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

Editing pay - mtmom

Posted: Jun 05, 2010

I understand that everything is going to the way of the editor and not typing, but when the editor keeps missing whole sentences or makes up words that sound nothing like the doctor is saying, how is one supposed to make any money? I only get paid .04 per line to edit and I am spening more time trying to fix editing mistakes than I would if I just erase the text and type it out. Very frustrating. Thank God my husband has a good paying job, otherwise I would have to find another line of work because you just can't make money in transcription anymore. Sad considering we have to know as much about the body as a doctor or nurse (and there are some docs and PACs that can't even pronounce the words they need - and these are English-speaking, NOT ESL, doctors).

editing - joyski

[ In Reply To ..]
Amen, daughter - As MTmom's Mom, I also work in transcription and have done so for many years.

Like most technical stuff the editor is great when it works, and a nightmare when it doesn't. However, the powers that be will still get on you regarding production quotas as if they were really paying you to do this job! (Heavy Sigh)

Well when I see I am going to have to do a lot of correcting I just sm - MQMT

[ In Reply To ..]
wipe out the rest of the text and start typing it from that point. I can type faster than correct most of the stupid reports.

ME TOO - MarineMom

[ In Reply To ..]
I do the exact same thing. I let it make a couple mistakes, then I take over. I don't care if I'm not making my "typing" rate or not, I type it. I really don't give a RAT'S HIND SECTION that the VR "isn't learning anything if I do that" like I've been told. I'm not messin with it.

Just one thing to add - You don't want to group - Grady--sm

[ In Reply To ..]
Nurses in the same sentence with Doctors. The education is not comparable. No cut towards nurses - they work closely with other members of the health care team and are specialists at what they do (patient care). Doctors are experts at diagnoses and pharmacists are experts in pharmacologic therapeudics. MTs - THE WORDS!

you crack me up... - dhl

[ In Reply To ..]
you think you know as much about the body as a doctor or a nurse? Get over yourself. Not to make light of the knowledge and skills required of an MT, but really.... get real about it and check that ego.

OMG, you think you don't? - Scared

[ In Reply To ..]
If you don't know that much, what are you doing in MT? You would be surprised how much nurses and doctors don't know. Unless you went to one of these 3-month schools. A GOOD, experienced MT knows a whole lot more than anyone gives credit for.

amen...docs are soooo specialized - ***

[ In Reply To ..]
and narrow in their fields they are clueless with regard to any specialty other than their own.

How DO people learn anyway...if you hear the same causes, treatments, and effects over and over and over for 30+ years, don't you think some of it actually stays in the brain.

Get real - 15+ exp

[ In Reply To ..]
Must not read the board much. There is an MT on here who just graduated med school as an md - see what she has to say. My whole study group has passed the MCAT on what we know now, but who can afford med school? WE study for the fun of it and to help us in our jobs. Don't judge a book by its cover, imho.

Well, some community colleges tell their Medical Assistants they know as much as nurses and doctors - My Take On This

[ In Reply To ..]
Medical Transcriptionists vary in what they know. Some know much more than others. Some are far from what I would even call medical transcriptionists. The very best have not gone through the grueling days of a First Year Med Student. The idea that an MT knows as much as a doctor is similar to those Medical Assistants who are very certain that they know as much as the doctors and nurses. They don't. One of them gave a speech that I attended where she said that she can do "anything the doctors and nurses can do" and I walked out of the meeting so I wouldn't say anything. You may be very intelligent. You may be an excellent student of all things medical. Unless you have gone through the training given to a medical doctor, you do not have the knowledge and expertise that a doctor has. That is common sense.

not the same as doc or nurse - mtmom

[ In Reply To ..]
I don't have the expertise of a doc or nurse, but I have to know A&P. Never said I could diagnose anyone, nor do I try to. Man people, get real. And quit being offended. Beginning to wonder if docs and nurses are on here even though it is an MT forum.

MT knowledge - Anonymous

[ In Reply To ..]
I have to agree with you and the other person's comments in regard to MT's knowledge and attitude. I've done MT for 35 years and am very good at what I do. I have a lot of knowledge but I would never compare what I know to a doctor. I can probably spell better and have better grammar than many of them but that is probably as far as it goes. Doctors respect our skills, but doubt that any of them would want us doing their job without an equivalent education. I'm taking a college level anatomy and physiology course now and all I can say is that it is a humbling experience. I work with a couple of women who have gone through nursing school and have chosen transcription because it's an easier job. Trust me, there is no comparison to the education nurses require to the education we require to do our jobs. MTs are intelligent and many doctors appreciate our skills and talents, but I think we also need to recognize our limitations.

I agree with everything in your post - Thank you

[ In Reply To ..]
I've worked with some scatterbrained MDs and RNs, but I've also worked with scatterbrained MTs.

I've worked with some of the most intelligent MDs and RNs who never failed to impress me; same thing with some MTs.

But to try to interchange their degree of knowledge or the very specific requirements of their chosen fields is absurd. I might be a whiz-bag diagostician at my PC, but let somebody hurl in front of me and I'm a quivering mass of helplessness and puke myself. I could never transfer my report-transcribing knowledge to a practical hands-on environment. And the sight of blood? Don't get between me and the trash can, because my dinner is coming up.

Each one of these fields, IMHO, requires individual characteristics that a person may or may not possess. I'm happy to keep my 25+ years of knowlege in home office and not try to insinuate myself in the public arena.

Who wants Patty the Puker as their RN, much less their MD?

I'll keep my acquired knowledge where it does it's best use...just with me and family behind my computer monitor, lol!

let me clarify - mtmom

[ In Reply To ..]
Just to clarify, we have to know about the anatomy and physiology of the body like a doctor or nurse. Please believe that a GOOD MT has to be able to catch mistakes in a doctor's dictation (in the diagnosis, discrepancies in dictation, etc, and then send back to QA, which I have had to do many times), and if an MT does not have the knowledge of the docs and nurses, that can't be done. I am not saying I am as good as a doctor or nurse, but I have to know what they are talking about to be a good MT. If you have never caught a discrepancy, then you don't know your stuff. So, keep your ego in check.

Let me clarify - see message - Anonymous

[ In Reply To ..]
I catch those discrepancies day in and day out just as you do but I would never think that I knew as much as the doctor or even the nurse, which is what I am hearing you say. Of course I had a basic knowledge of anatomy and physiology but being enrolled in a formal course has really opened my eyes in regard to what I did not know; if you've never had that training you'd be amazed at how much more there is to learn.

wow - mtmom

[ In Reply To ..]
I only need to know in order to know if what they are stating is correct. I certainly cannot diagnose or anything like that. But trust me, you definitely have to know more than just spelling. You have to know if it fits with the entire report. I can't believe how people are getting offended by this. I'm no doctor, but I don't just type words either. wow...

deleting the VR and typing straight - steady eddie

[ In Reply To ..]
What would happen if you did do that (erase and retype) with the worst dictators? If it really is faster, than why not? Can they tell? I am not being a smart-ass here. I am just trying to understand why people can't do that with the worst dictators? I work on VR, but I am a slow typist and I can't use my Instant Text with this platform, so it is better for me to just deal with it. But for some of you who have numerous expanders, if it is faster, I would do it.

Yes, they can tell. They actually can pull sm - another MT

[ In Reply To ..]
reports on keystrokes for everyone and if they see you are wiping out and retyping, you can bet you'll get a call or an email about it.

When you are retyping what the VR gave you, you are messing up the training of the software. They don't want that at all!

Aha! I should have read your post before I posted, lol! - Exactly right

[ In Reply To ..]
Yep, same scenario I saw unfold in-house. Do you recall if there's a red flag that this has been done, or does it just appear when a special report is run? I recall these MTs had been doing it for awhile and it wasn't until the reports were run that it was confirmed.

eScription is like Santa Claus...It knows who's been naughty and nice, lol!

retyping - mt2

[ In Reply To ..]
Actually my supe told me to erase and retype if it was easier for me. I'm not on Escrption though. She said to do it however I wanted.

It's been awhile but I believe they can tell IF they are looking - I dont recall any random red flags

[ In Reply To ..]
The hospital I worked at caught 2-3 MTs deleting the draft and retyping, but I believe they only checked because someone heard what they were doing and informed the department managers. There was something in the eScription program where they could track every single keystroke; thus, they knew the first few keystrokes involved deleting the report.

All the MTs doing that were written up because deleting the draft impacted the training of eScription and set it back somehow.

I'm pretty sure if eScription has this keystroke function, all VR programs do. But if I'm wrong or if this has changed, feel free to let me know. My info is about circa 2003 when I was helping to train the system in-house.

M-Modal has it, all of them do. The bigger companies SM - observe

[ In Reply To ..]
specifically look for people doing this. If they are running the MT corrections through and training the software, someone who deletes and retypes will totally ruin the training, so most large companies absolutely look for people doing it.

Retyping - justme

[ In Reply To ..]
We have a doc who was put on speech on my account and he is a nightmare to just type. The hospital won't take him off speech for some reason. The draft - even after weeks of him being on speech - is still just a few run-on sentences in one paragraph because he is indecipherable. In this case, we are allowed to delete whatever the draft is and retype it.

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