needing info on billing/invoice programs

Can anyone give me a good program to invest in that would allow me to keep a line count and also provide invoices? Also, is there a recommended HIPAA approved transferring site to transfer files through the net? Thanks a bunch!

• needing info on billing/invoice programs - Me
  • I use Abacus and send by email/WinZip encrypted. nm - MTer
  • transfer & invoice - deenibeeni
  • I use Sylvan Gold for my invoices, it sm - HMT

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I use Quick Books to do my invoice and do a total for each doctor in the clinic (one line each) it automatically put in the per line charge and enters th entire charge.  I also keet a spreas sheet for my 5 accounts (9 docs) and update it sometimes daily or weekly but keep track by day.  Since some accounts are charged different rates it keeps track of my monthly income and I can project by the 15th whether or not I will be able to eat the next month.  I then highlight each clinic at the end of the month and attach it to their invoce.  My accounts like that as it shows what doctor did on each day.  In my 18 years of doing this have never been questioned on any of my invoices. 

Patti

I keep a spread sheet going in Excel showing by date and doctor (I have 3 clinics, 6 docs) their daily line counts.   I do my invoices in Quick Books showing monthly totals by doctor for that clinic taken from my spreadsheet and print a copy of the spread sheet -- showing only their line counts and attach it.   I like the spreadsheet as it tells me if I am on target for the month, etc.  The Quick Book keeps my totals for tax time.   As I have said many time, the simpler for me the more time I can spend typing making money.  Any more questions, E-mail me and I will try and help with more details.   Patti

This is my first account.   This is the format I'd like to use for my invoice.  I want to be 100% sure I'm not missing anything.  Thanks so much!  I'm open to suggestions.

My name, address, phone number

I consider it a good business practice to pay the sub as soon as their invoice is submitted. After all, don't you expect the client your contract with to do the same for you. You really should have paid this $100 invoice long before now. You have no recourse and should consider this a lesson learned.

Personally, I don't think you have any business subbing out work if you're no more prepared to pay and, apparently, are careless with the information that your sub receives from you. You could also be considered breeching confidentiality if you're not having the sub sign some sort of understanding regarding the confidential nature of the work you're sending out.

I would love to use MT Stars FlashCount for invoicing, although I cannot seem to find a solution on how to get the typed reports to the program without having to click on each one by the patients last name.  It would just be too time consuming and not worth it if that is how it needs to be done.  Is there a trick to this?  I do about 300 reports a week for 4 doctors (and I save all reports for about a month on my computer), so I am looking for the quickest and most dependable way to invoice. 

Thanks for any and all advice. 

I have plenty of clients, no shortage of work. Recently I started picking up some extra legal transcription from a company who is swamped & always begging for help. It's not something I've had much opportunity to do and it's fun to do something different. But they're totally out of the technological loop. I bill all my clients by an Excel spreadsheet attached to an email, and I have a master spreadsheet set up that keeps track of all my invoices for me. They are the only ones who can't open it. I know they can because someone who used to work there could, but now they have a new person and no one there can open it. Of course they can probably right click and "open with" some kind of viewer, but why is it my problem to teach them that? (here's where the "am I being a total a$$ question comes in!)  I'm tired of their clueless clerk emailing me five times every time I send her an invoice asking me to resend it and having to respond "If you can't open it, it's not going to help to resend it."  Sure I can mail it, but why should I when I have plenty of other clients?  Do you think I'd be an a$$ for unceremoniously dumping them? would you do it in a quieter way and leave the door open for further work? 

They are so technologically out of the loop, it's not even funny. I asked them for an electronic copy of one of their style guides for easy searching, and they said they don't do that and they "don't keep" things.  They just have one hard copy they are xeroxing over and over.  I knew it was somewhere, it had obviously been typed it on a computer. It's a .pdf file on the web! Someone had downloaded it directly from the court's web site. They are supposed to provide me with the names of judges and attorneys on the tapes but they don't and I have to struggle to hear names and spell them phonetically or designate unidentified voices somehow so I can tell them apart and then go back and globally replace them when I hear the name or I'm sure of the spelling. This adds countless time to transcribing their cases AND THEY HAVE THAT INFORMATION. I've asked them for lists or links for judge's/attorney names so I can at least search when they don't give them to me.  No dice. I have since found good links on the web, of course.

I'm worried about getting in deeper with them, I'm not overly familiar with legal work and I'm just going to keep coming up against their not being able to provide me with the tools I need. Every time I have to find something for myself it's costing me money, obviously, being paid on production.  They annoy me and I seem to have a very low threshold for that.  But it's valuable experience and they are desperate, the owner won't be happy.  But she's as clueless as her staff.

Hi, I am currently a transcriber.  (leaving the field because as you all know this field is getting too ridiculous).  I am planning to attend a billing and coding school locally.  I was wondering if the hours vary for coding/billing or are the working hours typical 9-5 or 8-4, etc.    TIA

... and what are "ambiguous line counts" (mentioned by someone who has a web site related to verifiable billing which I cannot for the life of me figure out).

I charge X amount for a 65-character line.  I take characters w/spaces, divide by 65 and voila, there's my line count.  How much more "verifiable" can that get?

Can someone explain to me what this means in case the person who mentions this doesn't ever reply to my question? 

Hi, I am new to the IC area of MT, having always worked for services before now.  I have a friend who wants me to type letters for her practice.  Is it usual to charge for the address and reference lines along with the body of the letter?  Makes quite a big difference in the line count.  Thanks!

Hubby and I had a stupid fight.  I was watching a television show last night, really engrossed in it when DH decides to fuss with the candles on top of the entertainment center and stands right in front of the TV.  I thought it was rude as he had just walked into the room and had not been in there previously plus he knew that I was just sitting there spacing and watching a show.  So then after 2-3 minutes he turns to me and says he needs help with something he's holding in his hand, a model he's working on.  I just say, okay, now that you've stood in front of the TV and I was watching it, what is it you need?  He storms out of the room and doesn't say another word to me the rest of the night.  HOW STUPID IS THIS!!!!  I can hear that little girl Stephanie on that old TV show saying "how rude." LOL.

So he didn't really need my help obviously, I guess he's survive.

I just needed to come here and vent to you guys.  I don't post here much, but I do come and read a lot of the posts.  I think there are a lot of wonderful people on this board.  I just needed to come and express myself somewhere other than my husband and friends. 

To start with my mother has COPD and has been unable to work since March of 2005.  She is not on disability yet, because we were both naive and kept waiting for someone to contact us after filling out the paperwork online.  Anyway, I have been working at a casino job for 12 years and I have let her have my pay checks for the last 3 years to help her out with bills and other things.  I also work full-time with Spheris.  I work 60-65 hours a week.  I also try to do her grocery shopping and do errands for her on my off days.  I don't mind doing this, and if I had to work 3 jobs just to keep her here on this earth with me, I would.  We have always been close.  She doesn't have any insurance, so she doesn't get to go to the doctor as much as she needs to be going. 

The thing that is really bothering me is the fact that I am the youngest of 4 children.  I am the ONLY one who calls her every day and asks her if she needs anything.  I have told my siblings that I cannot do it alone anymore.  My older brother did start helping somewhat over this past year with the prescriptions and going to the store on occasion.  But he will only do those things if I call or my mom calls him.  My middle brother, about 2 years ago, won 50,000 dollars at a casino, called my mom to brag to her about it and never did one thing for her!!!  He also about a year ago won 30,000 total in one night, and NEVER called her, and never came by to see her or anything.  Last week, he wins ANOTHER 54,000, and yet, again, the very same thing.  

In 1997, my mother and I took out a 15,000 mortage on our house to do remodeling.   We ended up being taken advantage of by a guy that we had known for many years.  We didn't have a contract drawn up, so there was nothing we could do.  He came out and tore out a wall and concreted the add-on area, made a concrete porch, and then left everything else torn up.  She has squirrels that get in her house from time to time from some hole somewhere.  I absolutely kills me to see my mom in the terrible health that she is in.  I try so hard to help her.  I can't afford to get her house fixed up, but it kills me to think of her passing on without seeing her house fixed up.  She deserves so much more.  She and my father were married for 32 years when they divorced--due to his infidelity.  I have tried talking to my siblings and it just doesn't work.  How can a child be so cold to their mother??? I told my sister that I hoped that some day when they becamed aged, that their kids didn't do the same thing to them; also, I hoped that they didn't get in that type of health. 

My sister has a gambling problem and doesn't do anything to help her either.  She will call her and tell her that she will bring her something down, and then never shows up.  I am just so tired.  I have a 4-year-old son and a husband, 2 jobs, and the rest of my family JUST DON"T GET IT~!  

I am sorry this was so long, but I just can't take it anymore.  Thank you for listening. 

Paulette

Here in the SE AT&T had internet outage this week and now 1 of my computers is asking for the IP address, trying to get back on line. Where to find this? TIA.

I wanted to post because I have had a very eerie feeling lately and wanted to see if anyone has been experiencing a similar thing... I was a home MT working directly for a hospital for many years and a high producer.  Then, the hospital cut our incentive and many of us ended up with a MTSO after that.  Well, after being with the same job for many years, I spent over 2 years with the MTSO and found out that my line counts were very low because the platform was not counting my lines in a well honest (to me) way.  I thought I was losing my talent, but after finding out about this for sure by looking at the minutes versus the lines over a couple of weeks and checking with other MTs (finally) I found out it was not me.  I since have been working for a very reputable MTSO (no hospital jobs around directly that I could find by me) and something is happening. I am struggling to get my line counts again, and I did a study with the minutes and though not as bad as the other MTSO, the same thing is happening AGAIN! (dont mean to yell, just emphasizing).  It is so hard to look for yet another job...My question is this: Is it my imagination, am I just losing my talent and my mind, or are most jobs now counting the lines differently than before say 3 years ago when I left the hospital job. And, if I can't produce that much anymore because they count lines differently now, how does one find at least a job which is moderately easier to get more than minimum? Look, I used to make over 50K a year and now I am eeking out perhaps 27 a year and feeling like I am losing my talent.  Any advice would be appreciated here. I don't want to go through job after job, stress after stress.  BTW: My husband will be able to provide benefits in a couple of months, but until recently I have been the one to have to provide health coverage and this has figured heavily into where I work.  Thanks in advance for your opinions.  I don't want my hand held, just a little reality check.  Thanks in advance.

I have to say I consider myself still fairly new.  I have been a Transcriptionist now for just almost a couple of years.  I am a little upset because I have at least 99.6 QA score each month.  I work on several different accounts and we are always told to push, push, push the reports and get them out. Because if we don't meet our standard line count amount then you will get canned.  But, my question is this, on the accounts I work on, it is hard to make normals for all of them, which does save time.  So, when you are flying through your documents and trying to proofread as you go, you are sure to miss a few MINOR mistakes.  I do not understand this field and sometimes I wish I would have never spent the money to get into it, because we are yelled at if we don't get our minimum line counts and get yelled and told to slow down if you make a few small mistakes---nothing that would put the life of a patient at risk.  So, please tell me where the happy medium is.  Again, my QA score is never below 99.5. 

Seriously thinking about getting into a different profession.  Thank you for listening. 

Hey everyone, I'm Canadian and am currently researching possible MT schools. I was originally thinking Canscribe, but am not so sure anymore (I read on another forum that they don't train students enough, and I want the best possibly training so that I am great at my future job). I know M-Tec and Andrews School are seemingly the top two schools in America, but I kind of wanting to attend a Canadian based school possibly. If anyone can help me out, I would really appreciate it. Also, if someone knows a Canadian based MT forum please let me know. I have been trying to find but it doesn't seem like there is any out there.

Thanks so much for your time!

:)