Sombeody actually wrote a really good letter to Advance a few issues back. sm
Posted By: Confetti on 2009-03-08
In Reply to: Good suggestion. - VA MT
It was in the Jan. 12, 2009, issue, letter to the Editor titled, "What Good is Change for MTs?" by Wendy Keller. She does attack AHDI in a very intelligently written letter.
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Do you like this letter I wrote
to an attorney there at Cohen & Grigsby??
Lawrence M. Lebowitz
Cohen & Grigsby
Attorneys at Law
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
June 20, 2007
Dear Mr. Lebowitz:
I understand you are an expert at helping foreigners get jobs in our country.
I would like to start a company that helps foreigners come to this country on temporary visas to work as attorneys.
This will be good for America because, although we have many attorneys here already, they are too expensive for the average American, who is unable to find a good job because companies like yours are getting temporary visas for foreigners to take their jobs. These unfortunate Americans will now be able to afford attorneys to sue attorneys who help companies find loopholes in the system to be able to hire cheap foreign professionals.
My other idea was to get the laws changed so that we can hire foreigners to be our politicians. I understand they require much lower salaries than domestic politicians. I did an unofficial poll of some nice illegal immigrants in my area, and many of them believed we could hire a President of the United States from their country for a mere $25,000 a year. Think of the savings if we can assume we could hire foreign senators for $17,00 a year. We just need to change a few laws that our forefathers put in place for the protection of this country! But this idea might get a little more complicated and time-consuming, so I thought my foreign attorney idea might be implemented more expeditiously.
Can you please help me with my new business idea?
You might want to buy a nice home in Mexico now, because you might have to change your citizenship in the future in able to be able to find work in America!
Xxxxx Xxxxxx, NC
(How do you sleep at night?)
I'm with you - I once wrote a letter to the makers of Sensodyne (sm)
toothpaste, as on the box, it said something about "receeding gums." They wrote me a letter and thanked me (I was hoping for $) - but they told me they had enclosed a coupon for a free tube (BUT IT WASN'T IN THERE!! - On my son's high school graduation program, it listed the class song and the class "moto." That one killed me. To this day I ask him if he remembers his class moto. I notice it everywhere - drives me crazy. What about street signs - there is one around here for the "bussiness district."
Letter to Editor-Advance
I will write a letter...
Anyone read Letter to Editor in ADVANCE see message
February 26, 2007 issue? Two letters regarding MT and AAMT.
Advance magazine? Anyone notice the letter to the editor?
It's on page 5 entitled Does Walmart or Home Depot pay better?......Gee, I wonder what company this person is talking about? Okay, which one of you sent this in? hahaha!
Well, while everything the writer of this letter says is true about the company, I think we all know most of us make a bit more than 8 to 10 bux an hour. For myself, it's about twice that. If I really were only making that for what I'm doing, I WOULD head over the the Walmart or Target. I would NOT do this for 10 bux an hour NO WAY in HE double toothpicks!
Idea in letter to Editor in Advance magazine (sm)
Just last night I read a letter in the Advance for Health Information Professionals from a former MR who is now a cancer registrar and loves it. I had looked into that myself a few years ago, although I chose to stay with MT. At the time there were on-line courses through community colleges.
What about coding? I have a friend who works now for a local hospital at home doing ambulatory coding.
Just some thoughts.
BTW, the letter to Advance can probably be found on-line at advanceweb.com/him. It's the Nov 5 issue.
don't cancel ADVANCE subscriptions - just send an email or letter
detailing how disgusted you are with the fact that they are promoting offshore training and offshoring transcription. This is the third article on this sort of topic that the magazine has done in a year.
I find this particularly offensive because so many hospitals/medical record departments get the magazine and if they see this, then companies like Spheris, CBay, Healthscribe, and others will be getting called to come do their transcription!
So please, don't cancel your subscription, just voice your opinion and comments. Thank you.
There was an excellent letter to the editor in Advance Magazine last month sm
that spelled how why, but here are some of my reasons:
1. In all their years in existence, the AAMT has yet to make life easier for the AMERICAN MT. In fact, the state of MT in this country is worse than I have seen it in a very long time.
2. The AAMT chose to align themselves with MTIA whose board of directors is largely composed of Indians. They also support offshoring and have adopted the motto "work smarter" which to them means pay hundreds of dollars for a CMT that most companies will not even acknowledge and then hundreds more dollars to join AAMT yearly to get their crappy publications.
3. They are now certifying offshore MTs. Yes, nothing like opening the cover of the AMERICAN Association for Medical Transcription and seeing the names of the Indians who have received their CMT.
4. I get less pay than I did 20 years ago and offshoring is the main reason. So pardon me if I am a little testy that I just paid so much money to an organization who stabbed me in the back.
5. I certainly think they SHOULD change their name to something else. How about the I SOLD THE AMERICAN MT DOWN THE RIVER ASSOCIATION FOR MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION. Bitter? You bet. Gosh, they made so many promises and all they did was take our money for a piece of paper rarely recognized by anyone at the same time extending a hand to the reason I am making less money than I did 20 years ago!
6. It's a bloated association full of lots of people who "do things." Everything except stick up for the American MT.
7. Oh yes, and the BOS is ridiculous.
I sent a comment to Advance and heard back from them
supposedly, they are going to put my letter in the next edition in Letter to the Editor .... we'll see. But I did not cancel my subscription.
In the back of Advance Magazine you see all the coding jobs. Can access it online, too.
s
Actually READ my post. I wrote "A GOOD COMPANY"
Thick, thick, thick.
Emdat platform?? Good, bad or ugly? Any info is appreciated. Thanks in advance. NM
/
Manager, if no help, never go back. write a letter saying why
be calm. depends on how big a *bad service* it was - the one I hate the most is where they act like they are doing me a favor to wait on me. That one I always report.
My refund was for 2 cents. I am sending it back along with a letter to the CEO
and ask them why per contract I did not get the raise promised me in 90 days. I no longer work for them, but hey, I am not going to let this opportunity slip by.
It makes no sense to spend more money than the check was to get it to you and for a company to be that wasteful, you wonder what is in the back of their mind. For both you and me, good thing we did not go run and try to spend it in one place!
Something stinks there!
A while back I suggested we all write a letter to the editor about this . sm
I did, and they declined to print it. Evidently it's not a big issue in the minds of some. Individually we can't do anything about it. Perhaps collectively. We need a petition to go to ALL senators and representatives from our respective states, and none of this "anonymous" stuff, either.
Please back you info up. Pay cuts have not been announced. Have you received a letter? nm.
nm.
With short arms, I need chair with shallow seat, good back support and high back. Want arm rests
:+
why it will be good for MTs. you can see from letter below from CEO
the impact the lawsuit has had simply to start change within the MQ organization.
Here's pertinent part of letter that shows changes coming.
From Frank Lavelle, President
To all statutory medical transcriptionists
July 14, 2005
VIA Electronic and U.S. Mail
Dear Statutory Medical Transcriptionists:
W e would like to thank you for your continued service and support. We know that the key to our success is the people who work so hard for our customers everyday.
At MedQuist, we are determined to become the medical transcription provider of choice for statutory employees. Over the past several months, with your help and input, we have been working on developing a pay plan and comprehensive benefit program that will enable us to set the standard in the industry. We recently announced significant changes to our benefits program for full time employee transcriptionists and within the next few months, MedQuist will be announcing a new pay plan that will address the feedback we received from medical transcriptionists in response to our survey on pay issues.
As you may also know, MedQuist is currently responding to a lawsuit brought by three medical transcriptionists that was filed in response to certain publicity surrounding MedQuist's billing practices involving the AAMT billing unit of measure. MedQuist takes all allegations concerning its pay practices very seriously and will seek to address any concerns raised by the lawsuit. While we believe that the claims raised by the three transcriptionists appear to lack merit, we are diligently working on addressing this matter in order to best serve all of our valued medical transcriptionists.
To enable us to fully and appropriately respond to this, as well as other lawsuits currently pending against the company and governmental investigations, our lawyers from Winston & Strawn are required to collect documents. To ensure that you are completely informed about the materials they are seeking, we have attached a memorandum below regarding MedQuist's document retention and collections policy. Please review this document as soon as possible.
Once again, we would like to express our deep appreciation for your continued patience, cooperation and service to the company.
Very truly yours,
Frank Lavelle
President
Enclosure
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Another good idea is to write a letter to the editor...sm
of your local/state newspapers telling people what is happening with their medical records and the downside of them being sent to India. Most people have no clue.
If it's a business letter you use a colon. if it's a personal letter you use a comma. nm
:
No, at this co. QA is good about sending back
that's the usual process so that we can listen to our errors. How do you ever learn if you don't see your errors?
That's a good idea. I am due back to get
my teeth cleaned actually and was thinking I could talk to a hygienist there also...maybe see if they have time to arrange to talk with me more during non-work hours. Thanks. :)
I quit for good, too, ....... then got back in biz...sm
I thought I quit for good, too. I quit for 2 years. Then, due to circumstances, was forced to look for part-time work, decided MT would pay the best of any PT job out there.
Man, was I rusty!!! I'm not kidding!! It was like not knowing what I knew I knew! Had to double check everything! My skills did come back quickly - within a few weeks I was rolling again, but those first few weeks and testing were miserable.
I wished I had at least kept a very small account to keep my skills up.
But, at the time, I was FED up with the biz and would never look back! LOL!
Anyway, I'm very happy for you and wish you all the luck in the world! You probably for weeks/months will always have that feeling where you need to 'go type some charts.' LOL! :)
LAME Yuck... where's a GOOD come back?
Talk to me when you have a real comeback cheeseball!!!!! I'm way past the sticks and stones phase of life!!!!! HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAA LAMO LAMO Looohoooser!!!!
Good grief, back to the future. nm
x
Good Lord! Is all this back-biting really necessary?
admin. where are you now? Sheesh!
Know of any good chairs for back pain?
I have been using a $20 task chair from Wal-Mart for the past three years, I am sitting her now six months pregnant about ready to die from upper and lower back pain. Anyone have suggestions for a good quality chair they like, right now money is not an option, I would pay big $$$ for just a little relief.
Good for you! I'm back at school learning (sm)
a new career after 16+ years in this business!! I love MT but it's time for something with a steady paycheck and longevity. Good luck to you and to the rest of us in your shoes!! :)
I can't believe this. I just quit a good company and went BACK to MQ and now this? Oh, Lord! nm
nm
Does anyone have any good ideas for back and hip pain from sitting all day? Anything on the market?
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!
A good MT is hard to find. Check back with those 2 companies
io
It was a $1 a mile, not hour! Made good noney back then. nm
x
Yep! But once I lay down.... that's all she wrote!
I'm done for the day whether i've reached my quota or not.
Thanks to all who wrote sm
 Thanks to all who replied. I appreciate the kick in the gluteus maximus and the kind words as well. Everything just came down at once on me and I won't go into detail. We all have those days if we stay on this planet long enough. Just a little overwhelmed. Bought a new computer last evening and the keyboard is very "tinny" and smaller, will just switch it with my old one, take a break and go back and try again. They also did not load all the things on that I asked for and I had to carry it back myself. They saw me struggling with the door and just watched me struggle. I believe in "paying it forward" and wanted to "give away" some things with no information on them to clear out my work space as well as study my new reference books before I tested. I should have done that before I went on line to test. I was dog tired. Seems everything is made of cheaper and smaller plastic. No, I don't want to go back to a typewriter, thanks for asking though, sweet of you to make that comment. I did "donate" my typewriters and my reference books to students years ago, along with anything else that could help them along in this business. I also "gave away" very lucrative accounts to those coming along when I had enough work for myself. I never asked for a dime and never looked back. Yes, I did do acute care and some of  those accounts would scream at the new "BOS" styles in the 2nd Edition, they hate change. I do not. They want it done "their way" or will mark you wrong and "fire" you. They also insist on allergies being bolded and underlined or it gets thrown back in your face. In one instance, if you number the diagnoses, they do not allow it.One doctor called me a name because I asked him not to abbreviate in the final diagnoses. I have had the "f" word used on me by some of these dinosaurs. In another instance, writing "continued" at the end of the pages got me almost fired. So there's a lot to think about when you "test" for people who don't know what a good Transcriptionist can do for them. You have to have two mindsets, one for the testing people and one for the accounts who just won't budge on their rules. I'll do just fine, just having a bad day. Thanks again. Over and out. Karma
No..not at all. Somebody wrote me SM
out of the blue from MTStars (no hellos or introductions) and asked me to send her my ShortHand dictionary. I worked months and months on it and have 48,000 entries. I felt selfish too not giving it to her, but I was stressed that she would even ask me. I thought about making a mock dictionary (Mary Morken's abbreviations) and stuff I gathered from ProductivityTalk.com so that if people in the future ask I could send them that.
So, in short, no--I do not think it is unreasonable for you to not want to send out your brochure at all.
Chickadee
You have some really cool stuff at your site. I'm sure gonna come back here. Good, Superb, Small
Reading your content just made my day. Keep the good work. Gnome will Pair unconditionally , Industrious, Big, Green nothing comparative to Good Full Cards Roll or not , when Tournament Roll Plane Double to Fetch Mistery you should be very Good
I love what you just wrote
Right this moment, my almost 15-month old boy and my 5-year-old niece are playing and fighting over the toys. It does require a lot of skill and patience to do two jobs (one that is 24/7), but I have never regretted giving up my old career for my little baby.
I transcribe and while the file downloads, I do the laundry, wash the dishes or play with my baby - yep - multitasking is the key!
What are you talking about I WROTE THEM....some of them!!!!
They arent bad I PROMISE. Now you HAVE TO READ THEM.
I know. I wrote this before you posted the other.
She also stated that she has not had any time away from the kids for 8 years. I hardly think that is needing so much time away from them. Just my opinion though. You might think you should take your kids everywhere you go, but it is healthy for a relationship to have alone time, even if your kids are perfect angels.
I personally am looking very forward to this buisness trip. This is about as close as me and my husband have ever been to a honey moon. I will miss my kids why I am gone, even though I will enjoy the time away. Everyone is entitled to a little "me time."
What we did 3 years ago was we wrote
everything down from least to most. We took the smallest bill first and put everything we could on that bill and paid minimum on everything else until they were paid off. I even settled on a few cards just to get them paid off. Yes it shows on my credit report that I settled but 3 years later my credit score is well over 750 and we are debt free. We have NO credit cards. If we cannot pay by cash, check or debit card we don't buy!
Doing it like we did, settling with the companies or working with a credit agency does not look half as bad as going BR.
I wrote here last week.....
About my incompetent lawyer, if you can be so kind as to call him that. To recap, I paid for my divorce to be filed in January and he never filed, and so my ex-husband filed around April or so. I had to take out a loan in order to pay him, to get things up and going. Two different times, I made sure I told him to include my vehicle, my VIN number and all on my divorce decree, so I could get the ex's name off title, because he takes the title to the pawn shop and my car gets repossessed.
At any rate, my hearing was in July and I never so much as got a copy of the decree, so I went to the courthouse and got one myself, and guess what? the car's not on there. I spoke with him to BE SURE right before the hearing, and my mother was in my presence and can confirm this.
I called him 4 times during the course of the 7 months, wondering what was going on with my case (since he hadn't filed it!), and then just recently 2 times about the car. I got a bill today for an extra $116 for him having to amend the decree about the car, and for the phone call I placed to him regarding it. I haven't gotten any paperwork about the car being put on the decree yet (which I'll probably have to get from the courthouse myself), and indeed, once I do, I'm going to file with the chamber of commerce and state bar, a complaint, but is this bogus or what? I shouldn't be charged extra for something he should have done for what I initially paid him, should I? I kind of wonder if he'll hold onto the stuff until it is paid, but I think this is baloney.
Thanks for any input.
PS: See article - AND the name of the guy who wrote it!
On ''Asian'' and ''Oriental''
By Alan Hu
OK, so a long time ago, people in Europe used to refer to everything to the east of them as the Orient, including for example the Middle East, since orient means "east". So far, so good. This mysterious area was the source of all sorts of wonderful things like silk and spices, so the Europeans attached also sorts of exotic, mysterious connotations to the Orient. As Europeans gained a better concept of world geography, they eventually used "the Orient" and "Oriental" to refer to East and Southeast Asia, where people look "Oriental" in our current usage.
Anyway, that usage of "Oriental" has survived a long time, and it still frequently carries all of the exotic/foreign/inscrutable/mysterious connotations. These connotations happen to coincide with many of the stereotypes held of Asian Americans. Furthermore, by definition, the word "Oriental" is Eurocentric, referring to things east of Europe. For these reasons, some Asian American activist types decided that "Oriental" was a Bad Word, and that "Asian" was more accurate, less Eurocentric, and less loaded with strange connotations. No big deal, right?
Well, a lot of people didn't want to change their language usage. Some people grew up using "Oriental" and saw nothing wrong with the word. Others came from other parts of the world, where hip-activist-American-English-linguistic-evolution hadn't hit. Still others never encountered anyone aware of Asian American politics, so had never heard of this word usage change. Some people were exploiting the exotic mysticism connotations and resisted change. (Very early on, you would see articles about business and trade in Asia, whereas the travel articles would talk about visiting the Exotic Mysterious Orient.) Finally, some people were convinced that this was a typical case of left-wing-politically-correct-thought-police-mind-control (which it was) and decided in typical right-wing-politically-correct-knee-jerk-response that the word usage change was intrinsically evil and had to be resisted at all costs.
For a while, therefore, you could identify a person as being an American who was aware of and sympathetic to Asian American politics by his/her word choice. Now, however, many exploitation-types have realized that saying "Asian" instead of "Oriental" is the cool thing to do, without changing any of their stereotypes and misconceptions. (You can force a person to change his/her behavior, but you can't force a change in thought.)
The upshot is to use whatever word you feel most comfortable with, or that makes your listeners most comfortable, but don't be surprised if someone takes offense. And in the time you save by not worrying about word-usage, try to make the world a better place.
LOL - I couldn't have said it better myself. 
By law...you wrote it, they are yours period
Those belong to you, end of story. The law automatically states that if you wrote it, it is yours. Registered copyrights cover if someone distributes. The link below provides the forms.
http://www.copyright.gov/forms/
Wrote the book on this sm
When advertising for someone to take up some of my slack, these are some of the calls I got, will not use quotation marks - I can do that, I've been sick a lot. My Dad was a pharmacist, so I know those terms. My wife can type and I'm looking for a job for her. I have been approached by people I buy gas from, groceries, etc., they all have a cousin, an aunt, a relative who can type and they're going to send them over to me. A former boss sent his wife who has never had a job in her life but because I used to work for him (in retail) she just walked up to me and said, "Okay, when do I start?" Unbelievable!!! One person said, "Oh, all you need is to know how to type and you have to buy the paper." Another neighbor bought a medical dictionary for her computer and immediately sent out brochures, undercut me by 1/2 and actually docs tried her out. When docs offices called, they always asked, "What do you charge?" They never asked me what kind of experience I had. As you can tell, been doing this for years. The whole situation disgusts me.
I had that problem but i wrote it off ...sm
on my taxes as a deduction for each expense. My job was for a nonprofit homeless shelter clinic so I felt okay about it, like it was a charitable thing to do. I posted below regarding employee status vs IC because I am so confused about how many IC jobs I see on job listings on this site. I was employee x8yrs, then IC x16 yrs, then employee again x8yrs, but I thought the IRS/courts had become really restrictive on this issue. Now all the companies seem to be drifting back to IC but still telling you when to work so I'm stumped. In fact, I'm almost afraid to post this less I get "flamed."
Advance
I too saw it and was as angry as you are! I'm canceling my subscription, how 'bout you?
Thank you in advance it should be !! nm
TYIF -- something like Thank goodness it's Friday, but not that either. OOOPS !
thanks in advance..................nm
x
Advance is another one.
x
I was also appalled and wrote the manufacturer
.
I could have written what you wrote, but I have 1 more thing to add..
I find that most of the MTs where I do QA are so very nice and take their feedback very well. They try so hard at the difficult ESLs (which is all of them) and I too know that it has to be grueling to do some of them knowing my take-home money depended on those dictators. We have a wonderful group of MTs, some good, some trying, but they sit there day after day and endure. I will give them credit.
I have also seen very poor quality for no reason, but I won't go there. Those folks should not be in the profession at all. I have seen that at many companies.
Hats off to all of you MTs who endure the hard work and continue to hang in there. You are recognized for what you do at least by some.
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