, or when they are in school, or when your husband it home, or after they go to sleep at night - exactly what I said - you have to work the job - you are not attending to your children and working at the same time. Okay, you are willing to work from morning to night to make your money and if that is what you want to do, then that is great...

My facts to back this up are that I had 2 young children when I started transcription and I had to work 3rd shift because if I was on 1st or 2nd shift they wanted to know why I "played on the computer all day" or "why won't you play with me".

I also have a sister who is a medical Transcriptionist at home and she takes her child to a daycare everyday because she does not want to make her feel neglected if she has to work while the child is wanting to be paid attention to and she does not want to get fired when she cannot produce what she is required to, and she does not want to be homeless when she cannot pay her bills. And she takes a vacation whenever the child cannot go to daycare because it is just not profitable for her to work with the child there.

I also have a good friend who is a transcriptionist and she hired a babysitter to come into her home 5 days a week and keep the children in another part of the house while she worked because she could not devote her attention to the child and work at the same time.

I never said you could not benefit from keeping your child at home, but you cannot give your child 100% and give your job 100% at the same time. At any point in a day, you have to choose one or the other.

And those are my facts to back up what I am saying...

Please don't speculate. Can we stick to facts?(sm)

Speculating gets us nowhere. Does anyone have any facts yet?

Not angry, just stating facts. Look around.
x

lol, just stating the facts ma'am.
x

You'd like to hit a nerve, I'd like to stick to facts
My comments weren't made to bicker back and forth with someone who wants to have a personal war and claim touche' afterwards. They were made of my observations of what I saw with smooth transcription flow. I have no control of your choice to twist them. You know nothing of me, only that you did not like my observations. Call it whatever you will.

not flaming you, just stating facts. sm
no one can clean up enough themselves, but Christ can clean them up. Maybe you would want to discuss on the faith board? I assumed by the tone of your posts over there you were a Christian but I assume not now. Didn't flame, but will pray for you.

I too have been to h*ll and back by the Grace of Christ he brought me out of it.

Just reading your posts on this side of the boards you sound like a miserable sad person. Christ can change that if you let him.

Also, if buying an analog TV, get the facts if it will be compatible or not...(nm)
xx

He's stating statistics and facts. You're LOL-ing
for lack of any facts, stats or intelligent statements. You are showing your ignorance and lack of education and class, as well as your resentment and jealousy of those who have successful lives because they got off their butts and did something - like go to college and control the direction fo their lives instead of blaming other people for everything.

Typical loser.

Give them REAL facts and sources to

LOL, Commie News Network? Facts? LOL

You get your news from CNN? Well, that explains a lot. As far as being ready for kids...Plenty of people have only as many kids as they can support themselves, AND buy their own house, AND provide for their own retirements. It's called planning, not reproducing to the extreme under the umbrella of being a "good Catholic" and then being unable to provide.

And I was stating facts based on my experience..nm
nm

I would do research on eating disorders and get some facts.
and not in an accusing way. Also Tyra, Oprah, Dr. Phil, they all have had and will continue to have shows on this issue. If you catch one, tape it and watch it with your husband and then get her to watch it. She may have a low self-esteem from being overweight and needs some encouragement and love. Spend time with her and show interest in things she is interested. I am sure Dr. Phil's web site addresses this issue and gives advice. Is her mother in the picture, and can the two of you talk? If so, I would talk to her. You need everybody on the same page IMO.
Good Luck

Facts and statistics from the Medical Records Institute

Medical Transcriptionists

Well above 90% female with an average age of 49

Most were on-the-job trained for years prior to the development of formal transcription curricula

Majority of new entrants receiving too little education and/or training

Retiring faster than qualified transcriptionists are entering the market

The vast majority resides in the US; however, increasing quantities of entrants are from offshore including
India , Pakistan , Philippines , the Caribbean , etc.

It is useless to supply facts because they don't matter, only emotion. NM
x

no facts. rumor from an MT poster. really reliable huh? who would have access to this info
bet Frank doesn't even know.

Back up your posts with facts. Do not make vague comments.
/

Need opinions

Does anyone use software for transcription that has the automatic faxing and e-mailing so the doctor's office doesn't have to pay staff to do this?

Was it expensive for you to buy - does the vendor charge you a per line fee or any fee for this - is it easy for you to use - and do you feel that the doctors like this kind of software and its faxing and emailing of transcripts to referring physicians functions? Also, do you have names of companies you could give so that I could possibly check into this? I am currently using a phone-in system but I thought an automatic faxing software would draw in prospective doctor clients.

Any opinions, good and bad, are welcomed. Thank you.

Need opinions please

Does anyone use software for transcription that has the automatic faxing and e-mailing so the doctor's office doesn't have to pay staff to do this?

Any opinions, good and bad, are welcomed. Thank you.

Thanks for the opinions. sm

I'm still firmly of the opinion that it does suck. I hate it. The poster who said it's just a mess to clean up, is absolutely correct. That's the whole problem. Some doctors are great, others are so-so, and many are just a mess. You waste more time backing up and correcting, and could have typed it by hand in the first place with less grief and frustration.

Yes, maybe it is the wave of the future, but as many bad dictators as there are, there are always going to be people needed for them. Let the ones who love speech rec go for it. It might help some, saving some people's hands, and boosting production somewhat, but I'd really like to talk to the people themselves who love it and supposedly have great production, rather than just seeing a generic sheet of numbers that the supervisors wave around for show.

No, it was not the Dragon program, and not a national company.

This is not on just a few providers, it's about 70% of them in a quite large facility, ESLs included right along with the stumblers and mumblers.

Correct, the supervisors are pushing this program so hard, to save money. Yes, it can be a great help to some, but not to all.

Medical reports can be extremely complicated, and are in no way comparable to social work reports. One person, consistently dictating all the time, compared to an assortment of 20-30 dictators/speech patterns at random, with different types of reports? No, there's no comparison.

All in all, it does suck to work with. And if I'm not taken off the program at the end of three months, then I will probably quit. It might help me somewhat, but I doubt it's going to boost my production that much. We'll see what happens. To me, it's not worth the stress and frustration.

My opinions (which is what they are - opinions)
are just as worthy as yours!

You need not worry about my work production. It is still steady. I'm on here when I have time. Took the day off today to relax and rest.

I hope you enjoy your day! :)

need some opinions, please
I applied at 2 companies on Friday evening - heard back from both of them the same day - one wanted a questionnaire filled out, the other said they were very interested in talking to me and asked me when I was available to speak to them M-W of this week - I wrote back and gave times, etc. Haven't heard anything yet. If I don't hear by this evening, should I call them? I'm very anxious to get another job!

Opinions PLEASE!

I am SO sorry for reposting this. If I knew how to remove my other post from the pressure valve, I would... I do not want to get in trouble for multiple postings, so PLEASE forgive that mistake. I just don't think that the PV gets as much traffic as this board, and I really need some help right now!

Can I get an opinion from someone who is experienced in this business? I am a relatively new MT... I have only been doing this job since March 2005, so less than a year.

I work as an independent contractor at .08 per line. My employer is a really nice person, but she will frequently need help over the weekend. I have always said sure because I want to make myself valuable to her. However, I have always done as much as I can do comfortably and still have time with my family over the weekend.

I did an extra 1000 lines this weekend, which takes me about 6 hours because I am still new and research everything if I am not totally familiar with the terms. I got an email this morning saying that, basically, I had not done enough to help her and she ended up doing "most of it" herself.

My feeling is that she is the owner of this business. If she overextends herself as far as taking on work and she has to work all weekend to get it done, that's what she has to do as the owner of this business. If she wants to pay a weekend differential to me, then sure... I will make plans with my husband to take the kids on his own and I will work all weekend now and then. But if I am working for the same rate, I am not willing to work all week and then work all weekend too and miss out on my husband and children. Isn't it customary and expected to offer a differential for working weekends and holidays?

I am a bit miffed because I gave up most of my Saturday and an hour or so on Sunday to help her out, and now I am criticized for not doing more for the same pay. Any input from you experienced MTs?

I am sitting on my email reply, but it does have this in it:

"I am happy to help as much as I can over a weekend without a differential, but I will need to do so around my family's schedule."

I need to reply to her email, but am not sure what to say. Thank you in advance for your help.

Opinions please!
Have any of you worked at home for a long length of time and then had to go out to work in the public for any reason? I have been a home MT for a long, long time, 10++ years. I work for a big national, but find that I can no longer sit here and wait for work! I have applied for an in hospital job doing rehab! Is this type of work difficult? Any opinions greatly appreciated. I would really like to have your input!
TIA

Opinions please!!!!!!
It's not PT the add just said Rehab MT. So, this had me confused! What do you all think? TIA

Need Opinions-OP
I got things straightened out, but thanks for your replies. I ended up with a 13-page report right after posting. LOL He spoke clearly, too! It's for a psychiatrist, so it should be interesting to hear those cases.

You know what they say about opinions!
8>)

Need opinions

Yesterday, I received an announcement in the mail regarding the graduation of a long-time ex-friend's daughter's graduation...wheew!

My question to y'all is...the last time this ex-friend and I spoke, we were not on good terms..and actually, she wasn't really a friend. She was an MTSO that I worked for for about a year. Turned out (and long story short) she was a crazy person!!! Anyway, I was very surprised to receive this announcement.

What would y'all do? Send the girl money?...I have nothing against her, though I don't really know her that well...trash the announcement and forget about it, or what? I am by no means going to attend the ceremony, but should I even acknowledge the receipt of the announcement?

I feel like the "friend" just...like my daughter said...went through her address book and sent everyone in it an announcement...probably just for gifts...your help would be so appreciated!