pay me or pay MTSO-need to vent sm

I interviewed at a hospital today.  I wanted to get out of the cpl rat race and I need health insurance.   For my 31 years of experience I was offered $13 an hour.  Since the hospital was an hour's drive for me, I asked would they consider letting me work at home.  They use Meditech.  I have been using this working with the MTSO I currently work for.  I'm basically all set up.  I hardly got the words out of my mouth when she said, "We're not set up for that."  Yet as I was leaving she said she was going to call the MTSO I work for to see if they could do their work.  What's the difference if I do at home or if they get it done through an MTSO?      Wouldn't it be cheaper for them if I did it?  They'd have to set it up anyway for the service to work remotely. 

Anyway, I turned the job down.  Also the head of the department didn't know what ShortHand was.   I feel really demoralized thinking I'm only worth $13 an hour to them, but they're willing to pay an MTSO! Don't get it.

P.S.  Think it would be funny if they did go with the MTSO and I ended up doing the work anyway! 

• pay me or pay MTSO-need to vent sm - crispycritterMT
  • It is not a major deal to set up Meditech.... - tbpmt
  • They probably want to see the whites of your - eyes every day before they will pay you health

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I have a note (discharge summary) that is 27 minutes long, dictated by RN, that goes into such detail that it might as well be the H&P, every consult, every operative report, and every lab report rolled into 1 document.  She is even dictating  problems the patient had on previous hospitalizations that have nothing to do with this admission.  To make matters worse, she is jumping back and forth between prior problems (that aren't related) and current problems for the hospitalization, as well as listing every single lab test/values from all prior admissions and comparing them to this admission, as well as dictating the whole report for every x-ray the person ever had in this one report.  The guy came in for nausea, vomiting, and dehydration and she's dictating x-ray reports for fractured ankle and rotator cuff MRI from 2 years ago...THE WHOLE MRI REPORT.   Good gravy, missy.  It's good to be thorough, but then too much information just confuses the reader.  arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. 

All better now.  Thanks for letting me vent. 

I've already had enough problems working this weekend with technical problems and down time and now that I'm breezing away and making good money, what happens?  My stupid cat decides she needs attention!  First she rubs on my leg and purrs (so far so good, not really a distraction) but THEN she has to move to look at my face through the crack in my desk where the drop down keyboard rests and reach her stupid little paws through, hit the function key that saves and closes the report (which I cannot alter once it is sent through) on a report of over 100 lines!

ARRRRRGH!!!  I was almost finished and needed to spell check it!!!  That just cost me $10.  Her food costs that much!

Anybody wanna a free soon to be hungry cat??

d~ 

I have worked with a company for over seven years as an IC.  I work part time and whatever work I do that morning has to be turned in at 3:00, which gives me around a six hour turn around.  I have two young kids and another account that I work on that has stats that I have to take care of too.  I have only gotten one raise in seven years, and a crappy one at that.  Every other company I have worked for gives me at least about 24 hours to get it back to them.  I am trying to get my kids ready for school and I also have other things going on at the moment.  I get an email in all caps "I NEED THE WORK NOW."  I am just so fed up with this.  I don't want to quit because the work is easy for me since I have been doing it so long, but I feel the need to put my foot down.

I'll try to make this to the point... ;o) My husband got bought out at the end of January so has been off work since then. His buyout will last us until about next January so for now he's enjoying the time with the kids. I on the other hand have gone from working very part-time to full-time, at home,  "just in case" and to help pay off some debt while I've got Mr. Mom here home to take care of the kids.

For the most part, he's being excellent - doing the majority of the housework, all the cooking, taking care of the kids all day. My only gripe is he sleeps in until 9:30 every day while the kids (ages 4 and 7)are up at about 7:30-8. Mind you this is spring break for the 7 yo but when it's school time he gets him off to school and then goes back to bed. The kids play pretty well on their own but if they come into the bedroom he'll put the TV on for them. This leaving them on their own w/o even getting them breakfast and/or the TV thing drives me batty. I've been a wahm since my first one was born and always made them my priority (working around their schedule very part-time), getting up as soon as they got up, rarely turning the TV on to "babysit" them, etc. I feel like he's undoing what I spent years working so hard at.

Now I get up at 5 to go to the gym and then get my work done ASAP so that I can have time with the kids later as I'm finding it very difficult emotionally to be so unavailable during the day. This is making me even more resentful of my dh with him snoozing until 9:30 while I'm so tired a lot of the time. Then to top it off, he gets hurt that I'm usually too tired to be "interested" by 10 at night and I want to go to bed early...  He supposedly understands that I'm tired but still is putting the guilt trip on me.

I know that a lot of this is my own resentments and largely there's nothing wrong with what he's doing and he needs to do things his own way with regards to the kids - I get that, but I'm still resentful. Any thoughts? Thanks for reading the novel and just letting me vent. So much for it being to the point!;o)

I am so sick and tired of day after day trying to figure out what in the heck these ESLs are saying.  I'm tired of them preventing me from making a decent line count and making decent money.  Why in the heck don't they learn English?  From this day on I refuse to make any sense of what they are saying and will type verbatim, stutters, poor grammar and all!  If the company I work for doesn't like it - then fire me.  It's about time MTSOs put it back on the docs to better themselves and NOT us!.  I've been doing this for over 6 years and it gets worse and worse. 

Please do not reply with "I'm sure your ancestors were from another country, etc......"  They were ----and--- now I was born here - AND I SPEAK THE LANGUAGE. 

MTSOs want to send work overseas.  Send all the ESLs.  Also, when it comes time to me "editing" overseas work --- Ha-Ha.... that will definately be my LAST day on the job!  Let the owners of the companies edit the overseas work and see how they like it.

Thanks all. 

Why on earth would a doctor prescribe physical therapy to strengthen a patient's muscles who is in the end-stages of myasthenia gravis?  Money?  A patient with nothing else to do but go to physical therapy?  I don't get it.  This group of doctors are a pain in the ***s.  One has such a high incidence of infections in his surgical patients that I cannot believe he is still allowed to practice - and this one puts everyone into physical therapy - unless they are a 4-limb amputee.  Does anyone know the # to the California Board of Medicine - because I think it is time to call them on this one - work or no work - I am sick of it.  i feel better now. 

No, I am not a doctor and would not care to be one.  But over the years I have seen so many cases go bad and with doctors policing themselves, very few ever suffer any consequences.  My husband works with a doctor who was using cocainen while in surgery.  At one point he was doing a prostate biopsy and passed out on the patient, jamming the needle through the prostate gland.  The other doctors in the  group encouraged him to get treatment or they would kick him out of the group.  So, he got some rehab.  The patient sued, thank God.  But guess what, he is back in the operating room - snorting in the lounge before each case.  The surgery center personnel are afraid of losing their jobs if they report him to the police, so he just goes on doing surgery under the influence.  Perhaps my animosity comes from being abused by several different physicians at different times in my life - and regret at not reporting them.  However, knowing the system, I realize that it is a losing battle.  But, having been through these experiences I can spot these docs a mile away.  Sorry  if I offended anyone - but doctors are human and our lives are at stake, as well as the lives of others when a doctor practices bad medicine.  I appreciate all of the input and understand your anger.  I posted this more as a person than an MT.  I just thank God for what I do know - and wish that there was a way to fix the problem of poor physicians, drug abuse in the medical world, and the patients that suffer at their hands.

Why is it that the doctors you know can speak perfectly perfect English...don't?  This guy is slurring entire sentences and when I slow him down, he sounds drunk.  And he doesn't even sound as if he is old enough to drink!

Thank you.  Venting over.  Have a good evening.

My son just came home from a week-long beach trip with his dad.  My son has three plantar warts on the bottom of his right foot.  I have taken him to the doctor about this and was told to try the OTC remedies.  I have been doing that, and was planning to take him back to the doctor this week actually because they have not gone away.

Anyway, my ex-husband took it upon himself to take a hot knife and attempt to BURN the warts off my 8-year-old son's foot.  My son said it hurt very bad, and now he is limping on his foot.  Now my son has a nasty looking depression on the bottom of his big toe that is very painful.  It's pretty deep, but it's not bleeding at this time, although I'm sure that it was at some point, and my son confirms this.  I have cleaned it and bandaged it and will be taking him to the doctor first thing tomorrow.

WHAT AN I-D-I-O-T!!!!!!  I am the one who takes care of all of our son's medical care.  He lives with me.  I have primary custody of him.  WHY OH WHY did he think he had the right or ability to do this?!?!  Why didn't he call me first and consult with me about what I have been doing to treat the warts?!?!?!?

I have taken photographs and forwarded them to my attorney.  It's a long story, but my ex is one of those people who thinks he knows everything...but really knows nothing.

Thanks, I just needed to get this off my chest.

I am so angry and I need to vent.  I work for a psychiatric facility and have been there for about three months now.  I really enjoy working there and they have been very flexible with my schedule.  Approximately 2 months ago, a temp was hired because we were so far behind.  The person they hired did not have any experience whatsoever in medical transcription, but she was a fast typist so she was hired. 

A couple of weeks went by and it was noticed that she was making quite a few errors.  One of the other Transcriptionist e-mailed her to inform her of her errors and advised her to proof her work.  She became so upset, she e-mailed a nasty letter back to this particular person.  A few more weeks went by and a different transpcriptionist noticed she was still making these errors so she tried e-mailing her as well with basically the same response.  Well last week I happened to come across one of her reports and noticed some errors that were totally unacceptable.  For example, Licinopril, psychogenetic polydipsia, albuteral, ibuprophen, etc. 

Anyway, I mentioned this to our supervisor and he asked that I correct the report and give him a copy so that he could go over it with her, which I did.  I also brought in a book from the course I took a couple of years ago so that she may review it.  She came in yesterday absolutely livid, she was slamming things around, speaking so loud that we could not hear the doctor and using the most foul language.  I turned to her and asked if there was a problem to which she replied I was not talking to you!  So I stated, in a very calm manner, then could you please keep it down as I cannot hear what the doctor is saying to which she replied that's too bad!  She then proceeded to call our lead and left the room. 

I started to think about the whole situation and could not believe how this person reacted.  I called the supervisor at home and informed him of the problem at hand and told him I was on the verge of walking out as was the other transcriptiont.  I told him this behavior was totally unacceptable and I would not tolerate it.  Mind you, this was all because she was still making errors on her report.  She felt people were talking behind her back.  She does not want us (transcriptionists) to tell her of her errors.  She wants us to speak with the lead, have him write the errors on a piece of paper, place it in an envelope and put it by her work area.  Can you believe this?  Who does she think she is? 

Well a couple of hours ago, my lead called to get my side of the story.  I told him exactly what happened to which the other transcriptionist can attest to.  He stated he would speak with her but that the next time there was a problem with a partiular report, we are to bring it up to him or our supervisor (which I thought I did).  I totally feel she should be reprimanded and that this behavior should not be tolerated by anyone, but it looks like she is just going to be "spoken to."  I am so angry and upset, I literally feel like giving my two weeks notice, but then again, I do not want to give her the satisfaction.  I really enjoy what I do but I am afraid if this type of behavior occurs again, I will not be able to hold my tongue as it took every bit of strength in me not to *******, well you know.

Sorry this was so long, I needed to vent.  I know I probably made 100 mistakes on this post, but I am very upset at the moment. 

I just have to vent.  This doctor is chewing in my ear and talking at the same time.  I can feel my blood pressure rise as she talks.    Don't they realize how annoying this is, not to mention rude.  I think colleges should make all doctors take a course in the proper way to dictate.  Sometime I think chewing in the ear is worse than a bad ESL. 

Thanks for listening.  Back to work.  I sure hope her lunch is over soon!!!!

I double checked my calendar and it still says it's Friday.  Thank goodness.  I am doing hospital discharges today.  Currently, I am listening to an ESL.  I have listened to this particular ESL three times already today.  One would think that by now I would be able to understand him....BUT ....when he mumbles, stumbles over his words, moves the phone from his mouth, does not enunciate clearly, and then just for fun asks me to go all around his dictation to add things he forgot.....I AM GOING TO SCREAM!!!   

OK...I'm done venting.  Thanks for listening.  Back to typing for "Mr. Wonderful."  (I can't for this day to be over!!!!)

I really have to vent about this.  I have not worked for anyone but myself in a long, long, time.  I am actually in tears at my computer right now and really have no motivation to work at the moment.  I am sick and tired of MTSOs who do not EVER say thanks for working ALL weekend, working 7 days a week, or doing all the hard doctors, while people being paid the same get to skip right on past them.  It would be nice if you email your supervisor that you didnt get all your lines done because your baby went to the ER for stitches, they might respond with something like "I hope he is okay", or anything, instead of having no response.  Boy, do these MTSOs realize they make their MTs feel like &**^?  I'm sure I am just taking this all too personal, but it is very difficult not too.  I hate the tone of the e-mails I recieve.  I just don't think they are very freindly.  I'm sure I just need to get more of a backbone.  Im glad I never treated my MTs like that!  It just seems like if something goes wrong, a wrong date of service or whatever, they really let you have it. 

 Thanks all for listening!

I am an IC who has been committed to the same practice for five years.  I have showed up when there was no work and they had forgotten to call me.  I ate the 30 miles of gas money without being rude.  I have answered all their emergency phone calls and produced the reports immediately at no extra charge.  I have often been delayed payment due to the doctor being on his own extravagant vacation and/or just delaying payment with no excuse.  I have worked weekends, holidays, all-nighters, etc., without any complaints. The last straw came today, when again, I was not paid.  It is two weeks past due, yet they have the nerve to give me more work.  I just do not get it.  It's time to move on...

Thanks for letting me vent~

I was just recently laid off from my job due to lack of work.  Ok if that was true, then I would understand why I was laid off.  The truth is, we had more than enough work at the office I worked at.  The company I worked at decided pooling would be better for them due to the fact that their other typist didn't have enough work in their state.  What angers me here is that they use the word typist to describe our profession.  I trained to be a transcriptionist, not a typist.  Transcription in my book is a technical job, one where you must learn medical terminology, formatting, and be able to assist the doctor if he/she dictates something wrong you can point it out to him/her. Bottom line you must be trained and/or certified to do the job.  Anyone can be a typist; it takes training to become a transcriptionist. 

The other thing I am angry about is that 3 months ago they let us know that pooling was going to happened and assured us that we would have plenty of work and our jobs were safe.  Well that was a lie.  They knew all along that there wouldn't be enough work and they felt that we made too much money.  So they came to us last week to say that we were all no longer needed and it was our last day due to the fact of no work for us.

Bottom line here is what is happening to our profession?  It seems to me that our profession is going to the lowest bidder, companies are trying to turn our profession into a job in which they can pull anyone off the street to do at a lower price, and trying to make Transcriptionist compete with offshore transcriptionist.  I take pride in what I do and worked very hard to produce quality reports.  My hopes for the company that laid me off is that they fall flat on their faces going with just typist.  After all you get what you pay for. 

Wish me luck off to find a new job.

For all you cherrypickers out there (you know who you are):

Where do you get off doing only the reports that YOU want to do??  You do realize that you take money from other people when you do that?  Sort of like STEALING!!??  What makes you better than the rest of us that have to type the bad reports???  Just remember that you are taking food out of kids' mouths when you decide to help yourself to all the good reports.  I hope you all get horrible ESL's today!! (that you can't skip!!!)

Okay, I've had my vent for the day.  Just had to get that off my chest and I even did it without any choice expletives!  Of course, I have been yelling those to my computer!  I should add for all the resonable people, I understand skipping a few long/hard reports at the end of your shift or when you've been working hard all day.  My message is to the chronic cherrypickers who will ONLY do the easy reports. 

Thank you everyone who sent me great information and such encouragement.  I am going to try to stick it out as long as they are.  It is very frustrating though but I will hang tough!!.  I did purchase a notebook with all my blanks that my supervisor sends me back and I know it is going to take months, I just hope they have the time to stick it out with me.

Once again, thanks everyone!!!! 

I am an IC with 18 years of experience being paid 8 cpl based on a 60 character line (yes 60).  I get paid for everything but headers and footers, which really isn't fair considering I'm working in Word and have to insert them all.  However, my line rate IS based on 60 characters, so I'll call that fair...for now.

The lady I work for always pawns this one doctor off on me.  This guy has never heard of a short story.  I typed a 21 minute dictation of his the other day and it didn't even come to 2 full pages and came out to 101 lines!

I just finished typing 75:55 minutes of dictation in 3 hours, which is a little more than 25 minutes of spoken dictation transcribed per hour.  It only came to 340 lines!  I am very experienced, had no interruptions, and use Expanders (Instant Text) out the wazoo.  Doing the math, 340 lines in 3 hours equals $9.06 per hour.

This particular dictator is notorious for dictating one to three sentences at a time and then saying, "Oh go back" or "scratch that."  My supervisor told me that I could copy, cut and past all of these wasted sentences into a separate word document to be tallied by the end of the pay period, but this takes so much extra time.

Have any of you ever requested to not be given a particular dictator?  I've been transcribing this doctor for 4 months now and I don't see it getting any more lucrative. 

I have been debating on requesting more $ per line to transcribe this particular doctor's dictation.  To make it fair, I won't keep a running tally of wasted sentences in a separate document.

I've been working from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. because I wanted to be finished since my daughter is off today.  I would appreciate any suggestions from some of you experienced IC MTs.

Yes, I realize I probably sound dramatic and admit that I'm whining.  I'm very tired and am not making squat, so if you don't agree with me, please either don't respond or at least be gentle in doing so.  I'm very open to "constructive criticism" as long as it is presented in a somewhat civil tone.

Thanks for listening. 

I am just an MT, not management, but I am so frustrated with a few of my MT friends.  I hear all the time how they don't feel like working or they got interrupted by the phone too much or their boyfriend/husband.  These are the same people who on payday whine because they didn't make enough money!  Honestly, did you just expect it to show up miraculously?  These same people also get upset when the work isn't there even though they weren't really doing the work in the first place.  Drives me nuts.  Today i just feel like telling them all look, you have answering machine and/or voicemail, use it and stop crying to me because you didn't take the initiative, stick to your guns and make the money.  These are very capable MTs mind you.

I am not perfect or anything, but i show up everyday and try to do as I absolutely can.  I just don't get it. 

Okay...so my friend just came into some money, not sure how but they got a few grand.  So with that money they bought a new truck which they really needed.  I was told by her that she had enough to go to school to become an MT which she has been thinking about for about 3 years now......well do you think she registered? No....she said that she is sending her BFF on an all inclusive trip to Mexico with $2000 spending money.  I just want to ring her neck if she actually did that.  I am not sure anymore because we not longer talk....because of differences. 

I'm sorry I am very flustered about what she is doing - even though I should NOT care anymore but when your DH is working his ass off 24/7 why wouldn't you get schooling to help him out?!?!?

I just get some decisions some people make.  I am glad that I decided to use my money for my schooling because I would never have been were I am right now.  I am truely truely blessed with the opportunities that are coming my way!

Why don't they send this work overseas and let his own people figure out his language for 3-4 cents per line and let me do the American doctors?

The above is your statement.  You seem to have a bad taste in your mouth when in fact ESL is part of our job.  Since when are dictators courteous?  That's not their job.  Their job is to dictate and our job is to transcribe it.  If you are only making 3-4 cents per line, then you're in the wrong business.

I am being driven crazy here today.  I have a 60-minute dictation with more than half of it, just air time.  Ready to pull my hair out, of course, the dictator has an accent and then to figure out this thing is only worth $8.25 with the line count.  Just plain sucks and a waste of time.  I dont know how MT schools claim that the average income is 40,000 a year for a FT MT, not with these kind of reports!

Thanks for letting me fume a bit, now I need to go back and try to make some  money and make up my time from this report! 

I have several MT jobs, one of which is for a private doctor with an endocrinology practice and I have had ENOUGH of him and have to quit!  I have worked for him for about 2 years now, he is an ESL dictator with a strong accent, but since I have typed for him so long, I don't really have an issue understanding him.

So, he never could understand the 65 character line, I mean is this what independent ICs usually go by?  I TRIED and TRIED to explain to him, but he didn't get it.  He wanted me to actually COUNT each line when I got finished, and areas where the new paragraph started before the end of the line was reached, combine that with another short sentence and count that as one, okay BIG HEADACHE, but I did this for him.

So, each time I would send him a bill he would just act distressed and complain about having to pay!  He would of course pay and then he would ask me to extend my margins out more and more to the point the words were running off the freakin page!  He was paying me 10 cpl and told me he could no longer afford that so I agreed to go down to 9 CPL! 

Well today, he tells me that he found a company online that would only charge HIM 5 CPL and wanted me to cut down to that rate!  I told him he was crazy and that if he found someone to type for 5 CPL, running the margins off the page like he is asking and putting up with A LOT more, then by all means, jump on that band wagon cause I couldn't do it and you know what?  He acted like I was in the wrong!

UGGHHHH why do so many people want something for nothing?  It infuriates me!

I thought this one was fitting! LOL! My BF is supposed to watch the kids from 8pm to 10pm and put them to bed so I can work. Tonight will be 2nd night in a row that he HAS to work on a friends truck in the garage....guess it can't wait til the weekend even though he doesn't have all the parts for it....MAJOR frustrating. Because of HIM (kids!) and the tornadic thunderstorm last night I was only able to "work" for about an hour, I gave up, and shut down. Geez, I'm not looking forward to tonight!

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.