Questions like the one quoted SHOULD make people angry.

• Teach a newbie to fish - Let's be better teachers.
  • Unfortunately this word board - has always been the joke on the other sm
  • For the newer MTs hearing a "v" - sound at the beginning of a word
    • I'm not worried, but I guess you SM - no, don't think so
    • Coming to MTStars for answers - should be a last resort.
      • Besides which - how about an anatomy text?
        • You seem really angry???? - see inside
          • The advice to Google is assuming SM - no, don't think so
            • Search myself?? Thought that was what word boards are for! - TiredNCrankyMT
            • Here - this will help
          • Spare me. - please.
          • Not angry - just exasperated
          • Questions like the one quoted SHOULD make people angry. - Deb
            • Plus... - just my 2 cents

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I work at-home for a fairly small community hospital.  We have maybe four ESLs on staff at this hospital.  We all have the capability of looking up what reports are on the system and we are allowed to self assign provided we do not abuse it.  The powers that be decided to allow us to have this capability because on second shift and weekends there may be occasion where a report is needed stat and there is no one in the department to assign it and so the person needing the report can simply check to see what MT's are on the system typing and email one of us and we can self assign and do the report.

I usually work first shift, but this week I am filling in for another girl and working second shift.  It is me and one other MT on second.  I plugging along and I get rather lengthy consult by an ESL doctor we all kind of dislike doing because A) He is an ESL dictator and B) All his reports are looooooooong!  So, I get an 8 min consult and I type it, takes me about 20 minutes.  Then, a couple of reports later I get another consult, same dictator, 10 minutes long.  Now, I'm thinking okay what's the other girl doing.  So check on her and she is sitting on the same report she was on when I got the first 8 minute consult.  Her report is a 4 minute H&P by a very American, very good dictator.  So I type the second, 10 minute consult, with just a little irritation nagging me.  A few reports later I get yet another 15 minute consult by the same ESL dictator.  Now I'm steamed.  I look at the job list again and find that she is STILL on the same 4 minute report she has been on for the last hour and a half!  Presumably she has been waiting for me to clear out all the offending dictations so she doesn't get stuck with one!

So now I'm considering letting the supervisor know because it just burns me up when someone treats their co-workers so unfairly.  If she's doing it do me, she's done it to everyone.  But I'm afraid if I gripe about her to management, they will simply take away our self-assign capability and take away our ability to see what is on the system and I hate to penalize everyone because of one person's self-serving and unfair attitude.

What would you all do?

I started a company up and have a few clients; however, 2 of them insist on using my SS# instead of my EIN.  Will I still be able to claim this as income for the business?  Also, I have someone working for me and I am wondering if when I pay taxes on my business do I do it on the money before or after I pay her?  I'm not sure if you have to pay taxes on EVERYTHING you make or if you can count a salary off and just pay taxes on what is left.

for them.  What???  How would I know if I want to work for them if they don't answer my questions.

Go figure.

9 cents per line.  When it came payday, they said it was actually 8 cents per line and 9 cents was the weekend rate.  I should have quit on the spot, but needed the money at the time.  Good luck.

Also as SE we should be compensated at contractor rate, not as if we are one whiff above

employee since we must make up work and eat the down time etc.

Also, when the work is low the work is GIVEN to employees with no warning and NO WAY to make up the work because there is no work there.

it takes TIME to award these prizes and to figure out pay increases.  They have priorities you know.  They are fighting lawsuits, figuring out bonuses for management and trying to save their own jobs or at least accumulate some cash in an offshore bank before going to jail or getting fired for running a scam operation bilking the shareholders, clients and MTs. 

Just be patient.  In a year or so Frank will come through (or at least his replacement) as to who won the Hawaii trip.

make a horrible pest of yourself? Honestly? My riding instructor, who is one of the dearest friends I've ever had, gets into these schemes. His latest was Tahitian Noni juice.

He had some remarkable results with it on a horse that was just a juvenile delinquent - she reared in crossties, acted up at shows when she wasn't in the arena, she was just a PMSing witch.

So I was impressed. I went to a meeting with him. Come to find out, they don't actually want you to buy the Noni juice - they want you to recruit other people to recruit other people. Biggest mess of flim-flam I've ever seen.

I just recently went back to work in the office at a local hospital. We type in both Meditech and Cerner, depending on what you are typing, i.e. Medical Records reports versus Radiology.  We are currently typing blindly in Meditech, meaning we do not have access to our line counts and must depend on management to give us our totals.  In Cerner, we are able to run a line count report and print out a hard copy of our line counts at the end of the day.

We are finding that 800 lines in Cerner equals about 500 lines in Meditech.  We are not paid per line nor do we have an incentive plan, but we have a new HIM Director who would like to institute an incentive plan and the administrator over our department has laid down the law and decreed that all transcriptionists not making minimum in the department will be written up.  Problem is according to Meditech line totals that we have been given, that would be about half the department.

The transcription supervisor has taken our concerns to the new director who told the MT Supervisor to hold off on writing people and has taken home all the line counts from the last month and she is going over them with a fine tooth comb this weekend.

I am not a very trusting soul by nature, so I am doing a little research on my own.  I've been in this business for about 15 years.  I started out in a hospital and have worked for a few services at home and am now back in the hospital setting.  So I know a few things about line count and I consider myself to be pretty well informed on trends and technology in the industry.   I would like to walk into our next department meeting armed with as much knowledge as possible.  So I have come up with some questions that I would like some fellow MTs to answer, give opinions, and maybe even direct me to websites or individuals who could give me a better understanding of Meditech and Cerner.  Here are my questions:

1. Is it possible for an MT to have access to her line count in Meditech or is strictly a management function?  Any MTs that work in Meditech on this board, do you currently have access to your line counts and if so, how do you check them?  Is it an option on the main menu after you log into Meditech?


2. How is a line defined in Meditech?  (i.e. 65 cpl, with spaces, without spaces)


3. How is a line defined in Cerner?


4. What abbreviation Expanders work with both Meditech and Cerner?


5. Examples of incentive plans (if anyone would like to share that with me that would be great, if not I completely understand).


6. Measuring productivity by minutes of dictation versus typed lines.




1. What would be the minimum minutes required for an 8-hour day?


2. How would one structure an incentive program based on minutes?

I was thinking of presenting the idea that we keep track of productivity using minutes instead of lines since there is such a discrepancy in Meditech.  I also worry that if an incentive plan is put into place and we are still typing blind into Meditech, what's to keep management from shaving off a few lines here and there?

Feel free to email me or post here any responses.  Either is fine.  I really appreciate any input, comments, or just plain old supportive posts would be nice too! 

My mother would not side with me.  I know this for a fact, thats why I keep the responses to myself.  She pretends like she doesnt see it, she is one of those moms in denial about everything.  I'm also afraid she will feel threatened, I don't want that.  Also, the family member I told has a big mouth, and I think some of it may have leaked out because the last time I went over there, I went swimming and I had a towel wrapped around me.  Exact words from my stepfather "Why are you all covered up, do you think there's a pervert here or something?" And he's become very hostile lately.  The whole thing is a mess.  Its sad because my stepfather and I were close in a normal way at one time.  Its like I lost that.   

Since I have never seen your work I would not presume to pass judgment on it.  *IF* your work consistently had gross errors and you were never informed, that says enough about the company you worked for.  In fact, as far as I'm concerned, a company that would ask ANYONE to work free for "months" as you said in a previous post is beyond despicable. It might be possible this is how they are making their money, the profit margin for free work would be pretty good but I would expect they wouldn't last long.

On the otherhand, I've had more years experience than I care to say, so let me tell you I KNOW how bad the baddest ESLs can be.  This actually happened to me:  I worked for a company about 10 years ago when tapes were sent to us at home by UPS.  I consistently got this one ESL who was so bad I said that God Himself couldn't understand him.  I called the office more than once saying I hated sending the reports directly to the hospital because they looked exactly like swiss cheese.  I was told to "just do the best you can and don't worry about it."  Well, one day I got a tape of his dictation and the tape itself was bad, so that work looked more like the whole block of swiss cheese with huge chunks where the tape was nothing but a stretching sound, thus, large chunks of blanks.  I called the office and again was told to "do the best I could" and send it on to the hospital.  Well, the next day I got some more of his tapes and the first thing he said was, "ah dunawa **** ado MA tie."  I translated this to mean, "I don't want **** to do my typing."  I immediately called the office and I admit I was pretty distraught, even considering how bad he was.  Know what I was told?  "The hospital knows how bad he is, their MTs refuse to do him which is why they send him to us and you're the only MT we have who can do him.  Don't worry about it, just send the tapes back and we'll tell them we're not going to do him anymore."  WHAT????  Why the heck didn't they tell the hospital that way before I pulled all my hair out??!!  And this was a large national that has since been gobbled up by MQ.

Don't give up.  Ask an experienced MT to review your work and give you some honest, constructive feedback and then do what it takes.  If you have to pay someone to mentor you for awhile it's a small price to pay for the education you'll get.    Hang in there.