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

Amazing that we know terminology for - ALL specialties and get paid so little.

Posted: Jun 17, 2014

I'm sure most doctors can't hold a candle to our knowledge of terminology for the dozens of specialities out there, including surgical terms. Are we underpaid or what??

Are you comparing - xx

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what is basically access to a vocabulary list to the training, knowledge, and skill of medical professionals? If you are, you are delusional.

I'm talking about terminology - which takes some understanding

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.

Doctors know the terms AND the science - surrounding them.

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Sorry, but I agree with the person above who used the analogy of "access to a word list." It is delusional to think that knowing words is equivalent to knowing medicine.

Spelling and grammar don't mean a hill of beans when you need somebody who can thread a catheter into a vessel in your brain to keep an aneurysm from killing you.

You are twisting things. I was just trying to point - out our terminology knowledge.

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.

and you said 'most doctors can't hold a candle' to us. - I also take that to mean we know more than them

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in the terminology department. Maybe not what you meant necessarily, but that IS what you said, perhaps rephrase? because I can't make anything other out of that sentence as it stands.

Yes, they know the science and terminology....but - anotherMT

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Half the time they don't know how to even pronounce the terrminology or the medications. At least most of us know how to pronounce meds and terms.

That does not make you or any other MT - or MTE or whatever

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qualified to practice medicine. You sit in your little room with your word books and feel superior to medical professionals because you think being able to pronounce a few words makes you better than them? You clearly have no idea what it takes to become a doctor or even a nurse or PA.

This thread is pretty darn insulting! - MacroDiva

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Yes, this is a tough job and it requires a lot of knowledge. It isn't just a vocabulary list. Acquiring this huge vocabulary list, knowing how to spell every last word on that list, which in effect is a whole other language, plus it is necessary to have to have fair understanding what those words mean, in addition to needing to know what medications and labs are for what, that the dosages and values should be -- and everything else we have to know. Yes we are highly skilled professionals and no, we are not paid what we are worth! If we get the record wrong, and no one has reviewed it, which often happens, the patient could die just as quickly as if that surgeon punctured a lung when inserting that catheter!

I don't know who you are who could write such a thing, but as the owner of a medical transcription business, I have had to look long and hard for good MTs over the course of many years, and I when I find them, I wish I could pay those rare wonderful valuable underrated people far more than I can; they deserve it!

Geesh - OP

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I'm just trying to say how much we need to know about all specialties when doing hospital work to do a good job. I think we all deserve a medal.

OP - Macrodiva was agreeing with you, - as am I

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And to explain this to some of those commenting who didn't grasp what you were saying, here is an example:

An endocrinologist is a specialist in that field. Familiar with endocrinology and pertaining medications and dosages, kidney function, blood sugars, insulin, hirsutism, thyroid, pituitary, hormones, cortisol levels, etc.

YET, as MTs we need to likewise know every aspect of endocrinology as I stated above (including catching the dictator's errors in dosages and blood tests), but ALSO vascular medicine, cardiology, psychiatry, psychology, neuropsychology, rehabilitation medicine, infectious disease, nephrology, allergy, colorectal, dermatology, emergency medicine, radiation oncology, medical oncology, pulmonology, hepatobiliary, general surgery, hand surgery, plastic surgery, etc.

To those disagreeing with the OP, you either (a) are a newbie or (b) an experienced MT who is lucky enough to have only worked in one or two specialties. And don't get me started on those who insist we (they) are just "typists." The specialties I mentioned? They happen to be just some of the ones I'm required to be an expert in. Yes, I'm knowledgeable in those and more I haven't mentioned. And I do know them, only because I've been in this business for 28 years. However, as the OP posted, it's ludicrous at our pay scale. Now add to that - we must catch every error the dictator makes, every error VR makes, and deal with QA who "grade" us for missing a "the", not using a hyphen, or adhering to some arbitrary BOS rules that nobody cares about but MTSOs. Anybody who justifies that has no clue.

It was NOT LIKE THIS before the offshoring MTSOs changed the industry. When I caught the mistake a doctor made, he/she was grateful, and those of us that they trusted to do that were well-paid because of that. They didn't expect us to be more perfect than they were, they certainly didn't care if their sentence was a fragment, and they would have laughed at some QA over-correcting their grammar and grading us for it. Insane.

You are exaggerating - Whatever

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No patient ever died because of a misplaced comma or misspelled word. Patient deaths do occur because of incorrect documentation but it is generally because of incorrectly written nurses notes or physician's orders. The physician is ultimately responsible for the content of the medical record and the accuracy of the report, not the MT. Accuracy is important, but there is a long line of checks and balances in place, including compliance, that catches dictation deficiencies. I've seen things that VR gets wrong - the solution to that is to enter a disclaimer into the chart regarding the accuracy of VR, no one fixes that. Punctuation doesn't matter, sorry to say, and spelling doesn't seem to matter like it once did. I know vocabulary, meds and dosing, procedures and all the other things that make people good MTs, but that is where it ends. If we were valued the way people seem to think we should be, VR would not exist and it would all still be straight dictation and transcription. It's a unique job, to be sure, but one needs to look at the entire picture before making statements that people die because of incorrect transcription. I know of one wrongful death lawsuit due to a medication dosage error, but the physician and nursing staff also shared in the liability.

Patients have died because of transcription errors - MacroDiva

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There have been a couple of big settlements lately because transcription error. One involved Precyse, I don't recall the others but if you research this you can find the details.

The medical report is vitally important and needs to be prepared by skilled professionals who know what they are doing and are adequately compensated so they can take however much time is needed to transcribe/edit and proofread the report. The patient's life can depend on it.

While that misplaced comma will probably not affect much of anything transcribing Digoxin 25 mg instead of 25 mcg can sure kill a patient.

The MT needs to know what he/she is doing, and it is a tragedy this has degenerated into this situation where we are regarded as mere typists with a vocabulary list and a high school diploma.

But I think a few more hospitals being hit $400 million judgments for wrongful deaths (as has happened recently) may bring this nonsense to end some day.

By the way, a clever lawyer might be able to make a big deal out of that misplaced comma in a malpractice suit!

I agree ... to a point - Snow Bunny (the original)

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Yes, you need to have a decent understanding of what the dictator is saying. IOW, if you are watching House, M.D. (love that show!), you should be able to know that when they are checking the BUN and creatinine, they're checking kidney function. HOWEVER ... that is as far as it should go. You do not need to know how to perform the tests or how to interpret them. BUN + creatinine = kidney function ... period! I do not need to know how to perform the tests or all the diseases which might occur with bad kidney function.

As far as the lawsuits go, the AAMT started that *rap with the E&O insurance. That was money in their pocket. FACT: It is the sole responsibility of the whoever signed the document to make absolutely certain that what they are signing is absolutely correct. Dictators who are using speech recognition and add the statement "Dictated by not read," are creating a situation whereby they create the problem (possible inaccurate information) but the transcriptionist has to take ownership of the problem.

Agree, disagree, don't matter. You have to answer to your own conscience. I have no trouble with mine, and I sleep just fine at night.

deadly transcription errors - MacroDiva

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As I said, do the research, I don't recall the details except one of the companies was Precyse. Patients have indeed died because of uncaught transcription errors. The reports went to the chart without the physician signing off on them, and then nurses acting accordingly. As I recall, in the $400 million Percyse case, the insulin dosage was mistranscribed, and was way out of bounds of the patient's normal dosage; extremely high for any patient, and should have caught the MTs attention, whether the doctor dictated that or not but it did not, either because the MT was just a person with a vocabulary list or too rushed and underpaid to focus as he/she should. The nurse, also at fault, gave the patient the dose given on the report. These kinds of things can happen unfortunately, which is exactly why we have to be more than a person with a vocabulary list. We do need to be on our toes, and we should be paid enough to take proper care while transcribing these reports, and not rushing through them as fast as we possibly can, so we can keep the rent paid and the power on. This is serious work. Yes, the MD is ultimately responsible, but we should be responsible too, and we need to be paid accordingly.

This was a nursing error. - RHIA

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Please stop citing this as an example of deadly "MT" errors. The act that resulted in death occurred because a nurse failed to follow her hospital's procedures and used the dictated report knowing she should not have. Although it reflected badly on Precyse, the report should never have been used because the hospital medical staff knew it was not reliable.

I agree that the entire "deadly error" nonsense was cooked up by the AAMT to promote Errors and Omissions insurance and in an attempt to get hospitals to view MTs as deserving of higher pay.

The truth is, though, that the MT is not responsible and isn't even in a position to be responsible. Under the "Captain of the Ship" doctrine, the physician is solely responsible. He cannot evade that responsibility by writing "dictated but not read" or "errors are due to VR." He accepts responsibility when he signs.

Continuing to make claims to the contrary does not help your cause any. It just makes you appear to have a lack of knowledge, and that only helps confirm that higher pay is not justified for the work MTs do.

"the MT is not responsible and isn't even in a position to be responsible." sm - THIS.

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Precisely.
It is not our job to second-guess medication dosages.

that was in Alabama and the transcriptionists was an Indian oversees - s/m

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I live in Alabama. I am familiar with the hospital. Although, I have to say this mistake could have happened to an American MT as well. The truth was outed that the doctor signed off without checking the report, and the nurse carried out his orders.

correction: seas/not sees - n/m

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zz

DITTO. I say we all quit today. - IMANMT2

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why drag this out?

Macro Diva - Whatever

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It is against JCAHO regulations for nurses to use discharge summaries for prescribing information. The physician signed that report without reading it. The transcriptionist made a mistake, no one caught it and the patient died. 18 sounded like 80, it's a pretty common mistake. Without the medical record in front of them, the MT would not have known the difference as both doses are in an acceptable range. What do you consider being paid accordingly? What do you think you are worth? Unfortunately, people are paid by production, which is why most services and facilities have QA staff. QA didn't catch the error either. There are also people salivating to file lawsuits, so everyone needs to be on their toes. None of us is careless, but mistakes happen regardless of how skilled we consider ourselves to be.

Nope. If a patient died, it was NOT due to MT error - sm

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the doctor has to read and sign off on the report. If a patient died, that would be on him!!!

I don't think anyone was - saying we should be

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paid as much as a surgeon, but certainly somewhat more than a cashier at a convenience store. We are getting paid less because apparently there are still plenty of us who will accept less and less and less, and I don't think anyone knows exactly why that is. You never see other jobs that seem to be constantly begging for workers yet pay so little.

Why that is - Speculating

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People work for less because that is the going rate. Offshore labor has driven wages down. If US workers refuse to work for the wage being offered, someone in India will gladly take on the work. There is also an issue of supply and demand. Due to VR and point and click, there is no longer a shortage of MTs. A lot of people are looking for jobs and are willing to take what is being offered to them. I have been an MT for 30 years but now work in QA and medical records. I loved those big paychecks, but I have to say that sometimes I felt guilty about it when I compared other positions within our organization and the knowledge level those jobs required, MT wages were highly inflated in the 80's and 90's. We have special skills, but compared to some people involved in direct patient care who made less, I'm not sure how fair that was. I'm not sure I could be a cashier at a convenience store or a fast food worker, they probably think they are underpaid as well.

I guess the main problem is offshoring and VR - OP

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..not to mention "point and click". I lost a great account to that about 10 years ago. The office group had gotten the VR at the same time, quickly realized they couldn't use it (mostly bad dictators there, 8, all American), and made do with point and click, I heard later.

BTW, I'm not disparaging doctors' knowledge, etc. My brother-in-law is a great doctor who is board certified in 3 specialties, but when I've asked him for help with medical terms I've been stuck on, including some pretty obscure surgical terms, proper names, etc., he'd just shake his head and say "Can't help you.. Boy, are you underpaid!". LOL! My BIL is brilliant and very well educated, but he doesn't come in contact with all the terminology we do, esp. those working for hospitals, clinics, etc.

There is room for agreement and disagreement - in all the posts on this thread

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I've worked exclusively in-house pathology for 34 years and one thing I love about this discipline is that pathologists definitely see us an important part of the team. We all have the same goal, great efficient patient care. We all contribute to the same end game and each component deserves to be valued. That's my takeaway from this whole discussion.

Not all pathologists feel that way - sm

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It's great that the staff in your department feel that way, but you cannot generalize that to all pathologists. Instead of saying that you love this discipline because pathologists see you as an important part of the team, it would be less presumptive to say that you like working in your department because the pathologists IN THAT DEPARTMENT see you as an important part of the team.

At my giant, academic mega-facility, all the MTs in pathology and radiology were canned the minute Dragon came along. Everyone of those doctors loves their Dragon. They love not having to proofread, correct, and sign reports a day later, and they no longer have to issue phone results because of MT delays. The improvement in the turnaround time and saving in physician labor (yes, really) is something that is making front-end SR work allover our facility.

Nobody even remembers when there were MTs in those departments.

I STAND CORRECTED - I WILL SAY THAT IN OUR

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Giant, Mega teaching, metropolitan facility (the largest employer in our region) treats transcriptionist in the manner I mentioned above. The medical school (which employs all physicians at our hospital) is separate from the hospital. They are not interested in Dragon, have tried it, want no part of it and relies heavily on transcription. I'm not saying in the future this will not change, but I still stand by my initial statement, this is the only discipline I know and the only hospital I have worked. I am sorry you experience has been less favorable.

x - x

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x

Ours do use it by choice . . . they have other - options.

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It's another mistaken notion that physicians don't want to use Dragon. Ours were given choices. They can choose the MT route, the template route, the self-typing route, and the Dragon route. They can make this choice on any report they do.

Many, many, many of them opt for Dragon, particularly for short reports, like radiology and path. Medium notes tend to be templated. Only longer ones tend to go to dictation, and those are decreasing in number, mostly because of the delay, lost reports, and . . . errors. Yup, the MTs' reports are full of errors.

"It's another mistaken notion that physicians don't want to use Dragon" - where did you find the statistics for this?

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Has this been researched, surveyed and/or otherwise documented? I cannot buy into this statement without facts. It is, therefore, one person's assumption on a very limited scale.

That was in response to a blanket statement - that no physicians want to use Dragon

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The deleted post above claimed that physicians do not want to use Dragon. That is a false claim -- it simply isn't true. It is impossible for it to be true. SOME physicians DO want to use Dragon. If even ONE wanted to use it, that makes the statement that physicians don't want to use Dragon false.

Nobody is making any statement about what will happen where you work or at any particular facility.

I can only say that it is untrue that no physicians want to use Dragon. It is just untrue because there ARE physicians who WANT to use it.

Where I work, there are a lot of physicians using it and liking it. Path, rad, and everywhere else. They were offered it, they took it, they tried it, and they're still using it. We don't have any more path and rad MTs. None. What kind of "research, survey, and documentation" do you want me to provide before you can take that seriously?

All I need for my statement to be true is more than 1 physician wanting to use it. We have hundreds of them already, with a few more every couple of weeks.

I don't think you need to panic, but you should be aware.

About once a week, somebody here reports that their entire office got laid off. They're always shocked! It comes as a total surprise! They had no clue!

At this point, it should not be a surprise to you. Denial isn't helpful.

well, I guess we all think we know it all, don't we? - still not buying anything based on one

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person's job when speaking of a nationwide issue. Based on my job, it is a far different picture, but knowing it's way, way bigger than either one of us, I choose to exit this empty round-about of words and keep on typing.

Not in denial. Obviously my experience in radiology (30+ years) has thus far been very different from yours. Please don't tell me where my head is at from here I sit, because on that you know nothing.

I AGREE WITH YOU - I KNOW THE STATUS OF WHERE I WORK

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Individuals here are so quick to say you are in denial if you don't accept their experience as the future for everyone else. I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT THE PHYSICIANS IN PATHOLOGY, IN THIS FACILITY HAVE REJECT DRAGON, TEMPLATES, AND OTHER VR. They want, and have been very adamant about their preference for MTs. Again, I am sorry if this has not been someone else's experience, but currently it is mine. I have worked for for 35 years in this department. We have recently hired 3 new pathology MTs. If we were laid off tomorrow I would not complain, this career has served me well. Don't be upset with me,tell me I am in denial, because being an MT is still working well for me. Again, I know what has been happening across the country, and I understand it will eventually happen here, but as of now, I'm good.

No one said you were in denial - sm

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No one denied the reality you have experienced and no one said you were in denial.

They just said that you can't claim that all pathologists everywhere refuse to use VR. They only pointed out that you can only speak for the pathologists where you work.

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