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Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

hospitals shutting down

Posted By: grasshopper on 2008-12-29
In Reply to: Sundays bad news for hospitals - kathy blair

Yes, I heard this on the radio news. Our system is based on profit, not on healthcare. So when you are not making a profit, you can't survive and they certainly are not going to treat people who cannot pay or people who don't have insurance.

So as a result, "sorry folks, no can do, bye, bye."

Who knows, but the bigger institutions may be next.


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Have you tried shutting down, actually UNPLUGGING, and restarting?

Believe it or not, this is how I got mine to correct itself. 


1) Shut down computer.


2) Unplug computer from the wall.


3) Unplug the footpedal from the USB port.


Reconnect everything and restart.


Cross your fingers.


 


I use Maxell NC-II, about $36 - great for shutting out - sm
the noise around me when everyone is home as they cover the whole ear. Much better than my previous $135 pair of noise-cancelling ones I had (forget the brand) that only lasted a year before they shorted out.
Shutting down/reboot and defrag

Both rebooting your system at least once every day or two, and defragging your hard drive about once a month will pay dividends in terms of system performance.


Scandisk has nothing to do with this. Jeez!


Brian


Shutting it on and off doesn't restore normals? Are you
s
Yeah, but hospitals are already largely using VR in hospitals. (nm)
(nm)
Most hospitals have ......

contracted their work out to the national service, a practice I hope comes full circle eventually and hospitals reopen their own departments in the name of confidentiality and quality control.  I only know of 2 hospitals out of about 8 in my area that have their own department (I work for one of them).  It is by far the best MT job there is, or that I have ever had.  I am at home, but a regular employee.  The hospital is only 20 min from my house (we have to live local).  I have worked for the big nationals and saw nothing but a decline in pay.  Now I get regular raises, good hourly pay, production incentive pay, benefits, and vacation time.  I wish more MTs could find my situation.  I have hopes for the future once the industry figures out that they are cutting off their nose in spite of their face.


Do All Hospitals
In Tennessee pay that well? I have been considering moving to Tennessee to try to get away from the hurricanes.
VA Hospitals

I did the VA Hospital dictation here in Portland and it was all contracted out to companies, no employees.   But you might contact your local VA Hospital but if it is as an employee 95% chance you will have to go into work and not do it at home, if it is at home it will be as an IC and no benefits.    Just what I know about it.  If you think your ESL's are bad at a regular hospital, this is worse as there is a lot of ESL's there on their rotation and they could care less how they dictate as they are only there for 6 to 8 weeks.   Changes that often.   


 


The hospitals are not going to get
dial into.  They'd be better off hiring MTs and paying benefits than doing that.  And if you dial directly into the hospital, instead of into the MTSO's dictation system, then the MTSO has no say in 800 lines.  The truth is, hospitals usually do not want to just turn all of their dictation over to a service and they certainly aren't going to pay for long distance incoming calls in addition to what they pay the service.
just sometimes it is the hospitals...
they are actually told to hold back dictation at times, due to costs. sometimes the hospitals sneak around and try other services, or voice recognition.

in the future, there will not even be any voice dictation...just templates where information is added, like data entry...
Not that many hospitals.......
still have their own dept.  That's how Medquist and Spheris and all those huge nationals exist... They have whole hospital accounts.  Out of the 3 large hospitals in my vicinity, only 1 still has their own department.  I trolled their website for months before I found an opening, but I eventually got in.  Some  hospitals don't have their MTs at home, mine does.  It all depends.  Most hospitals have a website, so fine the one you're interested in and check out their job opportunities, and then check it almost every day and if they do have a dept, they'll eventually have an opening.
Well - believe it. Hospitals pay that. I can tell you
at least hospitals in the Philadelphia area pay up to 24 cpl. MQ charges 23 cpl. I have one small department of a hospital at 17 cpl. It is out there - pull your head out of the sand and go looking.
I wonder if hospitals know
There are American transcription companies opening up here in the US that actually work for companies in India?  I had a job offer from an American company and they let it slip that they were actually getting paid by Focus Infomatics.   I thought about this and what an idea!  You open up a company in the states, the facilities think they are getting American work, then you actually have the work done overseas.....hmmmmm
hospitals

do hospitals now go by minutes instead of lines in regards to productivity?  if so, what is the usual they are asking for an 8 hour day? 


thanx!


All hospitals are different. Concerning
your "past," if it has been exspunged from your record, then basically it never happened. This happened to my BFs son and his attorney told him that since his record was exspunged, nothing ever took place, so he does not have to mention it on any job application. You might want to call your local court house or your attorney on that particular question.

I would say go ahead and apply. Good luck.
All hospitals are different. when I sm
first started, ERs did their own stuff too. But as the years went on, ER combined with the MR departments and was considered part of acute care. It is not as detailed but you get some of the same language in an abbreviated from by doing ERs, even some OP reports. I don't like ERs either though simply because the docs are usually in a hurry and they are motor mouths. I do think though that MTs now should consider ERs as part of acute care especially if they don't like ERs.

Some MT companies do split them up though and hire folks for just ERs.
SM hospitals
It's been years since I have heard of any hospital that has ANYbody working in-house.
What hospitals?? I'm soooo there


No, even the hospitals don't want to hire new MTs.
Doctors don't want to hire newbies.  In office, at home, it doesn't matter.  It's not about being a stay at home mommy, as you are so assuming and generalizing yourself.  Everyone wants to hire experienced workers, but nobody is willing to train them.  As I said, every other industry in the country trains their workers.  MT seems to be the only one where people are expected to walk into it knowing everything.  It's not an assumption; it's an observation.  Just because my experience and observations are different than yours does not make me wrong.  You're not the know all, end all to the MT world.  I do have business management experience and education, so don't dismiss my observation as lacking just because it doesn't match yours.
Hospitals being sued
Seems to me the hospitals must not be very worried about being sued or they would require fluency in the English language as a pre-requisite for staff privileges.  Secondly, any doctor who doesn't read what he signs pretty much deserves what he gets.   Transcriptionists make mistakes....so do doctors.  Thirdly, maybe hospitals should re-think how their work is contracted out.  Far fewer problems when transcription was done in house.
i am sure you are aware that there are still hospitals out there
that have not yet adopted these rules. I type for one major hospital that still wants the patient's name typed in the report. Another still wants cc instead of mL. Had this person tested and changed it to the "correct" form, who is to say that she wouldn't have gotten marked off for changed verbatim. Nervous MT2, hang in there, and if you test again make sure you ask up front whether they want you to follow BOS or type it verbatim that way you know ahead of time.
but what percentage of hospitals allow that?

From what I've been reading ... the home-based service MT is averaging 8 cpl, for those dictators which make you run screaming from the room. And, I don't forsee things improving. Then again, some are lucky enough to make a line rate worthy of their skills, without worry about the dictators from Hades.

This is a bit out of date:   http://www.bls.gov/oco/pdf/ocos271.pdf


My nearby hospitals pay around $10 as well (sm)
I make 22-25$/hr at home. I live in an area where average pay is low, but likewise cost of living is reasonable.
I miss the hospitals too.
But things are so different there now that the online companies exist. It changed the way transcription is handled in most places. When I went back to working for a hospital last year, the supervisor wanted a certain amount of lines per day versus minutes per day like the old days. It was an outrageous number and with no Expander or medical speller or anything.


Hospitals oursourcing
HIPPA is all about smoke and mirrors, designed to keep the masses feeling "secure." If the powers that be were concerned about privacy and the state of the world, they would have built that provision right in there from the beginning, but powerful special interest groups designed HIPPA and left out this all important factor. I personally know hospitals that directly outsource overseas, and maybe, just maybe it may have to do with the fact that the owners (doctors) are foreigners living in this country and have colleagues in India. Wheh I questioned an administration about HIPPA and what they were doing, I was told, "Not to worry, they take the same precautions and follow protocols we do here for HIPPA." I say, yeah, but who can see from here what potential dangers lurk overseas, especially with so much concern of volatility in those areas of the world. Terrorists live in India, Pakistan, the Phillipines, etc. and all it would take is a nasty vendetta against our nation and POFF!!! There goes our medical records! Now we have to be concerned that the United Nations may take over the supervision of the internet!!
Nationals: Sometimes the hospitals have their own MTs sm
and pull the MTSO off the account when work is low to keep the hospital employees busy.  This probably happens more often than one might think these days.  IMHO
You have 911. There are local hospitals
with free nurse referral lines. That's just for starters.

You just take the cake for stupidity with your original question and now your silly offended replies.
Hospitals Using Outsourcing
Really not so unusual for all hospitals in one city to contract out transcription. Little Rock, AR for example where I used to live, did just that, save for one hospital (Baptist), so I moved east to Memphis, because I could not stand working out of my home to land a hospital job to work in. Cost-cutting measures you know.
that would be because MDs/hospitals adore.nm
.
in hospitals it seems always ASAP - SM
I work rad (employee) in a hospital, and they are always ALWAYS working to improve TAT. From the time the exam is done to complete dictation, they want 3-4 hours. That means if your doc delays the dictation, they want transcription NOW because the doc took so long.

However, in the situation you describe, checking back in 1-2 hours should not matter that much. You should just let them know the deal - they probably know how that radiologist is as much (or better) than you. Maybe they/he could call or email when he is done?

My hospital has a contract with a sister hospital to do their radiology - they have radiologists that do this exact same thing. We told them when our staffing is available. If they do not dictate during that time, then their reports are delayed -- no question. they have to deal with it.

Doing it yourself, your situation is different, of course, but hopefully they would work with you to let you know when the work is available so that you don't have to be "on call" for them.

As far as line rates, I can't say an average. I have another rad account that I do at $.15/line, but this is 3 days a week for a mobile service (TAT is 1-3 DAYS here...) I would charge more if they needed it "now", especially if they wouldn't work with me as to when "now" might be!

Long answer - hope it helps.
Feel free to email with any more questions if you want.
Hospitals in town
I hear sometimes that there are still hospitals doing their dictations with their own transcriptionists, and I'm lucky that I found one through their website... but wondering, just how do you find out who does the hospitals in your city? No one ever advertises in the newspapers anymore and most hospital websites have nothing about transcription. I live in a pretty big city with lots of hospitals and clinics and outpatient surgeries. Surely they're not all outsourced to the Big Greedies.
rural hospitals
If this is an extra job I would certainly make it worth my while. I worked at small hosp. for 5 yrs that did not want to work us from home. Kept saying they could not but I knew better. Eventually I went off on my own and have been home since. We had 3 FT. They hired 2 in my place and 1 PT for wknds. I type at night now to catch them up. They still had 1 PT and 4 FT, but I charge them 15 cpl. I clear in 5-8 hours what they all 4 do in 1 day, literally. Still did not want to put me or others at home. Want me to drive 45 miles 1 way to type, after I've pulled my reg. 8. Now what I do, whether they know it or not, I dial up on my C-phone into thier system and type at home, save it to disc (they monitor email + HIPPA) drive over for about an hour and transfer work into thier system. So if they have a phone in line you might check with them about on call stuff being typed at home, especially if this is stat work. It will certainly get back to them quicker. This is just fear of the unknown. This same hosp. has now, instead of firing those not doing work and hiring a good worker or paying them OT will pay me double the amount. They have also moved the weekend girl to FT and are letting a file clerk/PT IC do the weekend x-rays and still want me to help. That's 5 full time typist and 2 PT for a 43 bed hosp. Thier may reason was not to put thier network on home computers, which they all ready do. Won't give me network access but have given it to the weekend girl. Plus they are paying a consultant out the wazoo to tell them why this is not working!

If you are going to be on call, make sure you have set days or hours that you will be on call and that you are compensated. Don't let them just pay you for the work you do. Your time is worth money also. In other words don't sit home all day 3 nights a week waiting for a phone call and get paid for 1 hours. I have done this in the past where I worked and was on call on weekends for x-rays. There might be 1 or 21 or none. I got paid by the hour. If there were none I got paid for 1 hour for showing up. Ask an x-ray tech or someone who gets on call pay. They get a flat rate for being on call and then they get paid for the individual call.
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.
Why would hospitals have a list of
transcription companies, doesn't make sense.    If you want your own clients you should come up with a brochure to send to local doctors/clinics.    A doctor may ask in medical records who does their medical transcription, but it isn't the roll of the hospital to provide them with a list of providers. 
Children's hospitals!
I have only been transcribing for about a year now and I am on an account for a children's hospital.  I can not find half the words, nor understand the ESL doctors.  Does anyone has any pointers, or know of a good website or book?  Thanks guys!
Are any of those re-hiring hospitals in
?
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.
I would say those are major. Hospitals SM
often have this sort of policy and expect the services doing business with them to enforce it.
hospitals are the doctors..
x
Hospitals vs. MTSOs
I am applying at both a hospital for a prn position and with an MT company for part time work. I have the option to work in-house with the hospital, which I may do because I have to drive 25 miles to the city to bring my kids to their preschool anyway.  My question is, what are some of the differences between working for a hospital and working for a company?  (Pros and cons for each)  I have less than 2 years experience, and some of that time was spent doing chiropractic transcription, so I am concerned that I might need more experience or training for the hospital work.  Is it more difficult to work for a hospital?  Thanks in advance for any comments.  
Who is transcribing HCA hospitals?
 Does anyone know what company is transcribing the Texas HCA hospitals?  Need to know this really quick. 
No the hospitals do not. Would you think twice if your contact was *** from SM
America Types? **** has the toll free number of 866 and his address is Oklahoma City, OK (only an example of course). Your top priority is the fact that they only charge .08 per line when your local hometown Transcriptionist or service charges .10 or more per line. Who would you choose..c'mon people, these companies are scoundrels and need to be stopped.
It's all a SCAM, and the hospitals are in on it, too
cheap Indian sweatshop labor is not only more 'cost-effective' (as long as you don't factor in potential malpractice or identity-theft suits), but that the work they do is actually NOT the garbage it really is.

Just wait'll some rich doctor has a medical procedure someday, his or her reports get sent to India, Philippines or Pakistan, their identity gets sold by some disgruntled Indian worker who is also getting shafted pay-wise and is ticked off at his/her employer, and the doc's bank account gets drained.

If it hasn't already happened, then it most certainly will. If it's a regular patient, the hospitals could care less. But when it happens to a doc (or a hospital head-honcho), then you just know the hospital is gonna hear about it, and LOUDLY.
hospitals outsource because
they are sick of all the MT drama (as we can here on this board); therefore, there are not many in-house positions left ;)
hospitals outsource because
ooops...I meant "as we can SEE how much drama is going on here on this board"
Teaching hospitals & residents...
I work for a very large university hospital account and hate how long-winded some of these residents can be! Argh! Especially 1st year - just a plain chest xray turns into a thesis! And the attendings aren't much better - they love to "teach" on my time! What is your preference - teaching hospitals (which admittedly are great teaching grounds for MT's) or regular, plain old boring regular hospitals? These residents make me want to........
RE: Teaching hospitals & residents...
Teaching hospitals.
Are you in an area where there are numerous hospitals??

If so, maybe some of them have their own departments and you can get hired inhouse.  That's what I finally had to do in order to get the pay and respect and steady work that I needed.  I'm working less than full-time and making 30,000+.  You may have to work in house and follow a set schedule, but at least you'll have a decent job. 


Which one? I thought the Phila. hospitals
Just curious.
i have worked in hospitals here in Utah and NEVER . . .

seen anyone drinking or abusing any other substance.  I'm not doubting it happens, but I do doubt it is a common practice.


However, even if it was a widespread problem, it still would not ever be right.


Drinking ANY amount, whether it is a glass or a bottle, affects performance. 


Millard Fillmore Hospitals?
Anyone know of a service handling these accounts?