A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Need to get out of MTing. What do you think... - sm

Posted: Mar 13, 2011

is the best 2-year and 4-year degree to go after these days? I can no longer support myself and my daughter on my wage as an MT. Lost my house to foreclosure which was a huge wakeup call. Decided to go back to school but don't want to waste my time on a dead-end career.

Everytime I read one of the lists that shows careers - that are strong and not going away (sm)

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There are 2 that are ALWAYS on the list:

Accountant
Nursing

Every single time, these 2 are on the list.

Don't necessarily need to go for a degree. - Find something you

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like and take classes or get certified. There are so many nonsense classes associated with degrees that are just money-makers for the college. Now even education has become, financially, a poor investment due to the sky-rocketing tuition costs and fees that just about every college is tacking on (construction, parking). Education is the newest bubble.

Suze Orman was on the news today, and taking - out a student loan to go back - sm

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to school when you already don't have any money is one of the things she said wasn't wise. (Especially when you consider how hard it is to get a job in anything if you're a new graduate, and even harder if you're an OLD new graduate.) Buying a house was another one (citing the cost of property taxes, insurance, and upkeep, not to mention that property values are still going down). The third thing she said was NOT to retire before 67, and to hold out until you're 70, if possible.

I'm doing all three of those things, not necessarily because I want to, but because I HAVE to.

Suze Orman - mt2

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Even if I wanted to retire at 62 I couldn't do it. I figured my family will find me slumped over my keyboard at 80 or 90.

Suze - Anonymous

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What if a person gets laid off at 57 (an MT), can't find a job in their field, needs to go back to school to re-train and needs student loans in order to get a new job so that they can work until they are 67 or 70? My game plan was to work until age 70 but ASR and Epic messed things up. Suze needs to walk a mile in someone's else's shoes before making everything seem so simple.

Re-training does not necessarily require - a degree with a loan

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Check state employment services, certificate programs at community colleges, womens' centers, even adult/community schools. A lot of the skills MTs have transfer to other jobs. A degree does not guarantee you a job that pays more or equal to what you were making. Even people I know who have environmental degrees are not finding work, and that is supposedly a hot field.

Try making money at something you're good at. I'll be doing some private cooking (got my food server's cert which was cheap) and charge $20/hr. I'm also making old-fashioned putz houses out of cereal boxes and cellophane from envelopes. "Green" Christmas decorations. Be creative!

I'm 60, and I need decent-paying work NOW. - Its just not realistic to think that - sm

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a 70-year-old newbie at ANYTHING is going to have much luck finding employment in whatever field they spent money they didn't have getting into, because the chances of getting that job, or of ever being able to repay that loan, get slimmer with each passing year.

Also, student loans are not erased, even by bankruptcy, and can ruin your credit.

The fact that it's not so simple was actually touched upon, not only with underwater mortgages, but also with student loans. One man she spoke with owed over $100K in student loans.

The best option for me is to skip the expensive re-education, and keep looking for something in the same field, or something where similar skills are needed.

Careers - Anonymous

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Accounting and nursing are both great careers, but how realistic is that for someone 50-60 years of age? What are the odds of someone that age being hired for a new career fresh out of school?

careers - Viva

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I wonder about that too. 20 years ago I got done with grad school in English, have been teaching college part time ever since, and I stayed in it because I really thought I had a chance at FT work. But the admins figured out that it costs them less to keep hiring PTs. Then I wanted to go into health occupations, but MT has not worked out so far, and now I am in Coding but wondering if that is going to work out at all.
I am 45.5 and do not know if I could handle the physical demands of nursing. I would like to work in the medical profession, but in what aspect? That is the burning question.

A nursing degree can go many, many places, including - behind desks. Anything medical would be

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a good choice. The population's aging in general and can't afford to retire, meaning not just that attitudes will shift because they have to but also boom days for healthcare and related industries. Many, many opportunities are opening up, new jobs created now and in future. Technicians at medical labs, nurses reviewing medical charts at hospitals, billing office managers in private practices, medical claims examiners in insurance companies, and 100 other positions.

The big reason not to go into medical is that it's not a place to look for the high end of the pay scale. There'll never be enough money to take good care of all the patients, much less enough "extra" money coming in to be extra generous with salaries. Those people wanting more need to head for industries with extravagant profits--entertainment and high-end corporate law practices for instance.

As for whether to retrain at our age, we'll face age discrimination regardless of our field or position in it. We'll have to apply for more jobs before getting an offer and maybe have to accept less-desirable positions. BUT, we're going to have that job anyway for a lot more years than we want, so it only makes sense to qualify ourselves for far better paying and far more interesting ones than we could get without additional training.

nursing degree and pay - Viva

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I'm not looking to make buku bucks, but I can't imagine that a nursing degree or anything similar could be much worse than my frozen hourly rate as a PT prof in college. That, and the face that I am unemployed as soon as each semester ends and have no guarantee of being rehired.

Do you mean "beaucoup"? Buku - is not actually a word.

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Just sayin'.

Viva, SO many industries need medical expertise. - Entry might be modest, but once

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a person became an expert at whatever, qualifying for raises, income will repay the investment.

The Desk Jobs in Nursing Usually Come After Years of Specialized Experience - nm

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nm

VIVA - mt2

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Do you like coding? Someone I know wanted to become an MT and I told her to go into coding and she loves it, doesn't work from home though, now works at a hospital.

I was thinking on going to school for it.

coding, replying to mt2 - Viva

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I do like coding, better than I liked MT when I studied it, though I was quite good at it and passed the RMT exam last year.

Just don't pay thousands of bucks to taking coding courses. It is not necessary. See if you can find adult ed schools nearby that offer it.
PearsonVue is now the vendor for coding exams; it used to be Prometric, I think.

Bear in mind that coding is a confusing and complicated thing, and it takes months to become a better coding "detective" than you will be at the start.

report to VIVA - mt2

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Thanks for the information. I used to code for the surgeon I used to work for, found the modifiers confusing though.

Training med staff to use EMR systems. - Companies that

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make the software train med-related people to train others how to use it.

Opinion - MT

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I would love to go into nursing, but at my 55+ years, I worry more about the physical rigorous schedule than finding a job. You're talking possibly 12-hour shifts, on your feet, transferring/lifting patients, bending, reaching, etc. While I'm in reasonably decent shape for my age, don't think I would sign up for that.

Just something for you to think about.

That's why I pointed out the MANY desk jobs - an RN degree qualifies one for. NM

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x

People are standing in line for the desk jobs - nm

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nm

Not nurses for those requiring nurses. The point is: being a - knowledge worker, not a keyboard flunkie.

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x

The administrative (desk jobs) I've seen for nurses are few, far between, and - for the experienced

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There may be lower-paid nursing jobs that are considered desk jobs, but administrative nursing jobs are few, far between, and reserved for the experienced. Not even the experienced have a really good chance at them.

Have you checked insurance company jobs? How about - civil service? Not all jobs are

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administrative by along shot, although there are certainly many of those outside clinicial environments too if that's what's wanted. Medical knowledge is in big demand in many industries in many positions.

That's been the biggest reason I haven't thought - about a new career. Im 60 right now -

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- and taking 1 class per semester (while still working full-time or more), it would take years. Somehow I don't think an employer is going to want a 67-year-old newbie.

I know this isn't true all the time, and that some people do start new careers at age 67. But just can't afford to make any more big mistakes like the one I made when I left an in-house job to work for an MTSO.

That was DUMB, DUMB, DUMB!

Anonymous - mt2

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LOL!!!

How true!!!

The desk ladies at a local MRI center are in their late 60s/early 70s. - Wonder how old their supervisor is. NM

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x

Also consider the heavy lifting/physical demands of a nursing job - which is why many leave it

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Lifting patients, doing split shifts, etc., can be hard on a body at any age. Just something else to consider.

New field - HappyMT

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NURSING. Good pay, always find a job. My daughter is an RN, two year program.

GET OUT - mt2

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I totally agree with you. I am thinking on going back to school too but don't want to spend the money since I am not making much. My paychecks have been cut in half.

Does anyone now much a greeter makes at Walmart? - mt2

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New profession.

Minimum age - poor

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.

careers, nursing, etc. - Viva

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I also thought about medical assisting or billing, but I hear they only pay about 8 to 10 bucks an hour.

Please. Add enough IT and billing to your skills to run a - physician office, and you will make $30-35K+.

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Try a little harder, enough to qualify for running the office for a decent-size group practice, and make more like $40-75K. $8 to 10 is for the low-skill person who's hired to do the scut work.

IT, billing, etc. - Viva

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Well, if that's the case, I use a computer all the time and am comfortable with various sorts of software. Are there more specific aspects of IT I should learn?
Billing would be another course to take, since it is not included in my current coding course.

Billing is easy. They sit you down and 10 minutes later you can do it - no training needed and anyone can do it

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Billing is a no-brainer. Anyone and everyone can and probably has done it. It takes literally no training.

No, no, no, I meant learn to MANAGE the billing process, - not to pound a keyboard. NM

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x

YEOWCH! BEG TO DIFFER!! - Recovering biller

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Where would I even START to address this?

Nevermind, there's not enough time in the universe to explain why no, NOT just any monkey can be a biller. It takes a highly-trained and very specialized breed of monkey to do it.

I was a biller and billing supervisor for many, many years in oncology, and let me tell you, that is THE most fiendishly-complicated thing I have EVER encountered in my LIFE, such that I seriously considered learning rocket science as a BREAK!

recovering biller - Viva

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I believe you. Coding is tough but I imagine billing is just as tough.

Thanks, Viva... - Recovering biller

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I've thought more than once, if I ever decide to get out of MT, I will not go back to billing; I'll clean filthy toilets with my bare hands first, and after what I've been through, learning coding might be the next step....

I find quite the cognitive dissonance in that hospitals (from what I hear) pay coders better than they pay MTs, but nobody why the people who sift those records for every billable erg are paid better than the people who create those records in the first place....

Anything in computers. Dental hygeinist. - anonabon

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/

ultrasonography - ...

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I wish I had been more aware of this profession, particularly cardiac echocardiography. It's a really useful technology, and a testing modality that is unlikely to become obsolete.

RHIT maybe? - ar

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.

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