Your posts are some of the best and most eloquent -sm
Posted By: My 2 cents (per line?) on 2007-06-12
In Reply to: you make some good points - Janine
on this board. You could take everything you've written and put it into one letter, and whoever received that letter would most likely find it impossible to ignore.
I think we all got into this situation partially because in the past we never questioned it. Who needed to? 20+ years ago there wasn't much that needed changing. I remember in 1980 a union-organizer-guy walked into our office and tried to get us to unionize. And we turned him down, saying, "Everything is fine here.. we don't need a union!" Boy, how times have changed.
What the Indians are enjoying today in the MT industry is where we were in the mid to late 1970s. They're all, "Oh, wow! What a great job! Look at all this money I make! [-compared to scooping sacred cow manure off the streets, perhaps-] Now I have a middle-class income and lifestyle!" But just wait, it'll happen to them, someday, too. Their companies will get greedier, and the hospitals they currently type for, who are already greedy, and only care about how cheap they can get it, not how good it is, will find someone else who will work for even LESS. Meanwhile, the cost of everything in India will have risen, as those with more money are able to pay for it. And if India's work is then being sent to yet another country - Thailand? Kenya? Somalia? maybe Iraq?, then their payscale will start to decline, as well.
I can just see it now: By then US MT companies (if they even exist by that time) will be scrambling to underbid each other by offering 15-minute or less turnaround for .00053 cents per line, and the hospitals will be complaining that they can get it for .00048 cents in Somalia. All the while, soaking their patients for $300 apiece for tampons.
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The above is one of the most eloquent posts to date -sm
about the state of affairs in the Healthcare industry and the MT branch of it. You're right about lobbyists, and I thin we MTs need some right about now. Back in the beginning of AAMT, we all naiively bought into their organization, thinking that support, lobbying, and maybe improvement in pay & working conditions (i.e., not having to work a 12-hour day in order to make 8 hours' pay, and having benefits and health insurance like other Americans) were going to be one of the benefits. Boy, were we ever wrong. AAMT turned out to be right there in bed with all the shady CEOs of national companies, and top administrators of the hospitals, that only cared about one thing. MONEY, and lots of it. (For themselves, of course.) Other companies and industries in this country have been called out on poor treatment of workers (Wal-Mart) and customer fraud (Enron), and both of those evils exist in the MT business and even many parts of healthcare as a whole. We already know we're getting the short end of the stick wage-and-compensation-wise. And maybe now it's time for every MD & hospital in this country to get a chance to either FIND OUT (if they don't know their patient information is leaving the U.S.) or to be OUTED (if they do know it, but don't tell their patients, MDs, etc.) Above all those of us whose medical records are being written to and stored in an electronic medical record should not only have the right to KNOW if our records leave the U.S., but we should also have the right to say "NO, not MY records."
WOW!! Excellent eloquent post!
You covered everything and did it so well that there's not much to add.
I will say, though, that I have been in a profession in which I was in a union. I have plenty of gripes about the union, but it'd be nice to have that protection here. It'll never happen, though, because of the other shortcoming that plagues this industry: Offshoring. It used to be that, if you worked hard and were good at your job, you had some leeway because you just *knew* that your company wouldn't let you go because they valued you so much. Not so these days, at least not the company I work for, and not from many others if what I read on these boards is true. Most of the companies have a virtually endless supply of maleable workers who will work for little to nothing. I get the very distinct feeling that if I said I was quitting tomorrow, they'd almost be happy for it. After all, they can now just backfill my position with one of those nameless, faceless people in India, the Philippines, Viet Nam, or any of the various other 'offshore' places.
A friend who works for SPi and is very good at what she does, when she told her supervisor that she had gotten another job offer, was actually told by that supervisor her advice was to take it! Back in 'the day' and not too very long ago, the response would've been 'how can we keep you?' Every single QA or Editor that I know is actively searching for a new job, some in this same declining industry, others in completely other fields.
After working so hard for so many years, I now feel just extremely tired - body and soul, completely demoralized, struggling to have any pride in my work any more. It's bad now and getting worse. I only hope the above poster is correct and things will make a turn-around, but frankly, I'm having a really hard time seeing it or even mustering the optimism to envision it. :'(
That was an extremely eloquent post!
.
Totally ELOQUENT post! This should be sent
.
Just do a search and read the posts. There are plenty of posts about OSI on this board. nm.
nm.
Um have you read any of your posts and the other posts? I think everyone DOES believe me..you
There has been a lot of posts about them
over the past couple of months, few good. If searching with TRS isn't bringing up anything, search using the full name.
regarding most of the posts below
I just have to say that "redneck grit", I think is how one poster described it, does not only live in trailer parks! I know, for a fact, a used-to-be-nice neighborhood full of new homes--houses--where there are a bunch of rednecks. I'd rather live in a nice trailer park than in that neighborhood full of houses. Regardless of where or what you live in, there is always gonna be the not-so-desirables in the neighborhood-regardless! And most of the time, they live right on the main road or right at the entrance..go figure! 
not ALL posts are MQ...this is not..I am not..
you are just a slammer to slam...maybe YOU are the MQ person and that is why you are so mean and slam...afterall...not every post on this board is for or about or beause of MQ there are lots of other companies out there..good and bad
To below posts about MT pay and such
Just wanted to say my piece. Sure an MT can make money at 7.5 cpl. Sure many MTs can type 14,000 lines in a week and bring home 4K or more a month. SURE. The point is, however, WHY should we have to work that much? If we are not newbies and have all this experience under our belts, and not to mention a high standard of quality, WHY should we have to take a job paying 7.5 cpl? WHY. Am I not worth more than the MT who has just graduated from school? Yes! WHY should I not make more money? So, the attitude of most MTs these days is simply because we are not valued for the experience and quality that we bring to our companies.
You can't please everyone, don't let the posts get to you....
Most of us here are happy.
MAP - are you on AIM?
Thanks, everyone, for your posts. I just
don't know what to do, and I probably should just wait til the holidays are over before making a decision. Yes, I wish MTs would understand that we HAVE to mark their errors. We get QA'd, too, down the line in the food chain! I honestly don't ever mark the small stuff - that's depressing to me, too. Just an endless blurb of really horrible quality work - major errors, and not blanks! And yet I'm supposed to not stop and "really proof the work - just the blanks and push it thru. Its horrible. Occasionally I get some nice work, and I have faith again in the MTs, but more often its pure garbage, and American garbage, I might add. Not trying to start anything, but I seriously wish the quality of MTs in the USA could pick up a bit. Not to mention the attitude of some - not all - some newer MTs - they are vicious when you try to mentor. So there is no mentoring - just fix the work for them and push it thru. Drugs spelled phonetically, wrong body parts, you name it! Oh well. I think I have left myself no choice but to transcribe again! I miss it so! And it really doesn't save on the arms, as 1 poster felt. I am using the foot pedal and keyboard just as much, but all sporadically, not a smooth flow of typing. Its not all that great a job, that's for sure. Oh well Thanks, my fellow MTs!
Old posts say bad. nm
s
your posts
The above poster was correct - you could have and IMO should have just not posted. When there is a post about something I'm not interested in, I just skip it.
But people like you have to be nasty and spread your venom everywhere. What about a little common courtesy and just leave the Soprano fans alone?
OMG - Best 2 posts on here EVER!!
LOL
following posts
Is there a way to be notified by email when further posts are added to topics we have responded to?
Thanks EVERYONE for your posts! I
really appreciate it. Guess I have a lot of soul-searching and financial planning to do this weekend!! Now, if only I was off...
posts
They were replying to posts from quite a while back and just seemed to be stirring up trouble, for example the post with subject of "BLINDED".
Most of the posts are ... sm
because people don't have work. I wonder if you should switch jobs. What if you didn't have any work at all and could not feed your sick child (grandchild), whatever... It is a shame you can't work for a company that allows you flexible hours and can understand that you need a day off, too. Next time, make your coworker do the electives on holidays. JMO Cheer up!!!!
Cannot believe these posts
A post like yours reenforces people's attitudes about MTs not being a professional job. It is a JOB. It is not something you do so you can stay at home and do housework, take care of the children, tea etc. I wish each and every 1 of you who wrote posts like this would have to drive back and forth to your job, have a supervisor hanging around, make sure you dress appropriately and play the game of office politics. You might learn then to grow up some. My gosh!!!! From in the 70s until 1992 I worked out of the house and learned good skills and work ethics. I never have a problem then nor do I now keeping myself on a schedule. It is supposed to be a job, remember????
Thanks for all your posts...
Just to clarify, this is straight transcribing, no VR. I've been with the company only a week now and have not actually started doing "live" jobs, still in training and getting used to the program which is MedRite XL. I was previously with MQ using DocQScribe which I found EXTREMELY easy, pretty straight forward typing. Hadn't been on ASR there yet either as I left before the required training. MRXL seems to be a bit more complicated, but then again I've been on the system for only a few days and am still learning. As with anything, practice makes perfect!
I am not required to use the function keys and I have not been threatened if I do use the mouse. My trainer highly suggests I use the function keys instead of the mouse as she says it will increase my speed and my productivity. That may be so, but I still feel much more comfortable with the mouse and I usually produce 200-250 lph. There again, I could probably do more lph but I don't use Expanders a whole heck of a lot. I know if I could get comfortable with the function keys and expanders my productivity would probably increase dramatically, but I am of the mindset I don't want to take the time for a learning curve. I just want to sign on and start transcribing according to my comfort level. I know I could constantly look at my cheat sheet, but then that would slow me down at first and I would probably get very frustrated. Maybe if I could think in terms of what type of command the CTRL key does, what type of command the shift key does, what type of command the ALT key does, that might help. But there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to what key does what and it seems to be just all memorizing, which at my age is kind of hard to do. Have too many other things swimming around in my head! Anyway, I just wanted to get an idea of how many MTs use the function keys vs the mouse, and if I was still back in the dinosaur age. Thank you all
Look about 3-4 posts below yours at the -sm
person asking for ortho sites. The reply has a web address that is pretty awesome. May help you-can never have too many reference sites. Good luck.
where's my posts???
Posted twice in the last 24 hours...but none of them are showing up!!!
Thank you both for the posts so much!
I appreciate your input because I also was feeling paranoid...it is kind of an awkward thing to talk about as was mentioned because you do not want to seem like you are complaining to get the easier work, but why does it get taken away when you get used to it, plan somewhat on how much you think you are going to make, and get into a real rhythm and do a great job with no errors.
I was hoping I was not the only one yet am also sad to see I am not also because it must be a deliberate practice.
It really is a dilemma because you do not know if you should or could speak up, whether it would change anything or not, or like I have had happen - as soon as I mentioned it my fate was sealed the last 2 jobs.
Again, I thank you for sharing, and if any consolation we are not alone anyway...
If you find a way around it, please share!
MT...most of your posts are
rude and heartless. You have your own opinion of course but it is a proven fact that depression is a disease. How can you say to this person....get up, take a shower and get a job. You are not helping this person but probably making it worse for him. Do research before you give such advice on depression. Glad I'm not your friend - you make me depressed with your posts.
two posts from me?
Sorry if there ends up being two...I thought I lost one. It shows in my posts, but not here. ???
many posts on top 3
nm
I'd look at all the posts here of
and then count your lucky stars you're being paid by the hour. If you're getting all this work in without OT than I don't think it would rise to the level of "extra" pay. If you're getting OT, there's your bonus.
From my posts on here I probably don't...sm
seem the best MT. I don't watch things on here. I just vent usually.
I would like to get in to acute care. I did do it for a couple of months with my company, but when the opportunity came for my cinic account back, I jumped on it cause I made more money on the clinic account because it had good dictators and most of the dictators on the acute care were TERRIBLE. They ended up not keeping that acute care account too long anyway for whatever reason.
I do need to get into acute care though. I know that is where the work lies.
Thanks to the posts below
I was going to look into Intant Text myself to see if it would improve my productivity better than AutoCorrect, but it seems to be too much trouble getting started and sounds complicated to use. I find AutoCorrect very easy to use and was up and running with it from day one without any problems.
Does Instant Text automatically expand from a few letters typed like AutoCorrect or do you have to choose from a list every time from a few letters typed?
For the below posts...
I have been searching for info on the laptop question for a while. Would any of you be willing to email me about what kind of setup you have with the laptop? I get so many conflicting views on what you need and don't need. I would love to hear from you about the things you have learned doing this.
Which was exactly what was said in posts above.
nm
exactly. But I have seen posts sm
lately on the word board that had the DTR thing and one that didn't know about rales and wheezes, normal stuff that you learn at the beginning. These people should not be transcribing at home by themselves!
I too prefer my books unless I can get to a Stedmans website for a word check once in awhile. MTs nowadays are not willing to invest what it takes to get going in this business and don't understand that it takes years and years to get the experience needed to be able to do this independently.
I see your posts all the time on here
I like your posts and I think that you sound like a nice person. You always seem to manage to stay in a debate w/o being cruel.
Which posts? Mine?
I wrote the my take on single mom whatever whatever. That was my post. its not bad really. I didnt mean it bad. I just felt compelled to say something about single moms because of my mom and how hard i know it was. thats all. i promise. I wasnt flaming anyone.
I'm not an MQ mgr and all the posts are not mine
I think you're irritated that there ARE people who get a good deal with MQ, get good lines, good pay, and are happy.
Regarding the posts about procrastination....sm
What works for me is setting up tasks or meetings in Outlook. It works for both procrastination and forgetfulness. I have everything in there, so the reminders pop up all the time. If you find yourself wandering on the net, etc., while trying to transcribe, set up a reminders for yourself that say something like "how's your line count?". When it comes up snooze it for 2 more hours or an hour, so you can't get too sidetracked. I also put everything on my tasks list, chores, phone calls, bills to mail, etc., with reminders. It helps. I try too keep the number of tasks on my list down to a certain number. If I'm really busy, I might increase the number of allowed tasks for a few days. I can go through the tasks and reminders and reorganize them by making the due date/time for high priority stuff sooner and lower-priority stuff later. When I'm done for the day at the computer, I print the task list and knock off the non-computer related tasks like phone calls, bills, etc. It's always nice to delete some of the tasks, and very little slips by undone anymore.
My posts have vanished sm please
I searched archives but they are gone. I had asked for input on two companies - Golden Isles Transcription and WordZXpressed....got two answers so far...anyone else. Good or bad experiences with either company. Thank you!
someone posts on the board
does not mean they are doing it during working hours.
Where in all these posts do you see what you just accused?
No one blamed George Bush for causing the hurricane, please stay on track. But then again maybe your track is to divert the attention from the issue at hand, which is what needs to be done to change things for the future. After all, if you don't accept that there is a problem, the problem will never get fixed.
i enjoy your posts
you seem to have your head on straight
I have read your posts
I for one did read your posts. Fine, you want to stay for the insurance. Then get a second job that will pay your bills. And taking your discussing (read whining) to a blog.
I don't think I have ever laughed so much about posts
on this board. Craps me up more than my Walmart list.
Why have all the posts been deleted that said they
didn't see anything wrong with this?
Geez, come on. I saw all of the OSi posts,
Yes, somebody is sticking up for OSi all over the place. However, I don't know what is so "transparent." Somebody asked a question directly related to Smartype. I use Smartype and I work for OSi, and my Smartype works fine in Extext. For what it's worth, I post here on these boards about 5 times a week, sometimes on the word board, sometimes on the company board. I check in when I'm eating lunch or taking a break. I don't waste my time reading and posting all day long. I just get tired of never even being able to answer someone's question. What's with that?
I have not read the other posts (below) but...
If you have health insurance with counselor coverage, I would book an appointment. Maybe ask around as to who is a good counselor. I understand how you feel as I am now seeing a psychologist about a family situation similar, but not the same, as yours.
It is so devastating when you cannot talk to anyone for fear of the word getting out. Maybe even pick a counselor in another town. You need to talk this over with someone that can maybe give you some ideas on how to deal with the situation without x-ing out your whole family.
I did just that (x-ed out family), and, believe me, the holidays are the hardest. Your mother will probably not see the light until she is clubbed over the head with it, so that is probably not an option. Have you had a out-and-out discussion with him? Don't listen to me, though. I urge you to see a counselor. Best of luck to you...and we are always here to talk to!
I agree with posts below that
it may be hard getting a job with a company with no experience in actual transcription. My suggestion is to approach your local doctors and see where that leads. Actually, there is more money in having your own accounts.
My story is similar to Michigan MT. I had medical schooling, but not for MT. I worked for a group of physicians and started doing their transcription on the side. When I left that office, I got a job at the local hospital as a transcriptionist. Now I am working at home for a different hospital.
If you can find a company that will give you a chance and let you take their test, you may get lucky, but most require several years experience in actual transcribing. I think the best chance you have (without going to school) is to try to get a local account first to get the experience. Good Luck!
P.S. You may want to get a copy of AAMT Book of Style, which contains many standard rules for transcription.
I saw a warning on another one of your posts (SM)
and I think it is because your initials have MQ in them and they are going through and deleting anything related to that company that is posted here, even though you say nothing about the company. I don't think that is right, because you are answering other things and not bringing your company name into this.
Thank You!!! I read all the posts and this is what I
I have been an MT for a very, very long time. I have been on both ends (editor and MT). I think MTs do have a lot they have to remember; however, I don't think it has to be as big a deal as some make it. Back when I first started working from home, I worked for MQ. I had 3 teaching hospitals and can't even remember how many docs now, so I had an office lined with post it notes. As someone put above, writing it down makes them remember. Me, personally, I have a binder with all my account specs printed and can pull a tab to get to each one. They are well lined out and I have taken time to make certain notes on the first page to make it easier. I agree with another post about take whatever work you can get. Make yourself very valuable to the company and you will always have work. I just get really upset to see the ones griping about jumping around and then you will also see posts later that they are out of work. Maybe they should ask themselves why they are out of work. Just on a further note, editing is easier on the hands, but I have to know the account specifics just as well as the MTs because if an error is sent through, it will come back on me too.
Don't put people down like you did in your posts, eh? sm
"MS in BS" ring any bells?
You have issues.
previous posts
I did read all the previous posts, as you indicated. You did give a lot of information. I will let you know in a week or two what I think.
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