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I vote for local community college.

Posted By: luv2MT on 2007-09-20
In Reply to: medical transcription certification - Dale Carlyon

If you attend a community college, it helps to network.  If you do on-line training, you won't have the social part of your training.  Also, it helps to try and find an on-site position at first to gain the knowledge although since you are already in a clerical position, you probably know more about anatomy and the hospital/medical setting than you even think.  I wish you all the best.  Another good thing about a local community college is that sometimes they know of great jobs because the teachers are also employed or know of jobs.  You will have a certificate of training in an MT program, but a certified MT is done through the AAMT or whatever it is now, and is not worth the money in my opinion.  You wind up after paying a few hundred dollars getting to put CMT after your name, but not when you transcribe a report.  For example, even CMTs cannot put XXX/xxx, CMT if you catch my drift.  


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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.


I went to a local community college
I started working for a small local MTSO.
Local community college nm
x
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."   
I graduated from a local community college. sm
Had my first job before graduation but it was in-house with hourly pay and great benefits. Those are very hard to find anymore. I worked in-house for my first 2 years and then went on maternity leave picking up side work through a company for more income. Realized I was tripling my money going from hourly to production by that time, turned in my notice, and never looked back. Been at home ever since. If at all possible, in the beginning I would recommend to anyone to work inhouse even if it is for a transcription company. The value of having other "ears" is definitely not something to take for granted. I also learned as much as I could while getting that hourly pay as time is money when on production. I have to say I probably would not be near as proficient of an MT today had it not been all those hours learning and having another ear around to help out when stuck.

You bring up a point too though that I haven't really thought about before....With all the transcription being outsourced out of the office, it is only going to get much more difficult for anyone to get those breaks and get the required "experience" as a beginner.
I'm going to a local community college for culinary arts, I'm 52. nm
xxx
Your local community college. Just as good and a heckofalot cheaper!
 
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.
Either one are 9 month courses at the local community college..worth a shot!
!!!
How about your local community college and save a heap of money & get just as good of an education?
  
Pharmacy tech 15 weeks, polysomnography 7 month course at local community college..worth a shot!
!!!
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!
Given by a community college? What school is
z
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.


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.
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.
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.
When I said vo-tech, I meant community college just in case you were wondering (nm)
nm
Went to community college too..had a job in-house within 2 months, the first and only place I applie
//
community college. those online courses/schools are not very good and
very expensive.

but don't do it just to work at home.
My SIL finished a course at a local college

She got a job on-site and could be sent home, but she has decided to cross-train for a management position.  If she takes it, the salary is $65,000.00 per year.  So tell me there isn't money in this business.  She just finished her course!!! 


I went to a local business college which sucked.

My first job was a p.r.n. position with a local hospital filling in for vacations and people off sick.  That's where the real education came from.


See if your local college has an MT program that you can just take certain units of, like terminol
s
I probably read about it on MSN or someone mentioned it to me. Maybe call local college or JUCO
?
Well, not really. In college I did a gruelng intership at a local express emergency clinic and got p
gas, lunch, uniform, etc., AND the head doctor ended up sexually harrassing me! I kid you not! So, I don't think anyone without any experience getting paid 3 cents to learn MT in their own home setting is half bad.....It could be worse. They could ask you to do it for free.

PS: My college major was nursing.
Myrtle Beach has my vote. No passports, no airports, customs... Just kick back & relax!! My vote!!
x
Buy local. The local stores pay taxes to support your city and state. (SM)
Using online and catalogues does nothing to promote the local economy.  We complain about outsourcing and about the big companies gobbling up all the work so the jobs at local hospitals are gone, yet we do the same thing when we buy on ebay, catalog, and these web sites that may be located any place in the world as their primary business location. 
I went local. Great local tech support, they know what I do and were able to set it up just for me
:)
You have to go outside the community....
nm
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.
Who is to say that these people are pillars of the community?
x
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.
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
In our increasingly global community, maybe
x
CHS is Community Health Systems
xx
Really!!! This is fairly common MT 'net community
can this go on?!!
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!



SIL says she went through Wellspan Community Health Center. sm
any idea how to call them? i am not finding that exact name info. i did find roseann freundel as a DO student in WV but just pictured and an article. no contact info.
This lady is well know in the MT community and is a long term MT. I understand

your skepticism, but that is not the case with this gal. She has been straightforward from the very beginning and I have practically her entire background.  I would ask that we leave skepticism out of the picture and try to help this family out.


Thank you,


Sheri


 


Hi! Went through a similar thing at a smaller community hospital....sm
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!
I vote for nobody should :-)
That's one thing I really miss about living in AZ, no DST ...... If I could figure out how to move Camelback Mountain to Texas, that's where I'd retire LOL.
i vote for
x
Pam gets my vote nm
:{
I vote for B
x
I vote always
I always vote. Mandisa, Chris, Taylor, and Katharine to me are the best. I wish Kevin would go. He is sweet but to me the worst. Kellie was really bad last night I thought. My BF loves her. She is funny but dingy.
I vote for JC
Jim Carrey.  He was just totally irresible in the Fire Marshall Bill skit on In Living Color. What a doll!
vote
My vote (for what it is worth) is NO.  Let him figure it out for himself.
I did. Everyone else please vote.
nm
Please go there and vote, and let me tell you what I did. sm

We have a show on Sunday nights here, a call-in show that deals with all sorts of issues.  A while back there was a huge ruckus when the Oreck plant relocated to Tennessee, they said they "couldn't find qualified workers" after Katrina.  Before I moved here I guess there was a jeans plant of some sort, Levis or whatever, and it went to Mexico.  So I e-mailed the host of the show and told him he should consider doing a show on outsourcing and detailed my experience at having been outsourced, and the whole health care info going to India thing, and I did not hear back from him!  I was shocked because I interpret no response as not giving a rat's behind about where his info goes.  Maybe he didn't want to "get involved" because the hospital that ditched us is a big advertiser on the station, I don't know, but I sure thought something positive would happen, the topic would come out in the open, but as of this point it doesn't look like it will.  We all need to keep knocking on doors and rattling windows, though, or we'll be sunk.  My opinion and I'm sticking with it.


My vote is in!
Anyone who is a friend to animals is a friend of mine!