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It seems to me that the pay per line should vary according to the difficulty of the account.

Everyone agrees that the line count can be totally different from one account to the other, so why doesn't the pay vary?  That would be the fair way to do it.

Does anyone know of a company who does that?

I just got nails put on last week and am having a difficult time getting used to them.  If you have long nails, do you type with the tips of your nails or your fingertips?  My nails are not very long at all, but it seems like they are hitting the wrong keys and I'm constantly having to back up and fix mistakes plus my wrist is starting to hurt.

Any ideas besides removing them?  I'd like to give it a little more time to see if I can adjust.

Thanks.

Here is how the story goes.  Have been married for 5-1/2 years to a great man.  We are young, in lower 30s, have one child who is almost 4.  My husband is disabled due to mental illness which is somewhat controlled with medication.  We get disability for him.  I work from home as a MT.  We were doing great but then became careless with our money a bit.  That was fine.  I could make extra money, but then my work became VERY LOW for about 2 months straight. Bills got behind, we almost lost our house in foreclosure, etc.  We have no help.  Then I became surprisingly pregnant, which we were both HAPPY with but only to end in miscarriage days after we found out I was pregnant.  My doctor, probably since I have no medical insurance, said "let nature take its course" by letting the miscarriage happen and remove itself on its own.  This was grueling - took almost one solid month which I had to get blood test every 6 days to see how low the count was going.  We recovered from that and my work began to pick back up - thank God.  I have been working a lot, almost getting out of our crunch - would be out of this mess by mid-July.  The problem:  During this time period we had gotten into some fights, he left and went to his parents (who always - and I mean ALWAYS - interferes with our business), they went and switched (the same day of our fight) his mom to be representative payee for his monthly check.  So when we made up the next day he told me this.  I was irrate! First of all, I would NEVER EVER try to steal his money or what have you - he should know that by now.  I am not like that.  Well during the course of the next few months we had always missed the date to switch it back to my name and they said to wait until next month.  Well, we have been fighting for a few days lately, but I thought everything was okay - just a fight.  His mom tells us how she is going to spend his money for July - which I disagreed on because I have a set schedule of certain bills automatically withdrawn - so I get a little upset and tell him as soon as the beginning of next month happens, we will switch me back to being his rep. payee for his check ---he tells me "NO, my mom is staying my rep. payee!"  I LOSE IT!!!  I tell him I am not working my tail off for his parents to decide how OUR money is going to be spent.  He thinks all of the hardship is my fault, which honest to God I haven't bought any clothes, shoes, got my hair fixed, bought makeup or ANYTHING for just about this whole year.....He was gambling heavily awhile back - not hundreds but money that we could have used for something important, he wasted on that.  So I talk civilized to him and say, "Maybe we should separate a bit and you can pay your bills (credit cards, car) and I will pay for the house, utilities, my credit cards, and care for my son....this is AFTER he said he is going to have his mom take his money and pay off HIS bills since I was so horrible at it. 

Sorry this is so long....

The thing is what else can I do?  There is nothing that I want to do.  I feel like I have gotten the shaft here horribly.  But he thinks he is totally right.  His parents come first - what they say he believes even if he said the sky was purple and he was looking at and saw it blue he would still believe it was purple because they said so....I think a lot of his mental issues are from his parents and upbringing.  How do I handle this the adult way?  I offered to help pay on 2 of his credit cards because I helped with them - but total for both is only like 800.00.  I am sticking to my guns of him NOT coming back as long as his mom is rep. payee.  I just don't see how a marriage can work like that. 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I guess I just wanted to vent and see where did I go wrong.  I know I have been grouchy lately at times due to stress but I don't cuss or anything so he was never cussed out or anything....I take care of ALL bills, do ALL cooking, do ALL laundry.  He sleeps until 1-2p every day while I get up early, try to work and watch my son.  He has gotten lazy since he has been disabled.  Before he worked MANY HOURS and was NEVER EVER LIKE THIS....Help.

If I decided to switch companies but am using an Expander program that is the company's software, I would have to start from square one with  new company. (There is no way around that, correct?) 

Not planning on leaving now but was just thinking that if that should become a consideration, my line count would drop big time until I could build all those expansions again.    Has anyone ever gone through that?  Do you remember how long it took to get back up to speed?

I have to say I consider myself still fairly new.  I have been a Transcriptionist now for just almost a couple of years.  I am a little upset because I have at least 99.6 QA score each month.  I work on several different accounts and we are always told to push, push, push the reports and get them out. Because if we don't meet our standard line count amount then you will get canned.  But, my question is this, on the accounts I work on, it is hard to make normals for all of them, which does save time.  So, when you are flying through your documents and trying to proofread as you go, you are sure to miss a few MINOR mistakes.  I do not understand this field and sometimes I wish I would have never spent the money to get into it, because we are yelled at if we don't get our minimum line counts and get yelled and told to slow down if you make a few small mistakes---nothing that would put the life of a patient at risk.  So, please tell me where the happy medium is.  Again, my QA score is never below 99.5. 

Seriously thinking about getting into a different profession.  Thank you for listening. 

I have a link for those that have never seen what these actually look like.  This is the one my husband's physician has.  http://www.e-mds.com/images/screens/emds_chart_vnoteedit.jpg  This shows a screen shot, but the rest of the site tells how these are used. 

My office assigns work to me, and in DocQScribe, they come up with a little "R" next to the job number for "routed".  Periodically, they are nasty and were obviously attempted and jettisoned by someone else.  More often, however, they are a bank of reports for a particular dictator, who I suspect has gone through the channels and whined and wants all their reports NOW.

The pros of this situation:

One dictator for 10 reports means I can fly through because they're probably saying the same things over and over.  Or at least I can get used to their style and plug away.

Sometimes the group I'm routed is awesome: seven podiatry surgeries or consults in a row.

I like to think that things are routed to me because my office knows I will sit still and type until every one of them is done.  I'd like to think they can count on my accurancy and efficiency.

I take it as a compliment.  Maybe it's intended that way for you too, even when it sucks rocks.  My partner gets nasty, nasty dictators routed to her sometimes because she's one of the few people who can do them and refrains from whining.  Building goodwill with your MTSO pays off in odd little ways in the long run.  And again, while it sucks for you, it might your strong work ethic and accuracy that leads your supervisor to believe you are the one for these jobs.  Take heart!

New user to Dictaphone ExText. Can someone tell me how to use iChart for my own personal line count?  (I do have my user & password, but not much else).

Which is preferred, Notebook or Desktop for working 8+ hours per day doing MT?  Any specifics you'd like to share about processor/memory would be helpful.  Upgrading my computer and deciding which would work best for me.

My mother-in-law owns her own business and I'm an IC for her along with two other companies.  She just lost a pretty good size account to India.  In the last two months, she has had two phone calls from offices inquiring about her transcription.  They were referred by word of mouth from other doctors.  In the past 20 years that my MIL has been doing this accounts have always been dropped into her lap (so to speak) and there was no effort involved on her part.  I keep strongly encouraging her to follow up with the doctor or office manager and then drop by with some samples of work and just to introduce herself.  I feel that she is not aggressive enough and has lost two accounts due to this.  It could be rates too I'm not totally sure.

Let me give you the scenerio from the last couple days.  Two days ago the doctor herself called and spoke to my MIL.  Unfortunately, her grandson was screaming in the background, but besides that the conversation went well.  The doc is very behind and needs someone right away.  My MIL called yesterday to fu and the doctor was with a patient but the woman on the phone sounded glad to hear from her.  There was no return call yesteray and my MIL feels she should drop it that she didn't get the account.  I feel she should go to the office this morning and introduce herself and bring a few samples of her work and even pick up the tapes if it were to go that well.

I need help convincing her to follow through with this.  Over the last 20 years things have changed and that MTSOs need to be a little more aggressive or the accounts will go to the next MTSO that is. 

Please give me some ideas that I can share with her.  Thanks so much!

Please ladies.  If a company ever ever ever installs this on your computer, get rid of it!  The program itself is for technical support but it also can enable a company to get into your system without your knowledge.  This happened to me and I caught someone from that company remotely taking over my keyboard and mouse! 

All they need to get in is your IP address and they can see your whole screen.  I was told by an independent IT person that they can log your Keystrokes and get your financial info if you have it stored.  I just had to change all of my banking and credit card accounts and run multiple scans on my computer.  I am an IC with my own computer and they installed this to run in the background as soon as I boot up the computer even though for tech support we used an entirely different program.

 Yes, I absolutely ended that contract, but I just wanted to let everyone know so the same does not happen to them. 

In the past 15 years, I have worked for no less than 20 (yes 20!) national services.  Some are still around and some have been gobbled up by the giants, but almost all either ran out of work, shorted my paycheck, or just plain sucked (no communication, crappy supervisors, screwing with lines, or just plain dishonest).  I've worked MT and QA.  I've worked for a three hospitals in my time, one of which laid all the MTs off to save money by outsourcing, and two I had to quit my jobs because my husband was in the military and we moved around quite a bit.

In the last year, I've been laid off (from the hospital mentioned above), took a QA hourly position and was fired from that job due to downsizing (code for sending work to India), and as a VR Editor which eventually just turned into MTing.  My last two paychecks were screwed up and I had to fight for my money. 

I am now at the end of my rope in this career and I'm ready to just euthanize my dying career.  I came into this career a wide eyed innocent girl with high hopes of working at home and being my own boss.  I'm leaving a beaten down, used up, cynical woman.  It's like a bitter divorce -- my husband (industry) screwed me over so badly, I won't trust anyone again.

So I've taken an in office secretary job at a hospital and in 90 days, I can take advantage of their tuition reimbursement program and go back to school.  I should be excited, it's all wide open for me, but I all I feel is bitterness at being back at square one after all these years.

So to all you MT newbies or wannabes out there, think twice and then think some more before jumping into this career field.  It's a trap.

Kinesis Ergonomic Keyboard.  Newest technology, a MTs dream.  Feels like a cadillac when compared with other keyboards.  Purchased 10/2006, excellent condition.  Paid $350, will sell for $290--like new.  Adaptation exercise book.  Retired as MT.   Follow this link to review benefits:

http://www.kinesis-org.com/benefits.htm.

Okay, I see that there are templates you use for your reports.  And it looks like there is someplace to enter the patient name, etc.  But some of my accounts are clinic accounts where all the patients are put into one line file.  What I mean is, there is not a separate report for each patient, but rather one file for all the patients seen that day.  So does WebChartMD or MPWord allow for that kind of thing?  Or does it force you to make a new report for each patient?

Also, what would be the advantage of using something like this?

best way of getting your own accounts?  I have one small local account that I got from a newspaper services ad eight years ago.  If I had two or three more like this one, I'd be a happy camper.  I've mailed postcards and made cold calls with no luck whatsoever.  I've even done intro letters with business cards to new providers on the city business license list and in response to help wanted ads.  No nibbles there either.

It doesn't even necessarily have to be a local account.  It could even be Internet based or via mail/UPS.  One guy used to priority mail tapes to me from New York back when I had my virtual assistant/secretarial business.

Any positive suggestions are welcome.  Thank you.

In all the years I have been an MT, I have never been without work and have never NOT been able to find someone hiring. This is ridiculous.  I have even looked for local in-house jobs and...NADA, NOTHING!!

I have been transcribing for 6 years and want to get my own accounts.  What is the best way to do this?  Any info would be great! Thanks

I have my disk, but cannot find my manual/user guide to save my life.  I would really like to have one handy to keep from having to go through the CD menus.  I'd be willing to pay anything at this point.

TIA!!