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Generally office notes versus hospital

Posted By: MT in MT on 2007-02-18
In Reply to: What is the difference between an acute care account and a multispecialty account??..nm - Curious

For my accounts anyway, my multispecialty is office notes, letters, in office procedures and acute care is hospital notes.


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Office notes versus SOAP:

Could someone explain the difference between an office note and a SOAP note when doing transcribing for a specialty doctor. Thanks.


Generally 200 lph, but depends on work type, I can do more with OP notes, has to do with motivation
I hate HP, consults, and DS, but that is the majority of what I do. I always, always do better with OP notes.
generally this time of the year is slow for my hospital NM
:)
SOAP vs office notes

Some of my docs use the SOAP  -see below, all broken down into these paragrahs with headings.


S: (subjective)


O: (objective/physical)


A: (assessment)


P: (plan)


Others, my surgical oncology docs, just dictate and I put them in paragraph form and no headings.   Also I have one that does the S and O and then puts his Assesment and Plan in one paragraph.  


Hope that helps.  Patti


Yes it is possible - we are talking doc office notes
with templated physical exams, using Expanders for whole sentences and paragraphs, etc. I have done it - no padding here either.

I should also note - this was done on microcassette, pickup and delivery, etc.


hospital versus MTOS
I agree with the above poster. I would stay with the hospital.

Since being laid-off from a local clinic (they chose to outsource to India), I have worked at about 4 MTOS in 4 years. It always starts off the same..........you have plenty of work in the beginning and then.........they over-hire or they lose the account.......

I have recently accepted a position at a local hospital and I plan to stay there! I have to work 3 months in office for training and then I get to work at home. At least if we run out of work or if it gets low, I can go in office and help medical records or answer the phones....I don't care as long as the money keeps rolling in.......

I just don't understand the MTOS......they want the work fast, faster, fastest with accuracy...........but I hate to say you (or at least I do) lose some accuracy when you are worried about running out of work. They don't care because they are paid by the hour..........while I sit in front of my computer for 10-12 hours just to make a living! I want to have a life outside of my home too!

Good-luck with your decision.
Home versus Hospital - sm
Speaking as one who was a unit secretary for many, many years, and now an MT working from home, I personally would NEVER, ever go back...but, the benefits of working in-house are much better than most MT companies offer. AND, your point of steady paycheck is a valid one. This is something you would have to sit down and write all the pros and cons, with your feelings included, to make a decision based on what is best for you. Good luck.
Hospital versus Service
The experience you will get at the hospital cannot be beat. Nothing compares to having experienced coworkers to help when you are stuck on something.
Office 2003 versus 2007

Hi,


I am still working in Office 2003 but have been considering Office 2007.  Is anyone using this?  Do you like it?  Do you know if programs like Shorthand, Abacus, and other transcription programs work with it?  Is it possible to have Office 2003 and Office 2007 on the same computer without interfering with the one another??


I was sent a courtesy copy of the office notes for a family member once.
This was soon after I became an MT. I was so appalled at the sloppiness of the typing and the rampant use of inappropriate abbreviations that we switched doctors. At least I knew what the abbreviations were for, not sure the typical lay person would have.
Hospital work - history and physicals, op notes, discharge summaries,
s
I hear that; we had tapes broken several times where silly office people had put post-it notes on th
In retrospect, it was nearly laughable.
When I worked pathology office in a hospital
My experience was that I worked 3 times as hard for a set wage than I ever did as an MT - and in medical records as MT earned set wage plus incentive.

At pathology lab, we were responsible for getting there first thing in the morning and transcribing all the micro before 10 a.m. so the pathologists could then look at slides and dictate the gross report. Doctors tried to get the gross reports back to us by 1 p.m. -- because they had to be typed by 3 p.m. so the doctors could sign the reports, and get them back to us so we could get them sorted and in the mail before we went home. In addition, we fielded phone calls, took messages for pathologists, searched for and mailed slides when other labs requested them, provided courier coverage to transport slides and things between our lab and hospital lab in the next building, and when we had a spare minute, we entered Pap smear results from precoded sheets used by the technicians reading the Pap smears (like between 10 a.m. and noon, if we had all the micro typed)!!! Every day was hurry up and meet this 2-hour deadline, then hurry to meet the next 2-hour deadline...

I learned a lot of terminology -- but I would have to be very hungry to do it again. It is hard to describe or comprehend a pathology secretary job unless you have actually been there, done that -- you will either love it or hate it... good luck.
I've been in MT for 20 years. Started out in the office at a hospital.

Switched to working for services from home for a while and now I work for the same hospital I started out at, but I work from home now.  So I guess you can say I've come full circle and now I'm back where I started.  I much prefer being an employee of a hospital versus an IC or employee of an MTSO.


It may be that your user profile in EXText is not set up to allow you to add normals.  I've found with services they don't give their MTs a whole lot of freedom with their software.   


Does your hospital have a Risk Management team or office? Contact them. (nm)
.
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.
And you'll almost never get just Op notes. Probably get mixed acute care - op notes, discharge su
s
65 character line versus gross lines versus pay by word

I am checking into other options for transcription.  Can anyone tell me how to compare all of these types of lines & also payment per word?  I know companies use different scales, so I wondered how they compare.  I have been paid on a 65 character line with spaces, but I may be making a change in the future - don't want to get burned.


Thank you in advance!


Depends on what kind of hospital? Large urban hospital or small community hospital? SM

Also, is it a large teaching hospital? If so you have to consider there will be A LOT of different residents dictating, usually a lot of ESLs at teaching hospitals, and the residents rotate out and new ones rotate in every summer. So you can't expect to get the same dictators and build up your macros because the dictators change all the time.


I would say 9 cpl would be a pretty good offer for a small to medium community hospital where you will be doing the same dictators on a daily basis.  But for bigger, urban or teaching hospitals I would want at least 12 to 15 cpl. 


I should have specified, hospital inpatient coding and doc office coding are very different.
They follow different coding rules and an entirely different set of codes. I learned both while earning my B.S. in H.I.M., and both are challenging, though inpatient more so simply because there are more codes.
Honestly, you could get a job in a med rec dept without ANY certificate; some computer experience and your experience as an MT would get you in the door. It might just be doing chart assembly/completion, filing, etc., but there are certainly jobs in MR that don't require specific schooling. Then being in the dept you can really learn more about all the functions and pick the one you REALLY want to spend time, money, and effort on for additional schooling.
I generally...
ask for a manager on the spot.  If there isn't one there, I'll call back later and speak to one.  I, for one, believe in service with a smile.    I haven't had to, but I do think I would ask for the number and address of corporate, either to write a letter or call.  JMO, of course. 
Generally...
you are given the option of buying the modem or they will provide it.  It's cheaper to buy it yourself.  You will also need line filters, which allow the phone part of the connection to work.
Generally... sm
When they say 65 characters with spaces, it means that you count every letter you see and every space between those letters, and divide by 64, which equals a line.

Usually only up to 2 spaces between the period of one sentence to the beginning of the next sentence is counted, not a whole blank line at the end of a paragraph if that line is only a few characters.

Some companies pay for the actual ASCII character for the or , but that is company preference. You can come close to figuring with taking your total letters and punctuation plus spaces and divide by 65. That is the AAMT (or AHDI or whatever they call themselves these days!) standard and what I think most companies go by when they say 65 characters plus spaces.

If you're concerned about what your company counts or if you're not being counted correctly, just ask them what they count and how they count it, and then verify that that is what you come up with on your reports.

Hope this helps!
Generally...
....he will be paid within 2 months. Our biggest problem is we never know HOW MUCH the next check will be because it's never the full amount he billed them for. He's been doing this for 5 years. He really hates it, but he is a computer programmer, and most of the jobs are now overseas.
Question versus gross lines versus 65-character lines....

I have always charged or been paid by 65 or 60 character lines or per letter or space typed, but have never been paid or charged per gross line.


What is the advantage of this?  If I were to charge 11 cents per 65-character line including spaces, what does this figure out to for an average line rate and how do you do this calculation? 


I'm wondering if it is financially beneficial for me to bill by gross line or to keep it the way I have it.  I do know some accounts will only pay per 65-character line, as this was the deal my first own account I recently acquired.  They were adamant on a 65-character line, but didn't specify with or without spaces and I personally would never not charge for spaces.


Thanks for explaining this.  I appreciate it and hope everyone has a speedy day.


If you say you are generally happy with MDI
Why don't you just take up Liz on her offer to call her? Why come on here and go on so.

Though it seems you WANT to give constructive criticism, you really aren't.
It's probably not high, generally, but
if you're a single person with those expenses and work only as an MT, even for two more companies these days, it's HIGH.
Generally no emails
As an IC at a small MTSO, if there is very low workloads, there is usually no email. I thought this was strange myself, since if it was my company, I would be keeping my people closely updated and thinking about them and their needs and anticipating their questions and concerns. I would have to take the initiative to email asking "is there anything wrong?" or "is something the matter with such-and-such account?" or "is there a technical problem somewhere?" I would then get an email answering my question. I think it is impolite and unprofessional for a business not to keep their people closely posted and put them first.
GENERALLY speaking

first shift is 7 AM to 3 PM


second is 3 PM to 11 PM


third is 11 PM to 7 AM


this is general - it may be +/- an hour or two.


shift differential would probably be based on company policy.


Is satellite generally
a lot cheaper than DSL/cable? Personally, I get the creeps when I have to type during a thunderstorm. I'm afraid I'm going to be zapped in the ears with lightening!
A lot of companies are different but generally it is anywhere from
50-70% cut for VR.. Say you get 9 cpl for straight typing. You company might pay you 4.5 cpl or even 5 cpl. As a whole, if you get below 4 cpl, no matter what your base rate is for straight typing, I'd tell them to take a hike. I have been offered anywhere from 1.5 to 3 cpl in the past and just laughed. There NO way this is an acceptable and liveable wage no matter who you are. You could make more at McDonalds.
Is this generally a known slow...sm
time of year for MT?  I know I have heard some posters on here say this is the slow time of year.  I have only done this 1-1/2 years so I don't know really yet.  Is this a given for around the holidays to be real slow?  Do things usually pick up more after the holidays?   
We've all been there; if your work is generally
You want to hear something REALLY stoopid? When I first started working in a children's hospital as a newbie MT, for about six months I transcribed the abbreviation VSD as venereal sexual disease (not ventricular septal defect).  When I discovered my error, I went to my boss and confessed, fully expecting to be fired.  She was freaked but forgiving, and had a memo issued to the medical director so he could inform the doctors to look out for the error in all the charts they read; it turned out they had already done handwritten correction of most of the errors.  That was over 20 years ago but I still wince at how many babies have records of venereal disease because of that error.
Generally typing speed is

irrelevant, since the typical typing test usually involves straight copying from a printed or hand written sheet.  Any transcription involves other functions than just typing, hence the standard typing speed means nothing. 


 


The funeral home generally does
not hire MTs. The forensic pathologist hires the MT. You can ask the funeral home for a list of their doctors.
Sorry. I wasnt arguing with you. Im just generally
it just gets me p1ssed off, and then i start ranting!
Generally, I have more trouble with female dictators..

something about the tone of their voices is harder for me to understand


Question: doc dictates "pt is generally p***ed off."

I'm half tempted to type it just that way....Would you?


RE: Question: doc dictates "pt is generally p***ed off."
Yes, if physician said it, transcribe it exactly as dictated. What is the question concerning "pissed off", if I get the *** correct?
They generally are very active dogs who can develop
behavior problems.  Please do a Google search.  He should be excercised daily.  Again, please do a google search and learn as much as you can.  Talk to breeders, trainers, etc.  In the long run you (and he) will be much better off if you take the time now to research and spend the necessary money to learn training techniques.  You might find that it boils down to daily long, structured walks and then play.  You will do great!  Good luck! 
In the US, a business degree generally means an MBA...
That's a pretty good education, unless, of course, "business degree" means something different in India.
try rebooting, Control-Alt-Delete 2x to get it to do it generally- if you still have troubles it
could be a virus maybe?  Have virus protection on your computer, firewall? - Good luck.
I generally request 60 minutes of dictation for the weekend

Have most people had good luck with their MQ office closing and moving to the regional office. Have
things gotten better or worse for you.
Yes, I lost mine. I upgraded the Office 2000 package to Office 2003. sm
I have over 2000 autocorrect entries and lost them all as well as my supplemental dictionary for my Stedman's spellcheck. Lots of grief!

Maybe you will be lucky and not lose anything. Good luck to you.
Might be able to rent one from an office supply or office machine repair shop
s
I gave a tin of toffee for each office and a Lia Sophia necklace to each office manager. ~nm~
x
I gave a tin of toffee for each office and a Lia Sophia necklace to each office manager. ~nm~
x
trailer parks and low level housing is where criminals generally go.
not too many criminals have good jobs to afford a nice house. i know of child molester filled neighborhood because there are no restrictions, no HOA and the houses are low income homes. no this doesn't only happen in trailer parks but crime statistically happens more often in worse neighborhoods and more ex-criminals statistically live in lower level neighborhoods.
Do you think doctors are generally arrogant and make a lot of money and so inconsiderate of us?
I had been listening to several breast onco dictations by the same female dictator who kept on yawning that it was so annoying...made me want to post a complaint to a forum of mother MDs (though I was not quite sure where I would post it) which I previously run into...

I then saw under the General Discussion board this thread:

http://www.mommd.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/1/t/000236/p/1

That made me feel like reaching out to the sleepy doctor who was probably not being paid for that time she takes to dictate about her patients (she apparently let them pile up before dictating) and just let her head rest on my lap (I am a female). Maybe she did not have enough sleep, or not even enough time to enjoy her family...
Office politics. That is why I enjoy working at home. In the office,
people are in other people business. Just mind your own business.