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Hi! Went through a similar thing at a smaller community hospital....sm

Posted By: CindiRI on 2007-10-25
In Reply to: asking a question - knittngranny

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!


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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. 


Hospital with many smaller satellite clinics associated with it
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.
I had a similar experience, had a cow when I got the bill from the hospital - sm
I did not know I needed PERMISSION to go the ER (any ER).....I had taken a bad fall while skiing (back in 1995) and had my friends drop me off at the ER when we got home as my leg was killing me and I had hit my head too. Got a bill for $1500 or so saying it had been denied. I promptly called up the insurance company found out my "error", explaining that I did not know I needed to get "authorized" before a trip to the ER, etc. I had to go through a little red tape but was able to get them to resubmit it and have insurance pay for it. --So it may take a couple phone calls and maybe a letter, but it is worth the effort!
We had similar at our hospital but there were 2800 employees SM

so they did drawings. The party was given for us by the doctors, and paid for out of their pockets.


Great food, a lot of fun.


But the best was our department Christmas party - pot luck, Director playing Santa and we drew names. Some of my fondest memories.


Similar thing with me.
I now work as an IC for 8 cpl and used to work as an employee for 7.5 cpl. I made more per year at 7.5 cpl because now I have to use a different word processor and have to format the work to be ready to print. At the other company I just typed. I did not have to worry about page numbers, page setup or anything like that.
I just had to do similar thing to someone...
first night on the job I never got the voice files. Second night we had horrible horrible storms and I couldn't finish. I was wrong in that I should have let her know earlier that I was not going to be able to finish but it was my intent right up until I heard buzzing in my headset from the lightning to try to get it all done.

The woman I was contracting from seemed nice and sincere. I am not a newbie but I appreciated that she gave me an account (a great one, I loved it!) to work on. I would never steal her account. But sometimes things happen and sometimes we do not handle them as well or as professionally as we should.

I hope she is not passing my name around. Maybe one day she might be the one who has some problems and then compounds them with a mistake.
Similar thing happened to us......
We then get a letter from Fidelity telling us the same thing. First of all, who puts all that personal information in a laptop? That should never be allowed. And then they offer a 1 year from Equifax.....whooopeee!!! If your identify is stolen, good luck trying to get Equifax or anyone else to believe you didn't screw up your credit. These companies should have their feet held to the fire.....this is absolutely ludicrous to have this personal info on a laptop.
Okay.. just give us a clue..does it start with a T... because I had a similar thing happened to me a
them...I got the dumbest excuse ever.. I dont trust that.
Same thing happened at the hospital I worked onsite with, yet
the boss definitely knew this was going on because at least on the software we had and yours probably too, the boss can run all kinds of reports, such as what time the jobs came in, in what order, what time they were transcribed, who transcribed etc. You can cross-reference these too and see that a certain person is going way out of order and doing their own thing. The boss most certainly knows this is going on and in my opinion, (having been management myself), was probably fishing to see how much you knew... when she asked or toyed with the issue in your conversation. In my case, the boss knew the person was taking all the ops normals, it was even brought out at a meeting by another gutsy MT but guess who got the brunt of it? The people who were upset by it, and of course the person who spoke up. I am not saying you shouldn't be upset, and I am not saying you aren't right. I am just saying to bide your time and see what happens. Karma will indeed come into play most definitely. And if the boss is sheltering a cheater, well most likely at the right time the cheater and the boss will get it. In our case, I don't know if the person ever got caught because she outlived most of us, LOL, she and the boss were best of friends. But I do believe Karma is still in play even when we aren't there to see it...just hang in there, do what you believe is right and you will be A-OK. Life is too short to worry about anything but the good which will come your way. Good luck!
I used to think smaller was better
I took a job with a small MTSO who offshores.... they added to my responsibilities w/o extra pay and THEN had the gonads to cut my pay. They said "sorry" but we are a small company and making some adjustments. I'm like dumbfounded.
Smaller
Left big national for smaller company in October and I LOVE it!  They actually know me! 
You have to go outside the community....
nm
No, it is not w/ Medquist. It is w/ a smaller co. nm
/
$18.5K two smaller nationals. nm
x
I would, but they ran out all the smaller businesses here. nm
..
10 is smaller not larger than 12, so it would be more than 65 cpl- nm
xx
Smaller companies that pay better...
If you guys know any names of smaller/mid sized companies that pay much better and are better all around, PLEASE give out some names - it's really hard to know which ones are the good ones unless we have word of mouth! Please :)
smaller MTSO
I once worked for a very small MTSO in their office. They were in a suite. But they were located in a metropolitan area, very busy. At the end of my second week of employment with them, the CEO walked by the office I was working in and conveniently said VERY LOUDLY that a "certain medical center" (account I was solely working on) owed the company over $30,000. This was before I received my first paycheck. I was stunned. How's that for shock value? I received my check in a timely fashion and it did not bounce. However, CEO was sure to let me know of HIS SITUATION.
Smaller nationals are way to go...
It seems you get treated like dirt by the large nationals, i.e., Medquist, Spheris, no communication, etc. Many experienced MTs have gone the way of smaller national companies simply because of the better communication among employer and employee, more warmth among the company, etc. Spheris tries to give off this impression they are a warm company much thanks to the CEO, but the organization itself is not a good employer to work for.
I want to look into Smaller Nationals.

I am hoping to get some names of some good Small National companys to work for. 


Thanks in advance for your help!


Many smaller companies - to name a few... sm
Health Information Partners, TTS, OSI, there are many many others.
regarding smaller font
I will type in any size font that they want, use what ever margins that they want but when I do my line count I change the document back to Courier 12 and use my usual margins.  I tell them up front that my charge per line is on Courier 12 with 1" margins on sides.  No one has every questioned me for this.  They can have as many characters they want on a line in whatever font that they want but not for my line count.  Saves me on my sticky paper and so I don't care.  But have been doing this for years and am very upfront about what my definition of a line is and yes I do gross lines. 
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!
it is usually because they used it in a smaller screen
Open it up, click on the large square in the upper right hand corner next to the X for closing it, so that it is enlarged.  Then close it, and it should open to the full screen the next time.  Most all software will open in the same size that it was closed in the last time.  Hope this helps. 
Maybe a smaller company would be a better fit. sm
I know many MTs need health benefits, but if you can swing it, try the smaller or medium size companies. Most likely you will have the same account and dictators every day.
Community hospitals
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.
Keep looking, but find a smaller company.

The smaller ones have better accounts, useful macros and expansions, decent line rates, nice supervisors/owners, but probably IC with no benefits.  I don't care about that as long as I can crank out the lines in a small amount of time.


Yep, she needed something that was smaller than the cigarette.
For sure!!!!
Who is to say that these people are pillars of the community?
x
USA Type, smaller companies...sm
the larger nationals suck big time, they ALL stink IMHO. I have NOT found one good national since YOG. Transhealth is okay, but it takes forever to get started with them, AND...lots of awful ESLs, but the sound quality was good, but I didn't stay. too many different docs, I am too old and tired for that and working on complicated platforms, Give me an MTSO who uses plain old word or WP and wav files.
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.


Kathryn looked a little smaller????
x
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 want an ergo keyboard but I cannot seem to get used to the smaller (sm)

shift key on the righthand side of the keyboard.  I keep hitting the keys beside or below it.  Do you eventually get used to it?  Right now I am looking at the Goldtouch and the Kinesis Maxium.   Would appreciate anyone's input. 



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.
making the font smaller
does change the line count for those of us who are paid on a gross line. On a character count line, there is no difference.
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?!!
Yes, but you'll probably need to find a smaller MTSO.
Put your resume in the MTstars resume database specifically stating what you're looking for. The smaller MTSOs usually don't put ads in because they don't want to be bombarded with hundreds of resumes. If you leave your info, they'll come to you. I had three independent contractor "p.r.n." or "very part-time positions" this past summer, so the positions are out there. Then I figured since I was already putting in 30 hours between the three, why not just work 20+ hours as an employee? So I am. Good luck with it!
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!