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Do editors have to be certified? - nm

Posted By: Mom-CMT on 2005-09-12
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should I get certified?

I'm fairly new to this site, and all of you seem to have so much knowledge and experience.  Next month, I will be eligible to take the CMT exam.  Currently I work in-house at a hospital.  Certification is not a requirement, and I am not even sure if it is recognized.  I'm considering certification because of the possible benefit to me if I do need a job elsewhere.  In your opinion/experience, is it worth it? 


Becoming Certified??
I'm wondering how hard it is to get your certification and what the positives are to becoming certified?  Is the pay better?  Do you have more opportunites, etc?
Bad transcriptionsts can get certified,
just like bad teachers.  It is just a title.
I agree. I am not certified.

organization that says I am is the answer.  I feel if the organization is for MTs, then the test should be free for anyone who wants to take it.  I think the fee is all part of the money making scheme set forth by any and all organizations aimed at certain professions. 


Experience is the gravy in this main meal.  Once you've got it, you pretty much have it in the bag and do not need initials after your name to make you look good. 


I would not advise a new MT in this day and age to go straight to online work for a national.  Go in-house at least part-time and learn all that you can.  That is by far more favorable than initials after your name, for sure, all in my opinion, of course! 


yes sent a certified letter ...(sm)
which was an invoice/demand for payment. Then waited 10 days to file in small claims court. This happened in California. I'm not sure how much you're owed, but check with the court to see what their limit is and GO GET YOUR MONEY :D

Good luck to you :D
Certified MT, Is it worth getting??
nt
send a certified letter
to the company, and make sure you put a CC: to an esquire with an address - if you have to, just make up a name, they never check.

Put in the letter that you are sending a CERTIFIED written notice giving them such and such number of days to respond to the letter from the time it is signed for receipt to pay the amount that is owed to you. Notify them in your letter that you will be contacting small claims court to file a suit (which can be done out of state), as well as contacting their state attorney general's office of illegal business practices. Make sure you put down who their state attorney general is so that the company knows you are not kidding around.


You don't need to check out those schools. I am a certified
medical assistant who fell into transcription after only 5 years of doing clinical work.  I started doing transcription at home for the same physicians I was working for as an MA.  I had the ability to type fast and obviously the knowledge and terminology because of my experience as an MA.  After that, I had no trouble whatsoever finding a position with a national.  I have since had NO problems AT ALL finding positions without going to a school to learn how to be an MT because of my experience in the field as a medical assistant and the ability to type.  If you have 30 years of nursing experience and can type, I would think you shouldn't have a problem finding a position if I didn't. 
Question re: certified mail

I wasnt home today when the mail arrived, but the mailman left a postcard that my husband has a piece of certified mail to p/u. The sender is listed as from the Clerk of Courts... What do you think it could be? Nothing good I am sure!!!


Registered/Certified does not get you any more money
in the real world.

I'm a CMA (certified medical assistant)...
and can give injections with a doctor's order, so I assume a CNA would be allowed to also. Not sure about Florida rules though.
No reason to become certified. You will not be paid well enough to
compensate for the annual dues, seminars you must attend, etc. to maintain your certification. Not worth it. You do not need it to work as a medical transcriptionist. The AAMT, now ADHI, has been our downfall and a hindrance, not our advocate.
A physician won't care if you're certified and neither will his... SM

office manager.  When will MTs learn that certification means absolutely, positively nothing? 


Butr I digress.  I would make the rounds if I were you.  Handout business cards, talk to office managers, have brochures ready, and follow up conversations with a letter of thank you and "please keep me in mind."  It's hard to say exactly what a physician is looking for regarding transcription.  I have found it depends a lot on the age of the doctor.  Older doctors are more old school and like the control of having an in-house person typing for them.  Younger doctors are technology driven and like the idea of an electronic record and having an MT type outside the office and electronically transfer it in.


Another thing I do is always carry business cards with me to doctor's appointments.  One of my accounts is a dermatology practice.  I was referred for a mole removal and got to talking to the physician about what I do for a living and she asked me to leave a card with the receptionist on my way out because they were needing more help with their transcription.  I did and then sent a letter with another card praising her bedside manner and her office staff and then reminded her that I had left my card and if she ever decided to get some extra help, to please give me a call.  She had her office manager call me and it is my main money maker. 


Good Luck to you!


Start with a Certified Mail letter.
Make sure you send your letter Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested. They will have to sign saying that they received the letter. You should detail the exactly amount you are owed, a date you expect payment by and what your next step will be should they not pay you by that date. Typically, your next step would be Small Claims Court, usually administered by a local District Justice/Justice of the Peace. Be sure that you state in your letter that they would be responsible for any costs incurred should you need to go to the DJ/JP.
Step one, send a Certified Letter...

Return Receipt Requested (CLRRR). Keep the signed receipt as proof that they have received the letter. Your letter to them should outline what service you performed for them and what is owed for that service, the time by which you expect to recieve payment, the form that payment should be in, and what the next step(s) you take will be should they not pay up. Also, if the CLRRR is returned to you, keep it to show that you tried to contact them and go to Step Two, which would be to file a Small Claims judgement against them. Depending on where you live, this can be done at a District Justice's office and does not require the services of a lawyer. If you have to go to that step, make sure that you include the cost of filing that judgement in what you are owed. Just showing that you're smart enough to know what to do and how to get it done should be enough motivation for them to pay up. Good luck!


MTIA...we want you certified, or you won't work. That's what it boils down to.

PRESS RELEASE:


 **** Please post URLs, not actual copyrighted materials. ****


My jury duty papers didn't come in certified. sm
They were just left in the mailbox.
You don't get certified taking a program. You test & pass your
s
Send him a certified letter with bill demanding payment within
within five days from receipt (make it RRR). You have your proof that you notified him. If it is not picked up or signed for, you have your proof that occurred to. All these things go in your favor when trying to collect money. that's just a starter. I would never have let him get away with it this long. Once would have been it.
Yes a SCAM, huge email fraud..they would notify you CERTIFIED MAIL or lawyer would call
   I get 2-5 of them a day...ALL FOREIGN using yahoo or hotmail.
To all the QA/editors out there
I was wondering what are some of the funny mistakes you've come across and could you give examples?  Also wondering if you think the majority of mistakes made by MTs is due to laziness or just lack of knowledge.  Thanks.
editors
You need to put your period inside the quotation marks, not outside.  You did that not once, but twice.  As an editor, you need to set an example.  Alas, you simply gave the poor complaining chap more ammo. 
Editors...
Your email and that of the other editor below - 3 kids under age 5, wondering why she can't get anything done - indicate what some of the MTs here suspect - that some editors are just nasty tempered space cadets.

How do you know you are being stabbed in the back? Do you feel the knife through cyber space?

I hope you feel better after you vented.
editors
Amen to that! I agree absolutely and totally 100% with you.
Editors
Wake up honey, without THEM you wouldn't have a job. If it were not for transcriptionists all of you would be history. You get a paycheck because of THEM.
MTs and editors
MTs are independent contractors and the editing position is salary.  Anyone interested is welcome to send resume to jeannemichael@cox.net.
well put! - they want EDITORS

By the time you "set type"


Follow all the little idiosyncricies demanded by all the white coats


Know the doctors names "slurred" by the other white coats


Corrected the work type


and oh yes.......the latest problem


The information is NOT on the screen because it has come to us too fast (remember that TAT!)


so we have to stop and enter that.


I feel like a dam^ed type setter - not a transcriptionist.


This is NOWHERE NEAR copy-ready work.


Last doctor I typed today I had to "re do" all his sentences, edit,


correct verb tenses, pronouns.


I'm not paid enough to be their mother, English teacher, and nose wiper.


Editors/QA should always be...
hourly or salaried. If you pay an Editor by production standards, they will just fly through the work trying to make an income, thus, missing a lot of errors. I was at a company that went from salaried editors to production, simply because one or two bad apples sat at home filing their nails on the clock, thereby ruining it for everyone else who was working honestly and consistently.
pay for editors
Oh my gosh, you make $20 an hour? Can you tell me where you work? I make a little over $14 and haven't had a raise in eons...I need the money too...
Pay for QA editors
QA - could you give a heads up where to find these jobs that pay more? I'm a QA person and do good work. I have asked for a raise but was ignored (believe it or not). I'm getting very frustrated and resentful toward this company.
QA editors, this is how I would
like to be corrected (general format):  (a)  Here is your error.  (b)  Here is how I want it done (c)  If this is a change, this is a notice of the change (d)  If I have had to correct you on this before, consider this a warning.  (e)  This correction deserves some explanation, so here it is. (f)  Research this first, but if you really do not understand it, contact me.    There are no unnecessary remarks either way.  There are no attempts to toss mean shots, because they serve no purpose.  A professional QA Editor can teach a new MT a great deal, and get that newbie to work WITH her, by setting a good example in terms of professional behavior.
The 2 bad editors???
What ended up happening with these two editors? Why did you have to let them go? How exactly are they "scamming" you? How much money was the check? Are you sure they received the check? Did you stop payment on it? That would be the intelligent thing to do. There really is no information here to warrant a warning to others. This kind of sounds more like trying to give someone a hard time because of them leaving. I don't think you can give information out like you are claiming, can you? Was your company treating them fairly? In my past dealings....there is always to sides of the story and the one who is usually spouting off if the one that is in the wrong.
MT editors - could you please tell me sm
what your job entails of on a daily basIt?  I have been transcribing for a long time now and I am thinking of looking into editing.  What do I need to know or do to obtain a position in the editing field?  TIA
I wonder if this was with editors or not
Good news for us, I guess but if they invest in this program they will want us to take less for editing and if it takes as long to edit as it does to type it, I don't see how we can take less. That is the next big fight we will have.
Sorry, but that's how my editors want me doing it.
.
I consider us MTs and editors

Help editors....
I'm in the midst of an editing test.  How do you make the correction above the word that needs correcting in MS Word 2000?
Any MT Editors here?

I haven’t seen many posts (here or other MT boards) regarding this position, but the ones I have seen were not very favorable.  Is there anyone who does this and is happy with it?  I have taken a PT position with a company to do some editing.  It is a VR account.  I am told that the physicians are already VR configured, and that any jobs coming to me with lots of edits should be returned to them, as the configuring may need some tweaking.  I will be listening to the actual voice file while reading the report.  Is there such thing as a happy MT editor?  CathyB


IC EDITORS
A couple of questions for those transcriptionists who are editing as independent contractors, or those on a per-line basis.

How many lines per hour do you average in a day?
Are you paid for entire batches or only files that you have to read through and fill in blanks?
Have you worked with editing voice recognition files?

We are trying to come up with some averages for a new project we are working on.

We know VR is not accurate, we know that most docs do not train the system to use it properly, but it is a growing factor in our industry that we need to address rather than losing our clients.

If you're interested in learning more about editing VR files or have information related to same, please let me know.
About those editors....
Editors are for when you're first learning how to do this. Editors are also for when you specifically leave a blank in a report because you outright admit that you can't get a word or phrase.

Editors stop editing your work fairly early on in your career. Hopefully you don't have editors listening to all your work within 3-4 months after you first become a transcriptionist. Sometimes it takes up to 6 months, but really, there comes a point where you have to learn WHEN to ask for help, so that they can start teaching the next person down the line.

So, you need to learn to work as a transcripitionist, yet knowing that what YOU type will end up in a patient's chart, most likely without anybody else reading it except the doctor who signs the report (and we HOPE that HE/SHE actually reads it!!!!)

So yes, you need to be as close to 100% accurate as close to 100% of the time as is humanly possible.

No, NONE of us are 100% accurate 100% of the time.

We just do our very best.

And then we let it go. We know that after we have done our very best, that the ultimate responsibility rests on the doctor who signs the report. It is up to the doctor to read his/her report before signing to make sure it says what he/she meant it to say. (Don't slam me for this opinion - it is a matter of where the ultimate responsibility rests; I still try to do my 100% very best!)

As for doing our very best, that includes learning every shortcut we can learn in order to work smarter not harder.

Please see the tips I listed in a different post about how to make your autotext or glossary work for you. Common errors can be fixed automatically. Weird definitions can be remembered automatically.

One alternative to strictly typing is to maximize your glossary (some people call it autotext or expanders, it's basically all the same thing, just different names for different computer programs). Another alternative is to focus on VR (voice recognition, also known as medical editing). Maybe you're more likely to catch errors if you're correcting the computer's work instead of your own. (In my case, I find it easier to correct my own errors, but each person is different in this regard).

You can do this! Your kids can know that you're not just the chauffeur to their soccer games and the one who sleep-walks into their room at night to tuck them in! Really!
just editors...

rather


just some editors


Yes, I see why she hates editors
If this comment is representative of your editing. There are ways to point out errors without making someone feel like an idiot.  These postings don't exactly need to be "edited," ya thank?
QA and editors are 2 different things
x
WHAT? CERTIFICATION FOR EDITORS?

 "All Dictaphone transcription service partners are required to pass its rigorous certification program to ensure even higher levels of service and proficiency in speech recognition editing..."


(here is link to complete article)


http://health-information.advanceweb.com/common/editorial/editorial.aspx?CTIID=1433


 Why doesn't MQ ever tell there is "certification" for editors? 


==============================


WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE --- "certification program" 


I haven't heard anything about certifying editors, have you?


And if that's so we better get a HE^^ OF A LOT MORE MONEY!!!! doing it.


========================================


















"




Aug. 30, 2005


CHRISTUS HEALTH CHOOSES MEDQUIST
CHRISTUS Health, a faith-based, not-for profit health care system comprising more than 40 hospitals, inpatient and long-term care facilities, clinics and other health care services serving more than 70 communities, has selected MedQuist as its premier vendor for documentation and speech recognition needs.


CHRISTUS Health was having challenges streamlining productivity and transcription costs. According to Robert Jacobs, CHRISTUS market information officer, a selection committee made up of HIM directors, radiology directors and physicians, evaluated vendors and selected MedQuist for its capabilities to provide front-end speech recognition and back-end speech recognition transcription services.


http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:OAXm4i0GEUEJ:health-information.advanceweb.com/common/editorial/editorial.aspx%3FCTIID%3D1433+christus+health+medquist&hl=en


Normally editors are hired from within the
company, though I occasionally do see postings looking for editors/QA.  Almost all the posts I have seen are wanting people with at least 2 years recent QA experience or 10+ years MT experience.  Editing tends to pay less than MT.   Some companies pay per line and ideally you should be able to edit more lines a day than transcribing, so you might even out.  Some companies pay hourly, but the hourly rate is usually considerably less than what you would make as an MT.  There are various kinds of editing - VR, editing offshore work where you have to edit 100% of the work and correct probably 50% of it, editing where you just fill in blanks, and then fill in blanks and 100% edit files on a regular basis to monitor quality.   
Question for VR editors

Doc says arthritis in fingers needs a rest from pounding the keys so much.  For those of you that do VR, do you find you have to type as much as when you transcribe all the time.  Too old to change careers and prefer to stay at home, so looking for a different out in the MT vocation. 


Thanks in advance


Editors: question for you
My boss keeps hiring people with no experience.  I think this is beyond the Editor definition.  They basically need to be taught way too much.  I'm giving far too much instruction.  Should I ask for more pay for when I edit these certain trainees?  If so, how much.  Why can't she hire anyone decent?  Are there really no good people out there?
question for VR editors
What is the motivation for you to try to end our jobs for MT?  If you train the computer to recognize inaudible voices, you are eliminating your own job as well as the jobs and careers of countless others. If you refused to work for low pay to edit dictators we would have a future still. No computer does this alone without human help.  Please tell me why you all cooperate? You know that once it is trained, you move on to the next.
Powerscribe editors, can you help? (sm)
I've been offered a job editing via Powerscribe reports. Whatever you can tell me about this platform, etc. would be greatly appreciated. Also, is a per report rate normal for this type of editing? If so, what is a good or standard rate?

Thanks again!
Question for Editors
For those of you who edit VR, how did you learn to do this? I am strictly a Transcriptionist and am wondering how you break into editing.

Thanks!
My editors ARE TESTED
The editors for my company are tested and they are trained at 100% before they are turned "LOOSE".  They also have 3% of their work audited.