Raising hand

• SPi transcription - Kathy
  • Raising hand - academia
  • How long have you been there? sm - former SPIdiot

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had nightmares for 2 days after that.

Do any of you have plans to raise rates with the new year coming up?  I know my offices have raised their rates three times this past year, but I have not.  With gas prices, heating prices, food, etc, going through the roof, I feel I don't have a choice. 

I would appreciate any feedback.

and have never paid for daycare while working.  I have been doing this for about 10 years and my children are ages 10, 7 and 5.  As I have added children and they have gotten older, it has become more distracting, but there are ways to do it without daycare.

When younger and I only had the 1, I worked in the mornings and afternoons when he was sleeping and finished up my day when my husband came home.  As our family grew and the younger children became older, I dropped the afternoon shifts and worked primarily early morning and nights when the kids were sleeping and/or my husband was home.  Now that they are in school, I am able to work daylight during the school year and evenings/nights in the summer when my husband is home.  If I had to pay daycare, no way would this be a profitable job. 

I would not recommend that you get into this field if you will need to pay daycare expenses.  You're much better off if you can work around your husband's schedule (if married) or if you have family close by that would be willing to help out a few hours a day with childcare.  Now that my kids are all in school, I really do enjoy the freedom this job allows me.  I rarely miss a school function or sporting event and the summers at home are great!

While not available in all areas, this is a wonderful program to help out families and communities.  I used it for years when I lived in Colorado and now that I have moved, I am in the process of finding this program in my state. 

The program consists of paying a certain amount for a given box of food (you can buy more than one) on a certain day or days.  Then, you put in volunteer hours in your community for each box you purchase.  You have a volunteer slip signed where you volunteer.  On D-Day, you go and pick up your boxes of food. 

The boxes consist of fresh fruits and vegetables and meat items.  Occasionally there is cheese too.  There might be pasta and/or rice.  There is often a prepared food item.  They offer seasonal boxes for holiday baking, meat lover's boxes in time for summer grilling and Thanksgiving boxes.  The retail value of what you get in a SHARE box is usually at least double the cost of the box, and that has been my experience.  The kids and I used to go and help on D-Day, passing out boxes, cleaning up for our volunteer activity.

http://www.sharecolorado.com/

is for Colorado and several other states, but should link you nationally too.

As an MTSO, don't think you are going to increase your accounts *yearly* (the word you used).....good luck if you're taking that route!!

I have my surgeons for a decade due to they pay very well and I have NEVER raised their rates because then they COULD choose to go elsewhere for less.....just my take.....

I also worked for nat'l services for years and they rarely raised their rates to their clients, as they, too, never wanted to lose any accts.

Good luck to you, whichever way you go!!

so you could stand and type.  It was a refreshing change.  I really liked the set up.  Mayo paid a chunk of change for those desks and there were over 90 MTs in our office.

status.

Anyone have experience with companies who hire you as an employee, certain hours but don't provide you with the equipment you need?  Worked for a company that did that but no medical spell checker on their software, some accounts they want YOU to buy a C-phone for etc. etc.  Asked them up front if account I would be working on would have medical speller, told yes.  It did not.  Also there was some kind of ShortHand program built in that they knew nothing about, we couldn't get to and conflicted with the autocorrect I used in Word.  Kept asking and it was always we will ask the hospital and then nothing.  Went out bought my own spell check and whatever I needed then three weeks into working, they dump the account.

Start over with a new account, different problems, they want me to buy even more stuff.  Said no I am outta here!

Anybody had that problem?

I start med school (been an MT for 24 years) August 2006. 

One of my classes last semester was Intro to Medical Practices.  I especially inquired about pro bono work by all the physicians and dentists who spoke to the class as guests each week.  All gave significant amounts of their practice to pro bono work.

One physician in particular impressed me.  He is a cardiovascular surgeon.  His main area of expertise is doing cardiac bypasses.  To make a long story short, because of insurance changes (MCare) over the past few years, he only makes about $650 per bypass for his own pocket and that is gross.  Of the $1850 MCare and insurance companies pay him for this procedure, it costs him $1200 in overhead for that procedure.  Until last year, he would often do the procedure for free for patients who could not afford it and had no insurance.  However, for 2 years he had to BORROW MONEY to pay his OVERHEAD because he did so much pro bono work.  He finally decided he just could not go bankrupt doing that.  So now, he STILL does HIS PART for free but the patient has to pay his overhead.  He tells them to call their family, friends, churches and if they have the $1200 for his overhead, he will donate HIS skills/time/energy for free.

The physician (maxillofacial surgeon) who directed this class said his annual pro bono work runs around $250,000 a year. 

As well, while dentists recoup 95% to 100% of the fees charged for their services (they are ALWAYS getting their money up front), physicians (with the exception of cosmetic plastic surgery) only recoup an average of 31% of their fees.  For every $1000 they spend on a patient, they will only get back approximately $310 and must write off the rest. 

Now that is INSIDE information - direct from the physicians and dentists we had in class.  I was shocked.  Not deterred, but shocked. 

Regarding that lovely cardiologist who gives so much away, take into consideration that the $650 for HIS skills/time/energy for ONE cardiac bypass -- he invests a total of 12 to 15 hours for that one procedure (that is WITHOUT complications happening) including his consult/operative time/followup visits, hospital rounds, etc.  That comes out to about $54 an hour -- and plumbers and electricians around here make more than that.  My Ford dealership in town gets $76 an hour. 

And now, since we are starting to do bypasses endovascularly through the femoral artery, he has to really put the money down for more education to train to do this or he will be out of business shortly. 

Interesting huh?!  When people make comments to me about my future as a physician as a way to "get rich", I tell them not necessarily so!!  LOL  I'm not doing it for money!  You couldn't pay me enough to go through all this at this time in my life!!  LOL  

I do get offensive when someone doesn't like my children simply because of their skin tone.  I'm not saying that the OP said anything about my children or even posted about the topic.  I was just offended that she can so casually admit to being a prejudice person.  Prejudice causes hate and violence.  I take offense to that.  I think that you should, and everyone should take offense to it so that it can be stopped.  If everyone were okay with it or  no one ever stood up about the subject, where would we be? 

Also, there is a difference between knowing someone as an individual that may be a "bad seed" and be a minority and not liking them versus not liking someone without knowing them as a person simply because they are a minority.

All I know is, when those of us who are saved make it to heaven, there will be every race there right along with us, as God has created us all in his image.

I've transcribed since 1983.  You can lessen hand stress if you observe how you hold your hands as you type.  When I was in my twenties I noticed that there was a real difference in the way I held my hands and how the older transcriptionists (they had their wrists up and hands pointing down at the keyboard).  I have always had my wrists laying on something and my fingers are going up.  I have never had one bit of carpal tunnel or pain whatsoever.

I have had a problem with swelling in my lower legs and feet and also my hands for the past few years now.  When this first started I had problems with headaches, went to the doctor and found my blood pressure was high.  So now I take HCTZ 75/50 once a day and do pretty well on it.  It is a pretty good diuretic and my B/P is very well controlled on it. 

In the mornings I have no swelling at all, but I notice though that by the end of my workday my hands and legs are really swollen.  My doctor says to just start exercising regularly and elevate my feet whenever possible.  I also try to avoid salt.  I'm a bit overweight so I'm sure that is not helping either. 

I'm just curious if any of you other MTs have this problem also and how you deal with it.

The OP explained her situation and then elaborated on the situation again. It sounds like she is a giving person by helping other family members and it also sounds like she just wanted some ideas on frugal ways to make a dollar stretch until she gets her affairs in proper order.  Should she require the family members pay SOME type of rent to be accountable?  Probably. We all know the real estate market is not what is used to be and some people are in a bind with their property right now. The OP is clear that she was not fully informed about the whole transaction and there could be particulars that the OP may not have been privvy too. Maybe mistakes were made by the OP and her husband and it's too late to repair the problem.  People make mistakes all the time.  As you are reading this, consider what mistakes you have made in just the past 24 hours.  The key here is that before passing judgement understand that there could be many variables that you are not aware of. 

Help!  Both of my hands today are very painful.  Sometimes I get the usual aches and pains in my hands and wrists from transcribing, but today they BOTH hurt so bad, especially between the index finger and thumb areas.  They feel cramped and the pain is similar to when my shoulders get tense and you rub the knots.  It's not a sharp pain, but a pretty intense pain when I put pressure on my hands, try to lift anything or touch/massage them or even stretch them.  They're painful in the first four digits on both hands.  Has anyone had this and/or have any clues what it is or what I can do to help them.  TIA!

I work in my finished basement and in the winter it is normally a little chilly, but not horrible.  But, for the past few weeks, my right hand has been freezing cold.  I got some gloves and cut the tips off, but that doesn't even help much...my fingertips remain freezing cold.  I am starting to wonder if there may be some other sort of problem, especially because this does not happen to my left hand.

Any suggestions as to what might be causing this? TIA.