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Anyone interested in offering toll free dial in dictation to their clients? I found a small company that is offering this service for $45/mo. It seems very reliable and they deliver my dictation files via FTP as a .wav file.

If interested reply back and I'll send you their contact info.

Exactly what do I need to look for in a laptop.  I have an ill family member which requires me to be more mobile.  Ram?  Hard drive?  How many ports?  Do you like any particular brand - I lean towards Dell, but am certainly not a diehard Dell fan. 

Any tips you might have would be appreciated.

Thak you

Recently I have found myself wanting to apply for a couple of in-house positions at two local hospitals in my area.  The main concerns I have that are preventing me from sprucing up my resume and just going to apply are:  First of all, I have not ever worked in a hospital before, and even the positions which seem to be low-level clerical positions want hospital experience.  I'm hoping that my medical transcription background coupled with my secretarial/office/customer service background would suffice for the 1-2 years of experience I see that is preferred for these types of positions.

Secondly, I am wondering about the background check process.  Unfortunately, I have a very distant past, about 20 years ago.  Our state has a First Offender Act, which I received, and this is supposed to provide, if all of the terms of the court are satisfied, no record/no conviction.  I have spent some time reading about this on-line, attempting to find answers about how far back hospitals go when checking, as I would prefer to not have to mention anything at all about this if possible.  I know that what one hospital does may be different from others, but was wondering if any of you have experience with the hiring process of hospitals and could offer information about what your experience suggests in regards to this.  I would really appreciate any information you could offer, as I have really been nervous and anxious lately, and I think that the 8 years I have spent working at home have taken somewhat of a toll on my social skills, so kind of feeling down in the dumps about whether I could successfully get through the interview and hiring process without the above problems, but hoping that some information from you all who have knowledge of this would ease my mind somewhat and enable me to get through this. 

I really appreciate you all taking the time to read this and offer any advice you can.  TIA, and a very Merry Christmas to all of you!!! 

If you want to post seeking medical advice, do so on the Ask The Doctor forum ONLY.  You do so at your own risk.  If you post for advice, do not be upset if you get responses, whether they are to your liking or not.

(particularly ops) when you only have clinic/ER experience.  I've got 10 years of experience but none in acute care and I'd like to expand what I can do.  I don't have much extra disposable income so can't see taking any formal education at this point, but can you give any other suggestions?  I know I can just read up on stuff, but there's just so much to know that I don't really know where to begin!  I'm also very wary of just jumping in at a big national.  I guess I'm worried that I've done the same types of reports for so long that my terminology beyond that would be too rusty. 

Thank you!

on the latest updates and changes for MTs as far as style, format, etc.  For example, when I first started working as an MT I was taught to type type II diabetes which has now changed to type 2 diabetes.  Just wondering . . . .  

Just wondering if I'm the only crazy fool.  My younger son took on a paper route and then lost interest.  I helped him with it for a while.  My older son used to do the same route and it became available again.

I'd been trying to get motivated to walk in the morning and would always turn the alarm off.  When I helped my younger son,  I saw him counting his cash and thought "okay, I walk for an hour every morning and make $85.00  or more a week while I'm doing this."

Only drawback is that it is 7 days a week 364 days a year (no paper at Christmas) and you have to be up at 4:30 a.m. When my older son did the route, he would get over $500 in Christmas tips.

Maybe I'm trying to convince myself to keep it up?  I do know that I feel great and am in much better shape than I was even a few weeks ago.

All you paper "boys" out there get back to me.

Does anyone know if ShortHand can be set up to insert superscripts and subscripts?  I imported all of my Autocorrect entries from Word, but it wouldn't import the formatted text.  For example, can ShortHand be set up to convert the "c" in A1c to subscript?  I really appreciate any help on this!

How do I keep Arial type in MS Word?  Every time I start a new document, it flips over to Roman again.........sigh........making me crazy.  Thanks for any help!

Many, many months ago I somehow figured out on this site how to receive a daily digest through email each day and I enjoy that.  Now I would like to tell a couple MTer's how to receive this Daily Digest as well, but am not able to find the directions on this site again.  If anyone could tell me how to sign up for the Daily Digest, would greatly appreciate it.  Thanks. 

Along a similar, but different thread with regards to the post below about daydreaming or thinking about other things when transcribing, do you ever transcribe in your dreams?  Thank goodness it doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes I will have a dream where I'm sitting at the computer and transcribing dictation, and can read all the words in front of me.  Is that strange, or what?  And I also sometimes dream that I'm reading a book.  I guess that's what happens when you're in such a word-oriented profession! 

thanks!

Every once in a while I get a file that Express Scribe can't play the last 2-4 minutes of.  It appears to be playing, but the sound cuts out.  When I send the reports to QA, they say they can hear the whole file fine.  Has anyone else had this issue?  Is there something wrong on my end?  I checked the NCH website and others have posted this same problem but have received no responses so I am trying here instead.   I also tried to play the file in Windows Media and it stops at the same point, but says it can't play the file.  I am just confused why QA can get it to play, but I cannot. 

Is it worth it.  Are there many people out there that have landed new accounts this way?  Most MTSOs that have been in business for a long time say it is by word of mouth, but what about MTs like me who have been doing this five years.  I feel I'm ready for my own accounts and am not sure if this is the best route.

Any opinions?

If anyone knows where I can find this, please let me know.  thanks

I like the Expander that comes with my company's software but I can't find a commercial expander like it.

I am trying ShortHand but the main thing I don't like about it is that it does not recognize when characters entered are part of a preexisting word. So if I'm editing and just entering a letter here and there, Shorthand records those characters, and if I hit the spacebar or punctuation mark and those characters happen to be one of my abbreviations, Shorthand will expand those characters even if I did not want an expansion there. I have to stop the expansion manually. For example, if I'm editing and change the word "proceed" to "proceeding" by adding an "ing," which is also my abbreviation for "inguinal," Shorthand thinks I want "inguinal" there and I end up with "proceedinguinal" unless I notice the expansion ahead of time and stop it manually.

My company's expander does not do this. When I add a character to a word, it recognizes the characters that are already there. So when I add "ing" to "proceed," it recognizes that I intend the "ing" to be part of the already-existing word "proceed" and does not expand the "ing" to "inguinal."

With my company's expander I can also go back and add a character or two to letters that are already there, hit the spacebar, and get the expansion, whereas with Shorthand, if I missed a letter in an abbreviation and go back to correct it, I have to enter the whole abbreviation again from scratch. For example, if I meant to type "tahbso" but I missed the "o" and didn't notice it until proofreading later, I could go back and add the "o" on the end of the already-existing "tahbs," hit the spacebar, and the abbreviation would expand. With Shorthand, I find I have to retype "tahbso" to get it to expand.

I'm not that experienced with Shorthand so maybe there are different settings in it that could avoid the unwanted expansions, but then again maybe not.

Anyway, I'm just wondering if there's an expander that will recognize when characters are already part of a word and when they are not and behave accordingly. Thanks.

HEENT:  Normal phallus.

Can you get a mental picture? 

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!

The taxes/financial link takes me to the States board (?) so I hope I can post this here.

I'm considering going from FT employee status back to IC, but it's been years since I was IC and don't remember for sure what the tax rule is... and my accountant at the time didn't know something about paying estimated tax and I ended up with a penalty for not doing so... long story and won't go there... fired him!

Anyway, my question is... What amount do you pay your self-employment tax on?  For example: If an IC works for say two or three companies in a year and makes $30,000, and has $10,000 in business deductions like internet, phone, paper, postage, etc., do you pay your self-employment tax on the $30,000 gross or the $20,000 net? 

I'm trying to look at the pros and cons of giving up employee status and trying to figure out how it would pencil out paying the whole SE tax myself, private insurance, etc.  Whether the SE tax is paid on net income after deductions or gross income could be quite a chunk of change... and could change my mind about going IC.

Any info is appreciated... I am going to call my accountant tomorrow, but thought I'd ask here tonight and see if anyone knew.  Thanks!

I am lookng for a modestly priced hotel in Allentow PA for October 7th and 8.  I am going to J C Birney Stadium  to hear College bands.  Any suggestions.