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Acute Care Transcription - does anyone have experience? - JW

Posted: Jan 17, 2012

I have been transcribing for 30 years mostly orthopedics. I want very much to do acute care transcription. Does anyone think I have a chance to get into it? I feel as though I am at a dead end if I don't do something different to further my career. I feel very qualified to do it. I took a good course from AHDI with cardiology, gastroenterology, orthopedics, and surgeries through Oak Horisons. This was a very well-rounded course and covered everything involved. Thought maybe someone might have an idea of what my chances are. Thanks.

Acute care versus clinic notes/office notes - justmythoughts

[ In Reply To ..]
Big difference in acute care work versus strictly one specialty. Not that it can't be learned, but feeling qualified doesn't make it so. :) LOL. There are many places who specifically state they want only acute care MLS' because clinic/office notes don't cover the specifics that are needed in a particular position, i.e., operative reports. Not saying you can't do it, but I'm saying your chances aren't as good as someone who has the required experience for an acute care position. Most places don't mentor or have time to "babysit" as they call it, but others are willing to do so. Good luck.

You might want to rethink that... - RadMT

[ In Reply To ..]
Just my 0.02. I have been in MT for decades and have done it all, even bariatric medicine.

AC is the WORST IMO. Most places will put some MTs on the account, but they don't divide it up properly so that you are doing the same dictators, procedures, work types, specialties, etc. I like to call it "around the world and back." Your line count will DROP in those types of settings because you will do a dictator and that same guy may not roll back around again for a year or two!

When I became "bored" with radiology, I tried to find challenging things outside my job -- mostly reading books on subjects I wasn't well versed in, "intellectual" type books to expand my knowledge and vocabulary. I even did online tutorials for reading films that rad residents completed. That, in turn, made the "boredom" of my job a welcome relief! I appreciated my work, how easy it was, and the money that could be made with the repetition.

Just another perspective, FWIW.

Well... - TL

[ In Reply To ..]
Well, you don't really know if you're well rounded until you find out you aren't. I would recommend reading the boards here to see which schools actually prepare you for acute care. Not being condescending, but acute care is a whole different ball of wax than clinic, even if you've done all the clinic specialties. Different meds, different labs, different terminology, more ESLs than you will encounter in clinic or in a minor MT course, noisy, noisy background noise, etc.

Acute Care and OAK Horizons - ACMT

[ In Reply To ..]
I took the OAK course and have never had a problem getting a job in either acute care or specialty work. In fact, I was actually hired before I ever completed the course, and have only applied for 2 jobs my entire career. Both companies I applied to hired me immediately, and the other companies I work for and have worked for have come to me and asked me to come work for them. OAK is a fabulous course for getting your feet wet in acute care.

For the record, I work as an MT and as QA right now (2 different companies), so it's good preparation for both.

Acute care for me? - JW

[ In Reply To ..]
Thanks for all your input. It's coming down to I have to find a job somewhere. I did an interview at the local hospital and wish I would have a chance at it. I am nearly unemployed now working for a practice in town that the doctors are always taking time off and there is not enough work to go around. It's a good IC position and I make .12 cpl but what good is the .12 cpl when you don't have work? Makes me depressed. Anyway thanks.

Suggestion - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
In your situation, I would recommend branching out a bit. My thinking about this is that trying to get up to speed in acute care, which really is impossible now, is going to be a huge headache unless you can get on with a hospital. It would not be much more difficult to learn a litle coding. You might not think it is that appealing, but consider trying it anyway.

Does your office have a coder? Talk to that person and see if he or she can show you a bit. You Are in a perfect position to learn a bit of outpatient coding and get enough experience for a job.

You can still look for another job, but doing this while looking will give you somethingto fall back on.
The AAPC outpatient type course is not very long. You could do it fairly quickly. If you like it, you can continue with it and maybe take a longer course.

Medical Coding - JW

[ In Reply To ..]
I took two semesters of coding back in 2003 and did not get into it. But thinking about it now. My library has free courses in billing and coding and am thinking about picking them up and refresh my mind on it. I don't have a lot of time here and need something to at least tide me over. I have bills to pay. I have a job but only get work every three weeks :( and unfortunately that doesn't pay the bills. Thanks for the advice.

I wonder how many . . . - Coder

[ In Reply To ..]
I wonder how many training programs are . . . just like what a job will be like? I'm not sure I know any that are.

Nursing is not exactly like taking chemistry and nursing courses in college--I'm sure a lot of nurses would drop out if they thought their lifelong jobs would be like A&P lab.

Accounting is not exactly like sitting in college courses. It isn't like history and English literature, and doing your own spreadsheets is a lot more interesting than doing the assignments in a lab. Nobody decides against being a CPA because they just can't get into writing papers every week for life.

Doctors would probably not want to continue in medicine if they thought all they would do for the rest of their lives was dissect cadavers, memorize books, and frantically scribble notes in lectures.

Transcription training is probably a lot more like working on the job because you have to do it to learn it.

I have seen a lot of people take a couple of courses and decide that they hate coding. They don't want to "do that" forever. It's too difficult. It's boring. They don't want to sit at a desk all day. They describe what coding students do as if they believe that IS the job.

I think students in other fields understand that learning a career field is not going to be just like doing it on the job. I think they also understand that there are a wide variety of jobs available in any field. Unless they made an unwise choice early on, they are likely to chalk all that annoying stuff up to just being what school is like. They do not assume every job will be exactly like more of that.

Learning coding can be a challenge, especially if you are trying to learn it from college courses, which can be very frustrating. If you dislike the course, you're likely to dislike the subject itself, leading you to think you will dislike the work.

Coding might not be something up your alley, but I think you should give it a fair chance. It is really sad to see smart people who could make good money in coding pass it up, especially when they do so because of inaccurate perceptions.

See what the job is really like. If you had boring or frustrating guessing games in a course, and if you found yourself thinking that you didn't want to do anything that hard for a living, give yourself a chance to find out that it isn't like that.

My work is nothing like a course. It isn't frustrating, boring, or difficult. It is nothing like working in a doctor's office copying codes from encounter forms onto bills. It pays much better than that, too.

Yes, I think you do.... - oreosmom

[ In Reply To ..]
When I first got hired at MQ, I had 25 plus years' experience in various medical offices, orthopedics, general surgery, physical therapy and internal medicine. I had no trouble getting hired. However, unfortunately, everything has basically gone straight to ASR now and the pay isn't that great. Good luck!

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