Ashley, have you considered getting accounts directly with a doctor's office?
Posted By: Tuesday on 2006-01-15
In Reply to: Frustrated - Ashley Massey
I have been very successful as an independent contractor. You should really consider it.
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- Frustrated - Ashley Massey
- Ashley, have you considered getting accounts directly with a doctor's office? - Tuesday
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looking to work directly for a doctor
I've been working for a service for 2 years now and I am looking to branch out and solicit some local doctors. This may be a stupid question, but do I need to buy my own equipment? I do have my equipment I need to transcribe, but what about getting the files to me? Thanks for helping!!
Maybe try a specialty doctor's office first. Most times
they will hire you, in-house, and go from there.
It is very difficult to find an at-home MT job just starting out; however, there are some companies who will hire you. I personally do not know of any, but if you do a search, maybe you will come across one.
When I started 25 years ago, it was in a private physician's office and I just moved on up from there.
Good luck!
ashley and md....
ashley...it's too early for you go give up considering you just graduated last month; not time to give up yet.
md...apply for a few more companies if you can, then take another break.
i hate to do this to both of you, but have you tried SoftScript transcription? they have a mentoring program (their QA staff don't seem to agree amongst each other, though, and their platform !@#$) But,if anything, just to get some kind of experience.
otherwise, it's too early for either one of you to give up now. good luck
newbiemommt, please email me directly...sm
edgeofthewoodz@comcast.net
Try asking the school directly. Both Andrews & M-TEC have some sort of assistance programs, not sure
x
Doctor offices do pay well
My docs pay very well, on time, no bounced checks and appreciate me. So I disagree with you over this. Dermatologists do use transcriptionists as they have a lot of consults that go out. Evidently this office had to cut corners or they felt that another way was more profitable. This is happening in all aspects of business world/life and there is not much that can be done to stop it. We must use our expertise/experience in other ways and it is possible out there. I don't think that they will every replace us 100% and we might be typing in EMR's or doing voice editing but there will be a need for us.
Do you have any doctor friends you can try out?
If you have some friends whose dictation you could try working on, that might be a place to start. Good luck!
when I had a very tough ESL doctor
my manager said to just do your best with it, so I try my best but don't lose sleep over blanks. It will come in time. Something you might want to do at first is go back through and listen again to those blanks. Sometimes something you type later might tip you off to what a blank should be, or you just hear it clearer.
When your doctor hires you . . .
When your doctor hires you, come back and tell us. Historically, pretty much nobody prefers AHP graduates. Few doctors have ever heard of AHP and other employers shudder at the name.
You should brush up on spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It's "prefer," not "perfer" and there should be a comma before "too."
This whole series of posts looks like advertising spam from AHP. The "I love" and short, choppy, "rah-rah" sentences give it away.
In any event, a good course would have supplied everything, so you wouldn't have had to buy extra dictation. Would have had teachers, too.
Something you might not have considered
Don't feel like I'm criticizing your choices, because I'm not. We make choices based on the information we have and we do the best we can. My intention here is to show you a possible option and show future MT students something they need to consider when making their decision.
You graduated and have been unable to find work for 6 months, and you're now willing to work for 3 cpl. Someone who responded to you worked for a year at low wages, as well, and is still only getting 5 cpl. She feels everyone has to "pay their dues."
However, students from two MT schools typically get offered a job with a national within days or weeks of graduating, usually at 7 or 8 cents a line for straight transcription. As soon as they get up to speed in a few months, they're able to begin earning the expected income. They typically get those jobs without internships.
If you estimate that income at only $20,000 a year, those 6 months of not being able to find a job cost you $10,000 in lost income.
The other respondent also lost about $10,000 in that first year at half-pay.
When you choose a school, you have to add the cost of not-getting a job or being able to find only a low-paying job. You have to add the cost of doing low-pay or unpaid internships.
You've already chosen your school and completed it, but the school's reputation wasn't enough for you to get a job. Let's focus on filling up the glass instead of watching it leak. What can you do now to help yourself?
You're thinking you can take a job at half-pay to pay your dues and get the experience. You're willing to spend another $10,000 or even more to pay those dues in a half-pay job for a year. You may still need 2 years of experience before anyone will hire you, so that may end up being $20,000 in lost income.
In other words, to get the job you want, you're going to have to spend another year and $10,000 or even 2 years and $20,000. At that point, you might still be unable to pass an employment test with a national.
One option you have is to enroll in M-Tec or Andrews. The most it will cost is $3800 for Andrews. M-TEC costs less.
Before you say you can't afford the money or the time, stop and think. You've already been out of work for 6 months. You have no job prospects in sight.
Once you get a job, if you can, you will probably be working for half-pay. At that rate, you will lose $10,000 a year for one or two years. You're looking at another year and $10K lost, or two more years and $20K lost.
You could avoid that. It's likely that you can get through either M-TEC or Andrews in less than a year, since you've already completed a school. When you finished, you would have a nearly guaranteed job at a regular rate of pay.
You may not have considered that as an option. Now you can.
For prospective students, file this away as something to consider. You can take a lower-cost school, but you'll pay for it later, and you'll pay far more for it than you would have paid for a better school.
I went to CareerStep, considered one of the top three
.
Yes, same with me, a word is/was considered - sm
5 characters, so 13 x 5 = 65; I would of course confirm this with the prospective employer though before agreeing to anything. If it 65 then that is the norm and acceptable; unless they are offering dirt for pay.
She is trying to get her own accounts so
experience or not doesn't matter as far as what she charges. If she only charged 6 cpl she'd probably have every doctor in town calling her (provided her work was good enough). If she were working for a service 6 cpl would be about what I would expect her to be paid, but own accounts is different.
How many different accounts or
dictators and worktypes are you dealing with?
Have you learned to make normals where you have already set up most of the report and just fill in the specifics?
There are techniques, but long distance makes it hard to mentor newbies effectively IMO.
I think their ad said that anything under 40 hrs was considered part time. And several of us have
b
M-Tec and Andrews are considered the best and easier
to get a job as a newbie if you have graduated from one of them. If she is disabled she is limited in her income and putting out the $$ it would take for a good school versus what the pay is now wouldn't be worth the effort to me.
Local colleges and community colleges may also have on-line programs. Avoid any of those tech schools that advertise in magazines, on matchbooks, and on TV.
What is considered acute care?
I know it is definately a newbie question, but what exactly is considered acute care versus clinical? Can you give me some examples? Thanks!!!
ACQUIRING ACCOUNTS FOR SELF
I was wondering if any of the newbies ever thought of acquiring their own accounts. I have a friend who is doing this. She got 250 free business cards (from Vista Print) and also had them create a pamphlet. She is about to take her final exam at MT school and has decided to work for herself and is just starting to solicit business; she lives in Georgia.
I have other friends in the Chicago area who do this. Their accounts are mainly with solo practitioners and small group practices. Believe it or note, some physicians are still using microcassette tapes and some MTs still pick up the tapes and drop off the work.
Phyllis
Acquiring Accounts
Currently, I'm working at home as a subcontractor right now, but I thought the recent graduates might want to try this. (I am thinking about it myself.) However, I would try to get American dictators who speak clear English; I would not try to acquire ESL accounts as a newbie working from home.
YES. Career Step is considered one of the "big three"
M-Tec and Andrews are also in there. Any school that advertises on matchbook covers or has mostly other nonmedical related courses is NOT good.
The VLC is most definitely NOT one of the best schools out there. Some people are just promoting it to suit their own purposes. Read the archives of the board. Nothing good about them. Has anyone actually met one of their grads who has gotten a job at home right out of school? Don't forget about their digital photography and basket weaving courses. I guess those are fallback careers for their MT grads?
Since when is asking for an answer on a test considered using a resource?
It's cheating, plain and simple. Are you the same Jenn who is having trouble with the Princeton test? If so, no wonder you disagree with what "resources" are.
I got my own accounts & started an MTSO.
nm
I have 2 main accounts with a scattering
of 3-4 others. I'm not one ot give up easily, but, it seems like they change the rules quite often. It's my pure stubborness that keeps me going. I really do hate defeat. Thanks to everyone for their words of wisdom.
The newbies working on clinic accounts for me..... s.m.
leave one blank every other report or so. Usually it's due to some random phrase they're not used to hearing. It's rarely an actual medical term.
Try hospital accounts with psych units
The only psych reports I've ever were through hospital accounts that had psychiatric units. Whether the psych report come through the ER, a consult or the unit, I find psych notes are always interesting. Good luck. I hope you find a great psychiatric account.
Thank you Admin for removing the posts below regarding people who lost accounts.. Appreciate it.
x
Do you work nights and produce very high volume for your 12 cpl? Are these your own accounts?
s
Acute care is considered hospital transcription - discharges, history/physicals, consults, and op
s
WP5.1 how is it different from WP Office 11??nm
nm
Each office is fifferent, even within each
office there may be some who prefer tapes versus handheld or some other type of system. If you're going to offer a service you need to have a game plan. Will you offer handhelds if they don't have them, what software do you have to download the files securely from the office to you, are you going to just upload the completed work back or will you do a remote print, are you going to store completed work for them or are they, etc.
Office Pro 2003
I can't seem to find notepad in Office Pro 2003. Does anyone know where it is?
How do you get around this besides working in an office first?
or maybe I am expecting too much, and it just is not going to work without some office time before me.
I am not sure how anyone expects a new graduate to get a job when everyone wants experience; however nobody is willing to hire us so that we may gain that experience.
You do your time in an office first, like the
majority of the rest of the MTs did. That's how it works.
MQ employees at St Louis office
I just accepted a SE position with MQ at the St Louis office. Can I get some opinions of others that work for this office? I will be part-time, so I'm wondering about their training and how well are you treated. Do you get answers to your questions quickly and do you get feedback regularly.
Are you at the current doc's office all day long? sm
I was thinking that if he wants you to transcribe from his office, could you get that done in a couple of hours, and then go home to work from there? I started my "home work" with one doc. She raved about me so much that all her doc friends called me to get me to work for them. Sit down with your doc and feel him out. He could be a real help to you! Good luck!
Call their office to see which one they would recommend for you :) nm
x
From what I can see, it's not MS Word, it's "Opal Office"
and they are charging $11.95 for it, and it's a ripoff because they stole the program from "Open Office" which is totally free and are selling it for $11.95. At least that's how it looks to me.
I had to start out in the office of a local hospital sm
for a year, then went home. I didn't want to go home to be honest, too many distractions and my twins were babies at the time, but they were sending everyone home. I really don't know what to tell anyone when I see these posts. There are lots of companies out there needing help and you'd think that if they are willing to send their work overseas to people that don't even speak English as a first language, then they would be willing to hire a new graduate. I would be a little more pushy, offer to do 30 days at a lower cent per line then have a review, something like that. Keep pushing, someone will see potential and take a chance on you. Honestly, these companies that don't hire new graduates I just don't get it. I work for a small local company that is always behind on their work and I always suggest they hire some new graduates from the two local schools, but they never do it, they just sit and wait for people to apply. Good luck! 
office experience + Medical Terminology - Is it enough?
Hi everyone,
I've been wanting to take an MT course for quite some time, but still haven't managed to come up with enough money. So - I was wondering. Do you think for a beginning MT job in a hospital, would previous office experience plus courses in Medical Terminology be enough? Have any of you successfully done this?
Thanks for the help! 
Christina
Just be careful not to get Office Works or Suite
that is advertised as compatible with MS Word. I accidentally bought that once, the packaging was similar and the box said it did everything MS Word did. Well, it sort of did, but that software changed every document I had in my entire computer upon installation to its own version. That certainly would not have worked in transcribing and transmitting reports. While it did work with Word as the packaging said, it did so by changing Word to something else. I don't recall the exact name of this, but just read the packaging carefully and get Microsoft and not a lookalike. Just wanted to give you a heads up to avoid one of my many mistakes. Good luck.
Newly Graduate from Medical Office Occupations
I know that this may sound like a plug for a job but it isn't I have been down with a newly replaced knee. Now that I can find a job having trouble because I do want to become a home Medica Transcriber and no one will listen to me. How do I go about getting to Medical Transcribing so that I can do it at home.Please I could help with any solutions. Please email me at the above email address.
Have you tried Open Office? It's free and very similar - see inside
http://www.openoffice.org/
I started out in the file room of the urology office I used to work for.
They had a new peds uro coming in and wanted another typist. The only schooling I had was 2 semesters of medical terminology at our local community college. Granted that was in 1990, and I at least had a working knowledge of urology, but it can be done if you really want it bad enough.
maybe take a medical term course and start with physical therapy office
nm
Corp. not in good standing. Also, address is residence NOT office location.
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