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I rarely use books any longer....sm

Posted By: I mainly use the Web....highway of info....*S* on 2006-05-17
In Reply to: What reference do you use the most on a daily basis? SM - Acute Care MT

However, I would get Vera Pyle's Med. Term book, Ellen Drake Sloane's Medical Word Book, and Claudia Tessier's Surgical Word Book.  Also Quik-Look Drug Book.  This is only if you are still using books 24/7/365.  The web has faster access in my opinion.   




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Rarely use any books anymore. I use Google.
nm
FYI I HAVE reference books, but in case you hadn't noticed, thing change a lot faster than BOOKS
I was simply asking for suggestions of other places on line that I might look for the latest info, especially considering that my work is on the internet, what the hell is wrong with trying to be more productive and efficient?!?! Good Grief!!
I prefer books. I'm kinda old school. I like to be able to write new terms in my books. I do

have Stedman's Medical Dictationary on CD and I do use it quite a bit, but that's more because the actual print dictionary is so darn heavy to pick up and look a word up!


I rarely get to do them
I would love to type OPs. I rarely get to do them and like with anything, you don't use it you lose it but most places I work someone has been there longer and knows all the docs who can fly on OPs and that's who gets to do the OPs.
I try to keep in practice with doing it all and really hate to be limited to one type of report.

I'm rarely on here lately because of schedules ...
I work when I want to so stick it if you don't like it! Hahaha
I also use Ask.com, I love OPs but get them rarely, sm
make good money though.
I rarely use my Stedmans
Its so much easier just to type in what your looking for!  I must have 20 books just sitting on my shelf!
it's rarely offered anymore, thanks to the

AAMT. They started the whole problem, and then they bailed out after everybody decided it was the most honest method to determine what a "real line" was.

But there's still a way to break even. Go to this web site:  http://www.medicalese.org/line_count.html

Figure out what you want to bill for gross lines. That would be under the 45 cpl column (trust me on this ... I did stats for years when I was billing for gross lines). Compare it to what you would get paid if you billed for a 65-char line and that's what you want to be paid.

IOW, if you want to make 9 cpl for gross lines, under the 45 line length column it would be $200. Go over to the 65-char line and see how close you can match things up. It's 13 cpl = $200.00. That's what you want to make the same amount.


I rarely watch TV, much too busy. nm
 
I rarely, if ever, use the 2nd Edition. So nope, I have
X
My phone rarely (if ever) rings, but my -
cat is constantly interrupting me, getting in front of my monitor to get attention. Either that, or she'll sit in the kitchen and yowl until I come out to see what on earth is wrong - only to find she's all bummed out because there's a single cat-hair floating in her water dish. :/
This is true. I work for the Q -rarely run out
of work (live in CA). And by the way, I would get paid my benefit rate (which is at least twice the CA min wage. I always thought this was why I never got NJA. But at the same time, I know they would love it if I quit.

We try to set good examples for our kids. We rarely

drink, don't have alcohol in the house except for cooking wine/sherry, don't smoke, don't do drugs, are honest, hard working people.  My oldest son has "friends" who smoke, who put vodka in their Coke cans, cuss, steal, etc.  My son is a good kid and no I'm not naive and he isn't doing this stuff behind my back because we spend lots of time together.   My son is a health freak and won't allow anyone to smoke around him.  We've also tried to explain to him that even if he isn't drinking if someone he is with is caught drinking then he is guilty by association and he knows he needs to avoid these kids.  He has come home before upset that kids were using seriously foul language.  The "F" word at our house is spelled f-a-r-t. 


We live in a country club community.  The kids around here get new cars when they turn 16.  The parents don't keep up with their kids, just give them money.   My son has to earn his car with saving $$, keeping out of trouble, and good grades.  I don't keep tabs on him 24/7, but I know where he is at ALL times so that if I need to find him I can.  He even asks me if he can get on-line so I know he isn't using the computer for porn.  He is concerned that he doesn't have enough testosterone because he isn't wanting to sleep with anything that stays still long enough.  Don't know that his friends are, but they talk a good talk anyway.  


I think you are wise to be concerned and just need to keep open communication with your kids and hope that he makes good choices.  My son was a follower when he was younger and I had serious concerns about how he would be growing up, but now he has become a leader and I'm very proud of him because so far he is making good choices. 


Same here, I like operative notes, but rarely get them, by the end of the day (see inside)
I am fuming. I make more money on operative notes and am motivated. Discharge summaries are hard to make money on for me, as they are all different.

I am actively looking for another job. I am not one to job hop. I just cant see feeling like this all day long. Good luck.
Millions may have learned it, but rarely perfectly.
And learning it and speaking it are two different things. Lyndia makes a great point.

A pet peeve of mine is American arrogance in the sense that most of us don't really know a second language. Maybe we had some in high school, but most of the people I know speak one language, American English, and that's it. So we don't know how it is but we bash others for not learning it perfectly.

I don't mind the ESLs who try hard to communicate. I get ticked at the ones who don't care, and I think most would agree that it's obvious who those are by their dictation and their patient rapport.
I rarely have expander blips now that I use marker keys.
xx
I remember all that, too. The parents rarely, if ever, questioned the teacher or the principal.

I wonder what the change is?  Do we parents have egos because now most of us have as much education as teachers do?  Are we unwilling to sit back and never question "authority figures"?  Do we remember being wronged in our own childhoods, so we're quick to defend?


I try not to be a buttinsky at my kids' schools, but sometimes I just don't agree with how they're doing things there.  One day, three bigger boys with bad home lives and a history of fighting jumped my son, who is the most peaceful kid you've ever met.  Two of them held him down while the third one was on top of him punching and kicking him.  My son had to bite the kids to get them off of him.  He was cut, bruised, and had a bloody nose.  Guess who got punished?  My son did, for biting.  I called the cops and intervened at the school because my son has my full permission to defend himself against bullies, especially on a 3-on-1 situation.


I also remember being punished for things at school when I did nothing wrong, then my parents punished me a second time because of what the teacher said.  I got detention for sneezing in class once.  One of my teachers publicly humiliated me and threatened to pull me out of all the advanced classes if I didn't publicly apologize to another teacher when I wasn't even the one who said whatever it was she was upset about.  One of my male teachers actually picked up a student and slammed him into the chalkboard, ripping the kid's shirt off in the process.  So yes, I'm going to stay on the schools and make sure my kids aren't hassled by any burnt out teachers who are just biding their time until retirement.  My kids aren't angels, but they're not demon spawn either.


My clients hold the work for me. Of course, I rarely take off unless I'm sick. What's a vacati

I have one client for 11 years, another one for 15 years. They wait...they don't want anyone else doing their work. Are they spoiling me or am I spoiling them? My vacations consist of a 2 day fishing trip. One day to the site, 1/2 day fishing, and back home again.


If I'm sick, they understand. I still do the work, but at a pace that won't make me sicker. I sually catch up in a couple days.


Been paying aol since ྛ!! on BYOA now for kids limits, rarely use though

Offshore work is rarely client ready. Who is going to edit
p p
I've been on Escription for four years and I have rarely hit 2500 lines a day..
Yes, when I have good reports I can do 500 lines an hour, but unfortunately, that does not happen consistently in my day. I can cruise along for a few hours and then hit some ESLs, which just mentally slows me down and then I struggle the rest of the day. If, I was able to sit there 8 hours straight NO interruptions or breaks and easy reports, then I could hit 2500 lines but that is not my reality. Some of the reports are good but I'm telling you.. A LOT of them have to retyped, thus slowing your line count down an hour..and you've just basically done straight typing for a mere 4 cpl.  I truly think that editing needs to pay more. I am like you.. I am requiring at least $100 a day.. sometimes I can do it in 6 hours (no breaks and good reports) and sometimes for various reason I have to sit there 12-15 hours (interupptions, ESL, and just bad reports)..So add that up..$100 in 12-15, that's like $8 an hour.. Wal-mart here I come LOL
My earnings are very similar to shipaddict. Really good week I can top $1000 but rarely. nm
;
Means gross line is a good way to get paid, but is rarely offered anymore. nm
s
The longer
you are in the business and have more expanders, the less errors you tend to make. You are then able to do more scan proofing (mostly to make sure you typed the expansion properly and didn't cause something bizarre to pop into the report).

I am still pretty green. I try to notice what I can while I type and always go back through it (and find something more to correct).

Some reports are much easier to proof than others. The long detailed ones that are harder to type are more difficult to proof as well. I have a hard time keeping my mind from wandering to personal issues, etc. while proofing those.
Lots longer
I don't know - I've been an MT over 25 years, am a super fast typist, use expanders, and have a great platform and accounts, and it takes me a good 5-6 hours, with a 15 minute stretch break here and there, to make 1000 lines.  Bad dictators - a good 8 hour shift to make 1000.
*a little longer than usual...
nm
then that vet would no longer be my VET!! unbelievable. NM
z
If her first initial was J, they are no longer in
business. She went into nursing, pediatric intensive care I believe.
Don't wait any longer...sm
contact an attorney.  You don't have to pay the attorney until he gets your money, then it's a certain percentage.  I know it's a killer to have to pay, but if you don't you're probably not going to ever be paid.  I had to sue a client for 3K.  I still walked away with a good hunk of the money and my pride.  It was well worth what I had to give the attorney. 
WC does not cover CPS any longer. They sm
have determined that it is not caused by typing. Can you believe that?????
oh goodie - we no longer have to see her!!
              
Working probably longer than you have
been on this earth. I have worked over 30 years in this. I do work for an agency as have been outsourced twice from hospital work, always at a lower rate than the hospital. The first hospital I made nearly 60 thousand a year, outsourced, dropped 20 thousand in the new hospital, outsourced and now my salary per year in the 20s. I do operative notes, discharge summaries, history and physicals, consultations and my pay is about yours, 7 cents a line- most of the time you are just expected to produce more- we used to have production (incentive)- some might still have but probably few and far between. If I had to raise a family now, would have to work more than 1 job to do. This is me- I am not speaking for others even though my speed is extremely high. I put my all into my job, have answering machine, no interference, have office set up in my home, have fax (because I need 1 just for my own use), printers, phones, my own computer and a backup in case this 1 goes. Your tapes definitely sound like the real McCoy. That is what we hear day in and day out. I started out with a hospital almost 70% ESL, oh, so hard, well even the English were also and even now after all these years still grit my teeth sometimes just to do a certain dictator. Good luck!
I no longer use satellite, but used
DirecWay when I had it.  Service was about $70/mo.  Download speed is not consistent.  Most of the time it was fast, but sometimes as slow as dial-up.  It depends on if it is raining, snowing, wind blowing and tree may be blowing in front of the dish, if it is real cloudy, etc.   Upload speed is much slower than download, but upload files are usually much smaller so it doesn't take long.    I had trouble with e-mail, though they have upgraded equipment and supposedly the equipment comes with the software installed and configured already so basically you just plug it in and you're ready.   I paid $800 for my equipment  years ago - that included dish and 2 modems.   The newer modems are a lot more expensive.  
Delete them.........esp if you no longer do them...

For private MDs, I only keep their diskettes 6 months, since ALL the work and an additional diskette has been provided when I returned the work.........


If you worked for a national, you need to send the diskettes to them I would think.........that is, IF you worked for a national MT company.  If not, I'd just delete them..........keeping the floppies for myself.........for future....(yep, I still use floppy disks...*LOL*).........


 


they no longer pay for proofing
Just kidding.
I know, I know...
Proofing is very important. Patient care is at stake.
And so are our jobs.



I have been MTing longer than you and get this
When starting VR was also told I should be using the function keys. My "new"(outsourced) job of years even went so far as to show us where we were using the mouse as opposed to the keys. I have never used the function keys and do over 3000 per day, my lines have increased since VR and have worked NOT using the function keys now for several years and it works ok for me. Did they threaten you with not using the function keys???
No longer confused
Now, that makes sense to me!
No longer so frustrated..
I've been reading with interest the comments my venting inspired.. both here and in my email .. and some of the assumptions are amusing.

I've been a Transcriptionist for 36 years, an MTSO a couple of times during those year, a manager with a national company or two, transcription manager, QA manager - basically just about every job possible in this field. I know how important it is for a transcriptionist to be respected for our skills and to be paid for the work we do.

We actually flew to a central location in California to train transcriptionists within a 10 mile radius of the central location, so there was no cost to the transcriptionist. We wouldn't have made the trip had we received only one or two applicants. It isn't that difficult to train someone remotely, but since we had several positions to fill and several applicants, we decided it would be beneficial to make the trip and meet the new ICs.

We have 35 very good transcriptionists, all on IC status, working at different levels of competence, on different accounts, with all of the flexibility they can use. Some started as trainees right out of school, others came to us experienced with one or more specialty. All have been cross-trained to some degree to cover each other when someone has a family emergency or just wants to take a vacation.

We have work, plenty of it, and our pay scale is competitive with other services. We've even done work share programs with other services for short term.

My plea is simply on behalf of other service owners - don't apply if you aren't serious about work. It is a waste of time, both yours and theirs.

Thanks for all of your comments. I'm getting back involved on the board a little more and find how much I've missed the exchange of opinions and ideas.

T.




Where have you been, this board is no longer -sm

***Removed by Moderator***


Hi. I no longer use this program...

also the job I worked using this program couldn't help me.  So I guess I would have to hire someone.


Can't imagine what would be in conflict with it.  I just want to remove it from my computer.


Thanks for suggestions.


I no longer use one, but on the back where the
cord comes in is a cover that I believe has screws.  Unscrew it and see if the plug has come unplugged from the machine.   If that doesn't work I don't have any idea.
In NYS I was told they no longer have
that particular program (I was lucky enough in the early 1990s to go to school for 6 months totally 100% FREE for MT, books paid for, gas mileage, everything) because I was laid my medical record clerk position at the hospital.

In checking now I find no such help at all because of funding being so low.

you would think is this great, rich country there should be plenty of money for those of us who put a huge percent of our earnings into the government for times like this when our jobs disappear yet alas I could find no such help. Displaced homemaker only applies to a specific group of people now, like those with children who are single I believe. Maybe other states are different...

Even losing your job to overseas outsourcing, pretty much only a few professions can claim that, and I think it was airline employees and tech type jobs.

Again, if we are all rich and educated, we probably could get some kind of help/benefits...but then who would need the help right?

sometimes I feel I am in debtors prison because my credit is falling because of the economic times and the company I work for just keeps somehow lowering my pay all the time as my bills are skyrocketing.

In my state anyway there are a lot of jobs you cannot even get without good credit (?) so I guess you have to not need to job in order to get one.

Funny I don't remember this growing up...I always believed if I just worked hard I would be okay...

not so much now
I have done this longer that 35 years now
and have a job, thanks anyway, what makes you think people are kept out of this field by the way we think or believe? I have paid my dues and others. You, my younger peer, get a grip.
Have been with this profession probably longer
that most of you have been on this earth. I, too, have paid my so called dues. I care not if the retired person hangs out with foreigners, that is her life. I do not have to have tea with someone that I would have to grit my teeth to listen to and that would be the case with me. I specifically tell any dealer I call if someone from another country trying to speak to me there is a language barrier and I would like to have someone who speaks not broken English. Having said that, I do not like to listen all day long to foreigners. I did not start out this way, hardly any in fact and now we are completely up to our necks in people who cannot speak correct English. I care less what people think about me, I can be politically incorrect if I like, try not to even have a PCP of my own, hear too much of that every day. Just the way I feel and my previous husband said if you think it, might as well say it.
Having just had a large pay cut, I no longer do
x
Have done this years longer than you and
when I first started in the 70s of course some then. I am still working but I get fed up, has nothing to do with whether you like or dislike doing this work, with ESLs dictating who cannot pronounce words, I really think more than VR that ESLs really compromise this profession. There are much more now than in the 80s, by the way and they are not getting any better, just worst. No one takes up for the MTers here, not being asked to spell a person they want a CC to, cannot ask to spell physician's name attending who is out of state, things are not good.
Why do some MTs try and cause problems when they are no longer with a company?
I just don't get it. 
it would take WAY longer than 6 weeks for mine! nm
nm
Me, too, but getting pregnant is no longer an option.
I wish I'd never started up again after 8 years without smoking.
When you can no longer handle what life gives you

you get on your knees and pray. Just surrender every care to God and ask Him to help because you can't do any more.  Just saw something on Oprah when she had Faith Hill as a guest and she said she was depressed and fat and wanted a role in a movie and she just fell on the ground and remembered the words to a hymm, I surrender all.  Faith Hill sang it and it brought tears to my eyes.  (Oprah got the role she wanted in Deep Purple.)  Anyway, I was in the same position and literally didn't want to go on and suddenly after my prayer things started happening for the good which I really believed was an answer to my desperate prayer.


PS:  Hope this post doesn't get dinged or offend anyone.


 


Maybe this will help. 


 


Yup, and Paula is no longer clapping like
Thankfully on both!