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

Looking to get out of MT/editing...wondering where to go... - justabouthadit

Posted: Dec 27, 2011

After 15 years in MT, I really don't see a bright future in it any more. With VR, etc., I just don't see a way to make a living doing this anymore. Wondering what kinds of other fields may be good to consider. I know this is not the ideal time to be looking for a job. Thinking of going to nursing school first to become an LPN. Also have heard IT is a good field to train for, but then again have heard that a lot of IT jobs are going to India and Pakistan.

Would like to hear some ideas.

Thanks,

Justabouthadit

Also, if you know of any straight transcription companies,,, - Justabouthadit

[ In Reply To ..]
I would be interested in looking into them (for now at least).

yes.... - but

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they only pay about 7 cents a line. You cannot win for losing these days.

Almost no IT jobs available and LPN fine if you don't mind split shifts and - heavy lifting

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No job is perfect. Not everyone is suited for every job. If MT is not working for you, LPN might be a great alternative. You might love it as some do. You might decide you don't enjoy the split shifts and heavy lifting and inability to sit down all day because if you do, you will get in trouble. As far as IT is concerned, there are very few jobs and those go to a very specialized group of people who live and breathe it. That's also a possibility if you fit. That's the thing with any and all jobs. You have to find one that fits the skills, personality, motivation, and goals that you have.

If I were advising you, I would have you look at the JOBS announcements for the local hospitals and see what applicants they need the most. I would find out what the qualifications for those are and then go out and meet those qualifications. Good luck with making your choices!

Give me a break!!! "Almost no IT jobs available"??? sm - asounded

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Where in the world do you get THAT information? Of COURSE there are IT jobs available somewhere. Geeze, talk about "the sky is falling"!!!

My family and friends are heavily IT people - What I know

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I'm hearing that it's a very bad time for trying to get an IT job. There aren't as many openings as there are experienced IT people who want those jobs.

Well yes, there are lots of IT jobs available "somewhere" - sm

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The problem is that it's the same somewhere all those MT jobs went. Knowing there are lots of jobs in a field in India, China, Russia, etc. isn't much use to someone trying to make a living here.

IT tech support and customer service jobs have almost all been offshored. Design and development is either offshored or most of the new hires are non-resident visa holders who will work for cheap. Heck, Silicon Valley has even looked into putting a bunch of cruise ships out in the ocean past the US territorial limit and filling them with foreign IT workers--who then won't need to have work visas, so they can hire unlimited cheap foreign labor without having to worry about those pesky visa quotas.

The fact that those hiring practices mean that no one in this country will be able to afford to buy any of the resulting products is not a concern. India and China are immensely bigger potential markets, so who cares how poor everyone but CEOs and CFOs becomes in the US.

What's going to be the result...20 years down the line? - wheres_my_job

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I don't think we've bottomed out yet as a country, as far as job losses go.

I'm concerned that everyone in the middle class may be out in the street - before things recover

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I'm really concerned that we have a long way to go before things get better. I can envision the whole middle class out in the street with no jobs available to anyone doing anything. Hopefully we'll all be pleasantly surprised and things will be much better than at looks now.

I think it's obvious where things are going. - sm

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Look around at any other country in the world at a period when the majority of the wealth was in the hands of a tiny minority of the population.

We will end up the world's new Mexico, Pakistan, Brazil, or Nigeria. Many, particularly of the young, will then probably leave the US to try to find a job in another country. The workers remaining will be forced to accept pay the equivalent of the pay of 3rd-world workers today, and the incentive to offshore employment will gradually disappear as wages here sink. However, the average US worker will end up living a life of poverty or near-poverty, just like most of the people in the 3rd world do now.

The rising tide of globalization is not going to float all boats--there's not enough water in the flood to do that. It will float the yachts of the rich. It will slightly raise the level of the boats of average people in countries that started the era of globalization in dire poverty. And it will drop or sink the boats of the average people in all the countries that started the era with general prosperity.

Surprised? - Watcher

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Please name ONE sector that is growing, expanding, or new/up and coming.

Green jobs?! LMAO! They NEVER materialized. That was just a soundbite for Obama/Biden.

So I don't know where you think this "surprise" is going to come from.

Oh, green jobs definitely materialized. - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
They materialized in China where the government is heavily subsidizing the green industries in the expectation that they can make sure green jobs will not only all start in China, but all stay in China.

Us, we subsidize the oil and gas industries (and other industries) to help them send their jobs to other countries.

Re: The middle class - Old Pro

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If people are not angry--and terrified--they are not paying attention.

Justabouthadit - Old Pro

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If I had it to do again (I am retirement age, so thankfully do not), I would really like to learn the tech side of our business--networking, etc. So I guess I would go to ITT tech or something like that. That is just me. (When I was young and in college, I wanted to be an engineer, but lacked the math skills at that level.) Anyway, I would try to become a computer tech if I were doing it all again.

Remember all those Computerland etc stores that used to hire computer techs - Gone for one good reason

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There used to be dozens of computer service stores everywhere so you could get your computer repaired or upgraded. They've disappeared. Now technology goes so fast that people just buy a new computer instead.

Actually, that is incorrect - Lots of IT options everywhere

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The "big box" computer stores are mostly gone, but Best Buy has their Geek Squad and I know of at least 4 independent PC repair shops in my town alone. People don't always just buy a new one.

IT jobs also don't necessarily have to mean hospital IT jobs, although one of the major hospital systems in my town just switched to EPIC and their job listings are FULL of IT jobs. Any company that uses any kind of computers needs someone with IT knowledge, whether it be a big corporation such as UPS, FedEX, big hospital groups, or the like who have a dedicated IT team, or law firms and smaller companies who need someone to do double duty as, say the office manager and the designated IT person.

Even if you don't want a career in IT, computer knowledge and familiarity is recommended and sometimes even a requirement, whether it's a requirement that's listed or not. If an employer has a choice between an MT who is very computer literate or an MT who knows just enough to turn the computer on and get into the correct program, and the skill levels are the same, chances are very good that the one who is a little more comfortable with technology is going to get the nod.

I agree with part of what you said - but not all

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There are jobs like you described. I'm wondering why IT people are not being hired though. Is it because there are too many applicants per job? I just keep hearing that they can't find anything. Maybe they aren't looking in the right places. Maybe they should be looking at hospitals.

Dunno. - Lots of IT options everywhere

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Could be a combination of a lot of things. My bro works for UPS as an IT guy and I know they have downsized their unit significantly. Along with everything else these days, the competition is really tough. You have to have the right experience, but you can't have too much - because then you're overqualified and the company will think that you'll leave as soon as something better comes along.

Some times I think it just comes down to the way the HR person feels on the day that they look at your resume or if you get as far as the interview process whether they had a good breakfast that morning.

healthcare IT - pumpernickel

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There are tons of healthcare IT jobs out there. The problem is employers greatly prefer someone with a healthcare background versus someone with just a general IT background. It's not about troubleshooting some computer problems, which any IT person can do. It's about understanding the needs of the provider from a clinical and business standpoint (and how to meet those needs through information systems development and support) that general IT people don't have. Believe it or not, most would actually rather hire someone heavy on the clinical side and light on IT (they love hiring nurses in particular) than someone from the outside who knows IT but doesn't have a healthcare backtground.

They love hiring people without a strong IT background - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
because they can't get people with a strong IT background. The hospital industry has always paid its IT people as poorly as it now pays its MTs. They can't get really qualified people for that kind of money. That and the fact most hospitals are still running several antique mainframe computer systems for different business processes that don't communicate well goes far to explain the dismal state of the healthcare IT landscape.

IT people are being hired. Just not many here. - sm

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The IT industry used to hire people out of school, most of them US citizens, and then retrain them as new technologies came along and give them modest raises over the years.

Now they don't want to spend anything on retraining. They don't want to pay for experience, either; anyone over 40 is essentially totally unemployable these days. They hire only new grads who just spent their own money for tuition to learn the latest technology, preferably new grads from India, Pakistan, Russia, or anywhere people willingly accept an IT job in the US for low pay because it either a) gets them into this country or b) is still much more than they'd be making at home once the exchange rate is factored in.

IT Industry - Just Saying

[ In Reply To ..]
You sure paint a gloomy picture of the IT industry. My son will be graduating this summer with an IT security degree. He already has job offers that came through real-time projects he worked on in his senior classes. Every single one of his friends who graduated with IT degrees have gone to work immediately out of school and are making pretty hefty salaries. Oh yea, they're all good 'ole American boys.

IT is a very lucrative and growing field... that is if you have the talent and creativity for it.

If you have the talent and creativity and are young enough to get hired. - sm

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My brothers are engineers and both of them also got nice offers right out of school with just bachelor degrees.

One of them, the EE, fortunately managed to bank a lot consulting for the government after working for it as an employee for a decade (originally to avoid the draft). He became pretty much unemployable by 45. Too old, too experienced, too long out of school. (Never mind his last 3 jobs had involved fixing disasters created by those younger, less experienced, and recently out of school--that doesn't count these days.)

The other brother got an ME degree, but moved over into IT in its early days. He would also have been permanently out of a job at around 40 or 45 except that he had the foresight to add business to the IT and to make sure he took jobs of a few years each in several different non-IT areas. Even then, when he hit 50, he said whenever he got laid off or eliminated in a merger after that, it would be his retirement date. He barely managed to hang on at his present company through the last restructuring, and it was a given he would never get an interview at any other company at his age.

So, I'm not being gloomy, just realistic. Going into IT in this country these days is like going into professional sports--if you get lucky, you may have a very lucrative career while you have it, but it is certain you need to be planning on either making enough to retire by 40 to have another career ready to go by that age.

Interesting. - Thanks for posting

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That is good information to know.

My younger brother's son thought so. - sm

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Natural born geek--built his first website by the time he was 10, spoke Unix fluently by 12, yada, yada.

When he was 10 or 12, he had every intention of becoming a programmer or something similar. When he was in high school, he still wanted to do IT. By the time he started college, though, he decided to go for a major in accounting. He worked one year with Ernst and Young and decided big-gun-accounting firm wasn't a lifestyle he wanted to live for the next 40 years, so he is actually now working in an IT/internet company that has done fairly well through the recession--but doing a lot of work on the business side, not pure IT, because he watched the career trajectories of his father and his father's colleagues, and knows that while there are plenty of old accountants who are still employed, there are few programmers over 40 who are.

A friend of mine is a programmer - Old Pro

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He was working here, was recruited by a big firm in Seattle, and has had three giant raises and promotions over the last three years. He and his young wife are getting ready to buy a snazzy house. So yes, it can be done. He is good. He is very, very good. In IT, as in MT, there is room at the top for the best.

It gets them into the country - Old Pro

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Just like these hospitals who staff with Middle Eastern docs who will take half what an American doc makes. Meanwhile, American med school grads go without jobs. I say again, AMERICAN JOBS FOR AMERICAN WORKERS!

The reason IT people are not being hired - Old Pro

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We are in the midst of a depression (not a recession) and there are likely to be hundreds of applicants for every job.

I have been thinking the same thing.....sm - Tiny

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I thought about LPN, but the LPN programs are a solid year long and there is no way to work during schooling. I was thinking about looking into becoming an RHIT, or something in administration. I have been transcribing about as long as you have and I'm ready to move on to something new, but not sure how to find the time and money to go back to school and pay the bills. I like what I do and I have a great job, so that also keeps me here.

Is your company hiring? - Justabouthadit

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I realize I might just have to take off work to go to school. Not sure how that would work, but on the other hand I'm working about 60 hours a week now doing MT/editing in order to make HALF what I used to make in 40, so I guess you could say I have a remarkable capacity for working myself to death.

By the way, I'm sorry if my original post discourages anyone... - Justabouthadit

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I honestly am just interested in finding some ray of light to direct me in out of the dismal swamp I've found myself in as an experienced MT whose skills just aren't worth enough to make a living any more.

Don't apologize...we're all in the same swamp - wheres_my_job

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I take it day by day. I made a list of possible jobs, and my therapist doesn't think any are a good fit for me. It's really hard, I don't know what to say, besides "take it day by day."

I don't see it as a swamp - sm

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I see it as a job. Work.

You're right... it's not a swamp - sm

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It's more like a cesspool or sewer... crappier than a swamp.

We all see this as a job (some of us have seen it as a CAREER in the past), and it's not a simple matter of telling someone to work. We ARE working... just being compensated poorly for it by companies who are squeezing us as hard as they can and clients who just DO NOT CARE about the quality/accuracy of the medical record.

Give me a break.

A job that is on the fast track to nowhere. nm - Justabouthadit

[ In Reply To ..]
.

What about a sense of humor to get us through...nm - wise1

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x

that's right...humor - wheres_my_job

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Used to be people laughed all the way to the bank. Now we can laugh all the way away from our empty bank accounts.

These are tough times, but not everyone is doing that badly - nm

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nm

It's humor... - wheres_my_job

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...therefore, I used hyperbole. It's an overstatement, for the purposes of humor. Yes, I am aware when you have to explain a joke...your joke is a failure :)

yes.... - but

[ In Reply To ..]
we are working harder and harder and making less and less. If that is not a swamp, I don't know what is... oh, and did I forget about prices going up as our pay goes down?

Thank you - wheres_my_job

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the other day my friend said to me, "you know, if you were making this kind of money when you started out, you wouldn't have been able to make it" - that was over 10 years ago - factor in the increase in price of everything...and it's not looking good these days.

So what did your friend advise you to do? - Jobs

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If it's not looking good for you these days and your friend made a strong comment that got your attention, what are you going to do to change the situation? Is that the catalyst that you need to do something new and different?

?? - wheres_my_job

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My friend "made a strong comment" because what I myself said "got her attention." We had a good laugh - it's not my friend's job to give me job-hunting advice (although she has given me some leads), although, as we are both writers, we do commiserate over the vexing problem of "rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's" - i.e., day job - and then the stupid f*** always wants more. I laugh at the notion of some magical "catalyst" that will propel me into some exciting new career! Something new and different! Clean cages at a vet perhaps? Or maybe I'll apply, with THOUSANDS of others, for some teaching jub (that's right, a jub, not a job, I like that) at a university - last one I applied for, there were 3,000 applicants. No, that is NOT a typo! Or I can find something that pays LESS than I make now - and have to commute and pay for gas! Or maybe the grant I apply for will come through - oh wait, they hardly pick anybody, so that's kind of a long shot too. Oh crap. Guess I'll just have a good laugh with my friend in the moment.

Wow. Try not to be so condescending next time.

Well, you're depressing us and I thought she might have given you good advice - about how to fix your situation

[ In Reply To ..]
I was not being condescending. I was hopeful that your friend might have come up with a solution for your problem.

MT - CaydeGram

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I too am concerned about the future of medical transcription. I am looking into medical coding as a possible career change.

Coding is a great idea, but I think many are going to be fine with MT too - See message

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There are plenty of MTs who are doing just fine, some more than just fine. It's true that some of the employers are making bad decisions, cutting pay, etc., but the best MTs are perfectly capable of moving to the employers who are still paying good wages.

I think coding is a great choice for other reasons though. It looks better and better. You do have to have the right credentials with coding, so you have to go into it with that in mind. I just heard a horror story about all the students from a college that graduated and none of them can find work. They weren't prepared to pass the CCS exam. Some of them could pass the CPC exam, but the employers really wanted the CCS.

Justabouthadit - Val

[ In Reply To ..]
After being self-employed for 20 years, I got out 2 years ago. I saw absolutely no future in transcription and basically was tired of working myself to exhaustion at a mere $14 to $16 an hour, if I was lucky. That is, of course, based on lines. I would definitely go to nursing school. Good benefits, always will have a job, and and great retirement. Oh, not to mention paid vacation and sick time, and the satisfaction of helping people. I'm headed that way myself. I am ashamed they are even allowed to teach transcription in school anymore. They are stealing hard-working people's money with no promise of any type of a career. It's shameful.

retraining - gayle

[ In Reply To ..]
I am considering enrolling in our local junior college in the fall. They have a program called Comoputer Forensics. It is only two semesters long and when I looked up this career on line, the average pay is around $51,000 a year, way more than I could ever make transcribing.

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