Returning to MT work
Posted By: Pat Peacock on 2009-02-22
In Reply to: Thinking about returning to MT - Nancy
You might want to think twice about it now. You probably made good money in the 90's but now the pay is miserable. I was a full-time employee for a group of orthopedic docs for over 26 years (plus did hospital work also) and finally retired. I wanted something part-time again and worked for several companies that only paid 8 or 9 cents a line. (I was salaried and made very good money at the group.) Working for these companies is a horse of a different color! Not to mention everything has not only gone digital but many companies merely want you to edit the work as now voice recognition and electronic medical records has replaced the Transcriptionist as we knew it. Yes, there are still some jobs out there but the pay is not good and frankly, I wouldn't advise getting back in it again unless you know a few docs locally where you could sub for vacations, etc. I miss doing the work but after my two "trials" it just wasn't worth it any longer. I spent more time looking up the patient numbers, etc., trying to figure out the company's platform to use, etc., etc. I felt like a beginner even though I have done this work for 30+ years. Frustrating to say the least. Good luck to you, though, if you do decide to return to the field. :(
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returning work
I would not assume if I were you to know why work is returned. One frustration going on right now that I can fully understand is the fact that too many people are on the same accounts and when you are typing your 4th, 5th or even 6th back up account almost all day and getting very frustrated, one might feel like send the report back. I am sure most of us have worked very hard on learning our own account doctors but there is lots of frustration right now and everyone has a breaking point. Then to add salt to the wound we are being told no samples will be send out, us the self help approach and look at your own archives. These doctors on secondary accounts are NOT in the archives if you have never done them before.
If you work from a pool, it's onlyl a matter of returning a dictation to the pool for the poor sucke
,
Had some, returning them.
I bought them and had an allergic reaction to the plastic used on the earpieces. I am shipping them back tomorrow. I bought them from TranscriptionGear and they were $49.99. They would have been great - barring the reaction. If you decide to buy them, try the Noisebuster brand. Good luck.
Returning to MT
Hi, all,
Just needed some opinions. I've been out of MT for almost three years now. I do some transcription in my job as a project specialist at a medical school - interviews for research studies and the like - but I have been considering returning to medical transcription full-time. I enjoy the job I have but financially, I'm making less money than I was as an MT. (I decided to change careers as, in general, the medical transcription field has been so volatile in the past several years.
Has the field stabilized any? Are the work-at-home transcription companies paying more fairly? Are there still tons of problems with getting paid or getting decent benefits or getting a preferred shift? I need all opinions one could possibly think of (more than the questions I asked even), so feel free to let me know the good, bad, and indifference about being an MT in today's market.
I'd really appreciate it!
Returning to MT field
I went through a training program and then worked one year for a national - Spheris. Had some health issues (and a young son paying daycare for) so gave my notice and got done. That was several years ago. My son is now in kindergarten and want to do medical transcription again.
What is IC and how does that work? Do all nationals have this? How does part time work for most of these companies?
Any hints on brushing up on my skills before I return.
Thank you for your help,
Hopeful MT
Thinking about returning to MT
I was an MT back in the late 90s. I stopped working in 2000 because my husband was making plenty of money. It's a different world now of course, so I'm thinking about going back to work.
When I was working everything was still on cassettes. Now it looks like most things are digital, which I know nothing about. So that worries me a little.
I've actually been toying with the idea of going back and re-doing an MT course just so I can gain confidence after being a SAHM for all these years. But I know that's probably not necessary and I'm just being overly nervous about returning to the workforce.
I'm also wondering if MT is as booming a business as it was when I was working. I had more work than I knew what to do with, and I couldn't find a decent subcontractor to save my life. I had planned on subbing out a couple of accounts when I stopped working, but I couldn't find anyone who actually wanted to work for a living. The few subs I was able to find either wanted to work whenever they wanted (like all the advertisements say) or just didn't care at all about the quality of their work. I finally gave up and just closed up shop.
I would love to start out like I did back in the 90s. Subcontracting and filling in for people on vacation. For people who hire subcontractors, do you hire subs locally or do you look for people online? Just wondering how wide to cast my net once I'm ready to start looking.
Thanks for any help or advice.
Nancy
Returning to school later in life.
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=e771ecd5-47a0-4e12-8cc1-dcc90926da81&f=00&fg=copy
You may have to copy and paste this address but the subject of going back to school comes up often here so I thought this article would help. It seems to be a new trend.
me
Actually, returning to school is contantly on my mind
I think of a profession and try to realistically consider how long it would take to gain the training/credentials, how much I would make on the bottom floor and if I could compete with the younger generation on the entry level (I am 47).
It is something I must consider as I imagine I will be fending for myself for the next 20 yrs.
I must say this, I talked with an AOL tech from India and asked her describe the conditions in India where she was. She described the AOL job as in a new, state-of-the-art building with 5,000 employees who are bused into work and home each day. The pay is 10-15 dollars a week which provides her with a comfortable living. She was only 20 but sounded intelligent, professional and seemed to know her stuff. Her grandfather was an English man who had settled in India when it was colonized by the English way back when. Credit card companies and banks are popping up in their world, as well. No surprise there.
As you imagine, I pictured the future for remote jobs in a new way. How could we ever compete with their salary.
Airport greeting gift for hubby returning from the Middle East?
He has been gone for a year, working as a contractor. What type of gift might a man like at our airport greeting (besides me)? He is getting back in the evening, so I have really nice breakfast planned for the next day, but am wondering if he might like something special at the airport? Do you get men flowers, balloons, what? We have been married 23 years, but I am finding myself really nervous about this! You all have the best ideas, so please pass them on! 
I get my work from an FTP site that they load the work to, however I don't have pool work so to
speak, but I tell them how many minutes a day I want. The work is generally put in my box by 5 pm every day, then I have until 10 am the following day for some priority work, or 3:30 pm for the rest, so TAT is not too bad. I would like to work less at night though, but I working on that. My downside is I do not get the same dictators day to day, there are a few I do on a semi-regular basis though, some generate great lines but take longer to do that other doc's and are not "money-makers", I also do not get paid for spaces so that hurts a bit too. This is WP5.1 too.....so very antiquated but that is what the hospital uses, so not much choice there. But I understand what you mean about the C-phone. I was just doing another job with C-phone recently...they incidentally did not tell me how to get off of the system, which was very simple. I'd finish a job, then hit stop and hangup if I wanted to get off or quit working. That is what you need to do if you want to sleep, eat, etc. Don't feel guilty, do what you signed up for, believe me they watch the pools and will get others to do the work you don't finish. If they get on your case remind them that you are only PT and only want 500 lines a day, etc. It's not worth killing yourself over. Good Luck. 
You go by your schedule and have no work. Everytime I get on to work, there is always work.
x
Then you would have no life at all except work, work, work if you did that. I wouldn't do it. nm
.
Same thing with nationals. You work all the time to keep the account caught up when others dont work
and then when they decide to put a whole lot of extra people on your accounts and run you out they could care less about how much you worked.
Have a hospital I work for and they consistently change work types and do line counts. (sm)
Management just doesn't understand in order to crank out the work you need to be proficient by typing the same accounts. Go figure, they just don't get it ??
Usually work "live" on a Cphone, while connected. There are ways to record & work off line, bu
s
steady work...gearing up to start new account....but there was no work on Tues as it was a holiday
Be patient with your eyes open....
I work for Warminster at MQ and I am sick to death of being jerked around with no work all the time.
I would like a job where I can depend on the work and it does not seem to be in this office of MQ.
Speaking of offshoring MT work, who does not directly send work offshore?
Just curious. Has anyone got a list of companies who do not send work offshore? Precyse? MQ? Spheris?
Becky you work in a great place. With no one hovering, I bet you get a lot more work done w/o agoniz
wants what. The only people qualified to do QA on my reports are the dictating doctors and the rest is just pure waste of money and time. If I have a question fine. But this random QA bites and hurts everyone. BTW, I don't have random QA for those who seem to think I may have an ax to grind. No dog in this fight. Just common sense.
Good. Why dont you send some our way. What office do you work for so I can call and get your work.
:
Before needing to work, I did volunteer work through the Junior League where I am from in Texas. lm
Junior League was like a full-time job sometimes, but I loved it. Now that I have to work, even though it is from home, I still volunteer through my son's school. I am a school teacher in my previous (pre-MT) life, so I volunteer my tutoring services for children who need the help beyond what the schools are able to provide but whose parents cannot afford to pay for private tutoring. I also know how you felt about being afraid. I was strangely afraid before I joined the Junior League. It was just the unknown. But I was SO blessed by being able to help. Honestly, I am sure that it helped me just as much, if not more, than I helped others. Go for it. You won't be sorry. (Just remember that you have to say NO when you have to say no, okay? Remember that and you will be richly blessed by the experience!)
nm would you mind if I asked where you work and what type of work hosp, clinic ?
x
All I know is it caused the company I work for to be unable to do all work due today and the rest
:+
Just return the work, submit your bill, the scurry and find more work elsewhere. sm
They will never meet with you before next week. It is Thursday, already. Be prepared to sue for payment, because you will probably need to. But, most of all, find other work elsewhere, because I have a feeling this final payment will be a long time coming.
I work on Escription platform and the adapter didnt work for me. I tried it on my laptop though
and the foot pedal would just not play correctly with the adapter. I think others have tried it and done it but it just didnt work for me.
IC sets their own hours. As long as the work is done by the deadline, you decide when to work.
Glad I work somewhere where you cannot cherrypick....our work is divvied out by minutes and - sm
the office manager (who does not normally transcribe) dishes out the work, so some days are easy, others are a mix. So no cherrypicking is possible. You type up what is given to you, period. She will alternate the tough one's out so no one person gets him/her all the time unless they want him/her and are used to that doc, or everyone gets a little piece, etc. There are days when I ask for easy work (tired, chemo day, Jen sick, or a lot going on, etc.) but not often, generally I get a mix but they all get easier the more you do them. I am not working as much as I should be of course, every week is different here so I adjust my limited work schedule accordingly, so sometimes it hard to get better at certain docs. I used to have a lot of blanks with the Trauma ER unit, but I have been doing that a lot lately and now and very good at it, still a time consuming account but at least I am improving. ----------------------- But I believe the OP was stating she did it to clear out the log, not to make more lines, and only when she was asked to do so. At an old job I had #s meant everything, everyday we would get report (2=4 x a day) of the backlog, and emails pleading us to work, work, work. The QA rules sucked  (MQ probably is basing their new plan loosly on this one), however we did not get penalized, just chewed out if you sent in too much work to QA (over 5%, and was 80% ESL), I would imagine eventually fired if you continued to do it. They were a great place to work for until they re-organized....it all went downhill from there. This is why I prefer smaller MTSOs, it's not all about the #s, yes, they want production too but at least it's not so cut-throat. 
i used to work for a company that divided the work types up and i loved it. sm
there were only 4 of us working a major teaching hospital. someone was assigned surgery, different assigned discharges, different admits, etc. we all had the backup work type in case the original assignee wasn't available and were cross trained. it made us much more efficient, ability to get used to dictators, set macros, and in the long run we were all much happier.
Used to work in Cooperstown, NY - and on the way to work is a huge turkey farm
It made me never want to eat turkey again - seeing them all cramped up against the fence and cages, packed tightly, no room to move. Actually, it made me want to do some harm to the farmer who found this acceptable.
Do not work for Amherst if you can work for any other office in MQ. It is terrible. They overload
accounts terribly. We are always running out of work or need to have 8 or 9 backups to get lines in. This is the way it is. There may be a few out there that it is different but I do acute care and was just transferred there along with my office and everyone in my office is in the same boat. Not a good deal at all.
An MQ recruiter told me yesterday if work is low they "cut off" the work
SEs are doing it. She also told me that it is written in MQ policies
that MQ can let go EMPLOYEES without notice (I'm not saying statutory employees here, I'm saying employees).
You're lucky they work for you. I've never gotten a refill to work right, ever.
x
Has anyone breast fed while trying to work at home, can you do this and still work full time?
It seems like the more literature I read on the subject, the longer it seems to take, especially in the beginning when you are breast feeding every two hours, or does it really just depend on the baby?
HAHA! Yes! I have those daily! But it's not really work as I work nights, it's little things l
turning on the pool filter in the morning and then in the afternoon running out there because I thought I forgot to turn it on. Or preheating the oven and then 5 minutes later saying "shoot! I forgot to preheat the oven!" It's really bad. And I'm only 31. I'm not 90!
I don't know if dementia or Alzheimer's runs in my family, but this could be a sign of something to come. Or as my husband says - you jut don't pay attention to much. He's probably right!
I work Sun.-Thurs. normally and will work on Fridays to get Sunday off if I need it. Works
s
The company I work for said cable phone wouldn't work, just FYI.
nm
Easy to work with. You can look up old reports. Your own word expander will work
s
I just work with ShortHand minimized. Smarttype doesn't work the same way? nm
s
Work for 1 hour, then count your lines of the completed work - sm
either check you total characters in word (with spaces) then total them all up and divide by 65, and you get your total lines per hour. 10,000/65 is 153 lines. Or if you have a line counting program us that to figure you count, either way will work quite well. Maybe do it a few times and then figure an average over 3 hours or something like that, it will vary with the ease/difficulty of the work you are doing.
Sounds like where I work. Everyone morning I wake up to not enough work. I'm quitting
This has been going on for a few months so I don't know if they have overhired or just sent a lot of it to India. I just know I can't sit here everything day waiting until "volumes build up." I'm looking elsewhere.
The state told us that MTs are employees because we they work in our system and do the same work as
maybe you can work for a company in another state.
the hospital I work for already has started to implement this and lessen our work
I see it every single day... they are going to EMR... meaning the doctors simply use a template already in the computer and check boxes or something... The doctor's office i GO TO actually does this too. This is why it creates tech jobs to create those templates and takes AWAY MT jobs because the doctor is no longer dictating, they are just pushing little buttons or checking boxes straight into the computer.
Personally I still think that is more time than the doc wants to take but whatever, i dont see how generic charts are good, what happened to detailed information...
But this is definitely how i see it going along. Maybe not everywhere, but plenty of places are going to go to this, it's all about saving money now isn't it???
Question. How many MTs sit and wait for work when companies overhire and there is not enough work
on your shift. Is this what these companies want for people to sit around and wait on work. As an IC, this probably doesnt amount to even close to minimum wage. What do you do in these cases of no work and sitting waiting for practically nothing to come in when obviously lots of others are doing the same thing. It actually almost seems as though you need to have 2 jobs to survive in this business really. I cant image how you can get the lines in they require. Crazy business this is.
I tried Relacor, it didn't work because I wanted it to work without
my trying to really lose weight, i.e., dieting.
My true belief is that any product will not work unless you TRY yourself. I had 20+ lb loss with Metabolife (sp?) and really felt more energy.
BUT, I truly believe if I don't really try, nothing will work to make me lose weight. Please know, I'm right there with you and wish there were a magic pill that could make the lbs just shed away.
Yes I work for AMHERST ALSO and it is 9:30 and no work. Everyone really needs to call Corporate
about this. This will not get any better unless you go to Corporate and complain very loudly and I am very serious about this. Some of us have already done this but it will take all of you to do it. If you dont get a person down there put it on someones voice mail. The human resource manager is Donna Jack at extension 4905 in Mt. Laurel.
Dont you think some of the better work and ASR work goes to the newbies they are hiring lately. I
am sure it goes somewhere because I will be finished with all jobs and the next morning there is ASR work from 14 hours ago. Odd right. Where was it. Probably in another pool so we dont get it and others do. I am pooled for ASR so I would have gotten it but didnt.
No (IC)....but I work for a small MTSO and have set deadline each day for my work
I will not be working on Thanksgiving day, though I will have 120 minutes waiting to be done and turned in by 8:00 a.m. on Monday morning.
Has anyone on this board's work slowed down this January. MT work that is.
Got several friends with slow-down of work but they are MQMTs Wondered how the rest of the MT world is doing.
I work 7 days a week because I work 3 jobs.
Workaholic here who would seek counseling if I had the time. hahaha
I wouldn't work for less. What's the deal with this woman and where does she work?
xxx
If I work for a co. that mainly has VA hospitals, can you tell me what kind of work to expect. sm
Has been a long time since I have been an IC,so I forget what to expect from VA accounts. Will you enlighten me?
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