It will get better

It will get better for you, I promise.  I've been doing this for just over a year now and I am up to about 200 lph or more, depending on the dictator.  Most of that time I have worked at home.  The first 8 months or so were horrible.  Just horrible.   I hadn't actually graduated from the course I was taking yet, but I had to pay my mortgage, so I started with the only company that would hire me.  5.5 cpl for typed work and 1.5 cpl for voice recognition editing.  After I passed my QA review I got a "raise" to 6 cpl and 2 cpl.  It averaged out to about $4 an hour.  I knew I had to suck it up and deal with it, though, because I just needed to put my time in before a better company would hire me.  If my mom hadn't been willing to loan me some money to get through, I'm not sure what I would have done, honestly.

I do have to say that the the voice recognition editing was actually educational for me.  I came across a lot of words and phrases that, when I saw them on paper and listened to the doctor saying them I thought to myself "I NEVER would have figured that one out." 

Google is my own personal bible, as is Drugs.com.  Drugs.com saved my bacon on more than one occasion.  I also have a good electronic medical dictionary/spell checker from Stedman's that has a lot of the drug names in it which is quite helpful.  The other thing that I just recently invested in is a good pair of headphones from Bose.  Those were about $150, but honestly, it's the best $$ I've spent so far (not including my Tempur-Pedic seat cushion ).  It's amazing how much more clear the dictators are.

I make a phrase or short cut for just about every two-word item that I come across.  They don't even have to be normals for a doctor.  Things like LK for left knee, RK right knee, LBR for left breast, RBR for right breast.  I do a lot of oncology work so I have brca for breast cancer, prca for prostate cancer, pca for pancreatic cancer, etc.  SOB is shortness of breath.  ssob is short of breath.  Anything at all that is a two-word phrase (or more) I make a short cut for it.  I run into one or two more every night that I haven't thought about and add to it again.

It will get better.  It's too bad your school misled you on how soon you would be making some decent money.  That's not possible in the first year.  Because I stuck it out with the poor pay company, I got hired in-house at a large Oncology practice.  Because I had THAT job (which was an experiment on their part for having in-house transcription again) I got hired for PT work on an oncology account for another MTSO at home.  Also, because of that job I just got hired with another national MTSO to start full time in January.  Both of these pay .0875 cpl, which is quite good as far as I'm concerned.  It will pay the bills and more, once I get up to speed with the new FT company.

Good luck. Stick with it.  You're already getting better and you'll just keep getting better.

• 6-month job assessment - employed noobie
  • hello - Pam
  • Here is my 2 cents worth - mt
    • Thanks for your reply! - employed noobie
      • It will get better - Happy MT
        • seat cusion - sadie
          • Oh yeah! - Happy MT

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