A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry
Like so many of us, I need a job. After applying at a gazillon places over the last week (sm) - anon
Posted: Aug 16, 2010
I finally received an email earlier inviting me to test for a company. It is a very well paid job also, however, with LOTS of ESL, so it is a trade off. So, I am told to take the written portion of the test and IF I pass that then I MAY be invited to take the other part of the test. OTHER part of the test????? For petesake this part of the test is 10 pages long!!!
Well I decided to push forward and do the test, at least start it. Now, please understand that I have worked for a multispecialty clinic for 18 years that has no idea what BOS is, I had never heard of it until three years ago when my department was "phased out." (thank you very much) In the three years that I have been "out" I have not worked for a company that applies BOS, just like the clinic that I worked for and the local hometown hospital that I worked for, everything is verbatim.
Back to the test, I make it through the first four pages, no problems whatsoever, completing a schedule (IC), answering questions about experience, then comes the "skills test." Not even one-third of the way through this I finally stopped and quit and will not finish it. I feel like I am in college taking a test again and I am questioning every thing that I put on this paper. I am an excellent transcriptionist, have been told this by every employer that I have ever worked for, but this test, in my opinion, is almost demeaning. If this company wants to know exactly what kind of a medical transcriptionist I am, then give me dictation to transcribe, not sit here and continually go over the same 86 questions and racking my brain, wondering if I am doing it correctly ... aka ... according to BOS.
So, my question to my MT friends out there is this ..... is it like this at most companies when you test? I have been doing this job for 25 years and have never been so intimidated in my life and what really gets me is this was stuff that I know that I know!!!!
Thanks so much for letting me vent!
sad aint it - threw my bos away
[ In Reply To ..]The local hospital I work for DOES NOT care to follow BOS..type "2" or "two"..."restart" or "re-start"...they don't care. I hate that most MTSOs do follow BOS and I have to remember who I'm typing for at the moment.
Recycled MTs - Pam
[ In Reply To ..]Probably a young upstart with no actual experience as a transcriptionist and has RHIT or RHIA degree. The fact is the golden rule, and that is "those that have the gold make the rules." BOS or not, if hospitals don't abide it, then neither do we. I wish AHDI would stop trying to change the things they have little control over and start helping us get a fair wage for our work, stop letting huge transcription giatns and MTSOs call us IC. We work with no benefits, and we have to pay our own taxes etc. I liken it to endentured slavery. I have not had a raise in 10 years and the industry rate is moving in the wrong direction. What is wrong with this picture? I for one am mad as he**. I still have bills to pay and I have to keep up with cost of living, but for some reason, my paycheck is not. I work longer hours, more lines, less pay. Hmm
small rant about BOS - s/m
[ In Reply To ..]I am sorry about your experience. They truly want a lot of "style knowledge," such as q.4 h. NOT q.4h, IIIa or III-A NOT 3a or 3A, or in another case 3a NOT IIIa. It is all so arbitrary and yet it counts as "knowledge." I went to a hospital after many years at a clinic, where I did excellent work, and it was like starting at square 1. It wasn't just the new terminology and procedures (a lot of that though), it was learning "the book of style." T1 not T-1. T-1 not T1. T/1 not T1 or T-1. T-i not T/1, T1 or T-1. Aaaagh!! It made me just want to type "tea won" and let the doctor figure it out phonetically. Do not use a hyphen here. Always use a hyphen there. Capitalize after a colon-- no, don't capitalize. Double space-- no, single space. If a proper noun is used as a verb in a hyphenated form following the subject of a relative clause, in a sentence in which the dictator uses the passive voice, add a capital J at a random place anywhere in the sentence. Good grief. Honestly, our QA person was beset with questions from confused transcriptionists, "Should I put a hyphen here? Is this capitalized? Roman numeral here?" Even Emily Post said that manners should not become the tyrant of natural behavior. BOS is making "correctness" into the tyrant of a normal, colloquial, correct transcription style. I can see pharmacists and doctors getting rid of handwritten QID and q.4h, but when typed out, you can hardly mistake it for something else.
Sing it, sister! - Happy MT Robin
[ In Reply To ..]I've worked for two of the big nationals now (where I lasted a whole month at each place) and I felt like they were much more concerned with having the style issues be correct than they were content. I know I was so concerned about all of the style issues, I missed content.
Is it me or is some of the testing completely ridiculous??? - IAMT
[ In Reply To ..]Last test I forced myself to take asked the testing MT to decide if the sentence was complete or incomplete. Docs do not dictate in complete sentences usually and thought this made no sense. We type verbatim. If it is an incomplete sentence, ya type an incomplete sentence, so what is the purpose of me proving I know the difference between the two?
By the by, three emails from the company asking me to test, spent 4 hours testing including 5 voice files on a cruddy platform none of us will ever use again, emailed the company telling them I had completed the testing and the company didn't even have the courtesy to tell me if I passed, failed or didn't receive their test. That told me a lot about the company and their organization and communication practices so no need to try calling now. Got out of MTing - just too frustrating. Still come on here to check for PT jobs every now and again.
Robin, I love, love, love your comments on the forum. Keep 'em coming.
Tested out - and done!
[ In Reply To ..]I too took so many tests and finally said no more. You practially have to be a pre-med student to pass. I was absolutely stunned at the questions, the time it took, the dictation part that took forever and then you get back, thanks but no thanks, you didn't cut it with us! I don't mind takeing a couple of dictation tests and perhaps a multiple choice on the spelling of words, but some were absolutely out of hand. I have no idea how you get on with these companies, but when I receive back an e-mail telling me to go to blah, blah and take their test, I delete it. I am working now, so I don't feel so desperate, but I was to the point where I wanted to contact them and say no you to your time consuming testing, that are impossible to pass. I would rather work for two days without pay to see how I can do, than go through those again and you will always get a response back from these companies, whether they are hiring or not and you could spend forever taking tests. There have been a multitude of posts regarding this issue and so many MTs have felt the same way and treated the same way with tons of experience, etc.
This is what really burns me. - sm
[ In Reply To ..]I really liked your sentence when you said, "You practically have to be a pre-med student to pass." And that is exactly what it seems like sometimes. These companies test for highly skilled and experienced MTs that can pass these tests, but they want to offer WalMart wages. It's ridiculous. If they want skill and expertise, PAY FOR IT. Don't demean us with these 3- to 4-hour tests that we pass with flying colors and then offer 7 or 8 cpl or, worse yet, 3.5 or 4 for VR...and then tell us that's the industry standard.
Tested out - And done
[ In Reply To ..]Oh yeah, that is another thing, what they want to pay. You are right. They expect the best and want to pay the least, which is a total slap in the face. At that rate, they should just hire you and give you a two week probation and it could also work for the MT, to see whether he/she wants to stay with that company. That is another gripe of mine (I have so many) :o), we go to work for these companies on good faith, expect to be paid, expect to have work, etc., expect to have a job, and it all falls through and you have to start up again. I am so mistrustful, you cannot even imagine. I am working as an IC, and I heard some negative things about this woman I am working for, in that, she doesn't pay on time. Has all kinds of excuses. Thank goodness I have another job, yes, we have to have two anymore, so if she starts dancing around me, I will tell her when I get paid, I will work. Again, how do they expect us to live? A friend of mine worked at Spheris and when they went bankrupt she got a notice in the mail about filing against them, if they owed you money. She said she wanted to sue them for the $50,000.00 she lost working for them over the past five years. I felt that said it all.
Then again, some MTs pass those tests without spending all day on them - We all have different skill levels
[ In Reply To ..]It's like anything else in life, we all have different skills and abilities. To one person those tests might seem very difficult and someone else might just breeze through them. Of course those who breeze through them don't have to keep taking test after test, because they pass them and get job offers.
If I had to take tests in some other kind of work, I probably would be frustrated too, but these transcription tests are not very hard once you're prepared for them. That's the whole reason for them in the first place, to sort out those with a certain level of skills. Then they get to the personality and attitude part later with those who survived the skill testing. That's the way it is in any field where skills are involved.
Companies used to hire anyone and everyone - Times Change
[ In Reply To ..]It's not like it used to be. They used to hire anyone with a pulse. I doubt that it will ever be that way again.
The sad thing is that a lot of people do not test well, they may be (sm) - anon2
[ In Reply To ..]able to perform exceptionally well on the job but are horrible when it comes to taking a skills test. I have a daughter who is like that. She was always way ahead of everyone in school, her teachers asked us on many occasions to move her up two grade levels (which we did not thankfully) because she was so bored with the material on her level. However, when it came time to test, she would literally freeze up. She knew the materials inside and out, could sit and literally give you the answers as you went over the material with her but once she sat down in that chair, pencil in hand, test on her desk, she would freeze.
Thankfully though with the assistance of some really special teachers and friends she managed to overcome it but it took years. She went on to college to earn her Masters.
I can see how someone who has typed verbatim for years would have such a problem with a test where BOS is applied. While, in my opinion, verbatim is so much easier to do, also in my opinion, a well trained transcriptionist can lose some of their skills that they have obtained over the years on a verbatim account. Again, that is my opinion.
Excellent thoughts. I think most MTs have several accounts, some verbatim and others not - Just a note
[ In Reply To ..]Everything is easier if you are familiar with the BOS. Even the accounts that don't officially go by it want everything done very close to it. The people I know who are having the most trouble are the ones who are trying to do MTs with no knowledge of any rules whatsoever. They get confused and upset by changes. The people who use BOS just take changes in stride, from what I've seen.
Test or not to test - PedalPushr
[ In Reply To ..]January 2008 - hired on with then MDI-MD - No test just telephone interview.
August 2009 - hired on with IDS after MDI-MD merged w/Transcend - No test just telephone interview.
August 2010 - hired on with Edoc - no test just telephone interview.
Create a resume that best highlight your assets and experience; the companies will FIND YOU. The probation period is THE TEST. 
This has been MY experience.
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