Thank you both! Your advice is greatly appreciated. nm

• What does this mean? Dictphone Transnet to get voice and Dictaphone Extext to transcribe in. Thanks - learning about platforms
  • Dictaphone is the software platform. You actually transcribe - sm
  • ExText is the platform. You are on-line and - me
    • Thank you both! Your advice is greatly appreciated. nm - learning about platforms

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Hi All,

I was a statutory employee last year but not now.  I usually do my own taxes but am having trouble with form 8829 and am not sure if the accountant can squeeze me in at this late date.  Thought I would try here first for help.  I use my den exclusively for work (almost) and am going to take this 7% of our home as a business expense. 

Under Part II... Lines 10 and 11.  Deductible mortgage interest and real estate taxes...I am going to take the entire amount on schedule A, so, hopefully, do not have to enter anything here. 

line 17. Insurance.  Are we allowed to take a portion of our homeowners insurance as a deduction? I have no separate business insurance. 

Line 19. Utilities.  I know I can take 7% of my electric, gas, water, garbage (I think), but what about phones? We have both cell and regular phone.  When I call, I use the regular phone for toll free numbers, but the cell phone to my boss who does not have a toll free #. 

Then, I need to find the value of my home for Part III. I guess I will check home sales in the neighborhood and go by that. 

Geez..sorry for sounding like such a dummy.  I can do all the other...capital gains, etc, just not sure what is allowed for home expenses.

As I say, I will try to get in to the accountant, but any advise for any of this form would be greatly appreciated.  I cannot complete schedule A until I have my Profit or Loss done, which I cannot complete until I do this form.

Thanks.

At the end he said, "This is <his name> bumbling through this again.  Thank you so very much." 

Guess it makes me at least feel a little appreciated.

-

on JLG and All Type. Speaking with one, actual offer from the other but not sure about either. Concern for more is flexibility which they both promise, but I heard that one before.

I appreciated what you just said in this post about union/organizing/mts....however, I think most of Americans are like this, not just MTs.

In this country, it seems to me (and I'm 3rd-4th generation), it's all about the individual and their pocketbook(s), finding a rare person who does actually  think globally or universally. 

I feel this way politically too....for 6+ years people are complaining, moaning, and groaning about the govt - but not a single person would challenge same govt, only challenging with words and not actions (not enough actions) - so they will continue to moan and groan, not getting off their duffs and doing anything REAL.  

just my nickel's worth.....

I was just told by a company that 8.5 cpl as an IC was too high, even with 20+ years of experience! 

I have been an MT for over 10 years.  I also am getting burnt out, tired of my job, day in day.  However, I do love transcription and make excellent money at it, have grossed over $50,000 per year the last 5 years.  I decided to go back to nursing school and am very happy with my choice.  However, over these 10 years of transcription I have had my ups and downs.  My biggest issue with being at home working is lack of socialization, being home day in and day out with just the kids and the animals really gets to a person, sure hubby is home at night and thinks working from home is the easy life, thus the return to school and boy has my overall enjoyment of life changed once I realized I was the problem, not everyone else and I needed to find myself again.

Anyway, my biggest advice to you three-fold:

1.  Get into counseling for yourself, find out who you are and what your needs are, whether or not you think you need to, I sense you are feeling overwhelmed and need someone other than your family to talk to that can be nonjudgmental to your feelings and needs.

2.  If you're only making $100 after you pay preschool you can either keep doing it and be miserable, or quit because you are lucky enough to have a husband who can support the family without your income. (See how fast his mind changes just by losing the income you do have as to whether your job means anything.)  Or look for a different company or office that you like more and are more productive if you really want to do transcription (lots of fish in the sea as far as companies).

3.  Find a local "mom's" group where you can get out and socialize.  MOPS (mother's of preschoolers) is an excellent one that is nationwide, they have a website.  Also Mom2Mom is in a lot of areas.  They provide a once a week time for moms with kids the same age to get together, socialize, (some offer spirtual guidance some don't) and each week a different mom takes a turn watching everyone else's children at the facility that hosts it so the other moms can talk about things they have in common.  Every stay-at-home and work-from-home mom needs to socialize with adults, without their kids, or they will have a nervous breakdown eventually no matter how much they love their kids.

Sorry so long but it does get better but you have to take the first step at making yourself happy.

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! 

I know this isn't MT-related, but it has gotten me so upset that I can't work, so maybe it is MT-related after all.  Anyway, if anyone has been in this situation, can you please tell me how you successfully handled it?  My son wanted to go away for the weekend and asked to use my credit card to secure a hotel room.  We went online to Hotels.com and found a nice place.  I put in my credit card number and was given a room confirmation.  I then received an e-mail from the hotel telling me there were no rooms available.  I called the hotel and they told me I would have to address it with Hotels.com since they were the ones with my credit card information.  I called Hotels.com and they told me that my card had been swept for the entire amount of the stay ($276.00!) but since there were no rooms available, the money would be credited back to my account.  I got my credit card statement yesterday and they only credited back $71.00 of my money, causing me to incur and over-the -limit fee of another $29.00.  I don't know where to turn to get this problem resolved.  Do I call Hotels.com and ask them to reimburse my over the limit fee?  Do I call my credit card company and tell them that it was Hotel.com's fault for hitting my account for the whole amount when they said they weren't going to?  If anyone has been through this kind of thing before, I would really appreciate your input.  Needless to say, I will NEVER use Hotels.com ever again!!  Thanks in advance for your help!