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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

You'd think a doctor's office would be more understanding - DUH!

Posted By: Sixdufries on 2007-04-25
In Reply to:

Ever tried to do your transcription with bilateral ear infections?  Can't hear, running a fever, dizzy-can hardly sit upright, but still expected to do work that requires HEARING and sitting at a computer!  And, I can't win, because as soon as I get this work done (which is taking 2x as long), there are going to be so many mistakes I am going to get ragged about that as well! 


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Doctor's office also in CT
I am also in CT in the Hartford area and I have not seen an MT job for ages. I used to work in a hospital for years in Hartford and saw a job on Career Builders.com. It has been there forever so not sure if it was ever filled.
Hopefully my doctor's office
hasn't sent anything there recently. Well maybe their place of employment will have to close and THEY will have to lose THEIR jobs. Karma sucks...
New doctor in the office
I picked up my work this morning from one of the four offices I type for (yes, some of us do still pick up work, I'm from ancient times, I know :).  The doctor hired another doctor to work in his office with him.  Don't you think it is not very nice not to let you know that?  I'm grateful, and can use the extra money, but surprise surprise!
New doctor in the office

I also pick up tapes from 3 offices. I like doing it this way. I would be very happy if another doctor joined one of my groups. I guess it's better than the other way around.


doctor's business office...
It depends on the office. I personally know of a large clinic in my hometown where the physicians are required to see a certain number of patients per day, bringing in a minimum amount of $$$$ based on office visit, labs, and other ancillary services they order for the patient.

Their doctors are under contract for 5 years; then after they make partner, they still have to adhere to the daily minimum requirement.
How to get a transcription job in a doctor's office. ??

In the past 3 years, I have never once seen an ad in the papers for a Transcriptionist to work in house (or at home for that matter) at a doctor's office.  For those of you that have those jobs, how did you get them?  Did you know someone at the office?  Maybe no one ever quits these jobs and that is why there are no postings?


Anyone just sit down with the phone book and start calling?  


Working in doctor's office

I have a small MTSO, two I/C's but last January started working in a clinic that used to me one of my clients -- but they put in electronic charts and after 4 years of pulling their hair out and late notes I now go in 2-3 days a week and one of my subs 2 days a week to do their notes.   It is as an employee and no where near what I get with my own accounts but gets me out and with other people.   Nice mixture.   Out here in Oregon we have several large clinics that only use in-house people.   Need to go to the medical offices located by hospitals.   They are out there but don't expect big bucks as you won't get them. 


 


Just got hired by doctor's office.
Yep, can you tell I'm happy! Was working for a large national who took over the transcription department at the hospital I used to work for.
doctor office dictation
Does anyone out there know of any companies who do doctor office dictation instead of clinic work or acute care?  I am looking for work and I have 25+ years experience in doctor's office transcription in many fields, but all the ads I keep seeing are only offering acute care or clinic work.  All the clinic accounts I have checked into put you in a pool and you never get the same doctor twice, so you don't have a chance to get familiar with them or get your speed up when typing.  There has to be companies out there who have doctor office accounts that consist of just a few docs.  Any names come to mind?
Doctor office trans
Probably smaller companies is what you want to look for instead of large nationals.  Have you looked in your local newspaper?  How about approaching a few docs on your own?  I've done that before and did overflow for them. 
Don't you love these doctor's wives who have to be in the office
but we all know they're just keeping an eye on the checkbook they married. So pathetic.
Doctor's wives as office mangers
is such a bad idea!  All of the offices I have worked for have had the "wives" as OM's.  They act like every penny they pay comes out of their pockets!  Gawd, once one tried to get rid of me and go to some Indian company and her hubby Dr finally spoke up for himself and said "no way"!!
They did test first time at doctor's office.
x
I had a doctor that was having problems with the office manager ...sm
So he would be in the middle of dictating and would see her walk by and under his breath he called her a few choice words everytime he saw her. I emailed the lady and told her that enough was enough and until they could make friends I was off the account. It was only a few hundred lines a week and was ready to quit the account anyway, but their feud had gotten to be too much for me. ;o)
I'd suggest you look for a local doctor's office if you
want no ESL.   If you do acute care you're going to have ESLs. 
I worked in house in a doctor's office and it was the same for me...
and I had to answer phones, make copies, et cetera, basically was an MT/secretary...and I hated it...I am making much more money now working at home part-time...
If I call the doctor's office and ask for results of an
MRI done on me, do they have to give me the results or do I have to just wait on the doctor to call me?
No, I've worked in doctor's business office.
That is what the insurance company allows, not what they dictate.  Who is to tell the doctor how long he can sit and talk with his patient.  It is up to him.  True insurance companies get together to decide what is the appropriate amount for the doctor to "charge" for a service but I've literally seen where the doctor sees the patient all of 2 minutes after patient is worked up by techs, but they still get paid for that visit.
I know a lot of people it helped (I worked in a doctor's office) SM
BUT you have to really want to quit before you start it. It doesn't make you want to quit - it just helps you w/ the depression and the withdrawal symptoms that come along w/ quitting. Good luck.
I work in-house for doctor's office now and Love My Job!
Good Luck.  I accepted an in-house position at a doctor's office after being laid off from a very large hospital. It is wonderful to be able to go and ask the doctor questions and get feedback directly from them.  It really is the way to go now instead of working for the really big transcription companies.  I feel like I am appreciated.
try starting with a doctor's office or small clinic.
x
I would not do it. Go with a free FTP site for use by you and the doctor's office access only.
All you need to do is create files or folders, for example by date, upload them to the FTP site, and the doc's office can in turn download them directly to their computer. This uses a secure password on both parties' end, and is much securer than emailing.
It's a small doctor's office so I am doing it as a favor for a mutual friend....
Nice to do something different every now and then.


I started in the file room of a 6 doctor urology office....
The file room in any office is a nuclear dumping ground...any paper that nobody knows what to do with gets dumped there. Then and there I made up my mind that I was NOT going to be a file clerk for the rest of my life.

I actually started by filing part time and typing part time. When we got a new Peds Urologist in the office, fresh from a fellowship at Mayo, I was right there. We used tapes back then as that was in the early 1990's. As he could fill up a 2 sided tape with 8 hours of seeing patient's, the other girl in the office did not want any part of his work and left it for me. The rest, as they say, is history.

I had no professional training, just 2 semesters of medical terminology and a killer spelling ability.

After I had typed urology, I was then farmed out to our other offices and I learned GI/GU, family practice, sleep labs etc.

I now work for a major hospital on the west side of Michigan and still type for my Peds urologist. The only difference is that he now has his practice in AZ, not MI.

If you can find somebody willing to take a chance on you with no experience, jump on it with both feet. You will be glad you did.
If you want to work at a local hospital or doctor's office, go to community college. Otherwise
if you want to work from home, for a national company, you need to take the course from either Andrews School or M-TEC. It does you no good to save money by taking the Penn Foster course, because most companies will NOT hire grads from that school, it is a poor course and does NOT prepare you sufficiently for MT work.
That was my understanding, too.
I appreciate the information. This is exactly what my friend says is deducted from her SE check at MQ.

it is my understanding

The long gas lines were only in the north, i.e. NY, where I was living at the time and remember things vividly.


It's fun to get out of your car, ready to deliver, and there are about 50 cars ahead of you. People are like, "Get her to the front of the line, fast!!!" 


my understanding is this

If you work exclusively for *one* service, the IRS classifies you as a statutory employee (services pays employers share of your SS tax). If you have your own account, even one (i.e. local doctor), you are an independent contractor.

But as an independent contractor ... you call the shots. You can work for 20 services if you want. You work on "contract" rather than production. You're not locked into, say, 1200 lines per day. But the service can say, "You are responsible for meeting the 24-hour turnaround for St Katrina Hospital."

You can't go by the 20 questions ... too many variable, especially as it pertains to who has the element of control.

Best solution ... talk to someone at the Small Business Administration. These people are former business owners, and some have been also been connected with the IRS.


thank you for understanding...
That sounds more like my way of doing things.  It would be the best way, rather than just closing down and shutting her off.  You're right, it would sever our relationship completely, or kill her inside, if I were completely up front.  She is  dependent on this man, and she is so afraid of being alone.    Its a delicate subject better handled the way you suggested. 
my understanding
for many, MANY years is that the state abbreviations are two capital letters. These abbreviations are for postal services, so having it written otherwise on a job application may be okay. Unless the job is with the post office ;-)
And thank you for understanding ; ) nm
x
Thanks for understanding
Wow! You have been on that long? I still have several hours to go. Thanks for understanding. I love your icons, I agree with the thud specifically. Not to pun, but maybe today the "turkeys" dictate LOL. I could say something about us not being chicken to transcribe today but that would be too much! OK so, I am going loony, with these dictators who wouldn't! LOL.
it is my understanding
that noise-blocking headphones can actually block out dictation, esp if there is noise up close (ie, xrays flapping) that makes the dictation comparable to background sound.
If I am understanding
your post correctly, you just have your keyboard sitting on your desk. If that is correct, I would say you need a keyboard tray. When your hands are on your keys, your arms should be bent at the elbows and straight to your keys ... your forearms should not angled up or down.

I use a keyboard tray and, in fact, had to add spacers to lower it even more, as I am tall and have long arms. Just over an inch extra (lower) made all the difference in the world! I was having a lot of trouble with my right hand being weak and extensor muscle soreness, causing me to have trouble gripping my mouse (also phone and various other things).

A little bit can go a long way!
My understanding...

is that you need to determine which 3 categories your expenses fall under:  Direct, indirect, or unrelated.  If the expense is indirect, which I would consider Internet since it is used for purposes besides MT, then it would be deducted as a percentage based upon what I posted above.  If your Internet is used solely for your business, then it should be deducted differently, 100%.  OP, I think your best bet is to speak to a tax professional regarding this.  No one on this site can give you 100% reliable tax information for your particular situation.


Understanding VR/SR

Google front-end speech recognition and/or back-end speech recognition and it'll help you understand how some of this stuff works.  The site below was interesting and helpful to me. I found it by Googling back-end speech recognition.  One is when the Dr doesn't even know he/she is on a VR system and one is where the Dr does most of the training/editing.  The site name doesn't seem to be coming up as a valid site on my message but you don't need to put www in front of the name.  http://speechrecognition.wordpress.com/


Hunting Understanding II
Thank you to all ladies on this board that feed their families the OLD FASHION WAY! They don't just buy any old meat in the store with a label on it! HA!HA!HA!
totally not understanding
I am totally not understanding what you are looking for then. Avg line counts per hour depend on your own speed, but I know many places require 125-150 lines/hr.

MT work is ridiculous because there is no one standard for line counting - gross lines, 65 char w/sp, 65 char w/o sp, 55 char w/o sp, per report. Totally absurd!! So that all counts in factoring how many lines.
What are you not understanding about my post??....sm
I am not saying that all NM businesses are bad. For goodness sake, I'm talking about Quixtar and Quixtar ONLY, not the entire network marketing industry.
understanding jobs...
AMEN!!! Try telling that to my husband and family!! I work at home, but just because I am "at home" doesn't mean I am "home."


Understanding the basics.

First, it would help if you understood the basic terminology. Spend some time reading the Help file in Word. Simply put, you insert the information, give it a bookmark name, and then insert a reference to that bookmark in the correct location(s) throughout your document. Jumping between the fields is something that you do using a form; more info on that in the Word help files. There's just too much information to post here. Spend some time playing around with it before making your template. (There are a couple are other options that you may come across that may help to automate your work for you, like the ASK field.)


Also With A Non-Understanding Hubby
I understand completely! It took me a couple of years to start making good money, and it wasn't until recently when I jumped ship from the large MTSO that I was working for and joined a smaller, private company that I really started making the big $$. In first learning these new accounts, I was working 15- to 18-hour days, but now about 3 months later, I've got it down to an 8-hour day and I'm hitting right at $950 per week!

I think the key is finding the situation that works best for you. I have decided that the smaller companies work best for me. I started out with one and then went to a larger company for the increased benefits, but then I found that I actually worked less because of the 'motivation factor.' When there are 100 other people working on the same account as me, I tend to feel less important and I don't work as quickly. However, when I have my own accounts and I know that I'm the only one in charge of getting it done, then I find that I can sit here longer and work harder and faster, and I also don't get distracted as easily.

However, my husband does often complain about my hours. He's been used to me working from home for over 7 years now, and he doesn't like the idea of me working outside of the house. I know that may sound bad, but he's just used to knowing that I'm at home with the kids and we're all in one piece. (I think it's because he travels a lot and he likes to know that his family isn't also scattered around.)

He likes that I am able to work from home, but he would like it even better if I worked just from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then still have my mornings and evenings to cook and clean and sew buttons on shirts...or whatever it is that he has in his head that a housewife does. I have to keep reminding him that I am a 'wife who works from the house,' but I am not a 'housewife.'

And although his paycheck nearly doubles mine, I still have to remind him from time to time that my paycheck is equally as important. It gives me my own personal confidence AND it provides for vacations, shopping trips, etc. In addition to being able to provide for extras, I’m also flexible for when his job relocates him (which has happened 3 times in the last 5 years). I’m waiting on his promotion that will take us to Florida—hopefully in about 3 more years. I’ve told him that if I didn’t have the job that I have, then we wouldn’t just be able to pick up and move whenever his job needed us to.

Anyway, don’t let his insecurities and disbeliefs discourage you! It won’t be long before you’ll be able to prove what you’re capable of. And even then, you’ll probably still have to remind him what it’s all for about once a year or so! I don’t think that argument will ever go away! Happy Holidays!!

I am not understanding- is that including
our changing, adding, etc. to get the finished report? in other words - if a VR report starts at 87 before our editing, and we have to put in say 3 extra lines, does it still stay at 87 when all is finished? Thanks.
I may not be understanding correctly but
If you want to go backwards with the jump code I think that is shift+F11. I never have been able to get that to work correctly, but I can hit F11 and go forward in the document just fine.
My understanding is that some can do exceptional
line rates on certain platforms.  My understanding is that Escription has speech compression technology that will allow the speech to be played at a faster rate without resorting to chipmonk voices.  I have heard of people doing 600-800 lph consistently with that platform, even 1200 on occasion if you get a good streak going.  I've not used Escription, the only VR experience I have is with Dictaphone's Turbo speech product and there are some who use that and produce 500 lph over a 40-hour week; however, they are not able to do that consistently.  My issue with speech is that you tend to get on autopilot and you don't have the same brain control as far as hearing the words and having them flow through your fingertips, making you in control of what is coming out.  It is way to easy to "think" that you are reading what you are hearing.  Also, it's much easier to rely on the speech to have put out the correct spelling on something you're not sure about.  Transcriptionists are much more likely to look up something that they don't know when the word is not already staring at them on the screen.  It can make us more productive, but it also compromises the integrity of the finished product.  However, it's really hard to put the worms back in the can after they have already been opened up.  What troubles me the most is that the organization that is supposed to promote and support our industry and it's workers seems much more interested in jumping into bed with the MTSOs and the employers than their members.  I am so consciencious about my work.  My knowledge is worth something.  Accurately delivering a timely quality document is worth much more to the revenue cycle than it is given credit for.  I have absolutely no doubt that I could much more easily be taught to code the finished report than a coder could be taught to accurately transcribe the report, yet they are given much more respect because they are ultimately responsible for the revenue.  However, without me doing my job to the best of my ability....there is nothing their for them to work from.  Okay....I'm off topic now.  Sorry about that.  The whole ASR/EMR (point and click) stuff has me ready to pull out my hair.  If you want to really see an ugly, inaccurate, and highly unprofessional report....look for one that a doctor, NP, or PA has created for themselves.  Nothing is capitalized, spelled correctly, or punctuated as it should be.  The whole dern thing process needs to be looked at, analyzed, and the MTs who don't have the skills need to be weeded out or have some retraining.  The knowledge and the understanding of what we do (for those who take pride in what goes out with their initials on it) needs to be recognized for the value that it adds to the revenue process AND we need to be compensated accordingly. 
Not understanding why you are working
because you are surely not making any money with only 700+ lines a day. Just to be at home when the kids get home? Who pays for their upkeep? A platform, good acct and good paying jobs will exclude people who are not able to be on course with the others out there. You have to be fast if nothing else working in this profession. I think you might have missed your calling at some other profession.
I have Vonage and love it so far. My understanding is sm

that as long as you cable or DSL access, you can hook up your modem anywhere and use it for your phone service.  You might give them a call and verify that this is correct, though, or check out their website at www.vonage.com.


 


Good luck!


 


thanks, Cookie, your understanding reply to my
(as another poster called it) "whining" what a great Christmas present. Empathy is a great gift.
I have a hard time understanding if this was so
wrong then why wouldn't anyone not even your own husband be on your side?  I don't know about this one.  Something doesn't sound right.  JMO.
Thanks for your positivity, understanding and compassion!
xx
I'm having a hard time understanding why you
That doesn't make sense to me.  Just because you transcribe a report, that doesn't make you the only person who knows about it or even a significant person in the whole process.