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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

I ask the physicians! Haven't had one yet

Posted By: JoV on 2006-06-20
In Reply to: cost of transcription - Ruth

who didn't tell me what they were already being charged. You should be able to call the MT department at your hospital and ask around there too.


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You are so right. Its up to the physicians and
also your local competition. Its all about offering the physicians something better than the competition - better rates, better TAT, and if your competitors are certified, you can bet that's part of their "sell"...But you could never predict the certified issue until you check the waters. Good luck to you! Its not that hard to pick up a local account or two. Enjoy!
Do you think ER physicians actually do as thorough
a physical exam as they dictate or do you think they fabricate a lot of the details of the physical exam?
Not all physicians are like that .....sm
I work for very generous, kind and caring orthopedic surgeons who see patients, with little to no income, and charge them nothing. They ask for no payment and nothing in return. These docs would give you the shirt off their back.

Not every physician cares only about money.
It is bad enough for the ESL physicians but
today I had an ESL PA dictating and when she dictates hypertension she says hypertensions, as in the patient has hypertensions and heart disease is diseases and lukemia is well you catch how it goes EXCEPT if you have the patient's wife, then she says the patient wife or the patient daughter. I am TICKED
Is it just me, or are physicians getting worse
with dictation. I transcribe several that use speaker phones to dictate. I think ER docs are the worst. Not only do they use the speaker phone, but that talk at a rate of about 150 miles per hour. Do they not realize (or maybe they just don't care) how difficult they are to transcribe. I really don't understand why the companies we work for allow this.
About incompetent physicians...
Yes, they are definitely out there and getting scarrier day by day. Actually, the great majority of them are quite pathetic.
local physicians

I was wondering if any one knows if local physicians would rather hire certified MT to do their work from home.  I am thinking about supplementing my income with a national and wondering if this would be a good way to go.  Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated!!


Prospecting physicians??

I currenlty have one account of my own and am an IC through a very small local transcription company.  However, I want more of my own accounts.  I have sent letters and am willing to do more.  Does anyone have any idea on what it takes to "land" an account?  Thanks so much for any ideas/help/suggestions!!


Physicians by State
www.healthcarehiring.com.  Scroll down to the bottom and you'll find all of the states.  This is a great site to search by state, and you can search by specialty even within that state.  It is in alphabetical order, which is very, very helpful.  I love this site myself and use it every day.  
Yep, been there,done that. Many physicians today
have gone to EMR. I talked with one not long ago who said I needed to find another line of work since EMR is replacing the MT. Even my own personal physician uses EMR.

We are either being replaced with technology (EMR or VR)or work is going offshore. Somehow for me, editing is really not something I am interested in, as I would rather transcribe.

Hopefully, others here will be able to direct you and encourage you, perhaps giving you ideas of how you can obtain clients. Much success in whatever path you choose.
We have many Muslim physicians in the US.
Would you be so quick to condemn someone who had a problem with "We took a moment to praise to Allah"? Would you be as tolerant as you claim to be in that situation?
The physicians used to have to be bribed
to come in and dictate charts, have seen for myself. I would love to know how it went from not wanting to dictate to suddenly everyone getting out their EMRs and typing away.
My take on how these physicians dictate
I question and I mean question about every day whether the person coming in as physician is really that. I have 1 that basically cannot string a sentence together, changes sentences 3, 4 or 5 times each sentence. I have physicians who pull the same stuff, going several paragraphs down and then asking you to add or delete something. I get really ticked when I hear all this and don’t hold my cool. The person in the room with me usually hears my ranting and raving. It is hard enough to get through the ESLs, mumbling, crunching, snorting, eating, sucking, sniffing, sorting papers and the list goes on without putting up with this. One change that was made at the hospital I work for was to tell dictators they could NOT use a cell phone to dictate. It worked. I only wish I were in charge so I could tell them more about how to dictate!
I've found that most physicians who
dictate at such a ridiculous pace are trying to make up for other deficiencies....you know like "male menopause" where the older guy goes out and buys an expensive sports car, etc., etc.  Seems most of the speeders on my account are DOs, NOT MDs.....guess they feel inferior in some way. 
Physicians are willing to share their knowledge with (sm)

anyone who will listen.  They love young bright eyed students. I expected the MT world to be just like medicine.  


Why is cost the only issue? It is unprofessional to only think about money. What about pride in the profession and wanting to share knowledge? Isn't that how professions advance and grow? 


I am surprised.


 


 


 


State Licensure for physicians
I use the State licensing agency for whatever state the physician is in.  I just Google State License or Health State licenses and it brings that particular website up and then I do a search.  Great Tool!
When do physicians give feedback to MTs?
x
I have heard American physicians say that. What is the
big deal? You know what they mean.
A lot of physicians refer to their patients
as heterosexual or having same sex partners, it is very relevant in some aspects, as in exposure to AIDS/HIV, etc.
physicians pinching pennies
while making over $100K a year (after insurance premiums), for a service that is tax deductable.... they really dont have a clue...
To my knowledge, you can't print the physicians'....sm
list and I doubt they are in there by specialty, too. You can print the contents of your ESP file if you save it to your desktop and then print it. Hope this helps.
There are no dictators, physicians, nurses, PAs or the like
who don’t dictate on the VR I use, wish I did not have the crap dictators as you call them but they are not left out on my end. I really, really hate it now when I do get a straight report to type I am so happy with the VR I do. I think before long most big places will go that route, little ones not so much as I think VR costs quite a bit.
A great site for referring physicians

that includes credentials and you can search by state is:


http://www.healthcarehiring.com/physician_pennsylvania.php


Down at the bottom you can change the state.  I have used this site quite a bit. 


 


Good gried!!! Plenty of physicians
mispronounce terminology, medications, etc. that they are not familiar with in their specialities. Get a life and find something worthwhile to gripe about. Did you understand what they meant? Apparently so, so just do the work.
Physicians and caring or lack thereof

recently I have experienced both sides of this aspect.  In January I was hospitalized for asthma by my then family physician.  I had been to him 3 times in the month before that with problems but he made no effort to adjust meds, etc.  About a month later, he walks into his office and tells his staff today is your last day. I'm closing the office. 


I got strep throat and went to a different doctor.  She was absolutely the best.  She looked at ME while she was in the room, not at the chart or her PDA in her hand (like the first doctor used to do).  She talked to ME.  Asked ME questions and answered any I had.  asked about allergies (which I have many). The first doctor tried to give me medicine I was allergic to (and he had been told multiple times).  Two weeks ago I was hospitalized through the emergency room with another asthma attack (brought on by the flu).  My new doctor sat down beside me in the room. Talked to me.  Got a very detailed history.  Explained what tests she was going to do.  Explained the results of what tests had already been done.  Told me she was going to refer me to a pulmonologist to evaluate if my meds need tweaking.  Even asked me which one I preferred based on how my insurance would pay.   I have only seen her in the office twice and then while hospitalized and I already feel more at ease and reassured that 2 years of using the other doctor. 


Also, at work this past week a patient was admitted after lunch.  Because the patient had missed the noon meal, the PHYSICIAN went to the cafeteria and bought lunch for the patient and took it to him.  Now THAT is a physician that cares about the welbeing of their patient!


I wish all doctors could be like these two - both of them female!  Maybe it has something to do with our nurturing instincts! 


I have to agree. I would be uneasy having some ESLs as my physicians - sm
at times, too, for that same reason -- I've seen too many errors creep into the medical record because of the language barrier (though I would place equal, or greater, blame upon the MTs and/or QA who allowed it to happen through the "god help us, we can't have a blank so fill that blank with SOME kind of word, quickly!" mindset).

I once had an ESL psychiatrist who had a terribly thick accent. After doing hundreds of his reports I would still have a difficult time understanding him at times, yet when he was interviewing his patients and they didn't follow the conversation well he would often enter that into the record by saying that "the patient had a difficult time understanding this examiner and following the conversation" ... well, h--l, anyone would, doc.
I'm sorry, but the physicians are supposed to review the medical records for
accuracy, then sign off on them.  THEY are the people who went to medical school, did their internship, and actually saw the patients.  THEY know what they were trying, often badly, to say.  THEY are the ones making the big bucks.  NOT US.  We go to maybe a year-long correspondence school, make crappy money, and watch our butts spread wider every day while we TYPE, yes, I said TYPE, medical records for them.  Anyone who thinks it's more than that is kidding themselves.  And save your speeches on patient care and work ethics.  I know all about that stuff.  The harsh reality is that this job does not require a college education to get into, and your income is tied to your production level.  The doctors don't care enough about the medical records to speak slowly, enunciate, and double check everything before signing off.  How are we supposed to read their minds?  Anyone in this field who knows more than grammar and medical terminology ought to be working as an RN or MD, because you'd be better at it than half the medical providers we type for.
switchboard.com is another good site for finding physicians
x
Many physicians in my area don't want to take Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare
or other insurances because the insurance companies require a huge buydown of charges and then disallow quite a bit for being "above the reasonable amount."

For example, I had double insurance of Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Tricare when I had surgery. The bills totaled $15,000. Blue Cross knocked $5,000 off the physician's $7,800 bill, paid him $600 and left Tricare and me to deal with the $1,200 balance. Tricare wouldn't pay because they disallowed the amount as unreasonable, the physician's office forced me to make payments on it, and I had to fight just so I didn't owe them another $1,200. It was ridiculous that I had double insurance coverage and wound up owing anything. Meanwhile, the doctor didn't even get paid that much, and he did my presurgery appointments, the actual surgery, two postsurgery appointments to remove hardware, plus coordinating everything between cardiology, radiology, anesthesia, laboratory, surgery, and having special equipment trucked in from out of state.

If I had not had insurance at all, I would have had to pay the entire amount. I think it's crazy that noninsureds have to pay the full amount but insurance companies can disallow or buy down the amounts due. Anyway, you hit a big rant of mine. Shortly after I lost my Blue Cross coverage, my son needed to be seen but we couldn't find a provider to even take Tricare at all. So much for my husband serving his country and being away from his family in the line of duty. The doctors get rich and refuse to treat military personnel who fight for their freedom. Talk about a total lack of appreciation.
Same situation here. When worked in-house or for physicians offices,

never as much as a single episode of no work available.  Much to my dismay, I have found out that MTing from home for a nation is so unpredictable, in so far as what your paycheck is going to be every week or 2.  They all say "there is plenty of work," which is probably factual.  However, the nationals are primarily interested in pleasing the client with their promised swift turn-around-times.  What they forget is that if it weren't for the MTs, there would be no turn-around-time whatsoever.  It's really very discouraging and quite unfair.  Most people try to adhere to their monthly budget, which is impossible when one never knows how much they are going to make from one week to the next. We ARE the providers, not peeons, and resent being treated as such.   


 


Does anyone know where to find a listing of the V.A. Medical Center physicians?
Thanks for the help.
Medicare is offering free installation of EMR to physicians and hospitals.
http://www.medscape.com/px/instantpollservlet/result?PollID=1502
I also have two offices w/mult physicians on tapes, but going digital this month (sm)
at my encouragement.  I am training them with a consulting fee by the hour.  They were resistant, very old fashioned, but after multiple problems with a few docs dictating over each other's tapes, and the cost of gas, paper, and everything else... I encouraged this.  In fact one service just added another physician and I told them I could not handle their transcription anymore, but they said whatever I can do to continue, so we are going digital and longer turn-around time.  It will be a time saver and more cost effective for me right away. I will still be going in to the offices probably twice a month because I feel the personal touch is really important.  I also work PT for a national, by my choice, as I feel it keeps me on my toes with different types of transcription.  Also the national is a guaranteed paycheck via direct deposit every 2 weeks, whereas my own customers, thought good money, well sometimes they are late. 
They are physicians, not grammarians. I transcribe it so it is grammatically correct, but my accoun

The MR reports were being filed. Referring physicians/medical care providers reports were not.
This is a hospital radiology department with in-house MTs and a clerk who is in charge of the report distribution.
Any tips for finding a good alphabetized list of physicians in a certain state? Not finding very
s
Haven't actually done it yet, but...
I have been wanting to do it and had looked it to it several years ago.  I do believe that old concrete has to be etched first in order to open up the "pores."  I was looking at using a concrete "stain" I believe it was made by Behr brand and was sold at Home Depot.  It comes in lots of colors. It was my understanding that the etching and then the stain would basically allow the color to soak into the concrete rather than sit on top like paint and wouldn't have the problems with peeling.  However, unfortunately, I haven't tried it yet but just wanted to offer another suggestion for you to look into.  Good luck!
I haven't but my son did. sm

If you feel okay, it's probably a muscle or even an intestinal cramp.  If you start to feel sick, or even just lousy, or the pain intensifies and you start to feel feverish, you should spend the $100.00. 


My son was 16 and he was very, very sick. It came on in the middle of the night very quickly. He finally yelled to me at 5:00 in the morning because he couldn't get out of bed.  He said he thought he had food poisoning and had been vomiting all night and his stomach hurt really bad.  Just one look at him (greyish/green pallor) and I knew it was bad. We went right to the ER and the nurse came right out and got him as soon as the front desk person took one look at him. Paperwork was done later as he was prepped for surgery.


It wasn't a half hour before he was in surgery to remove his appendix that was about to burst. 


He was really sick. I had a friend who just had hers out. She didn't wait as long, but she really felt horrid.


I haven't gone through it or know anyone who has
the best. I hope the lump turns out not to be cancer.

take care.
I haven't gotten anything either.
x
NEW HAVEN, CT
NO MESSAGE
still haven't gotten over
yummy, yummy, yummy
Haven't had one but....
I've been with several others who have had, conscious sedation is much less risky and each time the patient recovered extremely quickly, no discomfort or side effects.
I haven't seen anything less than
3-4 cpl and most are only offering 1-2 cpl. Maybe if you are lucky, you can get an hourly gig.
Who knows - you may be right. I haven't - sm
run two operating systems at the same time, but anything is possible these days! I do have duplicate other software that I run because I don't like what came with the PC. For example, my old Photoshop instead of Windows' version; two different spam blockers & firewalls, and I use an old external Iomega drive & Iomega software for burning CDs because the Windows one doesn't work half the time. One thing I've learned about computers over the years is you shouldn't always take "no" for an answer with them. In the PC world, "no" usually means "find another way to do it." ;D
I haven't seen much about them lately, but if you
check the company board you can find info there.  Doesn't appear to be very good though. 
Your right TMT...those who haven't done it, don't get it..
I have been an MT for 10 years and have been home with both of my children and my work doesn't suffer nor do my children...don't take what others say personally...they don't know your or your situation :)
I haven't taken it yet,
but I did take the RMT back in January. I am scheduled for the CMT at the end of June.

One of my supervisors suggested learning all 12 cranial nerves. I printed them out and stuck them on the wall next to my bathroom to study while teeth-brushing. Now that's what I call multitasking. :)

Other than that, it has been suggested to study the various word parts, prefixes and suffixes and roots, because if you get those down cold, you can muddle your way through words that you don't actually know the meaning of. Medicolegal stuff is also something that gets pointed out as a thing to study.

I have heard several people recommend the CMT study guide. I am working my way through it now.

And know your BOS cold. Second edition; they haven't switched to third edition yet for the exam.

One of my co-workers talked to someone at AHDI who told her you only have to get half of the transcription section correct (and that's supposedly the easier part), and you have to get 62 of the 102 multiple choice questions right. That figure will come in handy when you are actually taking the test, because you can mark questions to come back to, and if you keep track of how many questions you KNOW you have correct (i.e. the real no-brainers), you can actually run a calculation to figure out how many questions you can afford to "throw" and thus not spend TOO much time or energy obsessing on the ones you aren't sure about.

Also, be very careful on the transcription portion, to follow the instructions exactly. For instance, if a particular problem is a "fill in the missing phrase" problem, if there are commas and periods and other punctuation marks already supplied, do NOT repeat them. In other words, your finished sample should look exactly like a normal piece of finished work. For more info about this, visit the CMT page of the AHDI website and take a look at the "candidate guide," starting on page 9.

Above all... remember to BREATHE! It's not so bad. Really. At least the RMT wasn't; I finished the whole thing in slightly under an hour, and walked out of the place muttering that I've done harder work than that in my sleep.

Feel free to e-mail me if you have any other questions. I am crankybeach at yahoo dot com.
I'm very sorry, (), I haven't been around a while.
First, I admit I don't use AutoCorrecct so I can't speak to that. It's far better than nothing, but it's just not a professional-level application adequate to the intensive use we need to put it to. Also, it can crash with overuse and lose everything invested in it.

Shorthand and InstantText are two excellent programs, and I recommend them both to anyone looking for an expander.

IMO, it's not at all true that we need our Expanders very little with editing--just the opposite. I can understand why people think so, though. Very little is being said on this because it's all such new technology and there's not been a lot of experience built up. We're the first wave. But toss that defeatest belief aside. You keystroke all day long. If you could cut your Keystrokes by half you'd double your income. Even cutting them by a third... This is very, very doable.

Editing consists of corrections, many of them very short but done hundreds of times a day. If you can use your Expander to shorten a 6-stroke correction to a smoother and shorter 3-stroke correction, you're doubling your rate of pay every time you use it for those keystrokes. And feeling a whole lot happier about what you're doing--it's a significant upgrade in your skills and you're breezing through reports much faster. I just happen to feel like I'm going backwards when I use my backspace key, so I don't. Every use it's put to is part of a short form, and that key is seldom touched.

Corrections come in various types--

Changing the case of a letter or word. For me, F changes the case of the letter it's in front of, lantus to Lantus, Ampicillin to ampicillin. FF changes the case of the whole word.

Adding a word, words, or phrases not included. Deleting words not dictated and replacing with those that are.


In editing it's typically much less a matter of dropping in whole blocks of text and instead correcting lots of individual words and phrases--make abbreviations for ALL of them. mk abrevjs l AL o uem. (l is my short for FOR, o is OF, u is short for TH in a word but short for HER on its own).

The same for little short phrases--iort is in order to. beo because of. epld is was placed (E is my short for WAS). Store ALL of them.

Correcting punctuation. I have macros for every one that pops up all day long. ,q backs up, deletes a punctuation mark, replaces it with a comma, and repositions the cursor at the next word--without changing the case of that word. ,, does the same thing but changes the case of the next word to combine two sentences into one.

Making these was as simple as recording the keystrokes of the correction into my expander as I did them for the last time.

bb links two words together so they don't split at the end of a line.

Correcting verb tenses and word endings. qd backs up, inserts ed, then repositions at the next word. qdd does the same thing but backs two spaces to deletes a letter (looks to looked).

Correcting headings. /abq moves "abdomen" in the middle of a block of text to the beginning of the next line and changes it to ABDOMEN: //abq does the same but also bolds it.

Correcting gender. R is my abbreviation for he, and rq corrects her to he. kq changes "he" to "she."

kt adds a "The" to the beginning of a sentence and changes the previously-first word to lower case. Same for ka for adding A to the beginning of a sentence, kit for It, kk for She.

;;3 and ;;4 change prednisone, loratidine to
3. Prednisone.
4. Loratidine.

At the very least (ah vr lest) shorten words to phonetic spellings--fonetc spelgs.

Far from not using my expander as I edit all day long, any time I make a correction that doesn't have a short form I feel as if I'm making a mistake. Surely there's SOME way I can save at least one keystroke there?

This may sound like a lot, but it's so FUN and satisfying to make an important short form and start using it. Would any of us ever want to go back to typing out chronic obstructive pulmonary disease by hand again instead of copdd or whatever the short form of choice is? It's the very same thing. Just applied to everything.

Best wishes.
I haven't been there that long so I can't say for sure, mostly because
the account they put me on is extremely low on work so I can't even work my scheduled shift in the first place. If I want to work, I've been having to grab reports right as they come in and work extra at night. They keep saying they are getting me a secondary but it hasn't happened yet; say everything is low right now. I am very pleased with every other aspect of this company, but it seems that they overstaff for fast turn around times. Therefore, you go without work a lot of the time and that doesn't pay the bills. No one seems to understand that we work on production and while I would most enjoy days off, I can't afford them......
..oops! Should be haven't seen one...nm
,