R-E-S-P-E-C-T - sockittome Posted: Jan 11th, 2017 - 8:13 pm In Reply to: When I was researching background material for my post... - Jay
Mr. Vance, this goes a lot deeper than you "cannot control" what clients are willing to pay, and what you can subsequently afford to pay MTs. One of the many real problems here is that companies "cannot control" ANYTHING about their clients, and aren't willing to do anything about it, for fear of losing the client and/or not caring about what the MTs have to endure. What good is it to be paid a decent cpl if you can't make any lines because the dictators are not educated on what it takes to produce a correct medical record? Or, if they are educated, they don't care. They can be sued for malpractice, but not for this type of malpractice. They are not held responsible for this aspect of patient care and, until they are, it will not matter that you are a nice man.
I recently did a 25-minute dictation, took almost an hour, and received 34 lines for my effort. Why? The dictator comes unprepared and spends 90% of the time yawning, eating, reading months of notes for the 1st time, etc. It would never occur to him to shut off the speaker until he is ready to dictate because he never learned this is the proper thing to do (or does not care). I have to wait and listen to this, then stop every 30 seconds and research a name or a prior chart, then confirm a med dosage because I know that Flexeril 500 mg t.i.d. is just not a good idea (yes, this happened), then correct hideous grammar and then get punished for it because the site wants verbatim work, etc. etc. I have to BE the doctor when the dictated diagnosis is hypernatremia, but the serum sodium level is 126. If I have to be the doctor, I either want the doctor's salary, or I want the doctor to have mine.
The only education that practitioners receive about dictation is that the poor cyber-slobs are paid by production, so you have to talk at the speed of sound, don't bother slowing down for the labs or the meds, maybe take a breath for the diagnosis, and that's about it. They are not taught that we do not know the name of the local restaurant where the patient used to work before his hemorrhagic stroke. They are not educated on what we lose when they will not take a moment to either pronounce clearly or spell out a name.
I am an IC for one of those "smaller companies." The people are nice, the pay is not good, and there is no work. I earn about $6.00 per hour for 6-7 hours at the keyboard, and have to pay taxes on that. I'm told there is no work because the clients have not paid their bill, and the owner is having to absorb the loss and thus refuse to keep taking their work. The charts come back from QA with well over 20 blanks. What does that tell you about the quality of the dictation? Doing research on prior reports is useless because it is unverified information that has more blanks than words. How can this be allowed to continue?
You can't control what they are willing to pay, you can't control the quality of the dictation, you can't impress upon them that the patients matter, that the MTs matter, that people matter, and instead of dedication to quality of life, the only thing you can control is what days you have lunch together and compare how your respective investments are doing.
Can you make the clients improve the quality of their dictation or be held financially responsible for poor quality? Can you slap a fine on them every time they slam the phone down without saying thank you for putting up with me? Can you enforce mandatory daily playback of audio to determine intelligibility? Can you convince them that the initials after their names are NOT a free pass to practicing lousy medicine? Can you tell them to shape up or ship out? I didn't think so. It doesn't matter that you're a nice man. It doesn't matter that you understand. The only thing that matters is the bottom line. If the quality of dictation were to improve, then maybe the speech wreck would improve. I know my straight typing production would improve, would easily double, maybe even more. Then I would produce more and at least earn more. I don't mind working hard. I can even get by without respect. I'm just not into punishment.
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