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

How many MTs use the Book of Style? - Bluebird

Posted: Nov 07, 2014

How many MTs use the Book of Style? Am I the only one who thinks this is a total rip off just like dues to the former AAMT were? Is not this self promotion to enrich oneself three times now and passing this propaganda off to MTSOs as the "industry standard?" I know I sure did not get a vote as to what is and what is not this so-called "industry standard" and have not used that book in years! Poverty wages are now the "industry standard." Who else is fed up with this load of BS?

It's ridiculous if you ask me. The pay is inhumane for MTs - whatever happened to knowing...

[ In Reply To ..]
Proper English and punctuation? Who has time to focus on this book with the little money we make. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. MTs get treated poorly with no regard. And who funds the AHDI or AAMT or whatever they call themselves? Why are they even still in business?

Book of Style - Bluebird

[ In Reply To ..]
Thank you. The BOS does not define me, my knowledge, experience and competence. I no longer am a member of the former AAMT, no longer a CMT, neither of which enriched ME a penny, in fact, the exact opposite. Not paying $70 for a book to make slave wages, just because MTSOs are buying this load of garbage.

BOS - sickofitall

[ In Reply To ..]
I have not worked for a company that uses the BOS for probably 10 years. The company I work for now wants strictly verbatim which really makes me want to vomit. It's what the customer wants even if it's totally against everything you were taught. I went to Andrews, I feel it was a total waste of money.

My feeling - the BOS

[ In Reply To ..]
is probably about the only useful thing that AAMT or whatever it is this week has ever done, because it is useful at times for things that are very specific to MT work.

That being said, you could probably find all the same information online, so only a fool would give their $$$ to an otherwise totally useless organization.

They wouldn't get a nickle of my money even if I had it to give. - nm

[ In Reply To ..]

BOS is worthless because it's about THEIR style. - Has nothing to do with the real world. nm.

[ In Reply To ..]

BOS. Does anyone think physicians give - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
a rip? Heck no. They don't even know what the Book of Style is and too many of them if we follow BOS jump up and down and want it their way. I know from experience! We are pretty much reduced to verbatim anyway as someone else said. For me at times, it is like raking fingernails over a blackboard. As my mom used to say, I wouldn't give AAMT/AHDI air if they were in a jug.

It's crap and a waste of money - me

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

Book of Style - Bluebird

[ In Reply To ..]
Thanks,guys. I was bummed because I applied, interviewed and then was told I would not get the job because I had no recent experience using the BOS, or as I will from now on refer to as the BS style of medical transcription. Thirty plus years, former CMT (until it cost $$$$ to keep it current), former AAMT member who helped put $$$ in their pocket in their early days, only to have them, in my humble opinion, cut our throats and sell us out. The BOS does not define ME, my skills, my knowledge and my experience. I would never be so arrogant as to think I am smarter than the dictator and take the liberty to make the report meet the BOS standards and not the physician's standards! HIS name is on the report, MY initials are on the report. You think AAMT or whatever they call themselves is going to come and defend us? No. So sick of this "profession." This could be a blessing. I have 2 more interviews, neither of which are in MT, both of which are Mon-Fri, clerical jobs, starting pay $30,000 a year, full benefits, yearly raises, cost of living raises, retirement (government). Please, prayers for me that I get one of these jobs and get out of this thankless "career."

Prayers going up. - You will be blessed & get one.

[ In Reply To ..]

Prayers going up-You will be blessed & get one. - Bluebird

[ In Reply To ..]
Thank you.

prayers - bugger

[ In Reply To ..]
I am in your same boat right now...trying to find anything outside transcription after 25 years has been a nightmare. Sending prayers your way that it all changes for you.

SoftScript? - nm

[ In Reply To ..]
xx

I never used mine - threw it away. Just tell the - employer you have it. Theyll never know.

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

I am OUT of MT altogether but I will tell you what the - world thinks of the BOS.

[ In Reply To ..]
Nothing. Zip. The industry is going toward speech recognition being edited by low-paid drones working for services and complete replacement with doctor's editing their own SR (Dragonspeak, etc) in their offices. In the doc's minds, they don't care whatsoever about the blather in the BOS. In fact, the work produced in offices is pretty awful because no one edits it except the doc and THEY DON'T CARE. Grammar is out the window. The only people that have themselves foaming at the mouth are the services and the mid and low-level medical records workers who feel supervising this non-issue lends them importance. In the meantime, THE DOCTORS DON'T CARE AND NEITHER DO THE NURSES. Period.

I was an MT for 25 years and watched the terrible evolution of this industry. In 2006, I knew I had to get out. It took me 3 difficult years to upgrade my skills and land a job as a department secretary in a hospital. Its the perfect great job with great pay and perks. I should have done it 15 years ago. In my job, I use what I learned as an MT every single day at least 50 times. In the meantime, I worked in-house in a couple of other places and situations trying to upgrade my resume and I saw what was happening more on the clinical side and what the doctors actually think about their reports. They don't. The whole 99% accuracy thing is the biggest fake criteria in existence. SR-generated office notes probably have a 40% accuracy if we count grammar.

Book of Style - Bluebird

[ In Reply To ..]
100% agree. I knew years ago to get out too, but I did not. Now, I can't run fast enough to leave the nightmare of poverty wages for my life's work. I have no passion to do this crap anymore for anybody for less than minimum wage. As I said in an earlier post, not getting the job based on BOS familiarity rather than based on my knowledge, skills, and abilities, is ridiculous. I agree with you also, the whole 98% QA or whatever it is, the TAT crap, all invented criteria or "industry standards" that some nobody thought up to impress herself. Not playing this game anymore. Life is too short.

BOS - kabina

[ In Reply To ..]
I worked for years for MD-IT and there never was any concern about BOS and I hadn't really heard too much about it. The transcription course I took though did provide you with the BOS handbook. Just a lot of rules that at times are just so unnecessary. Now that I lost the work at MD-IT, which is now Command Health, the last 2 years I have worked for much cheaper wages and had to learn BOS, which I oftentimes find ridiculous, and it amounts to a lot more worries really, about major and minor errors, etc. for a lot less pay and yes, the whole thing is ridiculous and seems like it all was created just to cheat us and give us more headaches. I know I am not paid near what I am worth anymore. And it isn't going to change.

Never paid attention to when the new BOS would come out. - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
But our one manager did. She kept the one book in her office and read it completely and then when your review came around, she counted off for those 'mistakes' that were now in the new edition. That was her way of reporting to administration that she saved money for the hospital by not giving raises. BTW, when she was an MT, she could not get her line count so they gave her the manager position. Pray tell, she is now a teacher of medical terminology at the community college. There is hell on earth.

The BOS is irrelevant. As long as you use proper grammar, punctuation and - avoid..SM

[ In Reply To ..]
errors with medication dosages, lab values diagnoses and such that should be all that matters and of course, proofread. All that other is uncalled for. We are not paid enough for that. Way back in the day they didn't have that book. Like someone else said, it's propaganda. Everyone wanted to make money off the MT business, such as MTSO and AAMT, heck even Nuance (who was first a technology company years ago) had to get in the game. And those of us who actually do the work got trampled over. MTSOs saw a way to make money off the hospitals by putting us to work for pennies while getting over on the hospitals like fat-rats & AAMT or AHDI jumped on the bandwagon.

Similar Messages:

Jul 16, 2012

Anyone know when they are coming out with a new Book of Style? I am afraid to buy the 3rd edition since it is from 2008. Thanks. ...

May 04, 2014

Please tell where you work so I can apply there -- seriously -- sick of ridiculous QA. ...

Aug 12, 2010

Can anyone tell me any of the new changes in the AHDI book of style. ? ...

Mar 16, 2011

It would seem that the AAMT/AHDI just look for ways to make money on their ole' book of style. Changing from one term in one book, to using it differently in a second, and now the third is different from that. What is the fourth going to do, go back to the first use. Throw them all out. They don't know what they are doing. Their transcription bible is useless to train from, and they charge a whole lot of money for useless. (Just a little frustrated, wouldn' ...

Nov 02, 2011

I have a question for those working for a hospital as an employee in-house or at home. I work at home for a hospital and we were told we must buy our own book of style version 3 but still expected to maintain high QA status. There is only 1 book in-house for all to share. I would think that the company should invest in buying each employee this book to improve production and it would be a positive move. They refuse to do this. I brought it up in a meeting and told t ...

Nov 30, 2011

Thanks for the input. ...

Jun 21, 2012

I have been working in transcription for 31 years. What is the deal with all this Book of Style nonsence? Doctors don't care if a comma is in the right place or not, or if a drug is capitalized or now. They just want the correct measurements, dosages, symptoms, body part, etc. typed in the correct document on the correct patient. You ask a doctor what the Book of Style is and they would probably just give you a dumb look. Who is making money off of this? It's just the crazi ...

Mar 05, 2014

Since I was terminated February 11, I have been reviewing some things in case I need to apply for some MT job in the future. When I worked for M-Modal, I was supplied with Book of Style, 2nd edition. I now have a copy of the 3rd edition, and they say some things are changed. They say changes have been made include dropping the period after courtesy titles like Dr. and Mr. I always typed Dr. with a period in the report. If it said patient was to follow up with Dr. Sm ...

Jun 06, 2011

I just purchased the Book of Style. II realize companies want you to be familiar with it, but what parts are the most necessary to bone up on? It is a huge book. Thaniks. ...

Jun 08, 2011

What is the actual title of the Book of Style? I see The Book of Style for Medical Transcription, 3rd Edition - Paperback (June 15, 2008) by Lea M. Sims and John H. Dirckx and I also see The AAMT Book of Style: A Searchable Medical Transcription Style Guide (2nd Edition) - CD-ROM (July 21, 2005) by American Association for Medical Transcription (AAMT). One is by AAMT and one is not - I am assuming the AAMT is the Book of Style everyone refers to? I am buying this for someone and want to ...

Nov 11, 2011

Can anyone tell me where I can get a copy of the AHDI the cheapest, or at least under 70 bucks? Thanks! ...

Nov 13, 2013

I am desperately looking for 3rd edition AHDI Book of Style. I posted here versus classified hoping it would be sooner by someone who had one to get rid of quicker. Thanks in advance. ...

Jan 20, 2015

Is there a copy of the book of style on Enrich? I cannot for the life of me find it. I got dinged for an omission error because at the end of a list of allergies the dictator stated "parenthesis, details of allergies are not known, end parenthesis" and since it was a stand alone sentence, I left the parentheses off. The transcription guidelines on Enrich for parenthesis say to refer to the book of style, but I can't find a copy. Thanks! ...

May 12, 2015

x ...

Mar 10, 2010

Is the What is the Book of Style preference? ...

Feb 08, 2013

I ask this because in my pre-employment test with M*Modal, I got dictations where they dictated the wrong punctuation and I edited it according to the AHDI Book of Style, which is one of my chief references when transcribing. I got a reply back from M*Modal saying that my results of their pre-employment test "did not match their criteria", whatever that means. I got the same reply from Acusis, another company that rejected me on the grounds that my results "didn't make the cut." Was ...

Mar 19, 2014

Sent a new computer and I can't find AAMT Book of Style in MQCentral. Does anyone happen to know where it is in the maze??? ...

Jan 19, 2010

I am currently looking for a new online job. I have been doing medical transcription for nine years now but work for a small hospital. I do not currently have, nor does my hospital require, the AAMT book of style to be the set rules for our transcription department. We still use q.h.s. etc. I recently had a job interview but blew it because the company requires their MTs to know the latest AAMT book of style front and back. Is this a big deal to know this book word for word? Wonderin ...

Apr 07, 2010

According to AAMT Book of style, are medications numbered and listed?? ...

May 25, 2014

I have a second edition versus a third edition Book of Style, which I cannot afford right now to buy. Can someone help me and tell me what it saysabout putting meals/food. This is a verbatim account and I typed what dr said but QA changed meals to food. She left message per BOS page 217. This accouint I am is verbatim on samples from hospital that I noted headings were different from every MT. I never what is right or wrong until it comes back from QA and the ...

Apr 18, 2010

Can anybody here explain to me why, when a dictator wants a slash between 2 words, ASR decides to put a space after the first word, then the slash, then a space before the second word? We don't have enough things to pick and poke at here? I'm afraid to give an example, you know, the privacy thing. Let's just use generic. ASR may be with this particular program, but it might put and / or hypertension instead of and/or hypertension. It also li ...

Oct 18, 2010

Hello, I am wondering what is the preferred style when typing ranges for meds, as in every '1-2 ' or '1 to 2' or 'one to two' hours. Thanks! ...

Nov 02, 2011

Apparently this one is to be followed along with the BOS2, DQS Standards and Guildelines, and the CP. I just don't understand why we can't use just one. Most of the things in it are the same, but others are the opposite of what I've been taught and what the BOS2 says (for example, it is now okay to start a sentence with a number). They at least explained what qualified verbatim is. ...

Nov 24, 2009

Do different medical transcription companies prefer 2nd or 3rd Book of Style? Seems as if I could buy a used 2nd edition from a website such as Amazaon cheaper than the 3rd edition, but I don't want to buy an edition that is not used by medical transcription companies. Your comments, please? TIA- Jane ...

Dec 12, 2011

For whatever reason, this information has just decided to take a vacation from my brain! When the doctor talks about "bilateral facet arthropathy at L4-5" …… should I make it "L4-L5"? Thanks! ...

Jul 09, 2013

This was just too funny not to share! :) To Wombs it May Concerta: I would like to deworm you cat eye am resounding from my apposition from the nuisance Company effective repeatedly. Thank you for the rapport of tougher impunity that you improvised me during my torture with your company. If I can be of any resistance during this opposition, please field free 2 fret me know. I would be graduate to dismiss you any day I can. ...

Feb 10, 2010

how would you type this: ...refer to Dr.'s Bell and Reynolds ...refer to Dr.s Bell and Reynolds ...refer to Dr. Bell and Reynolds. Where does the plural go? make sense... ...

Aug 11, 2011

Okay, normally I wouldn't leave an abbreviation in the diagnosis section of a report (or operation or procedure at the top of an operative report) without at least putting the expansion once in parentheses after it. Usually, the only time I leave it is when it's a trademark/brand name that is always used in abbreviation form. Well, now I have a dilemma. One of the procedures being performed is pulsed lavage with GU irrigant to some diabetic foot ulcers. Normally in the body of th ...

Sep 20, 2011

Does anyone have a sample of this? I think it should just be: 1. Hello 2. Goodbye 3. Etc. However, when I attempt to look it up, it seems much more complicated. ...

Feb 14, 2012

I made a comment regarding the need to recognize the differences between both the processes and the reasonable expected outcomes with respect to the preparation of: 1. Working trade documents - such as the medical record. 2. Materials for publication, whether in journals or books. The comment is here: http://forum.mtstars.com/378004.html I'd like to expand on what I said by first making two observations that I believe are highly relevant to this issue: First, the huma ...