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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

I think the MDs that care in their offices or clinics sm

Posted By: not the answer on 2007-08-30
In Reply to: OK, he might not know now but... - Suzylyn

keep their trans in-house. My personal MD does and overseas every last little detail and she is tough! The ones who dont want to mess with it go to a service and let the service take responsibility. So neither will care....IMHO


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I am an IC and my accounts are clinics and doctor's offices

So I have weekends off unless the docs dictate late on Friday, in which case I have the choice of working late on Friday or getting the work done over the weekend.


With clinic work, you don't have the constant flow that you have with a hospital. You can't work harder or longer hours to make more money. There is a specific amount of work, and when it's done, that's it. Your income will fluctuate. But if you're willing to put up with that - you can have your weekends off.


Is this Holiday a major one? Clinics and offices closed?

I guess I am out of it.  How big of a holiday is this?  All the kids home from school today?  Post offices and banks closed?  Seems rather quiet work-wise.  Wondering if I should start cleaning the house or keep staring at the no jobs to do in my queue.


Thanks!


Could maybe see clinics going over to
full EMR with doctors documenting, but it would be very hard in hospitals for physicians to do this considering how complicated some dictations are.
Try hospitals and/or clinics-
I don't know about other places but in at least 3 of the major hospitals in my area they have people work both in house and at home. Everyone works in house to begin with and has to prove themselves before going home. Some people (like me) just prefer working in house, so it works out.
Local Clinics
I would seriously try to find work at a local clinic if you're finding it hard to get hired with a National. I also went to a local community college. I didn't take me long to find a very small local MTSO to hire me, thank God they decided to take a chance on me. I now work for a local nephrology clinic. I definitely know though that if I tried to go out on my own, there would be no way I could have done it. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
Yup and I love my clinics! nm
nm
Try local clinics
Or if you have a small local MTSO, they may be willing to give you a chance. That's how I started. I trained with the MTSO at her office for a couple of weeks and then I started working from home for a local nephrology group and I've been there for the past five years. Try not to get discouraged, although I know that's a hard thing to do.
That is great if you can get the same dictators. I have over 85 and all different clinics. (sm)
That is why I started my own business. It really depends on who you work for and if you get a great account your lucky. I unfortunately wasn't that lucky and after 15 years a GF and I do it locally for doctors. Much less stressful. Glad you can do that!!
I wish more hospitals & clinics would get the picture that (sm)
what you have just described is the best and most cost-effective way to get quality transcription. At the hospital where I used to work, MTs are treated like the scum of the earth. The nationals want us, but pay peanuts. By eliminating the middleman and the overhead of having enough office space for MTs, a hospital/clinic can pay the MTs what they're worth, the MTs can afford to keep working for them and stay on for many years, gaining a better knowledge of the doctors and the institution. Both that and having decent pay and a more flexible schedule means happy MTs, and happy MTs will go the extra mile to produce top-level work. It sounds like your employer is ahead-of-the-curve in the way it deals with its transcription needs.
try local hospitals/clinics around you
that still have in-house. My local hospital did this and the education/experience/hands-on help provided was golden. Then go home and work - you will be viewed as a step up if expierience is in-house.

DO NOT pay for mentoring.
I would try local doctors and clinics
I only work weekdays and nights only when absolutely necessary, no weekends or holidays either.
Hospital with many smaller satellite clinics associated with it
nm
So true, work for some doctors and clinics also and many are now
jumping on the save lots of money and offshore bandwagon! We just can't win. It's over everyone :(
ALL of the clinics I work on use SS #s as medical record numbers, and many of them cc to the
patient at their home address, which is conveniently typed at the bottom of the report.  Seems pretty straight-forward to us, then why can't the govt figure this out and put a stop to it?
TO the person who emailed me about their experiences on the multispecialty clinics, etc.
I tried twice to respond to your email and help but it keeps coming back undeliverable.

??

good luck getting hospitals/clinics and the med communityto
nm
Yes, I always have the notes. One time, it was an entire day worth of clinics except for one!

How did they just get one note and not the rest?  There have been a couple of times when the doctor just didn't dictate on that particular patient, but most of the time I typed the notes, printed and delivered the notes, and then they say they never go them!  And I always have them on my PC and backed up on CD.


I'm just putting my clinics on digital too, check out enclosed links - sm

http://www.hthengineering.com/sst2.html


 


http://www.hthengineering.com/pdf/DigitalGuide.pdf


I have 2 clinics still on tapes, love'em! Also work for a national. Like that too. nm
nm
Check around your local area for clinics or transcription companies
That's what I did. I first started out working for a very small MTSO and worked at their office for a couple of weeks and then they moved me home and I started working on a single speciality account. I'm still working for the office after 5 years (altough the MTSO closed her business).
Offices are different.
Your supervisor should be able to email you a rundown.  My office has many different incentives, in fact, I have a hard time keeping track of them!
Why are all offices not ran the same?
x
Any hospitals/clinics hiring home-based employees on an hourly basis? TIA

/


One of the Ohio offices
I'd rather not say which. Been there years.... it's gotten worse, not better!
How do you change offices?
?
it seems to be all offices, have you signed
up for IPAY? I have not gotten a check yet either, but there is a statement there for 09/02 which obviously is not a regular paycheck
incompetent offices
Geez Mandy, you must work for the same place I did before I left LOL.
Offices need not comply .. but
we find that most do for the continuity in care issues that any practitioner faces.
Kinship care versus foster care/adoption
Having been placed in a position where I now have custody of my 3 YO granddaughter and going through the legal system, I sought an online network of relative caregivers for children. I would encourage you, especially since you are in Georgia, that if you take any children into foster care with the idea of adopting them, there is federal law that requires the state to take certain actions in a specific time frame. When a child is removed from it's bio parent(s), the state is required to investigate any possible relatives who can take the child before foster care is considered, but even before that, reunification with the parents is the priority. Once a child enters the system and is in the system for 15 out of any 22 months, the state is required to find permanent placement for the child.

The problem with this is that there are case workers who may favor a foster family and do not seek out relative care. I have a good friend in Georgia who had to fight all the way to the state level to get custody of her grandson after the child was placed from the hospital into a foster care home with the promise that the foster parents would be allowed to adopt. She has now adopted her grandson, but it was a long, hard battle to get the state to admit their own interests were placed above those of the child and/or family.

If you get a child placed through the state, please make certain there is not a relative who wants that child before you get your hopes up. The courts are now favoring return of children to relatives even after a child has spent years with a foster family who hoped to adopt them.

States get bonus federal funds by complying with the time lines and being able to close the case, so some states place children in foster care because it is easier than trying to locate relatives.

Didn't mean to go off on a tangent, but I can't imagine my sweet bella going to someone outside her family.
Can anyone tell me how they like working for the NE Region of MQ as all offices in the NE are
going there one by one as the local offices close down. What are the people like to work for there and the QA people as far as feedback on things. Thanks
So they are consolidating offices, big deal.. it's a
c
I don't know about now, but they used to have local field offices. sm
A friend of mine had a problem, and she went in and talked face to face with a really nice person, who helped her through it. If you're close to an office, and if they still have them, that might be your best bet. Good luck.
Doctors' offices, not hospitals
Sounds like the OP is referring to doctors' offices and not hospitals. If we took the initiative and talked to local doctors in our area, perhaps they might be interested in having their work done in a more "personalized" fashion. We don't know unless we try.

I think the hospitals might be a "lost cause" in this regard because they are run by financial people and not the physicians themselves, but I think I will start making some appointments (which I need to do, anyway!) and query my physicians about who does their work. I think the office managers might brush me off, but I do not believe the physicians would.

I do agree with the OP that we all need to try to take back the medical transcription field ourselves and get it out of the hands of big business.
Small doctors' offices do!
My second job is for a small (3-physician) specialty office. I am paid by the hour at a nice hourly rate. I was also paid hourly when I worked in-house last year at a specialty practice. I got this job initially by asking the doctor personally who did their transcription when my daughter had a check-up appointment there.

Really, your best bet is to do some networking and research on local offices in your own community. A lot of small doctors' offices do not want to mess with big nationals and prefer a local dependable transcriptionist. As a poster below had suggested, offer to do a SMALL portion of their work for free on a trial basis.

I know what you mean about being burned out, though! I hope you find what you are looking for.
My experiences with home offices...
I used to have my office in the living room. It was really difficult for me and my family.

I moved it into the dining room ... again, was just a bad fit and crowded/cramped everything.

Finally I moved it to my bedroom. Now at first, I had my desk sitting out in the open and it became depressing. While I enjoyed the privacy and quiet (I could actually shut my door), it was all I saw when I was in my bedroom. That blank monitor staring at me, either making me feel guilty by not working more or making me dread going to work.

Soooo, then I got creative and I've been thrilled every since.

I pulled all of my clothes out of my closet and bought a beautiful armoire with drawers and a rod in the top to hang clothes. Beautiful asset to my bedroom.

I purchased a smaller but very nice desk and fit it right inside my closet. I have a lovely little lamp on my desk, streamlined all my paperwork to a minimum and put as much as I could live without (in tangible form) on the computer. Have a small vase I keep fresh but cheap flowers in. All I have is in the closet and I can close it up out of sight when I am done. I can store my books up on the shelf above plus I have a small CD player up there to play soft music while I work.

I did not want an ugly office chair anymore. I really liked my upholstered chair in my bedroom. So I had my son put rollers on it and now it is my chair. When I'm not working, I just turn it and angle it into the corner like it has always been...when I need to work, I just sit and slide right under my desk.

I could not be happier with this set up and it has been this way just over a year now.

I get copies of the schedule from the offices. sm
you are an IC, so you can call the shots. You can let them know that if you don't receive the work by a certain time, you will assume there is none, something of that sort. If you need a day off, give them advance notice and don't "ask" them for it, because you are an IC so you set your own schedule per IRS rules. You do not need their permission, per se. Obviously, we accommodate the docs as much as possible to keep the accounts, but only to a certain extent. We shouldn't be on call for them 24/7, either. They wouldn't wait all day for a patient that may or may not show (and sometimes even charge if the patient is a no-show!!) If you wait and wait for work, play their game and put it in writing that you will charge for your time -- and then DO it. A few extra charges on the old invoice will likely bring about a change. ;)

Even with the schedules provided, the docs can and do change them at the last minute, so there's no way you can ever know for sure, but at least you can have SOME idea what's going on if they provide them. The way I see it, if he tells you he will be out, then that's what you go by. Even if the staff can't verify it (strange, since most docs are highly reachable by staff), you've heard it straight from the horse's mouth so if you want to take that opportunity to have a day off, let the staff know you'll be off that day, period.

If the doc changes his mind and comes in that day, well, I'd still take the day off if I made plans. Keep that saying in mind that poor planning on their part does not constitute an emergency on your part. If they don't like it, then maybe they'll make better future efforts to keep you in the loop.


Whether hospitals or independent offices,
I'm speaking from experience.
p.s. my clinics give me Bday gifts and bake stuff for me! I'm a skinny single girl and I guess th
nm
MQ offices- If there is an MQ office in your city/state, is it possible to

apply for an MQ job outside of your state?   I think I have been blacklisted from the MQ here in Birmingham, AL.  I worked part-time for them when they first setup an office here, and they were named Transcription Limited, I believe. They only paid 6-7 cpl at that time.  Well I worked for them a couple years and then opportunity came where I could work for another transcription company, and I am assuming was a competitor to them in the Birmingham market.   Mind you, I left in good standing (so I thought), two-weeks notice and all, and was an exceptional employee, but years later, every time I have tried to apply through them, I get turned down.   So I am wondering if I could work for another MQ office outside of Alabama, or will they refer me to the Birmingham office?


I get .135/.13/.16/.195 direct from hospitals or doctor offices.
.
How much do most people charge for doing IC work for doc offices, just

What program is good to use for line counting?


I was thinking 13/cents a line?  Is that undercharging?  I have to remember that I have to pay my overhead so even though 13 sounds high, I have to pay equipment,  equipment, equipment.


help


go solicit medical buildings/offices...nm

So tired of dealing with incompetent offices...

they just emailed me for the upteenth time for a stat report that I already sent to them 40 minutes ago.  Wouldn't you think they'd check to see if they had it first!?!  Constantly emailing me questioning what they've sent me and when.  Why can't she keep logs like I do!?!  Doesn't take a rocket scientist!  Can't remember from day to day to send me patient lists.  Don't know what the heck she does with incomplete reports I've sent because doc doesn't give a name of messes up his dictation and cuts half of it off.  I'll get a call a couple of weeks later saying doc insists he dictated on so and so, but they never got the report.  I'm the one who has to go back and search for the nameless reports and match up the the patient they're missing with diagnoses, age etc., then tell her that's the one I sent you on that date that was incomplete.  Why can't she figure that out!!!  If I functioned like they do, I wouldn't last a week!  Sorry, had to vent.....


Start by calling your personal doc offices. Probably
s
There are so much better accounts out there. Start calling offices sm
to get new accounts, let this one go, and don't look back.

I have in this situation many years ago. Believe me, I learned along the way. There are dream clients out there and there are these type.

I have found in my 25 years experience in MT, 18 of those working as an IC, that as one door closes, another one opens.

Most doctors offices are like that because they are not open on the weekend...
and work doesn't start trickling in until late monday afternoon/evening so why bother waiting around, just take the day off!!!
If it was a clinic, it might have been urgent care, but it was NOT acute care. sm
Acute care refers to work in an acute care setting, a hospital, doing at least History and Physicals, Discharge Summaries, Consultations, Surgery notes, Emergency Department notes, and much more, including GI procedures, Cardiology procedures, Neurological procedures, Pulmonary Function Studies.  It goes on and on and it means and acute care hospital setting, not a clinic.
They are and that is why we dont have work then. They bring in other offices and run your office out
of work because too many people are on the account then. Make sense. Nope.
I, too, work for MQ out of one of their CA offices - 7 years now. Steady workflow sm
I wouldn't say I don't run out of work, but maybe 3 times a year I do. Just depends. Around school time beginning I do. May pay is probably above average because the company I worked for that MQ bought paid really well.
I have had absolutely no problems with MQ, though the things I keep hearing and seeing do bother me that I belong to a co. like this. But personally, they've been too good to me.

I guess not all offices are the same, for sure!
DH and I used to clean lawyers' offices for supplemental income. sm

Made good money.  They were very appreciative folks and even gave us a $100 tip at XMAS time.  Mind you, we were working for a contractor.  Would have made more if we were the contractor.  No shame here. 


Send letters to local offices marketing yourself. sm
Watch the want ads, and offer yourself as IC backup instead of FTs. It works!

As you pick up your accounts and back-up accounts, just do a good job and meet expectations or better.

The only drawback about your own accounts, it leaves little time to clock out and have your own life. If you can find someone else to work the accounts while you rake in the money, that is all the better.