just recently transitioned myself
Posted By: sm on 2007-08-05
In Reply to: IC folks - Birdlady
from decades of being an 'employee' to a SE. I just wish i would have done it many many years ago. The freedom from time clocks, schedules etc is well worth the bene's i gave up. If one puts it all together (add bene's to gross pay), i don't make as much money, but that's really my fault, because now many days i work 6 or 6-1/2 hr instead of 8. But my quality of life is so much more. You sure want to set aside money for taxes though, and i made a savings acct for just that. Hope you make the right decision for you!!
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I transitioned about 4 yrs ago and sm
I had gone from family practice for about 7 years on the same group of physicians right to OP notes, skipping the rest of acute care work types. I had 4 months that were extremely difficult, but after that, it seemed to click. Last year, I went from the surgical center OP notes to acute care straight. However, once the places I have worked caught on that it was OP notes I am good with and OP notes I like, they never let me do anything else.
I feel like I went from the easiest to the hardest and didn't manage the steps in between. When I worked clinic I was paid 7.5 to 9 cpl depending on the doctor, mostly at 7.5 cpl. The problem was the work flow. It was feast or famine and from about Thanksgiving to Easter the work was terribly slow and I worried like crazy. The other months were better, but it was never what I am making now. The most I made in a year doing clinic was $24K full time. I make more than half again as much now with a marginally higher line rate (1 cent more) and I still only work full time. The reason is that I have, or can get, a similar amount of work each and every day and all through the year. Clinic bored me to tears for the last 3 yrs I did it, but no one would take a chance on giving me any acute care, let alone OP notes. I had a lucky offer, I took it and they stuck by me until I could get to 99% accuracy or better and kept giving me more work until I could get to 1600-1800 lines a day.
I'd tell you if you want to do acute care, go for it. I am not saying the transition won't be difficult at first, but as you have experience it won't be the uphill climb that learning transcription was in the first place. I tend to encourage people to learn acute care and transition from clinic to acute. As fill in the blank EMR systems take hold clinic work will be the first to go. There wasn't that much of it about when I was doing it and I'd say judging from the ads of jobs in MT, there is even less now.
Need some input from MTs who transitioned
I'm thinking about taking a position at the local HUGE teaching hospital. I don't know the pay yet, but the benefits are really good. I'm trying to think about what it would be like to not work at home... and it kind of scares me. But at the same time, it excites me... One of my major concerns is missing my dogs LOL. and them missing me, of course.
Would appreciate any input from any of ya'll about your experience and things I might want to consider when deciding whether or not to leave my comfort zone.
Oh, and it's located within 5 miles of my house, so gas would be a consideration, but not huge.
Thanks!
has anyone transitioned from IC or SE to full time
How did the transition go? What are the differences? What do they take out of you for single in regards to health insurance. Did your pay rate stay the same? My premiium went up AGAIN as it does every year, 20 bucks, and i'm thinking about becoming full time, but only if it is a smooth transition. Thanks guys
NO... Just recently.....
my sister came home to a real disaster. She left for work at the beginning of a thunderstorm and came home to find everything blown out in her house and scorched burnt wallpaper in places on the walls. Apparently the lightening hit the Invisible Fence wire around the perimeter of her property, traveled into the garage where the power box for the fence was, and breached her circuit box and traveled up into the sockets in the house. She lost TVs, her computer, all sorts of items which were destroyed. I'd unplug and wait it out.
i just recently became SE
and all i can tell you is that when i talked with my accountant about what to do with the 401k that i already have, knowing my situation, she gave no indication of there being a problem maintaining this as an SE.
I recently got one because I could not
adjust to the earphones my company sent. I got mine from the Dictation Store and they were $9, but shipping is about $8. I just got standard shipping and I think it took 2 days to get it, though I'm on the same coast.
I had one of those recently.
Foot pedals wouldn't work (I tried several). Keyboard keys (F1, etc.) wouldn't work. I ended up using the mouse on media player to stop, start, and back up the dictations. Obviously it takes much longer to transcribe anything that way because it's a pain in the neck to use the mouse to operate the player, and you're much more prone to make mistakes because of the clumsiness and hassle involved.
The test I took was very easy (radiology). They graded it the same as if I had had full use of a foot pedal and no technical difficulties. There were a few simple errors that were obviously the result of not being able to quickly back up and re-listen to things. They also counted off for minor stylistic "errors" even though they did not make it known anywhere that they required the use of a specific set of style guidelines on the test (presumably the BOS). I now regret taking that test at all under those ridiculous circumstances.
In the end I concluded that they either didn't know how to administer a test or it was all designed to be an ambush to stifle the MTs they had decided they didn't like and weren't about to sign a contract with. Or both. In any case, I would never choose to work with a place that incompetent or that nasty anyway.
I have done several recently and
every single one of them required you to type it into Word 2003 and email it in so that they can read it.
Maybe you were testing with bigger companies than I was, though and they have some other way to test.
Why does it seem that VR/SR has just recently taken off
it just really seems like in the last few months everyone on here has been forced to go VR (I know not ALL of you), but the majority. My work had one account on VR last year and now ALL accounts are within the just the past months. Why all of a sudden are we getting bombarded with it. It doesn't seem to matter what company or what platform, but it is taking us by storm. I happen to like VR myself, but WOW its exploding!! Want your opinion as to why "all of a sudden"?
From what I have seen recently,
they are hiring people with little or no experience and getting rid of the ones who have tons of experience and can learn quickly and can start producing at the get go. They advertise for experienced MTs with acute care experience but they are not keeping them. They even laugh and joke about it.
I have investigated recently-
checking up the corporate ladder and with tech people, all of us in MQ get paid for spaces within a section/paragraph, naturally not the blank line between sections/paragraphs. That was one of the motives for insisting we stop double spaces after periods and colons(:). It adds up.
I've seen the same recently...
"work pools were changed recently" was what I was told and now finding myself with the accents....luckily since I work on 85% during my full time job during the day the accents on this part time account are a piece of cake. I did have a funny experience last night on my last report...
I pulled in an echo that someone apparently abandoned because they couldn't do it. It was an ESL but not a difficult ESL.....
The doctor dictated....."Normal mitral valve........NO MORE MITRAL VALVE was transcribed ....then pericardial effusion.....THE PATIENT WANTS DIVERSION was typed..... !
I was just recently hired by
Transcend and am receiving the equipment today or tomorrow, will train next week. I would not worry about the interview if I were you. She was very nice and we had a nice talk. I am leaving MQ. Welcome.
I checked it out recently (sm)
If I weren't already in my senior year of college and on a different path, I'd definitely check it out. The average income was something like 45K (salary.com).
I'd not worry about competition. MT is considered hard for newbies to break into, but we did that, didn't we? Where there's a will, there's a way.
I'd definitely consider it if I were you. Frankly, getting out of the house sounds really nice to me.
I think there was something recently posted about this
company.
I recently met someone who has a friend who took a
6-week course, is working at home with all the work she can handle. Of course I don't believe this, but this is what she said.
I found this recently (sm)
See link
Not unless something has changed recently...
I have worked at a job where I had to use both the Lanier and a Dictaphone. They are two very separate things.
anyone recently take the cmt exam?
thank you.
Oh, they did for me! I just recently plugged my
instead of my junky speakers, and what a difference!!! Can't believe I've gone this long thinking that it was DQS that was all the problem with the degradation in sound quality since going from using a C-phone.
I assume that better speakers would have to make a difference, because mine are super cheap. But for now I'm just staying with my headphones through the computer speaker plug (and with a Turtle Beach Audio Device as well now).
Someone asked this recently and several
mentioned the same reasonably priced vacuum (yes, some also loved their Dyson's, but I'm with you on the price). Sorry, I can't remember which one it was (maybe a Eureka something???), but I do remember the same one coming up three or four times in the thread. Search the archives. Good luck to you! (p.s. I'm coming back to search the archives myself when I'm ready to buy again).
this happened to me recently :)
Hold down either the Ctl key or the Alt key and then hit either your right or left arrow depending on which way you want it to move. It only happened to me once, so if that doesn't work, play around with holding Clt+Alt and possibly Shift with the arrow, but that was how I got mine back after my 3 YO granddaughter played with it.
Happy Holiday!
I recently did this and went back to being
IC status. I did not enjoy being an employee, yes the tax thing is a pain in the butt, but being an employee with this particular company was horrible!! I vote for the IC position unless you don't mind being restricted on time off, emergencies etc. Just my opinion though, good luck with your decision.
Recently started using
Meditech for a new hospital account (acute care and rad) Compared to WP and/or Word,(or even DocQscribe) it's like pushing a truck up hill with one hand. Easy to use but very cluncky and requires more Keystrokes for any function than any other platform that I've used. No doubt it (or you) gets faster with use, but I'm not impressed.
PS It has an awkward spell check - not case sensitive, does not pick up transpositions, takes 3 keystrokes to make a correction instead of 1 as in WP or Word.
At my age plus the fact recently
paid off every debt I have, could get social security - I am glad I do not have to worry about will it be this way or that- much too unnerving for a person supporting family, bills, etc. I work part by my own desires and if that is the way it goes, that is that. I hated the first time I was ever outsourced but after the 2nd time used to it. Times change.
I knew anyone could look at it but I did not know until recently (sm)
that it would come up in search engines. I accidentally found something I posted months ago when doing a search for something else!
I saw saw one recently; I think it was Nicholas
Transcription, but can't remember for sure.
Anyone take the CMT test recently?
I was just thinking about taking it and wondered if anyone had any advise.
I have been on both sides and recently sm
I had a team and their QA to oversee. The "recruiter" would hire anyone she knew who could type. This was a teaching hospital, very large, very difficult and a challenge to those of us with plenty of experience. I could not fire an MT and if I told the MT manager that this so and so could not do the job, I was told to TEACH HER to do it and in the mean time, fix her reports.
I did have some MTs who wanted to learn, had had a bit of experience, and were anxious to progress. I spent a lot of time on them because they took to suggestions and they worked hard. The ones who not MTs, hadn't studied and were clueless, I had the option of assigning them very little work, which is what I did and I did out of self-preservation. There are only 24 hrs in a day and I was working 20 of them!
I have two jobs right now and QA at one I know very well, having worked with her for years. She only sends back a corrected a report in its entirety. The blanks she filled in are changed to a red font. I can see it, I can learn and I keep every one of her reports in a special folder in my email. I am trying to learn 3 doctors who chased away several other MTs on this account. One has a speech impediment and talks very very fast, one has an accent and talks too fast in the face of it and the third is a speed dictator who doesn't think that words need to be pronounced to be understood. The rest of the physicians don't present a problem. It has been difficult because I have had these 3 doctors about twice each and not enough to tackle the learning curve YET. In any case, this QA is patient and she never ever offers personal comments of a derogatory nature.
The other company I work for, I think that QA is nonexistent, other than when they are throwing their weight around. I had one particular report, an I&D of a sebaceous cyst. The doctor followed with this "cheesy material" which is what I transcribed. They called me on the phone to tell me that the doctor "never would have said that" and I said I'd stake my reputation as an MT that he did! She said, well...you're still wrong. Ummm no, I am not. That is lack of experience, knowledge or even a decent ear. No wonder we are on the verge of losing the account, yet again.
Now, I worked for a company where the QA person treated everyone like they were about 2 yrs old. I had her call me names like $toopid, moronic, an imbecile and whenever she used a word of 3 syllables, told me to look it up since I was not bright enough to understand what she was talking about. The owner, when I complained, said that is just how she is, but that she is so good at what she does... I said look, she represents your company and what you stand for. If this is all you have to offer, I am leaving, and I did.
SOME QA gals seem to have a chip on their shoulders. I am of the opinion that those who can do this job, do it and those who are knowledgeable, but can't do the job, do QA. I know several QA people who have CTS and can't type anymore, so they QA and I think that is a bit different.
It is widely understood that the very best MTs are not QA people, they are still MTs. I could not, would not take a 50% or better pay cut to be a QA person. I am far too fast and too capable for that. Neither company I work for presently would ever put me on QA because I am extremely valuable as an MT. Transcribing is my stock and trade and I can't see giving that up for anyone.
Remember as well, there are reasons that we work at home, and I am talking psychological reasons. I can't stand office politics and I don't like people. I am told I don't play well with others, and this is a correct assessment. Others have their issues too, and some of these issues creep up with QAs who seem to need some therapy and help dealing with people. This seems to attract people with a decided need to be the biggest fish in the smallest pond and throw their fins about to get attention.
When I did my resume recently (sm)
I listed the companies and underneath put a brief summary of my duties. One company I had worked for a very long time and held multiple positions in the company based on my "life needs" at the time, you know, MT, supervisor, part time at home with little ones, etc. I just kind of briefly stated that I had held multiple positions within that company.
Seems like resumes used to also contain a "position sought" or "goal" line and in that line I would clearly state that I was looking for supplemental income and to maintain my active transcription skills. Perhaps that will be enough of a "continuing ed" spin that any recruiter worth their salt would surely understand.
I recently asked the same
question (about a week ago) with little reply. Only one other person replied and suggested Bose noise reducing earphones. I just purchased a pair of Glimmer Insight from transcriptiongear.com. They also do not have a seperate volume control, which would be nice. I also purchased a pair of earmuff style headphones just in case the others hurt my ears, Skullcandy lowriders. I don't care for the "urban" design of them, but the sound is very crisp and clear. Again, no volume control on those.
I've seen a few recently that are sm
upgraded to work with Vista, but not many. I think there are too many quirks with Vista (my opinion) and not everyone is ready to upgrade their systems to be compatible. If you work IC, buy a computer with XP and write it off on taxes.
Wasn't there a gal recently who was getting out of MT and going to
I wonder how that's going. That's what I REALLY want to do. I have just about reached the camel's last straw with this job.
My clinic has gone to this recently...sm
Our clinic went to this in October. The doctors started using it for their clinic notes in November. Right now my dictation has been cut down to less than half of what it was and they still don't have all the appropriate templates set up yet, so I am expecting in the next 3-6 months there will be no more dictation at all. Right now I am having to find other things to do because the dictation is so sporadic. I don't have any experience doing anything other than medical transcription my entire adult working life (30+ years), so needless to say this is very difficult for me to adapt to.
My MTSO has recently been
emphazing this. As I understand it from what I was told, 99.9% of the time there is a comma before "which." An example of now to use one is "The patient has a cold for which she is being treated with ....."
When used as "the patient had a chest x-ray, which showed ..." you use a comma. I really don't understand what difference it makes, but we hvae been told to use it. In fact, they gave us a way to enter it in our autocorrect so it automatically puts one in, which can be irritating at times when you don't need it.
I recently typed an EGD....sm.
The patient had choked on a piece of meat and had it lodged in his throat. The whole report for some reason by hands did not want to type food...always foot. I felt pretty confident that I did a good job correcting all of them and sent the report on.
Two days later the doctor sends it back and asks me to change it. No big deal, must have made a different mistake....NO I was so mad at myself that I sent this report that stated "foot was removed from the esophagus". It was embarassing then but now it is pretty funny to me.
Anyone recently worked for Amphion?
I am curious about what kind of work they have. I read in archives that there were a lot of clinic notes, letters and correspondence type work. What I want to know is whether this has changed and if I went to work for them would there be acute care/hospital work? What is the program they use?
Until recently my experience was great
Now all of the sudden many accounts have no work. When there is work, the money is good. Really a lot alike many of the other nationals, IMO.
Avril wuz recently "Punk'd" on MTV.
She ended up pushing a car that was blocking her SUV down an incline in a parking garage into the generator, blowing it up and half of the garage. I just wondered who she was - I've heard the name, but nothing else.
I recently tested for Mxsecure
I had to do 5 dictations. They were the toughest I have ever done.
I read a post on here recently that one MT
rooms in her house (I think a guest room and office) and moves from room to room with different accounts. If you have the $, I think that would be neat!
Recently redecorated retro
office, about 12 x 12 spare bedroom. Peach colored wall, other two walls paneled and one wall with an outdoor mural. I plan to paint the paneling someday, soon!! One large oak desk, 6 drawers, adapted with computer keyboard pullout which DH added for me. Computer (black/gray), flat screen, printer, retro black desk lamp and black pen spinning pen holder, stapler, two speakers. Fax phone on the right on small black stand. Small B/W TV, Clock/CD on the left on vintage wood stand. Second desk rolltop with lots of cubbies, can close it up! Black metal bookcase with pulldown shade on it to hide all the books I can't seem to get rid of, wood top. Wrought iron with wood shelves baker's rack with black mesh filing boxes, framed photos of grandkids on top shelf and basket of grandson's toys on the bottom shelf. Black painted 6 drawer tall dresser to hold office supplies. Two large bulletin boards covered in retro fabric, Peach/black/brown, diamonds and starburst design, matching window valance with roll up bamboo shade, great view to the backyard. Just hung a great vintage sphere light overtop of the desk to complete the mod/retro look. Going for a very streamlined look where all my clutter is hidden!! Very different from rest of the house. Now just waiting for husband to install the new lighting!
I recently stayed at the Flamingo (sm)
it was very nice - they have a beautiful pool area, really tropical. In fact, there was a wedding there when we were there and I noticed how nice it was. If you sign up for their "card" they will give you a better rate.
I used to swear by Sylcount but recently
to Practicount. You get the same counts as you do in Sylcount but you don't have to save the files in the rich text format for it to work. I found it annoying to have to save everything in RTF and my version of MS Word would always ask if I wanted to save it in RTF, and I'd have to answer "yes" to two different pop-ups before it would even save. There might have been a way around that, but I found Practicount worked just as well without that bother so I switched.
I recently purchased the Stedman's (sm)
Medical & Surgical Equipment Words. Can you tell me the difference between this and The Surgical Word Book? Thanks.
I recently met this girl, and she works
for Time Warner on the help desk from home. She said the pay and benefits are great and she's been doing it for 2 years now. She works the Thursday through Sunday schedule though. I have no idea what types of jobs they have, but thought I would pass that along.
Funny how she does this, yet I always still get someone who is obviously not from the US.
My company has recently started sm
assigning jobs by the TAT, not by the work type. Again, maybe you need to refresh yourself on the various specialties/work types. The SUM tapes can really help with that. If you are interested, email me. I bought them on ebay, and can make cheap copies if you like.
I had to restart my computer recently
when the site we use wouldn't work right for me. We use ichart.
I recently left a company (sm)
and lost mine, but this company is notorious for doing this. Worst company I ever worked for. One regret I have is not leaving sooner when the writing was clear on the wall. Good luck.
I recently purchased a 23-inch...
Phillips LCD flat screen TV to use as a computer monitor. The TV price was relatively the same as a computer monitor of the same size. Definitely go as big as you can afford...you won't be sorry!
Actually, they just changed it recently to plain
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