Community college course or online? Your opinions? sm:)

• Community college course or online? Your opinions? sm:) - Anne
  • I did a community college certificate and immediately started working as an IC - CSS
    • working - Jessica
  • Schools and self-discipline - Redpen
    • Thanks all for your input! It helps alot in my decision making! nm - Anne
  • Please SM - Endiqua
    • thanks for this input endiqua! nm - Anne

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3 terms, September to June, got a certificate in medical transcription. I then went an additional term and picked up a medical office specialist certificate and also took some coding classes and passed the coding test that same year. Within 2 months I had an in-house transcription job (the first and only transcription job I applied for) worked there 3 years, did every type of report and all radiology reports, and have been at home for 2 years now. My current employer (which is a very good national) hired me without even having me take a test of any kind, just did the phone interview, so my community college certificate has not hurt me in the least. Good luck in whatever you decide.

Hello,

I am interested in taking the Career Step program, but trying to decide whether to go through San Juan Comm College.  I would like to know if anyone has taken the CS course through the college and if they felt prepared.

Thanks!

Hi Julie, I am a student in the medical transcription program at Everett Community College. I am in my second semester and have been able to get financial aid (that I don't have to pay back) for my first 2 semesters. They also offer Federal Student Loans that anyone can get. The program is great but definitly not easy! The instructors are also awesome. Let me know if you have any questions!!

http://www.everettcc.edu/programs/bat/medtrans/index.cfm?id=300&linkFrom=Search

I completed their 2-year program, and it was excellent.  The person in charge of the program is a CMT and she had another CMT working with her.

Chickadee

I have a masters degree in biology and thought medical transcription would be the perfect way to use some of my education while working from home. I took an independent study course in transcription. In this course I transcribed all of the beginning and advanced SUM dictations at least twice. I was almost ready to test with Medquist when my instructor disappeared. Other things were happening in my life at the time, so I put my hopes for an MT career on the back burner for a while. I intended to start over with Andrews or M-Tec. I was ready to enroll when my husband lost a job. Now it doesn't seem like a good idea to spend money that we may need to live on for an MT course, and I really can't afford the time it would take before I start to earn. I was thinking about doing a really intense review. Then I would try to test with as many companies as possible and hope that one would give me a chance. I know this is not the ideal way to go about it, but does anyone think it might work? Are there companies that will test someone like me?   

I am an IC working for an MTSO.  I have a few accounts.  All of my accounts have always worked to where whatever is dictated up to 7:00 PM has to be done and back by 8:00 AM.  Well, there is a new account that I work on.  Apparently, it's pretty important to my MTSO.  They have been very unhappy with other transcribers in the past and very tough to please, but they are loving me.  One problem... 

They keep dictating later and later, and my employer keeps asking me to have it back at the same time.  I don't work at 10:00 at night, and I don't feel that I should be asked to get up at the crack of dawn in the morning.  If they are dictating at 8:00 and 9:00 and later at night, why should I be expected to do a less than 12 hour turnaround for the same 8 cents a line? 

If they dictate at 9:00, I would be happy to have it back by 9:00 the next morning, but the MTSO is still expecting that I will have it all back by 8:00.  I feel this is unreasonable.  I am doing it right now, but I feel like it is really cutting into my life-work balance a lot. 

What say you? 

This insistence on Andrews or M-Tec makes me very uneasy.  I've been responsible for hiring and training thousands of MTs and even I don't know these two schools that well and I rarely see graduates from there.  I know they have good student support.  I do see lots of graduates from Career Step.  BTW, the Career Step grads are not well prepared for employment- not at all.  Not like you'd think from reading current posts.  Most of my past hires from Career Step failed to stick with it.  Only a small percentage could hold up- bad typing skills- but good on terminology.

Most of our employees (MTs) are either graduates of community colleges or staffing schools that we contract with.  If Andrews and M-Tec were as dominant as you read here, I'd expect the only good MTs to have come from those schools and I don't.  I didn't go there.  I've done fine.  I've never had a problem being hired in my early days as an MT.  I went to a community college and they used HPI publications.

I think this insistence on a "big three" is very misleading.  As a person who hires and trains, I know you don't need to attend one of these 3 schools to get a job.  Attitude has far more to do with it than book training anyway.  We'd much rather have a graduate with a poorer education who has a great attitude than the reverse.  The education can be improved quickly while the attitude is impossible to change.

I will just take your word for it that these 2 schools have great classes, but why all this drum beating when there are untold numbers of excellent community college programs and also staffing schools.  How about Mentoring Internships too?  There are lots of resources that my MTs have used to become well educated.

However, there are "schools" that are nothing but internet marketing machines.  It is obvious who they are.  They are the ones who sell diplomas for almost anything.  New students should definitely beware of those.  Medical Transcription is too difficult to learn from a mail order house.  You can't sit in isolation at home and learn medical transcription very easily and that is the big trap, IMO.  This is not like getting your real estate license and only needing to pass 1 test to get a job.

That's my view from my corner of the world.

Where I live the local votech school has a very high placement rate and if I wanted to work in house, I would start by taking their MT course. My local school's course is far from complete though, and there is no way a national company would hire me with just that course and no experience. 

I have no idea what the local employers would think about an online program.  We're kind of in the sticks and they really rely on the local tech school to pump out grads that can do the work the local companies need them to do.  Its practically tailored to the needs of the local economy.

I'm going with an online program because I want to be sure I can gain employment, and I want thorough training.

Not sure how much this helps.

Hello everyone,

Just thought the information on my website will be helpful and/or interesting to anyone who is thinking of trying medical transcription cource.

it's here

http://www.volkovs.com/family/julia/default.aspx?p=mt

Career Step, M-Tech, Andrews - I have a family member who is interested in getting her daughter directed on a career path (she's 18).  I'm not so sure MT is for her, but I'd like to at least give her some basic info.  So, how much do these programs cost and how long do they take? 

  Thanks!

It's important to keep studying and practicing right up until you land the job you studied and worked so hard for. Time away from your studies will nevertheless, leave some cobwebs in your mental attic.

I've started to assemble some online quizzes (free) so students can keep learning. It's so new in fact, I have one done.  lol  But I intend to put some more out there if the response is good. I need a beginner and one who will test this out with me and for me. It would be nice for the others if we can get this in the right direction.

visit: www.gotranscribe.com  and click on MT Learning Studio for instructions.

I'd appreciate it and so would some of the others if it works as I think it could.

Kim

Hi.

I just signed up for Allied MT School.  Have any of you graduated from there, and did you like it?  Also, did you have any problem getting a job after graduating?  I am a bit discouraged with some of the negative reviews. 

Thank you.