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

FutureMT-Good school?! - ash

Posted: Jan 29, 2015

Hello! I am looking to start my career in MT, but not sure of what school to use. I have been told about FutureMT by a girl that used to do MT, however the school is not accredited. I didn't know if this actually matters or not. It's about half the price of career step and other schools I've seen. Any feed back would be soooo appreciated!

Accredited Means Diddly - Actually...

[ In Reply To ..]
Honestly, the best school in the country for MT learning isn't accredited, so it means nothing. That is Andrews. However, I think you should seriously read some notes on this forum about the career in general. Many have gotten out of the biz, a good chunk are desperately trying to get out of the biz, so I would caution even going into this to begin with.

Before selecting a school - it would be

[ In Reply To ..]
advisable to do some more research on the "career" field. That does not mean reading the pie-in-the-sky predictions of amazing growth and fantastic salaries you will find on the web pages of many MT schools. They will say whatever they think will persuade you buy what they are selling, which might be a substandard course that will not get you past the first screening test for an MT job.

MT jobs in the US are contracting, not expanding. The pay for most of the jobs is going down. The good jobs are becoming very rare, and the experienced MTs who have seen their jobs disappear because of point-and-click or other systems that have cut out the MT will be your competition for those good jobs as well as the not-so-good jobs.

So if you must become an MT, at least give yourself a fighting chance and get your training from Andrews. It will still be an uphill battle to get a job, especially one that will provide adequate compensation, but at least you will have a better chance having gotten the best training.

Read the comments on the M*Modal and Nuance boards here, scroll through the comments on the main board and company board (go back through the archives, too), and get a taste for what medical transcription has become for many of us.

Good luck to you.

future mt - jane

[ In Reply To ..]
no matter how good the school or your job performance, this is a dying field. i did transcription for about 20 years, really liked it, made a good salary. was told that i was very good at it. then was told that my job was gone while i was on sick leave, phased out to a new computer system. take the advice of me and old broad, don't do this if you can find other work that will keep you going.

Went to FutureMT-Wouldn't recommend them - LongAgo&FarAway

[ In Reply To ..]
I went through FutureMT's program 12 years ago so keep in mind things may have changed since then but I wouldn't recommend them.

At that time, I spent $650 on the program. They mailed me an MT book and a foot pedal (the book can be found here on Amazon for $35 new and, literally, 2 cents used: http://www.amazon.com/Medical-Transcription-Workbook-Linda-Campbell/dp/0934385238/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&qid=1422582496&sr=8-22&keywords=medical+transcription)

Anyway, I completed all the exercises and did the sample transcriptions they sent along. They were supposed to grade the work, get back to you with errors, etc. but somewhere along the line I started to suspect that they weren't even looking at the work I turned in, just "passing" the assignments. I intentionally turned in a report that was almost completely full of errors, just to see what would happen. Just as I suspected, they just gave me a full pass on the assignment and didn't say a word. Basically, aside from the $70 worth of equipment I received, the other money just went straight into their pocket with no further work on their part, or assistance in helping me learn the business. There was no instruction, assistance, or anything that you couldn't get from a book and practice disk on your own.

I will say that when I called them out for being a ripoff, they refunded half my tuition fee. I didn't get my certificate but I did complete their program and I was able to finally get hired.

In retrospect, the only company I ever refer friends to or consider going through directly is Career Step because they have job placement assistance (at least they used to...I haven't looked lately). Since the hardest part about getting started in MT is getting hired with no experience, in my book, this is worth its weight in gold, but I have noticed more companies advertising for recent grads so who knows.

In any case, I would definitely not recommend FutureMT, even at the cost reduction. It worked for me way back when but only because I was relentless about applying and testing everywhere I could and being willing to work for almost nothing for a year just to get experience.

Save yourself the trouble and go with a recognizable name or somewhere with job placement assistance/contracts with transcription companies to hire their graduates.

Whatever you decide, best of luck.

thank you - ash

[ In Reply To ..]
Very, very helpful! Thank you all very much!

But seriously. Choose another career. - CrankyOldBroadOnTheBeach

[ In Reply To ..]
I have been an MT going on 43 years now--and I can't make a living at it. As Babe Ruth said, it ain't bragging if you can do it, so I will say I am very fast, and very good. I was one of the highest producers on my team. I was even a trainer at Transcend for a while, and I also taught classes for the company in how to tweak your expander to increase your productivity.

And I still couldn't make a living. Some days I couldn't even make minimum wage, which is pretty demoralizing when you realize you literally hold people's lives in your hands, and the powers that be don't think you're worth even whatever the minimum wage is.

So... if ALL you're looking for is something to do with your time and money, and you don't CARE if you make less-than-minimum wage (and you will, because if those of us with decades of knowledge and experience can't make minimum wage, no one can), go ahead and learn to be an MT.

Otherwise, I would recommend finding another career, perhaps even the one that involves saying "Welcome to Walmart." I kid you not. They make more money than MTs, have better benefits, and furthermore, they don't hold anyone's lives in their hands, so if they accidentally flub a syllable, no one gets killed.

I'm back in school now studying cancer registry, and hopefully that field will stay onshore long enough to take me through to retirement.

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