Is Medical Transcription a dying profession?

Again, I can only speak from my own experience and my own opinions.  So, without further ado, and because I have a morning date with the leftover Dr. Runon-SubjectJumper, here is the promised post.  I am prepared though!  Rob made extra strong coffee!

Oh....and it is still freakin rainin!!!  can you believe that?????   UUGH...

Okay, on to the post.

I do not believe that Medical Transcription will ever die as a profession.  Will Straight transcription die, maybe.  More and more doctors are going to voice recognition software.  That is just a fact of life, and it is unavoidable.  This is a fact of today's technological advances!   Think about it, compared to just 5 years ago how far has technology advanced?  

 

Do you still have a landline phone?  Some don't.  Why?  Because of how advanced cell phones are getting.  People say, "oh, we don't need that old thing anymore!" BUT...Landlines are STILL needed.  Cell phone signals fail, believe me, I know this!  Two years ago we had an ice storm that knocked out our power and Cell towers and everything for a week.  We had neighbors asking to use our landline!  It was still needed. Voice Recognition, like cell signals, fail.  They make mistakes!

Sometimes they are really funny mistakes that make no sense whatsoever.  Other times, they are serious mistakes such as the wrong medication or a lethal dose which could kill someone.  These doctors yawn, sneeze, eat, mumble, burp, cough, etc. while dictating.  The voice recognition sometimes picks this up and translates wrong.  

Who is going to fix this?   That is right!  The medical transcriptionist!  Why?  The doctors are so busy with their jobs and trying to find time for their family (and maybe a bit of golf ;) ) that they just do not have the time to go over their dictated reports and fix the errors that VR makes.  That is where we will come in. 

Will the whole system go to Electronic Medical Records (EMR)?  Maybe...but every single day I have one of my doctor say something such as "Medical History: Found on EMR but with these changes...."  This tells me that some of the clinics I work for are already using EMRs....but it takes a transcriptionist to add to that EMR and it takes a Medical Transcription Editor (MTE) to edit what VR translates wrong!

Will our jobs ever fully die?  No, I do not believe so.  I do believe that some day we may be the lonely landline phones only doing part of our jobs and not fully typing the files, but we will still be needed.  I guess it is like the doctors out there who are having to put down their scalpels and supervise the robot doing the surgery because the robot does it safer.  The world moves on and technology advances at lightening speed.  In the end though, human thoughts, eyes, and feelings are still needed!  

Now, go give your landline phone a hug....it misses you!     

Oh, and it just totally started SNOWING....I am giddy!  I love SNOW!!!!!

Okay...off to work now with a snow-induced smile on my face!!!!   

A rainy, dreary, Monday...Only one thing made it better.

Skittles!!!!!  Rob bought me 3 pounds of them at Wal-Mart!   

My friend Jody says I am spoiled :)  I say YES Ma'am, I am.  I owe him a back rub tonight though :)   I needed it on a day like today!  It has been cold and rainy all day!  We honestly have not had one minute of rainless weather since around 10 this morning!  I needed those little rainbow candies today!  You will learn fast if you follow me that I am a major hater of Monday.  I find myself having trouble concentrating and brushing off the weekend.  All I want to do is relax like I did all weekend!  This has caused an issue on many Mondays, and this one is one of them....

That is not my only issue either.
Since my kids have been home from school,  I have done 3 minutes of the 20 minutes that are due by the time I go to bed tonight and then there are another 28 minutes of reports waiting that are due at noon tomorrow. This, my dear listeners readers, is a problem that faces a lot of us Work at Home moms. Be ready for that.  

Just since 3:30, my 13-year-old needed me to braid her friends' hair, but I had to finish a 23 minute file before 5.  Did I want to braid her friend's hair?  YES!  Could I?  No.  I had to get that file finished and proofread.  So, I let her down and I hate that.  My 10-year-old wanted me to quiz him on his test that he has on Wednesday...Could I?  NO.  I told him to study on his own and that Rob would be home from picking up Allie from Cheer practice and he could quiz him.  I feel as though I push them away so much!  So, now you know, this work at home stuff is not always easy!  I got that file finished, but there are others still waiting for me.  Of course, being thrown off my game with interruptions has caused me to get a bit distracted.  This part of it is MY fault!  I do have issues with focusing sometimes!  I get my work done, but I sometimes procrastinate too much and end up working later than I should have to! 

We get through it all though.  Right now the younger kids are watching last week's Biggest Loser Thanksgiving Special and Rob is working on his end of term Philosophy paper.  Holland is at the school cheering on the Jr. High basketball teams.  I am here typing to you, and then I have to finish up what is due tonight.  We do all that we can to maintain a happy household around here.  I just wish we had more time to be a family sometimes!  

So.  What has the work part of this Monday been like? Not too horrible.  I have a doctor that I call "Dr. Runon-Subject-Jumper" because this doctor is seriously all over the place in the files.  Some days it is really fun and I get to laugh a bit, other days I just feel it is wasting the doctor's time and mine for me to be typing the useless tidbits of facts.  Oh, and remember I said I hate fragments and run-ons?  Yea..he is a big fragment/run-on talker.  I have a lot of fun with him (note sarcasm)!    The only other doctor I have worked on today has been one of my favorites but this doctor likes to put the mic REALLY close to his mouth when he speaks...It makes for some muffled words occasionally, it could be worse though so I will not complain!  

Okay, I know this is a totally random post...but I promised to post every day!  I did, however, want to touch real quick on something I missed yesterday!  

Straight transcription and Voice recognition. These are 2 of the most important terms out there!  

~Straight transcription is what I do.  I type the report from scratch using only a template as a guide (sometimes not even that).  I type what the doctor says, edit as needed for a perfect report (hopefully), it then goes to my QA, and then gets passed from them to the doctor's office.  This type of transcription usually pays about double what VR (voice recognition) does because it is more typing.


~Voice recognition is what more and more of the industry is moving to.  This is where the doctor will speak into his computer or other audio capturing device, and a voice recognition program will put his spoken word in document form.  As a VR transcriptionist it would be your job to edit the voice recognition machine's version of the dictation.  You would get the VR's version of the file, and the audio, and you would listen to the audio while reading the report.  You would verify all medications, tools, materials, and other such things as the voice recognition simply put the words on paper.  It was not smart enough to say "hey, this drug should be capitalized" or "500 mg of Xanax?  That doesn't sound right."  So, basically you are the Voice Recognition's QA.  They type it, you proof it, and you fix all the mistakes it makes.  I have only minimal experience with Voice Recognition so unfortunately any questions about that will have to be passed to my friends!  I will do what I can to answer though!




Okay, I have to get back to work and finish these files so I can have some downtime tonight...I might do a smaller post in the morning if work doesn't come in early.  I want to touch on something that all aspiring MTs hear and fear.  Transcription is a dying profession.  (Cue eerie end of world music here)   In the morning, I will share my personal beliefs on this subject and hopefully put your mind at ease.  I also hope to be visiting you from a much sunnier, and warmer, desk (and hopefully I will be less grouchy too).  


Until tomorrow...


Take some time to "taste the rainbow".  Get the snack food of your choice, indulge, and smile.  You have made it though another day of your life, be thankful :)


Sharon ♥

What is MT?

Okay, so today it wasn't coffee or tea that I grabbed to enjoy while I typed, it was Cookies and Cream Ice Cream....My favorite!  

What are you going to read about today?  Medical Transcription.  I will be talking about my job probably on a daily basis so I want to make sure everyone (who is not already an MT) knows what I am talking about :)  So, lets get started!  If after reading this you have more questions, please feel free to ask me!  I will do what I can to answer your questions!  


Just a warning....this is a long one because I want all of this out of the way! 

~What does a Medical Transcriptionist do?  
Well...Some may think that all we do is type the words we hear, as spoken, and that is the end of it.  That is the furthest thing from the actual job we do.  As an MT we are required to type what we hear (from a dictated file), but also we must correct grammar, check medicine dosages, verify the patient information, and reform sentences so that they are full sentences and not run-ons or fragments (this is the biggest pain in the rear for me).  

We also have to be sure that the 28-year-old female with uterine cancer is not being called a "he" or "him" throughout the report or that the 30-year-old man is having his C-section rescheduled.  Uniformity is the ultimate goal in a medical report.  The report MUST look professional!  

In my opinion, the #1 most important aspect of our jobs is to verify medications!  The prescribed medication and dosage MUST be correct.  If a doctor forgets what he put a patient on, where do you think he will go to check this information when the patient calls for a refill?  That is right, the medical report that you typed!  If you typed it wrong then he will proceed to prescribe that patient the wrong medication, possibly a fatal medication or dosage.  Another mistake some doctors make is accidentally prescribing a patient a medication that he or she is allergic to.  It is our job as MTs to alert our supervisors, or the ones in control of the reports, and make sure that they alert the doctor so that this can be corrected.  



~How does it all work?
An MT will get work (dictations) from either a doctor or their company, type it, name it, and send it back in or return it to the doctor.  The procedure for this varies from company to company and from clinic to clinic (or hospital to hospital)  

I can only give my own experience here, and my only experience is with a program called VoiceWave.  Through VoiceWave I connect to my company's computer and it allows me to download my work (dictated files) directly from their computer system.  I then play these dictations through the VoiceWave program and type them as required by that particular doctor office.  I work from a "pool" meaning a group of doctors that I have been assigned to work on with a number of other MTs.  Once we have the files typed, proofread, and all information is verified as it should be then we will name our files as directed and upload them to an FTP site so that the people in the office can grab these files, run their quality checks on them and get them to the doctors' offices.   

If a Transcriptionist works as a single person company (I know someone who has done this) then she will go to the doctor's office every day and pick up the dictations, these may be on cassette, disk, or even a USB flash drive.  While at the office, she will  drop off any transcribed files, these could be printed medical reports or Word documents on a flash drive.  


~How much do you make?
I know...You all have waited for this one right?  Well, I am sorry to disappoint but this is one thing that is so completely varied that I can't tell you an exact number.  I CAN tell you that most MT jobs are by the word, line, or character.  This means that if you don't do the work, you don't get paid.  It is not like a job outside the home where you can have an "off" day and browse the Internet or whatever and still get paid your full amount.  If you don't type, you don't get paid.  There are very few MT jobs out there that pay by the hour (in fact, I don't know of one that pays in this way).  Personally, I range between $1000 and $1600 a month as an IC getting paid by the character and working 6-8 hours (on average) a day.


~IC? Whats that??
An IC is an Independent Contractor this just means that I do not get benefits (insurance and such) and I am required to pay my own taxes every quarter or at the time of tax season.  I also do not have a set schedule, although they DO want to know what times I plan to be at the computer and they want to know if I am going to be away for more than 30 minutes during my designated time (this is where Email on my phone comes in handy).  If I need the afternoon off for a school function or meeting, I tell the people in the office, and I work my hours around the meeting or function.  I also do not have an assigned line count (although some ICs do) This is the ideal arrangement for me and so I am a happy MT!

The other work option is Employee.  This is the same as working outside the home.  You have a chance for paid time off, bonuses, insurance, retirement....the whole shebang, but you also have a set schedule, required amount of lines (sometimes), and the schedule is not as flexible allowing for meetings and such.  Some of my closest MT friends are Employees, and they love it.  I am just not sure if this is the road for me with 3 children!  


~What kind of training do you need?
Every company I applied for required that you received training before they would let you apply for a job.  This training can done in a college setting or through an online school.  There are a few different schools out there. You can find them all just by putting "online medical transcription schools" in whatever search engine you use and researching them.  The school I chose was Career Step.  It was by far the most recommended and praised school at the time of my research.  The training at Career Step is very respected among the companies out there.  In fact, some companies will ONLY hire Career Step students.   See the bottom of this page for links to all of the Career Step courses and if you choose to enroll, mention me for a savings of $50.  Again, in this blog I can only tell you what I know, and I only know Career Step.  My experience with them was, and still is, wonderful.  


~Is it hard to get a job?
This can be a tough one!  Imagine just how many people out there want to work from home.  The most talked about "at home" job is Transcription (whether it is medical or general) so the industry is very competitive!  I can tell you that from around October to January are the hardest times to get hired.   It takes an impressive resume, great timing, and sometimes simply luck to get noticed.  There are THOUSANDS of resumes coming to these companies weekly, and you have to imagine how tired they get of reading the resumes.  You must show that you respect their time and get to the point without a lot of Hoopla on your resume.  You also have to make sure that you are showing your typing abilities on your resume.  I am not talking about typing speed.  I am talking about grammar, punctuation, and spelling.  Would you think of hiring someone to type medical reports, which must be precise, if there were a lot of misspelled words on their resume?  No?  Well, neither will these companies.  In fact, this might just get your name on a "do not hire" list due to the mistakes!  The best way to get a job is to make your job hunt your job.

Here is my experience:  I graduated in August of 2009 with High Honors (want to see an 8 minute video of me receiving my results?  Click HERE), and I began applying for jobs immediately, spending about 4-6 hours a day on the job hunt.  Thirty-nine days, and 102 companies later, I got an e-mail from my top choice company asking for an interview.  I was interviewed the next day and hired a week later.  I have worked for the company since and LOVE it.  I have had 3 or so more job offers during my time with my company, and I have thanked them all for their interest but turned them down.  It is rare to find the right fit as quick as I did.  I had a lot of "we aren't hiring" emails, a few outright "no" emails, and a few "we will keep you on file" emails.  Some companies gave me no response at all.  The job hunt was frustrating, scary, and time consuming.  The day I was hired though....I appreciated it all the more :)  


~Where do I work?
At home :p...haha   

Well...with this being a public blog and my company being a small one I would rather not say.  I would hate for the office girls to be bombarded by emails.  It is a company which remains low key, they do not even have a website set up.  Therefore, I will not be naming the company.  Also, I had some not so nice people hounding me about helping them get hired.  They were very rude, so I don't want to deal with that again.  


~What else is there to know?
*Confidentiality!  If you choose to be an MT you have to understand that you are required to comply to all HIPPA rules.  YES, you work from home, but you are still a MEDICAL professional.  This means that your family members and friends cannot hear or see the reports you are working on.  Some companies allow talking between employees about accounts and doctors but you should NEVER, I repeat NEVER, speak about a particular patient (unless your company allows it of course)!  
*ESL doctors.  These doctors are the ones who use English as a Second Language.  In other words... most are hard to understand, have heavy accents, and do not know the English grammar rules.  They are the toughest of the tough for some (for me its the speeders and mumblers who give me problems).  Unfortunately not all doctors sound like Dr. Gregory House on the Fox TV show House :)  One can only dream about that possibility!  
*Sound quality.  Some doctors dictate while driving, eating, filing papers, listening to a radio (this I don't mind much), a phone is ringing, playing with their children, children are throwing tantrums, in a crowd (in which case he/she may whisper), at a busy nurses station, and my worst so far....while watching their favorite movie or football team with the TV volume way up.  This is where patience comes in!   If you got your training from Career Step, you are prepared for this!  If not...then just have patience and understand that your doctor is just a person who is multitasking because he is too busy, just as you multitask when you are busy.  Patience is key :)
*Speed Talkers and mumblers.  My nemeses!  I have such problems with these doctors!  You just have to, again, be patient!  These doctors are like you, they want to get finished with work so that they can get on with their personal life.  You type faster because you want to be finished right?  They talk faster so they finish faster.  Simple as that.  The mumblers?  The doctor may be tired or distracted.  They could even be shy when speaking to non-humans (recorders) Luckily most mumbling is short term.  
*Variance in work amounts.  Some times of the year the work load slows down for us.  This could be due to the holiday season (as I am dealing with now) or it may be that patients are out of insurance benefits and are waiting for January to come.  It is feast or famine in this occupation for some.  Again, if you find the right company, this is not much of an issue.  I have rarely been told "there is none available" if I ask for extra work.  




Lastly...Be prepared to type!  I know...this is a DUHHHH for most of us...I have heard some who have said "wow, I didn't know this involved this much typing.  I don't type much!"  


Well...If you don't enjoy typing then this is definitely not the career for you! You must enjoy typing!  I type between 45,000 and 100,000 characters a day just for work!  That is a lot of typing!




Okay...if you read all of this...I commend you and thank you!  I hope that you found it at least a bit helpful and informative.  Rob asked if I was typing a novel....always a joker.  My ice cream is long gone, and it is now time to fix some Turkey Pot Pie for dinner!  YUM.  We are tired of regular Thanksgiving leftovers so I had to do something different tonight...Well, Rob just said "I sure am getting hungry babe.  Should I go make a snack?"  So...I am off the Blogosphere and into the kitchen. 


I hope you enjoyed today's post, and if you have any questions or see that I have misinformed you, please let me know!  Again, for more information on Career Step please see the bottom of this blog for links!  Using my referral number and name will save you 50$ and make me a bit of money too! :)  


It is back to work for me tomorrow so the post may be late in the afternoon but I WILL post!  

Have a happy return to work/school day tomorrow, I personally think Mondays are evil!  


Think happy thoughts and smile at least once tomorrow!  See you then!


Sharon ♥

My First Post

Hi!  So, I have kicked around the idea of becoming a blogger for many, many weeks, maybe months, now so while on a 4-day work hiatus I took the plunge!  Here is my first attempt at being a successful blogger.  I think we should start simply by me letting you know what I plan for my blog and telling you a bit of who I am.  

First off, The reason I want to blog:  This is simple.  While I was researching my career of choice (medical transcription) I didn't find a whole lot of success stories, and the ones I did find were years old.  I decided that if I was ever a successful MT then I would blog to show other people that it is 100% possible to be an at home MT.  So, here I am.  I have gone through my course, passed my final, and within 2 months I was hired as an at home MT.  I have been working for a year and a couple of months and I still absolutely LOVE the work I do.  I will post tomorrow and expand on the MT world so check back!  I will share my experience and try and educate those who don't know what MT work is like.    It is not always easy, and I promise I won't sugar coat it, EVER, but I absolutely love what I do for a living.  In this blog you will get 100% honesty in what being an MT is all about. 

Second, what do I plan to blog ABOUT?  I plan to make this a daily diary-type of blog in which I share tidbits of my life, my interests, my joy (and frustrations) about my work, and just type about my life in general.  I have many interests such as crocheting, nail art, writing, reading, watching movies, and I have been known to search a random place in the world and just research it for no reason (this is what started my dream of visiting Ireland).  You may get the occasional movie review and nail polish review.  I am a pretty random person so who knows what I will come up with :)

Third, who am I?   My name is Sharon.  I love butterflies and the color purple.  I have recently married my perfect man and we have 3 wonderful children.  We don't like the term "Step" so once we were married, we were a family.  No stepping about it, we are a mom, a dad, and 3 children (plus 2 cats and a dog).  No, he is not the birth father of my children and I am not the birth mother of his, but it doesn't matter.  We are a family, plain and simple.  

As I have said, I am a stay at home, work at home mom.  My husband, Rob, is a full time student.  We have 2 daughters,13-year-old Holland and 9-year-old Allie; one son, 10-year-old Jonathan; 2 cats, Angel and Zoe; and one dog, Wei-Wei (way-way).  We are not your typical family.  We are all about letting our children be who THEY choose.  They make their own choices and they are in control of their lives (within reason of course).  We only guide them and advise them.  We believe that they will learn from any mistakes they make and that those mistakes will simply make them stronger.  We laugh often, love freely, and in my eyes, we are my perfect, ideal family.  

(In case you haven't noticed yet..I am deliriously happy.  My life is simply a dream)

I am not a person who can handle crowds, and I form online friendships a lot faster than "real life" friendships simply because I spent the first 30 years of my life as a very degraded and controlled woman.  I will go into that whole story one of these days, the short version is that I didn't have the best childhood, I married at 17 to a man who wasn't comfortable (putting it nicely) with letting me live a life, it took me many years to get the courage to get out of that situation.  In the 4 years since escaping that marriage I have learned to drive, gotten my first drivers license ever, bought a car, rented my own house, went through my Career Step (MT school) training, and gotten a job, and I am now married to a man who makes my life complete.  I still have panic attacks in a crowd and I am still very timid...I grow stronger every day though. 

So, there you have it.  You know a bit of who I am, what I do, and what you will find in my blog.  I hope that you stick around and get to know me and my life.  I welcome any comments, recommendations, questions, grammar corrections, and topic ideas.  I do ask that you refrain from rude or derogatory comments.  Any comments are subject to deletion if I believe it is something that would be offensive to me, my family, or my readers.

I hope to get to know a few people from all over the world....Comment me and let me know a bit about you!

Looking forward to bringing a few smiles and laughs to your world.

Till tomorrow, smile and be thankful for the smallest joy in your life.

Sharon ♥