I would write a letter to AHDI and tell THEM, too, why you are dropping. sm
Posted By: Confetti on 2009-03-08
In Reply to: Dropping AHDI and CMT - anyone else? - VA MT
Your opinion and reasons, as someone who was a part of them for so many years and saw NO benefit from it, is a truth they need to be told over and over.
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Dropping AHDI and CMT - anyone else?
It took me several years to make up my mind - I decided this year to drop my AHDI membership as well as not do my CEUs for my CMT (due this past January). I've been an MT for over 23 years. I joined AAMT 18 years ago and was thrilled to be part of it including in my local chapter for a long long time. I passed my CMT in 1994 - 15 years ago. I have never been paid any extra for my CMT.
I worked for MQ from 1997 to 2006 and finally found the guts to leave and have been happier for it. I don't make any more money. In fact, I'm making the same cpl that I was in 1997 now - that is no raise in 12 years. That is in spite of my CMT, in spite of taking on every new and difficult account I could, etc., etc.
I will leave AHDI and the certification process because I am finally admitting to myself my thorough disgust with the connection between MQ and AHDI - that started well before this so-called settlement. I sure wish I had checked in here before now, I didn't take note that there was a deadline to send in objections.
Most of my coworkers, with more experience than me and with similar hard-working, transcription loving ethics, long ago left AAMT in disgust at how they were not doing a thing for us to raise wages and how they paid more attention to MTSOs, hospitals, etc... and then, the whole offshore thing.
Anyway, thanks for listening to my 2 cents. I would appreciate hearing from anyone with their thoughts. I've been reading and listening to pro-AAMT stuff trying to wade through and made my decision. My final bottom line was that I listened to my gut, my instincts, and and accepted that I know in my heart and head that for AHDI to still pretend they are for us MTs is a sham - and shameful - and their getting anywhere NEAR a company like Medquist says all that any of us should need to hear. Or, rather, that I need to hear.
dropping AHDI
I will also not renew membership to AHDI this year. Haven't been paying that much attention, but now that I have lost my job to VR after 14 years, I am paying attention and don't like what I see. I will not continue to support an association that is supposed to represent me, a hard working U.S. MT, that promotes MTSOs who offshore. I'm just sorry that I didn't realize that fact years ago as I would have dropped membership sooner.
I would write one more letter and CC: to
the insurance commissioner and your insurance company. Write the letter to your physician's office, enclose copies showing proof of your payment of co-pays one more time. I found whenever I had CC to the Insurance Commissioner, then people got serious about finding the correct records...
Where I am we can write a letter asking to be excused - sm
presuming it presents a hardship for you. At the time I was ferrying my 1 daughter to Children's Hospital 2 x a week for speech therapy, to preschool and had 2 kids under the age of 3 and 4 (got called twice a year apart). So I always had a child at home and no family in the area to take care of my various commitments. They excused me both times. Now if I get called now I don't think I will be able to get out of it as both are in school now, we are done with speech therapy finally, and I can always reschedule anything else if I had too. I would see if you could write a letter, call them and ask, explain your employment situation and with any luck they will excuse you due to hardship. Good luck.
write a letter and send it to the higher ups.
Also, I think PC Magazine and other websites have complaint areas where you can turn businesses in for crummy customer service. The company would rather satisfy the customer than get bad press. Also, complain to the BBB or the FTC. You can make yourself heard.
Manager, if no help, never go back. write a letter saying why
be calm. depends on how big a *bad service* it was - the one I hate the most is where they act like they are doing me a favor to wait on me. That one I always report.
You don't have to hire a lawyer. Write the letter yourself, but
make sure you send it "return receipt requested" and give a specific date payment needs to be received by.
I'm going to write my own letter. Harder to ignore if
thousands of letters, all written differently, still say the same thing. That way they know it's not just a form-letter (like the kind they always send to US.)
Is there someone willing to write a form letter? See blog post
I will put in on my blog and promote the heck out of my blog.
A while back I suggested we all write a letter to the editor about this . sm
I did, and they declined to print it. Evidently it's not a big issue in the minds of some. Individually we can't do anything about it. Perhaps collectively. We need a petition to go to ALL senators and representatives from our respective states, and none of this "anonymous" stuff, either.
Hire an attorney & have the atty write a letter
that if you do not receive pay by (the date), you will file a lien on her business and her house, and may take her to Judge Judy  I guarantee you will get your money faster than going to small claims court, spending less time going to court, etc.
Another good idea is to write a letter to the editor...sm
of your local/state newspapers telling people what is happening with their medical records and the downside of them being sent to India. Most people have no clue.
someone just e-mailed me "how to write a letter to your Senator" -
I responded to this e-mail and attached a sample for her (Sarah) to send to her Senator, but came back as not deliverable. Just speak from your heart when you write. Be respectful, "Dear Senator, thank you for representing our state" And then tell your story so to speak, how things are effecting you. That bringing IT jobs (not just MT, but anything that contains our private information, credit card processing, debt collection, etc.) would not only deter the rampant increase in identity and medical identity theft, but would bring American jobs back to America, American MONEY back to America to be spent in America! Good luck to all
It is so easy to post a letter on a newspaper editorial or magazine. Everybody write one.
If you have a story to tell - get busy. Go to news shows, magazines, newspapers. It is so easy. Talk about the MT business or about the whole offshore process and its cost to the U.S. Any and everything written only solidifies our total point of view. GO TO whitehouse.com for sure. Don't wait for others to carry this for you. Support Travelin MT's efforts on the company board!!!!
Buy if from your husband. Have him write you a receipt. Write it off completely or
depreciate it over a few years.
If it's a business letter you use a colon. if it's a personal letter you use a comma. nm
:
they are dropping.
our hospital switched to editing a while back. Because editing you get 400-500+ lines an hour, we lost several MTs and MT staff. Our hospital does extensive research and we are paid according to other hospitals, and what other services pay. We went from hourly pay (more than 17 per hour for me) to getting paid per line for editing and some straight typing we have to do but the pay was equivalent to our hourly pay. Now we were advised of a cut to become comparable to the MT market and after learning to edit our pay per line will compare to 13 on hour for me. So that is a huge cut.
But with dropping food - SM
You run into more logistic problems. First of all - it's got to be dropped in a place where people can get to it, it's gotta float, and it must be waterproof.
Unfortunately, too, you run into the problem of distribution, with the people reaching the bundle first possibly hoarding supplies for themselves rather than sharing them out.
IMO, there's a certain amount of Monday-morning quarterbacking going on, but NO ONE wants this situation prolonged. They're working like heck out there.
dropping everything you pick up...
and my favorite, the old juggling act: and now folks for my next trick, I will type for 15 minutes, answer the phone, fold a load of laundry, run to the bathroom, do up a coupla dishes on the way back, sit back down to type another 15 minutes, only to be interrupted as you just get going again...
gotta love it!
Too many balls dropping...
Why are there so many balls dropping these days? One in Times Square, Las Vegas, LA, Disney World..Goodness! Which ball are you watching drop?
139 (and dropping like a stone!)
We were told they were dropping the
hyphen between numbers and measurements - 4-cm mass is now 4 cm mass, and also dropping the periods after Dr, Mr, "etc", and things like that, but we have not started using it yet.
Another reason why our wages keep dropping...
nm
You shouldn't be picking up, dropping off or using your paper anyway
so first you better "pretend" you have an account and figure out how to go digital and send stuff over the Internet. Pickup, dropoff and printing were done in the 20th century :)
My jaw is dropping at the number or errors in your response--nm
//
I worked there and they always ran out. Accts dropping like flies.
I'd find something else, fast!
Or becuase of dropping rates, the small MTSO
fg
AHDI
I had been a member of AHDI, but when I had a problem with a MTSO not paying I contacted them. The reason I contacted them was to ask in their assistance, not in my instance, but to protect their membership from this type of company. They completely ignored the context of my letter and referred me to local agencies. My thought was that with this industry being so new and unprotected online, that they should take an interest in have legislation passed... went right over their heads. Thus, I did not renew my membership.
SO well-said! I think AHDI should be
nm
what is AHDI and sm
why are only 1/4th of them medical transcriptionists?
Wouldn't you think they all would be?
AHDI
I started a thread below about the government stepping in and making the MTSO companies step up to the plate and conform to a standard form of counting lines for US based medical transcriptionists and to perhaps have a baseline pay so that MTs are not sitting all day long waiting on one more report to try to make a count that is making the MTSOs richer. While not everybody agreed with my points, let me say that there are probably far more MTs in this country who are not independent contractors and who are trying to support themselves than not. ICs would almost be classified as (mini) MTSOs. Not everybody has the luxury of negotiating what they will work for. That whole conversation is moot when we are talking about the industry as a whole. ADHI has spoken for years that they support standardization but when they were recently asked about "policing" the MTSOs methods of counting lines, they dropped the ball. This is just my opinion, but there definitely needs to be an accountability to the U.S. worker concerning this industry. While on one hand we are described as highly skilled workers with a wide base of knowledge, we are then described as home-based, bunny-slippered, pajama mamas. It cannot be both ways. We are highly skilled and do have a wide base of knowledge and we need to band together. I do like the name United States Medical Transcription Association. Works for me.
AHDI
I am not sure it matters who is behind ADHI or their corporate sponsors. The reality is that the U.S. based MTs need to quit taking a knee jerk reaction to them. ADHI started small. Your comment about the displaced workers just proves my point that the government and the Dept of Labor do need to be involved in the restructuring of the MT Industry. When a major MTSO company can initiate a program whereby it cuts the salaries of thousands of it's employees for its own gain, there is a problem there. In the area where I work, there was an article in the newspaper about the outsourcing of the radiology dept on weekends to Australia so that coverage was 24/7. This is a U.S. owned company who employs radiologists from Australia. I am betting those doctors over there do not make less than their counterparts over here. So, it is up to us, the MTs of the U.S. to start to organize in order to reinstate the true value of the work we are entrusted to perform day in and day out.
AHDI
Completely with you. making almost minimum wage for over 30 years of work. mostly because of account specifics, slow platform, always blaming it on the Internet, awful audio.
AHDI: BOS...............
Yes, it is:
For instance:
AHDI tells us:
5cc's was injected.
????
1. Why has there to be an apostrophe cc's? It is just only the plural of cc, css is right, like MTs, the 70s, etc.....
Why 'was' injected; ccs is plural, consequently 'were', this is the right grammar.
But, AHDI says:
'NO, you have to look at it as a UNIT, 5ccs, is a UNIT, so you have to type 'was'. BS!
And there are a lot of these examples.
Yes, but AHDI is quite the
wishy-washy change horses in midstream type - maybe they will smell conflict coming and hop on the no-outsourcing bandwagon if too many MTs lose interest in AHDI membership. At any rate, it will be fun to see what happens.
ahdi
I have been reading the posts here for many months and I agree with everything said above regarding AHDI. I resigned as treasurer of a student chapter after realizing they seemed to care more about foreign MTs than us here in the US.
Now all US transcriptionists have an option. There is a new organization "American Transcription Association", ATA. The mission of this organization is to bring to the forefront the situation here for out MTs and all the off shoring to India and elsewhere. This organization will only accept US transcriptionists.
Check it out at www.ataus.org
Maybe we can make a difference!
This has nothing to do with AAMT/AHDI.
This has to do with a gal going out and taking a difficult test and passing it and wanting a tiny bit of validation from her peers. I am a nurse and lived through globalization with nurses coming into our country from everywhere .. transcription has been left alone for a long time and because it is us, we all scream like crazy. Did you care when it was nurses, or auto workers or garment workers or is it all about you? I am a nurse who came into this grind by choice .. can hear the grass grow and know how to punctuate and create a sentence. I read my account specifics and I follow the rules and make a very good living. Let your politicians fix what they have destroyed. Exercise your arm and vote for people who will not solicit money and gain off the backs of the constituency and turn their backs. Don't beat up a gal who is proud of an accomplishment .. this is part of the reason our industry is a mess, we cannot support each other first and throw out even a crumb of kindness. Stop feeling entitled .. nobody owes us a bloody thing.
AHDI is the new name for the AAMT.
nm
it's AHDI now, not AAMT.....sm
because they became an organization NOT for the American MT - and over the years, many of us griped about it and so FINALLY they changed their name (last year) to AHDI............since they have promoted offshoring for the past 15-20 years...........
AHDI allows scammer because THEY are
x
as long as it has nothing to do with AHDI or whatever - nm
x
AHDI members.
Did you know there is a corporate member of the AHDI that is known to be a scam? I am not allowed to post the name on this board evidently as it keeps refusing my post when I try to post the name saying it is a “bad word,” but it is a company that will train you for free, have you pay $400 for software, and then tells you they will hire you and pay you once you are up to their standards. However, somehow, the MTs they train can never live up to their standards. How do you feel about this company being a member of your organization? Who exactly does AHDI represent? Why do they allow a company that is known to scam MTs and is a complete ripoff to be a member of their organization? Will this company soon be an "approved" school? LOL. Any thoughts on this? Please share.
CE's Online at OA-AHDI
You can get many CEs online through the Online ASsociation of AHDI. They offer live webinars monthly and they are all preapproved for CE credits from AHDI.
You are also able to purcahse downloads of previous presentations and view them at your leisure.
Visit www.oa-ahdi.org and you will find some information there.
No, and I'm am more of an AHDI/BOS-2 supporter.
There are few changes in it and the ones that are there are ridiculous, in my opinion. Makes us (as MTs) look like idiots for following:
No more periods after abbreviated personal and courtesy titles! WHAT? So, now you should write Mr and Mrs Happy (not Mr. and Mrs. Happy).
No more commas to separate names from titles with roman numerals! WHAT? So, now you write Harry Happy II (not Harry Happy, II).
No more hyphens between numbers and their units, even if it is a compouned modifier! WHAT? So, that means you would write ... close the 2 cm incision (not .... closed the 2-cm incision).
Just nitpicking crap to make us look bad and make them more money.
Use the BOS-2, it's much smarter. Use the AHDI for its good stuff and leave the bad stuff alone (i.e., if it benefits you, use it...and BTW, you would just periods with that latin abbreviation any longer, lol).
BTW, the BOS-3 won't be available electronically. Have to buy a book or pay a monthly fee to have web access.
Better stop my rant now. LOL
MTIA **is** AHDI
see "driving directions" in post below.
AHDI Misunderstood?
I do not thnk AHDI is misunderstood at all. I think it is very apparent what they are doing. They are embracing the global atmosphere to make more money for themselves just like the big MTSOs. I personally believe it is time that the Dept. Of Labor get involved with the way American MTs are paid in this country and institute a standardized method of counting lines for all MTSO companie which would include using the same software for all of them. I think that MTs who are paid by the line should have a baseline line pay that is in dollars and cents just like factory workers do who are paid doing piecework. I would bet there are many many MTs in this country who are working for less than minimum wage for these MTSO companies because they pay so little and expect so much.
Why I despise AHDI
see link.
AHDI should be investigated by the gov't. - sm
because they've defrauded MTs by leading them to believe they represented THEM. If they can be dishonest in one way, chances are very good that other misrepresentations are taking place. (Such as with the IRS? Labor board?) There's most likely a lot more to this shifty bunch of people than meets the eye.
Not anti-AHDI but pro-US MTs
So, does anyone have any experience starting up groups such as this? Please contact me via email? I work full-time and then some - and don't have oodles of time, but my guess is we are all in this same boat (not having extra time). I would be willing to try to create something for us.
On a tangent - I really struggled over the years about the whole U.S. MTs versus "them." I truly believe we are such a melting pot and feel strong about not excluding anyone. I do not think the us VS them viewpoint is very positive. That being said, I do believe that one of the biggest problems in our economy today is that govt (both sides) let our jobs (of all kinds) go overseas so the corporations could make more money. This left Americans without jobs or having to retrain, etc. I have finally come to conclusion that I am not being exclusionary OR protectionist to want our government AND groups like AAMT to advocate for US first, for those of us who live here, create this economy, and who keep this country going.
In bringing up the idea of having a new group for MTs, I think it is important that we are FOR something (us) and not against something (AHDI, MTSOs, overseas MTs). This is only my opinion. Even though feel angry and disillusioned about what AHDI has allowed to happen, I prefer to find a more positive way to help ourselves. I'm not sure exactly what that is...but eventually it likely will require for us to be proactive and take steps.
Suggestions on how to get the tea party started? I'm willing if others are. Even if just a few of us brainstorming - the point is to set into motion something that gives us hope. Something that will eventually grow and help each other. MT Stars does this in its own way, by providing the avenue to be real and share the good and the not so great about our profession.
Please email me, let me know what you think. Or post here.
The tea party opens...
You might want to read more about CMT & AHDI --
You won't earn a dime more in income, and your test fees and membership fees will go to support a group that is in large part responsible for offshored work and falling MT wages. Your money is better spent on just about ANYthing else than a CMT.
You do not have to be AHDI member sm
you only renew CMT credential every 3 years and CE credits are free. The renewal is $50, so that amounts to $16.66 every year. Exam was reimbursed by my employer 100%.
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