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Questions on your technique - Carolyn

Posted: Jun 12, 2011

I am wondering what method you all use for transcribing. Do you listen and type word for word, or do you listen to the complete thought before typing it? Has anyone who was formally trained been taught a certain way? Has anyone switched from technique to another and seen a difference one way or another? I am continually trying to find ways to improve speed without a lot of success. I am very frustrated and having difficulty paying my bills.

Also, in case it comes up, though I am sure I waste moments here and there on little things (ike opening another stick of gum or going to the bathroom), I don't do more obvious things like straightening my desk, letting pets out, etc., most any time taken away from actual transcription is for referencing needed information, making an expander for something new I have come across, and data entry that has to be done for each patient.

I'm thinking maybe my technique is a problem ... also perhaps my foot pedal usage. Any feedback on that will be appreciated as well! : )

I see my punctuation mistake - Carolyn

[ In Reply To ..]
I actually had started a new sentence with "Most" and then somehow looked at it wrong and thought I did it accidentally, swtiching to a comma (and 1 sentence). I guess I shouldn't have looked it over at all! Lol

Even an answer to one part ... - Carolyn

[ In Reply To ..]
... would be greatly appreciated (especially from those of you who have high lph). I have been doing this a few years and still struggle with my line count.

Carolyn - Hi there!

[ In Reply To ..]
I don't type word for word, but I'm on not a verbatim account. We have two "senior" staffers who type exactly what they hear so they can fly through jobs to get higher line counts, which means they churn out a respectable volume but unbelievably unprofessional reports. One of them is a grandfathered "certified" CMT, which is why I have nothing but contempt for AHDI, but that's another story. (And they're about to get spanked anyway, since we finally have a serious QA program coming into play.)

I tend to listen to three to four word phrases. Because I'm reading for content and "readability", sometimes I have to stop and tweak a verb tense or correct a singular/plural form. But I try to offset this by (a) increasing the listening speed on my better dictators to "bank" time and (b) shortening the length of my pedal backup. If you set your foot pedal so that the rewind button only backs up a couple of seconds, you can save some time by not having to re-listen to something you've already got typed.

If your expander program requires time-consuming entries, it may help to just make a note of whatever you want to add and go back after your shift to do the actual entry. You could open a simple Notepad document onscreen to keep track of your "to do" list instead of trying to handwrite it.

Got a work type that has a lot of little format exceptions for different dictators (such as CVP)? Make yourself a larger-font list of them and put it next to your monitor; this lets you just glance away from the screen to check instead of having to take your hands off the keyboard and handle hard-copy instructions.

I'm a big believer in the "power hour" method, too. Don't let your hands come off the keyboard for a solid hour; no phone calls, no food/drink, no bathroom, no coworker conversations--nothing but transcribing for sixty solid minutes. If you can really concentrate on the content of the report you're doing, this time will fly by and you might even find yourself deciding to go for a second hour because you're on a roll.

I hope something here will be helpful.

Mostly word for word. If not, something will - slip by. But am always

[ In Reply To ..]
on lookout for he/she, is/was, punctuation, etc. There is no way to make it fast. I do get the minimum, but ASR is so tedious, cannot ever get higher than I was doing straight typing. I, too, use blocks of time -- sometimes up to 2 hours if I am on a roll with no stops -- No checking E-mail, Facebook, bathroom, drink, phone, etc. I have become such a recluse trying to make a living, even telemarketers don't bother with me anymore and my family is afraid to call or come by during working hours.

Carolyn, any time not spent typing or editing text will cost - big time. I cannot even imagine

[ In Reply To ..]
listening to an entire report before engaging fingers. So, my first technique suggestion is--never do that or anything like it.

Second technique--have only one or two accounts you spend most of your hours on and are extremely familiar with. Right now I'm starting over with new accounts, and my line count has plummeted to a fraction of what it was. Looking up a name on one report, a term and a name on another report, sending one to QA, having more new terms than usual to input into my expander so I won't have to type them all out next time, etc., is an income disaster. Temporary, as I build speed back up yet again (been there before and before that), but the loss will be literally in the thousands before that occurs.

BTW, that "data entry" can be a real income killer, too. Some little amount is part of the job, but if your doctors are frequently not bothering to enter patient names, the hospital IT department not entering dates, this work instead all shifted to you, with lots of notes to QA perhaps, you're NOT ever going to build your line count up where you need it, no matter how good your technique. Those functions take mega time away from building your line count, and there's no technique to fix that.

Thanks and comments - Carolyn

[ In Reply To ..]
Thanks for the input everyone. A couple things I said were misunderstood, and I have a couple more questions but have to run at the moment. I will add more tomorrow. Thanks so much, again, for the responses!

Carolyn, just a quick note - MT

[ In Reply To ..]
I like all the tips provided. I am usually transcribing about half a second behind the dictator because of verbatim account and my short-term memory would not allow me to listen to several phrases at a time. I have been on the same account since 2007 so that is a big help. Same tips, set your foot pedal to 0. I speed up my dictation time not only to shorten the time between phrases, but to push myself. A power hour works for me also. I do some VR, and I am always scanning ahead to see what I can clean up myself. It just takes experience. Good luck to you.

Also, verifying info - all at once

[ In Reply To ..]
I used to stop dead in my tracks and verify a word, fill in a blank, etc. Now if I don't know it right away or I have a question I flag it for myself (not QA) by typing it in red with a time stamp and going back and doing all my research at once. It seems to me, personally, that a lot of times I have more than one thing to research in one report, usually because it is a new doc who I can't understand, and I have fifty reports with nothing to check. This one small change in technique I believe has saved me time. Just DON'T FORGET to go back and fix it.

Thanks again and more text - Carolyn

[ In Reply To ..]
Again, thanks all! I appreciate your input. I try to work an hour and a half without going to the bathroom or anything like that. I'm sure there are little things that distract me that I am not aware of though.

My expander program is fast enough (except on bad days) where I think I might as well put the term or short phrase in at the time rather than jotting down. Sometimes there are probably more to add than others though which definitely takes time.

To the person who has started the new accounts. I have that happen now and then too and wondering how many lph you drop. It really does a number on me too. It's always so hard to know what "normal" is when working from home and not knowing what the other employees' line counts are.

As far as my idea about listening before typing, I had come across what I have pasted below by someone called Redpen. It makes sense in some ways, as I have even researched a weird sounding term only to have the dictator then say never mind or correct himherself. Ohhh! I try hard to remember that but still happens once in awhile. I'm not sure I could go as far as Redpen suggests though. I will watch for any further comments or thoughts in case this prompts any.

Redpens idea below:
Today, most new MTs type word-by-word as they listen. They think that computers allow edits so easily that this is "ok." It's not ok. It's really, really bad.

This is not only inefficient, because you don't hear the changes and have to correct them, but it's dangerous. If you are not listening far enough ahead to understand what you are hearing - you're just parrot-typing along - you have much more trouble understanding what you hear and you often get the wrong notion of what is being said, so you type nonsense.

One of the main problems student MTs have is parrot-typing. They become frustrated because they can't get "a word." Well, most MTs can't get just "a word" - the only way to transcribe is to hear enough of the material that you comprehend THE MEANING of it, which you then WRITE. That's different from hear-a-word, type-a-word.

The thing to do, then, is to listen to the first sentence in full, stop the tape in the pause at the end, and then start typing it. At that point, you're writing, not parrot-typing. You will have to think more and plan more, but eventually you'll get the hang of it.

Halfway through that first sentence, you start the tape up again and listen to the next sentence while typing the rest of the first. Yes, this is doing two things at once. It's not easy, but if you practice it, you'll become able to do it.

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