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When the kids started school I wanted a job in my home town. A hospital clerk position (sm)

Posted By: sm on 2009-06-25
In Reply to: WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO TRANSCRIPTION - Tired MT

came open. You started compiling charts, making copies, etc. Then I was promoted after a few months and began learning transcription and did that part of the day. Then a few months later they taught me coding and abstracting and I did that part of the day. It was a great learning experience to learn things from the bottom up. Needless to say, I am an old dog here who has been doing this more than 25 years now.


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When the kids started school I wanted a job in my home town. A hospital clerk position (sm)
came open. You started compiling charts, making copies, etc. Then I was promoted after a few months and began learning transcription and did that part of the day. Then a few months later they taught me coding and abstracting and I did that part of the day. It was a great learning experience to learn things from the bottom up. Needless to say, I am an old dog here who has been doing this more than 25 years now.
No, usually it's just winding up as all the kids bring home crud from school.
The 4th of July is slow.  Christmas is never slow for me.
I have 13 years experience and just started a hospital job working from home making $16 an hour

and with a really good incentive plan.  I live in the Kansas City area.  $10 seems like a low starting point even with only two years experience which is the usual benchmark for hospital MT jobs. 


It's been my experience that the low end of the pay scale for hospital employed MTs was around $12 an hour.  Also, it's been my experience that the pay offered is usually based on years of experience and how well you perform on the transcription test.


I would say if their pay is that low, they should at least be making it up with incentive and it doesn't sound like they are.


JMO


My sons are born again too and their wives can't leave the house, home school the kids, no tv,
and if my DIL wanted to work, it is out of the question. One of my sons just believes in having babies and having babies. They now have 5. I divorced his dad and apparently his dad taught them this is the American way. I just feel so bad for both my sons' wives. They both are born again and both live their life that way.
POLL: Home School vs. Charter School vs. Public School vs. Priv ate School...
Pros and cons of each too. I have two little ones that will be starting school soon and I would like opinions on all. Thanks in advance! :)
Applied at a hospital for a clerk

20 years later, I'm an MT with three of my own accounts and IC for a company on-line.


I applied at the hospital and told them I had done transcription in high school for my medical secretary certificate, and the recruiter asked me if I'd like to work in Radiology as an MT.  I said I wasn't very good at it and she said it pays $2.00 more an hour, and I said "Well then, let me give it a whirl!"  I passed the typing test and have never looked back.  I built up my knowledge by working for 17 years in a hospital in different departments.  I went from Radiology to the Cath Lab to a diagnostics area. 


I loved the challenge.  The medical terms and stories interested me so much that I even wanted to be on the procedures so I could learn more.  So, yes I wore lead and went in as an observer.  If you ever want to gain experience, that is the best way!  Be right there for the show!  LOL


In 1990, when I started as a MR clerk, SMOKING was allowed in Med Records...
can you imagine, and with all the charts laying around...it is so comical now to think of it...

That lasted until about 1992 I think...

That is not all that long ago really, to go from electric typewriters to smoking being practically outlawed...

they say MT will change more in the next few years, than it has in the last 100>>>>!
Hospital Unit Coordinator/Clerk
Anyone know what this kind of job would be like? One of the local hospitals has a few of these positions open in various departments. I'm wondering if it's a high pressure/low pay kind of thing, if only because they seem to be hiring from the outside. When I worked for a bank many years ago, they hired "outsiders" only for the crap jobs. I'm tired of MT and want to explore my options.
I did that with 2 kids with time mgmt and a high school girl who babysat 3 days a week after school
nm
I don't have kids, but my Mom was from the "old school," and still had everyone, kids inclu

call her by her first name.  The little neighbor girl next door from the time she could speak called her Aggie (my mom's first name), and they were great buddies until the day my mom pased away. 


I don't think there really is much in a name, but more in the respect you are given and the way you are treated.   Personally, I kind of cringe inside when someone calls me Ms. Anything or God forbid, "maam" (makes me feel like Methuselah!) ... I'm always just plain Merrie.  :-)


But, as someone pointed out, to each his own.  If you want to be addressed a certain way, you have that right, and people should respect that.  I'm glad you corrected the child ... hope it "sticks."    


Was this Diskriter? They asked for pix, too, for hospital position. n/m

,


Apply for a job I really wanted, when just started another 2 weeks ago?

I just started with a national 2 weeks ago.  I took that because the place I really wanted to work didn't have an opening for many, many months and it was finally time to just find something, so I took the other.


Now yesterday an opening was posted at the local clinic, the one I'd been wishing for.  I'd normally apply, but I just started this other and I'd feel really bad.  I'd also have to work in-house for around 3 months to get used to the new system and the way they do things and then I'd be turned loose to work from home.  I'd also have to work more hours a week (28) then I presently do, but it's not an awful number. 


Has anybody had a similar dilemma or held a job only a short time before moving on? I never do things like this!  Any advice?


I enjoy being alone at home, but I've got one home sick from school already.

One on one with a kid is nice, too.


This summer has been absolutely crazy.  I haven't had a moment to myself for three months because all of my kids were home traipsing their friends through the house and yard.  My husband switched his work schedule, too, so he's around more than usual.  However, I like not having to do two loads of dishes and four loads of laundry a day.  There are no toys or clutter dragged out everywhere.  I can clean the house first thing in the morning, and it stays clean until everyone gets home at night.


I even got to relax with a cup of coffee and watch TV for half an hour this morning, something I liked for a change instead of cartoons or kids' movies.  I signed up for an online class that I've been wanting to take.  I can exercise without being interrupted.  Yesterday, I went to the mall and spent all my saved up gift cards.  I got some clothes, books, bath stuff, and a new coffee mug.  My work gets done a lot faster, too.  Call me nuts, but I've never had the luxury of being alone in the house for 14 years.  It's kinda nice.  I love my family with all my heart, but I love having a few hours to myself each week, too.


Except now the cat and dogs have been acting weird since the kids went back to school.  They must think that I need someone or something to clean up after and correct behavior on.  They're getting into everything and racing around the house behind me.


My kids have suffered greatly from me working at home with them home. SM
I have been working at home as an MT since my two kids were born. They are now 4 and 5. In the first few years, I had no help whatsoever. Their father was a bum who didnt work or take care of them while I worked. Your children get neglected while you work basically. And babies and young children desperately need your attention while they are home with you.

My kids have so many behavioral problems right now because of their neglect. I would try to set them up with things to occupy themselves, like coloring or a movie, etc.

I finally put them in day care and things have improved, but there are still a lot of issues because of the damage that was done. They still try to seek attention by doing bad things and they dont listen to me because they are so used to me letting them get away with a lot of stuff because I was too busy typing to discipline them in their early years.

If I could do it all over again, I would definitely have put them into day care from the very beginning.

My advice would be to seek PT care for your baby. Maybe you can do some work around her schedule a little when she is home, like when she takes a nap, and then bang out a bunch of work while she is in day care.


Depending on the hospital and specific position...CindiRI...sm
it can be actually great working in-hospital...I have done an equal amount of both, and I would be still be working in house if it were not that one of my children has been diagnosed with a disability and I need to stay close to home....here in New England, the experienced pay is in $19.64 and up per hour; if the position is NOT per diem, meaning you have a regular shift and are considered a regular employee, you just come in for your own hours (at the time I left I was working evenings and my husband was staying with 3 children), my hours were Tues, Wed., Thurs., & Sat., 4pm to 11pm, except for Sat, 6am to 2pm. Medical, dental, vision, life, long-term disability, 401k, 403 annuity, 2 weeks PTO first year and then it accrued, CMT and continuing ed reimbursement and scholarships, health club, and it was great to get to know all your doctors after a time, get really fast and productive on them, even the ESLs....it all was great EXCEPT for office politics, always plenty of that, but there were some great girls (and guys!) who became friends. It is all individual to the MT and to the specific hospital! Best of luck, e-mail me anytime if you just want to talk or question, okay?? :->
I wanted to, but I can't really justify keeping the kids out
until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. and have to drive on the Interstate to get home.  DH didn't like the sound of it either, not that I'd ever let anyone tell me what to do.  I'm just going to put the kids to bed tonight and go get the book tomorrow, then read it all in one sitting.  We're not really into face painting or wand making.  Besides, my friends said it was a mobhouse when they went and not worth it just to get the book a few hours earlier than other people.
2 accts are direct hospital, 1 is a clinic and the 4th is a subcontractor position. nm
.
Just curious, are there companies who just hire ER MT?? I just left my hospital position due to voi
x
that's why I started school -
I am driving myself crazy here...

I have no social life because even if something is going on, I have to sit here and wait for jobs to download one by one so that I have some kind of income for the day - my boyfriend of course does not want to stay home and just sit, so I end up being home by myself all the time...

My income is so horrible lately that I don't know what I am going to do. Going now to take to the people who financed my houe and explain to them the situation and just hope and pray they will work with me for a couple of months.

I will be graduated from accounting with an Associate's degree in December and hope to high heaven that somebody has some money they want counted then!!!!
Just got an offer from a local hospital and wanted to run it passed you all before I say yes...

Employee status w/benefits


$13.50/hr with 0.05 cpl incentive fo anything above 1200 lpd and $2.00 shift differential (for 2nd shift which I will be working)


1000 lpd minimum productivity requirement


Work in the office first month for training and then home with hospital provided computer.


Dictaphone EXText Word Client transcription platform


Is this a decent offer?  I've worked at the same place in the office forever and haven't actually been out there  looking in several years.  I tried working for a national part time at one time because I wanted to be working from home, but couldn't see how someone could make a living on 0.08 cpl without working yourself into an early grave, so I gave up the part time job and kept the full time in office job.  Now I have a new boss who doesn't know her butt from a hole in the ground and I started looking around and came across this current job and before I jump ship, I want to make sure I'm getting a good deal.


The $13.50 seemed kind of low to me given my years of experience (13 years), but because I was at my other job for so long I maxed out pay wise.


Call a local school or program and ask. I was asked if I wanted to teach when I
s
My kids were almost 2 and 3 when I started to do MT - sm
wish I had started earlier since it would have been a lot easier when they were babies. I agree the first year will be easy (or the easiest anyway), of course depends on when they start to walk too, mine were 9/10 months for that. We have dog gates so they came in quite handy, plus babyproofed the heck out of the house. I generally worked only while they napped and late into the night (i.e. until 2 generally got up at 8). I only worked PT and had no set schedule which of course helped tremendously. I still have no set schedule, and currently work about 5-6 hours during the day and 3-4 at night depending on my work load now (working on eliminating/lessening the night work as it is much harder for me to do now). So it is doable, just don't plan on getting a lot of sleep if you want to get proficient and do well. Luckily we did not need the money I made then and I did not make much (around $600 a month) then....now do about $2K a month which I still would like to increase of course....that is where working more efficiently and being dedicated comes in....so I guess I shouldn't be on here! Actually this week is my kid's Spring break and I am only working very minimally this week so we can do some things as I am "always working". Good luck.
School started here today.....sm
I kissed and hugged my daughter and wished her well as the bus drove off! 
When I started at the hospital

in high school, I was offered $3.00 more per hour to be a transcriptionist.  I learned so much.  The ones who have been in this field a long time has seen it decline.  I do have my own accounts now after 19 years and have had them for a while, but it is hard for someone new to network unless they work on-site and are "noticed" so to speak. 


These nationals and small MTSOs (paying cheap labor), which most I have tried just for extra cash do, have put a damper on this profession.  What was once a high-paying job is not any longer due to these types of businesses.  The docs don't seem to mind paying a low rate to an offshore company because they see it as good business sense.  They don't really look at it like they are putting American MTs out of work.  JMO. 


I try not to complain because I love what I do.  I'd switch in a minute and I'm young enough, but right now my CHILDREN come first.  I also can't see where I'd make as much hourly on-site that I make now working as an IC. 


I will pursue something else sooner or later, but probably at that point won't be looking for more per hour, but maybe just a nice retirement plan where I can put in 20 years.  I think I'll be ready for some people contact by then, as I love people.  I will give this another 5 years tops, and then I'll be back on-site! 


 


Don't know how many kids in your school..sm

when my child was in high school there were 3000 kids - 2 security officers and perhaps one cop (big huge city) - NOT ENOUGH TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN.  Guns and knives were waiting with perp kids across the street from the public school buses, near the city buses....lots of knifings.......pulled my kid out and had her finish up elsewhere....where they did care about kids.......


Like I said elsewhere - if they (authorities) don't care about our kids, they don't care about our/their future either.......


 


:(((


My high school had police there. It started
about my junior/senior year I think....and cameras everywhere. We also had a security guard patrol the campus, although he was more worried about kids sneaking out than anything.

I'm surprised all schools don't have them. It sure could have diffused the situation a lot faster, possibly saving the girl's life had a police officer already been inside before happening.
I am in the same place you are - I started school last week... nm
x
Quit after 2 years. If I wanted to work 8 hours a day, I would have stayed in the hospital. Seemed
to be working all day long just to make a decent living.  Although, I wanted to be home with my kids until the baby was at least 5, had to breakdown and return to working outside the home, to make ends meet. Just to stressfull trying to make a good living with the rates they are paying now. 
I understand when the kids are grown, so I started over!
My youngest was turning 17 when I got pregnant with another. I guess it is called empty nest syndrome. I'm now 48 and raising a 7 year old beautiful little girl and I remember when my oldest children were growing up I'd think it was never going to end. Now I wake up every day thinking she is growing up too fast! I sure appreciate her more, now that I've seen how fast they will be gone!
Nope. If I wanted to work outside the home, it certainly would not
be typing of any sort.
My SIL's mom also wanted to work from home cause she was *bored*. nm
y
if they stated they wanted her to work from home
they should have included all the other "but" and "if" and not made working at home sounded like it was going to be permanent whent they gave her the option.  It is their duty to include the details.  The boss is just leaving the door wide open to whatever he or she wants to do whenever it suits her.  Too many prima donnas out there on both ends! 
Our hospital has started dabbling with VR...
... and at present it is only marginally useful. Most of the docs using it prefer live MTs. Others think they're doing such a bang-up job of using VR that they sign off their work without ever reading it or sending it to be edited. Now THAT is ANOTHER train-wreck going somewhere to happen. I've read what the VR comes up with, and although the company that built it says it's "100% trainable", it turns out not to be. It just doesn't learn some things, and makes the same mistakes over and over again. Some people in our office believe our MT Dept. will only be there for 3, maybe 5 more years. That may be the case, but not because VR is going to take over the whole hospital. More than likely they will simply send all their more difficult dictation out to an MT company, in order to save themselves the money involved with hiring, training, housing and insuring live MTs. I have no problem with leaving the hospital to be an at-home MT for a national, but will not work for any that doesn't provide the basic benefits: healthcare, PTO, vacation, etc. I've looked into other related fields, one being court reporting, another being closed captioning for TV. Unfortunately, TV is already using MOSTLY VR. (And the results are pretty funny.... I always get a good laugh at reading the captions on our TV sets at the gym!) Live court-reporting still exists for some legal reasons. You can make a good living at it, but it takes YEARS to build speed and learn an entirely different "language" on the stenotype machine. I figure I'm a little too close to retirement to be having to go back to school FULL TIME for 5 or 6 years! (Part-time would take 'WAY too long.) And what would I do -- go back and live with my parents? I don't THINK so!

I think things could get worse before they get better. Offshoring and the so-called promise of VR has lowered the respectibility of the MT profession considerably. (That ol' "out of sight, out of mind" adage!) Others think that if a machine (VR) can transcribe, then those of us who still do it live are nothing less than machines, outselves.

Once again, I think it's impoirtant for PATIENTS to tell they docs they not only don't want their info. going offshore, they ALSO don't want a VR program transcribing their medical notes unless it is fully edited by a professional MT before the doc can sign it. If the doc can't promise that won't happen, then maybe it's a good time to go doc-shopping.

Paralegal and legal secty. are good professions, but a little too formal and rigid for me, and again, there is the amount of time, school, and money involved before embarking on a new career. In MT, I'm at the top of my field & payscale.... with anything else, I'd be starting about again as a newbie, with the added problem of being late middle-aged and having to compete with a bunch of 20 or 30-somethings.

As for people dissing the MT profession: When I was in college, and flunking out of my classes from boredom even tho' I had a high IQ, my friends & relatives thought I was slacking off when I went to a trade school to learn MT. I have friends whose parents didn't allow them to take typing in high school back in the 70's, because they didn't want them to end up in a "dead-end secretarial profession." Well, most of those non-typists today are struggling to learn to use computers, and even when they do learn, they sure do type slowly, some hunt-and-peck. Yikes! AND.... when I see all the friends with MBAs, PhDs, etc. who had the fancy, big-bux jobs in the 80s, who are now either unemployed or doing menial jobs just to survive, it makes me feel a little better that I stuck with the healthcare industry and MT work. Things were looking bad in the late 1990s, the cost of everything was rising so fast that the "little people" like us could hardly afford an apartment in the silicon valley, and many of us were officially members of the "Working Poor" class. Then came the dot-com bust, and all of a sudden, things got better for us. Many of the fancy-job people moved out of state, and rents started to go down. Meanwhile, those of us in MT were still plugging away at it, and getting the occasional raise. Most of my fancy-job siblings don't even have health insurance, and are working lower paying jobs now. So I've been able to catch up to them a little bit. I can also leave the work behind me at the end of the day when I walk out the door - I'm not shackled to a cellphone, a pager, or a blackberry. I'm not on 24-hour call.

If I'm wrong, and live MTs DO become obsolute in the future, I'm hoping that since right now I'm socking away every dime I can into my 401K, that if MT disappears 5 years before I'd be officially eligible for retirement (although I don't believe any of us under 60 will ever be able to FULLY retire...), that it will take up the slack from whatever low-paying part-time job I may have to take in my old age in order to afford both an apartment AND food to eat!
have your kids gone back to school yet? if so, where are you at...
if not, when do they go back and where are you at?  This is strictly out of curiosity, everyone, no ulterior motives here! I'm in GA and mine went back yesterday...think it's WAY too early to go back.  They were only out for nine weeks!
No way would my kids be in regular school
It was bad enough years ago when I was in public school, but nowadays with all the drugs, sex, guns, knives, etc., in school, there is no way any kids of mine would be in a public school. I remember my study hall when the kids were totally out of control and the teacher was afraid of them-- it sure isn't any better now. If I could not afford a private school, you'd better believe they would be home schooled.
Kids schedules outside of school....sm

It's amazing to me how many parents push their kids to the extreme with extracurricular activities.   I saw a cousin this weekend and her 2nd grader is taking 4 dance lessons (4-1/2 hours a week), an acting class (1 hour)  is in some special gifted program that meets 1 hour after school each week and is in the church kid's choir on Wednesdays.   This means this 7-year-old has 7-1/2 hours of extracurricular activities scheduled.  


I told her that my 6-year-old chooses 1 activity to participate in outside of church kids choir (meets on Sunday) and that's all she does. 


What about your kids if you have them?  If you have your child scheduled in a lot of things aren't you worried that they will burn out?  I've recently read stories that a lot of kids that are overscheduled are getting depressed and I can see why.


As long as you have someone with the kids after school and can
s
hospital at-home -vs- national at home

I have an interview today with a hospital...work in-house for 3 months, then go home, paid on production. I don't know as of yet what they pay production, so my question is to anyone who works for a hospital at home AND has also worked for a national at home...


Which would be the best to choose? The hospital offers great benefits, but the national I work for now also has benefits, not as good as the hospital, though.  Any input would be most appreciated!



Yes! My kids (above, age 22 and 24) started out making more than I make after 30 years of MT!
.
That's about the time my hospital started treating its -nm
..
I started part-time in a doc's office while still in high school. sm
That was in 1984. My career just bloomed from there......
I can't wait for school to start either, and I don't even HAVE kids!! nm
xxxx
I don't need to know anything about it. My kids functioned fine in school
and let them have friends of their own choosing rather than manipulate their lives for them.
I do not know about her school but next Tues. when my kids start the first day they get out at 9:50
x
Absolutely would - however, I have to wait until my 2 kids are out of school
and off to college! I always wanted to be a traveling Transcriptionist with K-Force. I have 3 more years to wait and off I will go to a traveling transcription position.

I, however, love change and get bored fairly quickly. So, I would prefer the shorter assignments from place to place - 3 years is too long in one place for me!

Good luck to you!
Private Christian school is where my kids go.
nm
I believe it is next Monday, the 19th, as the kids have off school for it.
nm
Since 1970. MT school at a hospital.
.
What a great post! I have 3 kids and my oldest just started college ...

I miss him like crazy even though he comes home every weekend with his laundry!   He is also a drummer in a band and for some reason, their new drum set is at my house.  But, I realize that soon enough my house will stay clean and the noise (i.e. - drums, guitars, laughing, fighting - not sure I'll miss the fighting!) will quiet, so I try to enjoy it all as much as possible.  (excuse me while I go have a quick cry and then get back to work! 


Happy New Year, everyone!


I've been in MT for 20 years. Started out in the office at a hospital.

Switched to working for services from home for a while and now I work for the same hospital I started out at, but I work from home now.  So I guess you can say I've come full circle and now I'm back where I started.  I much prefer being an employee of a hospital versus an IC or employee of an MTSO.


It may be that your user profile in EXText is not set up to allow you to add normals.  I've found with services they don't give their MTs a whole lot of freedom with their software.   


I have trained 2 people from scratch, no medical background, no school, nothing and they started ave
;