Right. Can't compare the two. Just like you can't compare clinic and doc office work to acute
Posted By: MOMT on 2007-01-07
In Reply to: gross lines - aln
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Totally agree with you. Often compare my work with that of a painter
You give him a job, give him a price and if he does not perform - you find another painter!
clinic to acute work
I so understand where you are coming from. I did clinic work for 16+ years and could never break into the acute care but just recently someone gave me the chance. I thought I would have a hard time but I have had no problem and made my line count within a week. I am soooo grateful someone finally gave me the chance. Keep trying!
Clinic work to acute care
You are on the right track but it's just that no one has given you the break. Most MTs start with clinic notes and then wait for a break into the Big 4 doing acute care. Don't get discouraged. Yes by all means, test away and you might just get lucky. Take any job you can doing acute care even if the pay and hours are bad just to get experience under your belt.
It's not easy making a go of it these days even with tons of experience. Ya gotta be a little clever and have a game plan. Look at it as a challenge and keep at it. Best of luck to you.
The best way to compare the two is...sm
open a document you have type and count it in a 65-cpl versus a gross line count....any counting program can be set to count in gross lines. Personally, I count my lines in Word Perfect. It has a line counting feature where you can tell it not to count blank lines and then you just multiply by what you are getting paid by the line. You come out much better on the gross line count.
Clinic work or acute care question....sm
If you were offered a job by two different companies, the benefits were the same, line rate was the same, everything was the same except one was exclusively acute care and the other was clinic, which would you choose and why? I have two offers and everything is even except for the type of work. I would think clinic work you could get more lines, but then it is not as marketable later if I have to switch companies as staying acute care would be. Any input? 
I have 3 jobs, 1 FT doing acute care, and 2 PT doing clinic work. sm
It can be a challenge juggling things, and I really do not have much of a social life, but for now it works. It not only keeps the wolf away from the door but allows me to build up a little nest egg and save for a mega vacation I have planned in November to celebrate turning 50. Having goals definitely helps me get through it all. 
I started on Acute care, then went to clinic work, - sm
and then back again. I found clinic work to be more challenging, plus it often included radiology. I think it's more a matter of just getting familiar with each institution's way of doing things, along with new doctors, and getting familiar with a few new terms (which don't we all do every single day, anyway?) than it is one being easier or harder than the other.
I don't think you want to compare yourself to Yente
Busybody supreme! 
You must compare your documents..
with MS-Word Word Count, which is the standard. MS-Word count tool is used by FlashCount.
In case of any problem, feel free to ask.
Webmaster@MTStars.com
Compare it to a 'regular' job . . .
I tried one of those plans that swore up and down that it wasn't a multi-level marketing program, it was just "direct marketing" to your circle of influence. It cost me money to join (does a regular job?) and while I didn't stockpile stuff in my garage, I did have a quota that I needed to personally purchase every month in order to stay an "active member". Part of my $60/month that I spent actually went into the pockets of the 7 people above me. If I achieved the next level (certain number of individuals below me) my quota for the month would double. I would go to your state's Attorney General's website and search for pyramid scheme/ponzi/etc . . . Having to spend $120 a month to make money, especially when you can alienate a bunch of your friends in the process seems a little too much to pay . . . just my 2 cents . . . best of luck whatever your decision.
Compare old documents
Look at some of your old documents and see what your gross line is and then see what they would have been paid if you had been using a 65 cpl. In word you can do that. Now some software will count double character for capitalization, bold, underline, tabs are counted, indent and count spaces. So that will also make a difference. When one of my accounts was using Sylcount we always counted that way. I do not think that there is a simple chart to use and since your documents could be very personalized with formatting, i.e. indenting lines which makes a gross line smaller, to me it would be best to compare your specific documents rather than a generic table. There are a lot of variables (how long is your gross line) and I don't think a comparison table could take that all into account. But I would think I think an estimation has always been 30% less lines for cpl versus gross.
how does 11/cpl IC compare to 8/cpl employee
are there pros and cons to both, and is it fair to say that it all weighs out about the same, considering what the IC has to pay in taxes, do they travel for their accounts, do they have any benefits, etc.?
Oh, I know. I wasn't trying to compare myself to anyone.
I was trying to figure out if this is even possible. I know when I did acute care I could never get 200 lph. Now I am on a clinic account and doing close to 300 lph. I just assumed I was at the max, so to see this post, it just made me wonder if it is possible to do more, not that I am going to strive to do more at this point. Right now if I go above 300, I am afraid my accuracy would suffer. I was just curious if there are others out there doing 400-500 consistently as these MTs are said to be doing. If there are, I would love to know some secrets! :D
You can't compare apples with
oranges as he had lost his job and who knows the real truth. Tragic loss of lives.
Suffice it to say, it's pretty scary out there these days with so much misery over job loss, home loss and no hope in sight. It's like the domino effect. It's all happened so fast and there is no stopping it. Certain people will act out. No doubt immigrants are much harder pressed in times such as these. Even doctors are suffering from this economy. Hard to believe but it is true.
There is no way you can compare security
x
Just some things to compare...
Example: If you type 1000 lines a day at 8 cents a line ($80 a day), minus 25% for taxes, you would have $300.00 a week clear. Assuming you do 200 lines an hour, 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, your pay would translate to $12.00 an hour.
IF you can maintain $12.00 an hour after taxes in an office job (sales job, at that), I don't know that the benefits offset the cost of keeping a wardrobe up, gas, meals out or items to take for your lunch, and child care, plus the hassle of being back out in the public.
To answer your question on how much income it would take for me to leave this field - Considering all the pros and cons, I personally could not afford to change careers. It would take an offer of double what I make now to make me even consider it, and there are NO jobs that pay that around here.
I wish you the best of luck with the decision.
Perhaps OP is not new at all. How could you declare MQ the greatest with nothing to compare.
I suspect MQ has a lot of people positioned for damage control on the boards these days. It was a stupid post that would be meaniningless to anyone but MQ damage control. Watch and see what is coming down the road in the next six weeks with MQ and MTs. That's why there is damage control in place and there will be for the next six months or until MQ is bought out.
Hard to compare lines from different
companies and different accounts.
Are you paid for spaces?
Headers/footers?
65 character lines?
What is percentage of ESL?
How large is the account?. Hard to get lines if you do not get the same dictator more than once a week.
Is the platform easy to work on?
Can you use an expander?
Do you have to enter demographics?
Is the account verbatim?
Can anyone compare Spellex to Stedman's and
tell me which they think is better and why. I've always used Stedman's but DOS-based. Changing jobs and now need something Windows-based.
Can't compare autocorrect to an expander (sm)....
After 20 years as MT I found a word expander, and still mad that I went so long without one! I would not consider being without one today, it adds so much to my productivity. And an Expander does much more than autocorrect does, so I personally don't think they are even comparable. For example, you can make entries bold or italicized; you have no limit on how much text you put into each entry; and most importantly, your possible choices show up on the screen as you type letters, so you can be very specific in your use. Autocorrect does just that, it makes an automatic correction, and so quickly that you might not even realize something was changed/expanded. Expanders are not cheap, but to me they are as essential as a medical dictionary!
Does anybody use ShortKeys? How does it compare with ShortHand?
I tried ShortHand but I never could get it to work like AutoCorrect, which is what I prefer. I don't like to take my fingers off the home keys to hit "Alt" or "Ctrl" or whatever.
ShortKeys is okay, but it has some limitations. I just wondered if anyone had tried both and how they compare.
TIA.
Would like to compare Meditech speed (see msg)
We home MTs have a much slower download/upload time than those working on site, and I'm trying to determine if there is something our IT department can do to speed it up for us. Since Meditech is so big with so many clients, I just can believe the rest of the country would work like we do.
What I would like to compare is:
After entering your patient information on the data entry page, how long after you hit the right arrow key to open your document for typing does it take before you are ready to type that document?
For me on the very best day it takes 20 seconds of staring at my screen before I can type, some times as much as 60 seconds.
Looking forward to comparing. TIA
Are you in a position to compare your progress SM
with others on your accounts? (If you work at home maybe invite them to email you through this site to discuss?) That's the only way to get a true picture of how you're doing so you can figure out how to fix this situation. Have a nice Thanksgiving tomorrow.
I'm done trying to compare apples to oranges. sm
You are free to go on beating the dead horse, however. Best wishes.
seriously, do not compare an hourly wage job with
nm
Store chicken doesn't even compare (nm)
x
Just FYI, you should compare line count with another program (sm)
FlashCount gave me a much lower line count when I compared it to Abacus. I notified them about this and they never responded.
Fun topic: How do you compare with TV sitcom marriages???
Are you and your spouse more like.....................
A) Tim and Jill (Home Improvement)
B) Roseanne and Dan (Roseanne)
C) Howard and Marion (Happy Days)
D) AL and Peg (Married with Children)
E) Raymond and Debra (Everybody loves Raymond)
F) Steven and Elyse (Family Ties)
G) Other ____________
We are probably most like Tim and Jill but a little bit of Raymond and Debra thrown in. LOL.
Compare line count results
Hi,
[disclaimer: We are the publishers of MPTools.]
One neat function in our new MPTools is Compare Line Count results. It asks you to specify a document, and shows you the results of its multiple line counting methods, including headers/footers and formatting codes. MPTools is available as a no obligation trial, so you can download it, install it, and check things out.
vJoe
Pull up some documents and count them out each way to compare. nm
s
I use the Compare feature on the tools menu.
x
OMG- especially when they compare it to some kind of edible substance! *gag* nm
n
You need to know the program your company is using to count so you can compare.
xx
I dont think you can compare the 2. Talking about 2 totally different things.
:
Long distance site to compare prices. sm
http://ld.net/?6040
Only if you're using the track changes or compare feature. Once somebody else has the document
x
It just goes to show that there is really nothing that can compare to real live transcriptionists -
nm
There are so many variables at play that it's dangerous to compare to others along these lines. s
I know that there have been occasions when I've had a run of one of my more familiar docs -- one for whom I have a lot of canned text and who tends to dictate with a great deal of regularity, and quickly -- and I've been able to break the 500 lph barrier, but only briefly. Otherwise, working a large hospital account as I do, with dozens of regular docs and a hundred or so others who just crop up now and then, I can't conceive of anyone averaging anything close to that ... I'm luckly to average above 250-275 lph on a typical day, and some days -- when it's resident and ESL heavy -- that can go down to 150-200.
But, again, it's really pretty silly to compare lph between different MTs unless the variables are the same.
My friends with large families shop at Walmart. I don't. I can't compare
prices or taste. These are not ignorant poor folk who don't know better shopping at Walmart. Walmart has definitely cut into the supermarkets business. Bottom line here folks, people are making Walmart successful and they keep growing. Not for nothing are people shopping at Walmart. They have to be offering something to the shopper.
Compare again and if you have a discrepancy, email me directly. We worked very hard to create this
free software with extra features others counters do not have. We have tested and retested the counting capability as compared to others and it operates correctly.
To all MTStars visitors: Please do let us know if you experience problems. Email to webmaster@mtstars.com or admin@mtstars.com
Thank you,
Administrator
There is really no way to compare number of reports to a line count. The more experience you obtain
faster it will go and the lines will increase so don't give up. All of oldies have been there. Most companies require 1000 to 1200 a day, so you are not far off from that. Just keep plugging along, you will get there. Use Expanders for your most common phrases, words you find you have to look up constantly, etc. for starters to help build your speed.
When I applied looking for acute care, Jane told me it's 70% clinic and 30% acute. nm
s
Clinic and acute are very different.
I think acute care is much easier personally, but I've done mostly clinical stuff for 8 years now. I've only done acute care for a few months but I think it is much easier. Of course, my old clinic had every type of doctor known to man lol.
Acute vs. Clinic
I cut my teeth on acute care - real baptism by fire - and by comparison clinic would have been an easier start for me working from home, but I'm glad for the experience. Acute is so much more technical that, if you're willing to do it on production, you should be prepared for the income hit that can come with the learning curve. If you can go in-house to get the experience, I'd suggest that. However, if you want to continue from home, keep knocking - with your years of clinic experience, I'm sure someone will give you an opportunity.
i currently get a mix of clinic and acute care; sm
i get all different report types (clinic, acute, and various types), different facilities, just a big mix and yep it hurts on production. i have worked for MTSO before that assigned us set report types like i did consults and discharges. i was way much more productive there than i have ever been.
acute care vs. clinic
A walk-in clinic would still be considered clinic work. When applying at a company that classifies experience as acute care and/or clinic work, acute care is the term used to designate hospital dictation.
Acute care clinic
The reason I called it acute care clinic, is to convey that it was not a specialty clinic. Our patients were there for acute care, and it was a clinic.
But you are right, I am knew to the transcription world outside of what my doctor expected. I have read at least 5 text books on MT, but all emphasize asking your employer which format is preferrable.
I was also wondering, on these online tests, do they want verbatim, even if it is incomplete or run on sentences, or am I to make them complete by using "and" etc.
try for a company with both clinic/acute
if you can get on a clinic account with a company, down the road you may be able to train for an acute account with that company.
Do you do acute care or clinic?
nm
i went from clinic to acute care..
with no problem. i work for 4 big hospitals and yes, there are a lot of doctors, but they tend to dictate all at the same time so i will get a bunch of dictations from the same doc in a row. also, sometimes it seems like i get all ortho for a day or all ds for a day or all psych for a day. i think it all depends on who you work for. don't be afraid, jump in. that's the only way to start and with all those acute job openings, i don't think anyone is going to tell you that you don't have the experience.
clinic to acute care?
How do you transition from clinic work to acute care work?  I have done about a year of radiology work, which is what I started out doing. I went to in-house family practice for 3 years. Now I do GI and clinic notes. I have also done a pain management clinic. I have been doing transcription for about 6 years now. I can't test for acute care because I do not have the 2 years required. I tried working at a hospital part-time or PRN actually. The drive and gas plus it was a second job for me, killed me and my budget. It was an hour drive one way.
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