A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry
memory lane - weeping wilma
Posted: Jan 21, 2010
In a post below a couple of ppl are remembering the good old days, you remember, when MTs made as much as RNs and sometimes even more than the resident docs?... (memories, light the corners of my mind...)
How about when we had CORNER offices, expense accounts, direct lines, listing in the hospital directories.
They mentioned below hourly pay WITH line incentive. GEEZ! I remember that!! I MISS THAT!!
We got bonuses, paid vacation and at 5 years the company sent us on a cruise!
I used to wear designer dresses, high heels, panty hose, wear my hair up and makeup! The docs KNEW me by name, talked to me, thanked me and my co-workers, appreciated our help, listened to us when we had a suggestion. We were a vital, contributing members of that medical community way back in the day.
ah, well.
what about - Susu
[ In Reply To ..]How about when our SUPERVISORS SAID HELLO OR GOOD MORNING?? hahahaha!
or when supervisors didnt refer to the MT staff as - "THOSE PEOPLE". ugh!
[ In Reply To ..].
yeah - Jack and Diane
[ In Reply To ..]I liked job benefits and security. 401K, "professional courtesy", when the docs would take us right in when we were sick and not charge us... 'cause we WERE part of a team.
Yes, those were the days.... - chipup
[ In Reply To ..]You've brought back such fond memories. I remember when I worked at a surgical center. The medical director my boss) was an anesthesiologist. My baby was hospitalized and very very sick. He called us at the hospital and told me to get her moved to another hospital (100 miles away). He offered to fly us there in his private plane.
chipup - need a new career
[ In Reply To ..]I know what you mean! Once one of the docs flew four of us to his SKI CABIN in Taos, for a Christmas present from he and the other docs AND their wives.
None of us knew how to ski, but it was an unforgetable weekend. It really was beautiful to be so much a part of a team, to be regarded in such a way that out of their appreciation, they gave us that gift.
Sadly, it was not so very long ago. What a shame. This was such a wonderful field to work in. gotta go, i'm crying again... :(
Used to think could not afford insurance, young and - L
[ In Reply To ..]healthy. I worked at a hospital, and also worked on a part-time basis with group of orthopedists. My son broke his shoulder. Oops, no insurance but admitted to the hospital, surgery done twice (had payroll deductions made until paid) and the orthopedist I worked for did the surgery at no cost to me. This was in the 70s.
[sniff!] - I remember when I could afford to ski. - N/M
[ In Reply To ..].
The Good Ole Days - old mt
[ In Reply To ..]Ah yes - our misspent youth. those were the good ole days, vacations, good pay and most of all we were a member of the MEDICAL TEAM AND APPRECIATED! I think that is why it is so hard to take the sh-- we take now and how we are treated by most MTSOS!
Remember how easy it was to get a job? Just mention - you were an MT, and they just couldnt -sm
[ In Reply To ..]jump through enough hoops or turn enough backflips to hire you. On more than one occasion, I walked in to an employer (no call, unannounced), and said "Hi I'm a medical transcriber" and usually I got shown to a work station, typed a couple test reports, and started working immediately, even before the paperwork was filled out!
I remember having to only work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. There was actually time for housework, exercise, hobbies. There was money for the occasional vacation. I could afford to keep my car in good running shape. I could have a savings account. I paid my bills on time and in full.
Of my other family members, I was the one with a "good, stable job". The others either bounced from job to job, or were perennial students, in their 6th, 8th, or 12th years of college. Then fast-forward about 15 years. Now I'm the one with the crappy job, and the family's charity-case.
No, I cannot remember these times...n/m - .
[ In Reply To ..]nm
Anyone work for YOG and remember when we got $500 for every 50,000 lines typed. Those were the days - Sharon
[ In Reply To ..]nm
Those *were* the days, weren't they??? And, there was..sm - Oh YEAH!!!
[ In Reply To ..]never any problems with having work, either! And, working holidays meant a bonus, too, remember that?
Those were the days...... - TXrosa
[ In Reply To ..]Back in the early 1980s I applied for an MT job at the local hospital. I had no experience, just out of MT school. I got the job because I was the only applicant. No one else knew how to do it. I thought I was rich, $4.21/h!
YOG - MTangel
[ In Reply To ..]Wow, those WERE the days. I loved working at YOG, even with all the silly emails. I actually liked Carol. Wish she would come back! Carol, where are you???!!!!!!
I had the privilege of working for YOG too! First job I actually loved. - Rita Smith Fan
[ In Reply To ..]dd
YOG - sm
[ In Reply To ..]I just had a wave of nostalgia rain down over me. I sure do remember. Made GREAT money. Carole knew how to keep the customers AND the MTs happy. Sorry she left, but she worked her butt off for it. Remember the theme song for All In The Family - "Those Were the Days."
I could actually put $200 a month into SAVINGS sm - golden oldies
[ In Reply To ..]and never have to touch the savings account unless I wanted to go on vacation.
I looked forward to going to work every day, I felt like I was doing something important in the grand scheme of health care.
Down memory lane, still there really - Lucky Lady
[ In Reply To ..]My life with this profession years ago was a little harder than now because I worked so much, several jobs at a time, totally supporting the family and I wanted things like exotic vacations to different lands amongst other things. I always went as single, no dependents although married and with children and had so much taken out of my check which meant a good tax return and that was vacation money. Now since I have reached retirement am still plugging along and making totally what I did back in the really golden age of MTing. I really like working, am just programmed it seems to continue on because I have worked now since the age of 14. You would think it would be time to take it easy but I feel like it is easy. I work 4 days now instead of day, night and weekends and very happy.
Corner offices? Expense accounts? Not in the hospitals sm - Better Now
[ In Reply To ..]Every hospital or clinic I worked at had the MTs in the basement or a drafty, cramped and crappy spot out of the way. Designer dresses and heels? We had to wear nurses' whites. And don't you remember all the in-fighting MTs would do in-house, how they would fight over who got the good tapes or worktypes? Who got stuck with the really cruddy stuff? And don't forget the co-workers who would eat your food and sneak around and gossip.
Yeah, really the good old days. NOT.
better now - with wilma
[ In Reply To ..]I think probably her department was corner office. Ours was. There were 9 of us and we also got an expense account, it was a set amount for the whole department. That's probably what she means. We had that too. It was for office attire and/or scrubs, as long as we all looked professional, and like part of the rest of department. It was good to be part of that. I don't know where you worked, but you would have loved to work with us.
We worked separate from the medical records department, because we worked only with the trauma surgeons and ER docs. All we did was their transcription and you know trauma and ER in the big inner cities is a lucrative (sad but true) business. Yeah, you would have loved to work with us. we were treated like little princesses.
My office job was in a walk-in closet, literally! In the hospital, we were - under the parking garage (I can still smell the fu
[ In Reply To ..]nm
Our dept was next to the MORGUE and another was sm - Not Great for me either
[ In Reply To ..]next to the loading docks. We had to sign for UPS deliveries b/c "you girls aren't doing anything while they are at lunch." Going home was a huge step up for me - no more pantyhose or dressing up, no more parking battles, no more fights with catty fellow MTs.
good bad and ugly - Dee
[ In Reply To ..]Good to hear both sides. Some liked it better on the outside, some like it now. I only work at home very few hours a week, have a FT job outside. I couldn't handle it at home, I live alone. Tried working at home for about four months, started talking to myself and the cats. This is my healthy balance. :)
Although the office politics and evil managers were why - sm-
[ In Reply To ..]I chose to take a cut in pay to work at home, what I didn't bargain for was how much of a cut that was going to be! When inhouse, at least I had both good and bad dictators. At home, things are slow because of difficult dictators (most go to India these days, we get what's left over). The medium sized co. I joined was a good company, and it was a good fit, but soon thereafter they were gobbled up by a national. Pay was chopped. More work was offshored or put on VR. My good account, that I was getting fast at, was given to the new-hires and/or the Indians, and I got the bottom-of-the-barrel to type. Their "new-and-improved" transcription platform is sluggish, and top-heavy with demographic busywork, much of which involves correcting sloppy dictator input. In-house I worked 8-hour days, 40-hour weeks. At home, although it's claimed that I work 40-hours a week (with a wink and a nod), all of us - you, the MTSO, and I, know that is pretty far from the truth, and I work far more hours than that. For far less pay than I made previously.
Both at-home and in-office have their ups and downs, good and bad points. But the BOTTOM LINE is that I don't do MT as a hobby, or for "fun-money". I have to survive on this. And now, given a choice, I would go back to in-house (if such a thing still existed in my area), and put up with a few hours a day of bitchy bosses and catty coworkers, in exchange for being able to go home in the evening to do what I want: clean house, watch TV, or whatever. I could afford to keep my health up by joining a gym again. I wouldn't skip doctor visits because I can't afford the co-payments. I could afford to make long-distance phone calls to siblings, instead of only being the recipient. I could take an occasional vacation. Nothing fancy, but at least a trip to visit a friend or relative, or my mother, or perhaps a day on the slopes once in a while.
I'd be able to handle life's little glitches without them becoming major financial disasters for me. Things like flat tires; a dental checkup that reveals you need a cavity filled; being able to get broken household appliances fixed, instead of limping along without them; having to take a pet to the vet, etc. Before, those things were just part of everyday life. Now, little things like that are major problems because I just don't have any money.
I've seen both sides, and although working at home is great, it isn't so great that it warrants not being paid for it. The work is the SAME. WHERE that work is done shouldn't matter one iota. It's the quality that should matter. But of course, to the profit-hungry middlemen we now work for, it's all about their bottom line, and they don't give a rat's patooty about how many of us they crush in order to make those profits.
Working In-House - MAMT
[ In Reply To ..]I felt the same way about going back in-house, but I've found even working at the hospitals isn't what it used to be. I've worked for 2 hospitals since moving to this state because I got tired of working at home. The first one was wonderful. I worked in-house for awhile, then back to working at home. Both worked out great. The manager was a transcriptionist and she had great ideas, did not ask us to do the impossible. Scheduling was great, education opportunities, incentive program. I went to work for another hospital. Manager is Not a transcriptionist. We have to use a master list for the expander,cannot add our own, so production is next to impossible. And, there is no way sense to the way they were named, so you can't figure out what the expansioins are, so you have to look them up. It ends up adding keystrokes since all abbreviations expand and you have to do extra strokes to keep them from expanding. Even formats for different reports are different. There is no consistency. Right now it's an hourly wage, but they are planning to implement an incentive program. Can't wait to see how that is going to be. The HR person said the shift would be 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and that was not great but possible since I'm a single mom of a 5-year-old. After I had quit my other job and started work, I find out I have to 3 to 11:30 p.m. My child gets off the bus after I leave for work and is in bed before I get home. I see her on the weekend if I don't have to work. They told me I could get a dayshift position that was going to come open. Of course, every with more seniority went for the earlier times. Next they were going to hire a part time person to work 3-11:30 so I could get off it at least 3 days a week. Funy thing, the post for the job says 1-9:30 p.m. Plus, they are trying to use the same standards as the services without giving you the tools to make the line count. The bottom line is, I'm going back to work for a service that will let me work independently and use my experience to do my job the way I know works for me and does not feel the need to treat me like an idiot that has to be told every move to make.
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