Home     Contact Us    
Main Board Job Seeker's Board Job Wanted Board Resume Bank Company Board Word Help Medquist New MTs Classifieds Offshore Concerns VR/Speech Recognition Tech Help Coding/Medical Billing
Gab Board Politics Comedy Stop Health Issues
ADVERTISEMENT




Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

Community hospitals

Posted By: Freebie on 2007-10-17
In Reply to: Anybody out there work at home for - Mom-MT

Hi. I just recently got outsourced by my local community hospital which I had worked for for 8 years, the third hospital where I've lost my job to outsourcing.

We were paid hourly from $9-$15 hourly. We had to have a minimum line count of 135 an hour based on a 7-hour day, so 980 63-character lines a day was exceeding standard, worked every 4th weekend and rotated holidays. I loved it. Then they outsourced to Spryance and most of the work in the entire Dayton Ohio area went overseas. There are only a few transcriptionists left working for the hospitals.


Complete Discussion Below: marks the location of current message within thread

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu


Other related messages found in our database

Yeah, but hospitals are already largely using VR in hospitals. (nm)
(nm)
You have to go outside the community....
nm
I also went to a community college
and never had any problems finding a job. In fact, I got my first job at home before I was even finished with school. I took all my classes online and have worked from home for the past 3 years here with my kids. I say go for it!
Who is to say that these people are pillars of the community?
x
Actually, I live in a rural community sm
and left a hospital where that was very good pay.  Starting wages for MT was $8.00 an hour with a 25 cent raise every year if you were lucky.  $11.50 would be like gold for the transcriptionists that work there.
Given by a community college? What school is
z
Community near me succesfully fought one off, but sm
that was only because there are about three within ten miles of there. If there are none in your town, I wish you luck.
Santaluces Community HS - Lantana, FL
nm
Your local community college...

It will cost a **** of a lot less, and your education will be just as good.  Many will tell you that you only get help in job placement, externship, be ready to work, etc. via Andrews, etc., but that's just not true because they just don't know any better.  Besides, that's a great sales pitch/gimmick, isn't it? 


In learning this field, you need a classroom setting and hands' on experience/instruction. You'll see exactly what I mean when you get in the thick of it, or even starting out in learning it, for that matter.


I was fortunate with community college
I took courses through my local community college's continuing education program. The instructors were people who worked in the medical field during the day and taught at night. By doing exceptionally well in the classes and being a model student, I was recommended by a couple of the instructors and got a start at the office where one instructor worked before I even finished my transcription class.

Once I got my foot in that first door, I've been working steadily and successfully ever since. I had only a couple of classes under my belt!

The approved schools are probably the best chance for work after graduation, but opportunities can arise wherever you train.


In our increasingly global community, maybe
x
I went through Bellevue Community College
Also the CareerStep program online with once a month meetings if we lived close. Got a Sallie Mae grant. Got hired by MQ right out of school (after testing). Careerstep is one of the best schools and one of the only ones you can get hired straight out of school. I would not really recommend transcription anymore, though. It is not the job it used to be, paywise. Coding is still good pay I hear.
I went to a local community college
I started working for a small local MTSO.
Local community college nm
x
Everett Community College
online has a transcription course and since it is a community college, should be able to get financial aid. Try that. Google it.
CHS is Community Health Systems
xx
I actually borrowed a set from the library at the community college here.
I used them as long as I needed to, then returned them.
Really!!! This is fairly common MT 'net community
can this go on?!!
Check out your local community college -SM
I can't speak for all of them, but the one I went to offered externship programs and job placements for their best and brightest students.  An acquaintenance of mine also got her MT training at a local college, and they did the same thing.  Be careful, however, of the online courses.  They cost a lot of money - much, much more than your local college, and you won't get the hands-on training or be able to get your questions answered in a flash with them as you would in an actual college setting.  Also, an associate's degree at a college is much more impressive than admitting you received your training via an online course.  That, to me, just sounds so "fly by night."   
suggest finding out if your state is a community

When I divorced the ex, we had just bought a house.  We live in a community property state - everything you accrued during the married is pretty much split 50-50.  I hired an attorney for $600 !!!  He hired a real-property attorney for $350 as he was worried about the house.  I gave him the house and the dog and I took the child.  It is a joint custody state but I was the primary custodian. 


It's worth it to hire a divorce lawyer, and like you said you're only married 2-1/2 years (I was married 12 yrs) and you probably have little to no equity in the house at this point (just like us back then).  


Check out cheaper divorce lawyers and see what you can do.  Best of luck!



SIL says she went through Wellspan Community Health Center. sm
any idea how to call them? i am not finding that exact name info. i did find roseann freundel as a DO student in WV but just pictured and an article. no contact info.
I vote for local community college.
If you attend a community college, it helps to network.  If you do on-line training, you won't have the social part of your training.  Also, it helps to try and find an on-site position at first to gain the knowledge although since you are already in a clerical position, you probably know more about anatomy and the hospital/medical setting than you even think.  I wish you all the best.  Another good thing about a local community college is that sometimes they know of great jobs because the teachers are also employed or know of jobs.  You will have a certificate of training in an MT program, but a certified MT is done through the AAMT or whatever it is now, and is not worth the money in my opinion.  You wind up after paying a few hundred dollars getting to put CMT after your name, but not when you transcribe a report.  For example, even CMTs cannot put XXX/xxx, CMT if you catch my drift.  
I graduated from a local community college. sm
Had my first job before graduation but it was in-house with hourly pay and great benefits. Those are very hard to find anymore. I worked in-house for my first 2 years and then went on maternity leave picking up side work through a company for more income. Realized I was tripling my money going from hourly to production by that time, turned in my notice, and never looked back. Been at home ever since. If at all possible, in the beginning I would recommend to anyone to work inhouse even if it is for a transcription company. The value of having other "ears" is definitely not something to take for granted. I also learned as much as I could while getting that hourly pay as time is money when on production. I have to say I probably would not be near as proficient of an MT today had it not been all those hours learning and having another ear around to help out when stuck.

You bring up a point too though that I haven't really thought about before....With all the transcription being outsourced out of the office, it is only going to get much more difficult for anyone to get those breaks and get the required "experience" as a beginner.
This lady is well know in the MT community and is a long term MT. I understand

your skepticism, but that is not the case with this gal. She has been straightforward from the very beginning and I have practically her entire background.  I would ask that we leave skepticism out of the picture and try to help this family out.


Thank you,


Sheri


 


Hi! Went through a similar thing at a smaller community hospital....sm
in the state...all the same set-up as you stated, but the coders, who shared our office, were also the darlings of the hospital and were treated differently. When pressed for an answer, the head of HIM said that between us, the coders were seen differently because they were responsible for bringing lots and lots of money into the hospital, their coding "properly" translated in to billing, which translated into $$$ for the hospital...all the while, the coders, in part, depended on back-up from our department when trying to decide which code was most appropriate. Since your working conditions would be changing if you are sent home, I think it is entirely reasonable and very intelligent to ask them for a new job description, I always love to have things in writing for future reference. You sound like a very productive MT, so don't worry...I didn't have to worry about speech recognition at this hospital cutting down on pay, but is there an HIM head whom you could all have a small meeting with to clarify these questions? It would be nice to put your mind at ease. Hope it all works out and you have the best of BOTH worlds, Granny!
I'm going to a local community college for culinary arts, I'm 52. nm
xxx
Your local community college. Just as good and a heckofalot cheaper!
 
When I said vo-tech, I meant community college just in case you were wondering (nm)
nm
Went to community college too..had a job in-house within 2 months, the first and only place I applie
//
community college. those online courses/schools are not very good and
very expensive.

but don't do it just to work at home.
If you want to work at a local hospital or doctor's office, go to community college. Otherwise
if you want to work from home, for a national company, you need to take the course from either Andrews School or M-TEC. It does you no good to save money by taking the Penn Foster course, because most companies will NOT hire grads from that school, it is a poor course and does NOT prepare you sufficiently for MT work.
Either one are 9 month courses at the local community college..worth a shot!
!!!
How about your local community college and save a heap of money & get just as good of an education?
  
we've lost our sense of community, no more back yard fences, no more coffee klatches
It's the sense of community we miss, and there is some semblance of it here. My son has been online since age 10, and he knows the status of the marriages and pregnancies and jobs and traumas of his gameing friends, from his age on up into the 60s, male and female. They comfort each other, congratulate each other. Ranges from students to cops to medial installers to computer geeks. It's a sense of commnity that has sprung up, but that society doesn't really recognize as REAL yet, it's too new.
Pharmacy tech 15 weeks, polysomnography 7 month course at local community college..worth a shot!
!!!
Most hospitals have ......

contracted their work out to the national service, a practice I hope comes full circle eventually and hospitals reopen their own departments in the name of confidentiality and quality control.  I only know of 2 hospitals out of about 8 in my area that have their own department (I work for one of them).  It is by far the best MT job there is, or that I have ever had.  I am at home, but a regular employee.  The hospital is only 20 min from my house (we have to live local).  I have worked for the big nationals and saw nothing but a decline in pay.  Now I get regular raises, good hourly pay, production incentive pay, benefits, and vacation time.  I wish more MTs could find my situation.  I have hopes for the future once the industry figures out that they are cutting off their nose in spite of their face.


Do All Hospitals
In Tennessee pay that well? I have been considering moving to Tennessee to try to get away from the hurricanes.
VA Hospitals

I did the VA Hospital dictation here in Portland and it was all contracted out to companies, no employees.   But you might contact your local VA Hospital but if it is as an employee 95% chance you will have to go into work and not do it at home, if it is at home it will be as an IC and no benefits.    Just what I know about it.  If you think your ESL's are bad at a regular hospital, this is worse as there is a lot of ESL's there on their rotation and they could care less how they dictate as they are only there for 6 to 8 weeks.   Changes that often.   


 


The hospitals are not going to get
dial into.  They'd be better off hiring MTs and paying benefits than doing that.  And if you dial directly into the hospital, instead of into the MTSO's dictation system, then the MTSO has no say in 800 lines.  The truth is, hospitals usually do not want to just turn all of their dictation over to a service and they certainly aren't going to pay for long distance incoming calls in addition to what they pay the service.
just sometimes it is the hospitals...
they are actually told to hold back dictation at times, due to costs. sometimes the hospitals sneak around and try other services, or voice recognition.

in the future, there will not even be any voice dictation...just templates where information is added, like data entry...
Not that many hospitals.......
still have their own dept.  That's how Medquist and Spheris and all those huge nationals exist... They have whole hospital accounts.  Out of the 3 large hospitals in my vicinity, only 1 still has their own department.  I trolled their website for months before I found an opening, but I eventually got in.  Some  hospitals don't have their MTs at home, mine does.  It all depends.  Most hospitals have a website, so fine the one you're interested in and check out their job opportunities, and then check it almost every day and if they do have a dept, they'll eventually have an opening.
Well - believe it. Hospitals pay that. I can tell you
at least hospitals in the Philadelphia area pay up to 24 cpl. MQ charges 23 cpl. I have one small department of a hospital at 17 cpl. It is out there - pull your head out of the sand and go looking.
I wonder if hospitals know
There are American transcription companies opening up here in the US that actually work for companies in India?  I had a job offer from an American company and they let it slip that they were actually getting paid by Focus Infomatics.   I thought about this and what an idea!  You open up a company in the states, the facilities think they are getting American work, then you actually have the work done overseas.....hmmmmm
hospitals

do hospitals now go by minutes instead of lines in regards to productivity?  if so, what is the usual they are asking for an 8 hour day? 


thanx!


All hospitals are different. Concerning
your "past," if it has been exspunged from your record, then basically it never happened. This happened to my BFs son and his attorney told him that since his record was exspunged, nothing ever took place, so he does not have to mention it on any job application. You might want to call your local court house or your attorney on that particular question.

I would say go ahead and apply. Good luck.
All hospitals are different. when I sm
first started, ERs did their own stuff too. But as the years went on, ER combined with the MR departments and was considered part of acute care. It is not as detailed but you get some of the same language in an abbreviated from by doing ERs, even some OP reports. I don't like ERs either though simply because the docs are usually in a hurry and they are motor mouths. I do think though that MTs now should consider ERs as part of acute care especially if they don't like ERs.

Some MT companies do split them up though and hire folks for just ERs.
SM hospitals
It's been years since I have heard of any hospital that has ANYbody working in-house.
What hospitals?? I'm soooo there


No, even the hospitals don't want to hire new MTs.
Doctors don't want to hire newbies.  In office, at home, it doesn't matter.  It's not about being a stay at home mommy, as you are so assuming and generalizing yourself.  Everyone wants to hire experienced workers, but nobody is willing to train them.  As I said, every other industry in the country trains their workers.  MT seems to be the only one where people are expected to walk into it knowing everything.  It's not an assumption; it's an observation.  Just because my experience and observations are different than yours does not make me wrong.  You're not the know all, end all to the MT world.  I do have business management experience and education, so don't dismiss my observation as lacking just because it doesn't match yours.
Hospitals being sued
Seems to me the hospitals must not be very worried about being sued or they would require fluency in the English language as a pre-requisite for staff privileges.  Secondly, any doctor who doesn't read what he signs pretty much deserves what he gets.   Transcriptionists make mistakes....so do doctors.  Thirdly, maybe hospitals should re-think how their work is contracted out.  Far fewer problems when transcription was done in house.
i am sure you are aware that there are still hospitals out there
that have not yet adopted these rules. I type for one major hospital that still wants the patient's name typed in the report. Another still wants cc instead of mL. Had this person tested and changed it to the "correct" form, who is to say that she wouldn't have gotten marked off for changed verbatim. Nervous MT2, hang in there, and if you test again make sure you ask up front whether they want you to follow BOS or type it verbatim that way you know ahead of time.