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

Maybe we MTs should start a writing campaign to hospitals/medical facilities... - Depressed

Posted: Jan 29, 2015

and explain to them how they could pay us more than we make now and STILL save money by cutting out the middleman. I plan on writing to all the hospitals in the area where I live. Maybe, just maybe someone will listen.

hospitals saving money - Effie

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They will not believe you. They have drunk the Kool-aid. I am being laid off in March, as my hospital is going with Ascend. He has promised them a 35% savings and they are starry eyed. I am guessing they will get what they deserve but once they have dismantled inhouse transcription, there is no going back.. is there?

You can thank obamacare..... - lindabell

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for some of this outsourcing. My hospital felt they HAD to outsource to be compliant with the EMR/VR mandate. So all 13 of us MTs out of a job a year ago. Doctors are unhappy, quality of reports and TAT is really bad...OH well, you get what you pay for.

outsourcing - Effie

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I was outsourced from my first job where I worked for 27 years over eight years ago... way before Obamacare..

AGAIN, Obamacare has nothing to do with..SM - Old Anon

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the EMR mandate. That mandate happened a few years ago, even before Obama was elected. If your hospital is telling you that's the reason they are outsourcing, they are full of crapola. I worked at a small hospital that wasn't spectacularly techno and even they had an EMR 13 years ago and they closed the MT Department 3 years ago. Also SR/VR isn't mandated by anyone. They just think they can get work done cheaper and faster that way.

I agree. This really started to take off when - HMOs started taking over healthcare.

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That's because HMOs could care less about maintaining the integrity of patient care. What they cared about was cutting care to bare bones, staffing to bare bones, and increasing corporate profits to obscene levels.

ACA mandates VR? Where are u getting that? - IMANMT2

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It's about money. If a hospital is using SR/VR it's to cut down on the # of MTs they have. If they outsource to a service and that service uses VR/SR it's to save the service money. Really? You may want to sit down for this one, EMR was here BEFORE the ACA. Your post was wasted and it detracted from the original thread, which is actually a very important topic and addressing the issue correctly is the only thing that could POSSIBLY save our jobs/businesses. You've received more replies than the OP, so far. :) Sad, but if anybody else was cleared up on this issue because of your statement... I guess that's a good thing.

Outsourcing decision is usually when - looking at buying new

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equipment to keep up with the rest of the hospital systems. The MTSOs offer full service with this equipment and the hospitals don't have to buy new technology, at least for their dictation and transcription systems.

A lot of people blame Obamacare for everything, whether it has anything to do with it or not!

Obamacare has INCREASED health care jobs - sm

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Millions more people now have insurance and are using the health care system now. EMR was inevitable and I think it is a good thing, overall. The biggest problem is the off-shoring of jobs that we all need to fight on a political basis.

(Sorry poster above me, I meant to post this under the Obamacare post).

MT started dying long before Obamacare, or - even Obama, for that matter.

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I started hearing the first rumblings of MT's implosion back in 1990.

A little over a decade ago, I worked for a doctors' office - Depressed

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that had been bought up by a group of hospitals. The hospitals had let go of their MTs and outsourced their transcription at 20 cpl. The doctors I worked for fought to keep me and figured out that had they paid ME at 20 cpl (instead of the $8/hour) I would have been making $40/hour. How does that save them money?

Obamacare - karina

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All I know is, when I had ENT work last year I was told that due to Obamacare regulations the ENT clinic was required to go EMR, that they didn't want to but that they would be penalized on their Medicare/Medicaid payments if they did not. And I totally believe that. Obamacare has regulations in place that promote us losing our work.

EMR does not mean the elimination of - transcription

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There are EMR systems that incorporate transcribed material into the electronic record. Three of the four accounts I work on use a system like that, and the fourth uses a form of VR.Some of the information (demographics, medications, allergies, and the like) is entered at the point of service, but the practitioner dictates a narrative of the clinical examination, imaging results, assessment, and recommendations. That is transcribed by human MTs and incorporated into the patient's electronic medical record.

The requirement for electronic medical records (EMR) does not exclude transcription. It is the choice of the facility to use an EMR system that eliminates transcription that does that. Obamacare had nothing to do with it. The push for the implementation of EMR began long before Mr. Obama became president.

EMR - karina

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That may be, but I know I had work and then I did not, thanks to his plan, and the ENT clinic had been with the company I worked for for many years and Mr. Obama did not help by implementing fines against companies that do not go EMR or penalties. Just like the tax firm I am working for. Clients are having to pay extra penalties for not having health care. It's too much control, and you cannot tell me he had nothing to do with that either. He had everything to do with it.

You're wrong. Mandating EMR does NOT equal - mandating MT elimination. (s/m)

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Most hospitals already were using electronic medical records for years. Obamacare was simply about standardizing the way hospitals kept their records. It had nothing to do with HOW those records were produced - whether it be by MT, VR, or doctor-generated documents. What caused your job to disappear was the availability and relatively low cost of non-MT-produced medical records at the time your clinic made the change. They were going to have to make the change to EMR anyway, regardless of whether Obamacare had ever existed, because to not do so would eventually have put them at a distinct disadvantage when communicating between doctors and other institutions. Had Obamacare happened 10-15 years ago, for instance, your clinic would likely have had fewer choices in software, and in how their work was produced They would likely have bought a transcription system that either their own MTs learned to run, or that linked them up with an MTSO, thus eliminating the MTs. This has already been happening for a long time, and the fact that it's speeding up now, and affecting ALL MTs and their jobs, is that the way we used to do it before is going extinct. They don't need MTs anymore, and as old doctors are being replaced by young, computer-savvy doctors, there's no longer the resistance to doing their own document generation anymore. Your work was going to dry up anyway. The fact that it did so now was because of what's available out there now.

EMR History - Pinky

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â��By computerizing health records, we can avoid dangerous medical mistakes, reduce costs, and improve care.â��

--President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 20, 2004

Regarding the tax penalty--I think this is right. I do not like to pay taxes for the consequences of people destroying their health when they smoke, do not wear helmets or seat belts, drink alcohol/sugar drinks, eat greasy snacks--why should I pay for their emergency care when they do not have health insurance? They should get insurance or pay a fine. So many people would rather spend their money on a pack of cigarettes or a flashy car than pay their own way with health care.

ha ha. are you joking? - IMANMT2

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They aren't penalized. They just get less money from the government for services. It's a REEEward for going EMR and EMR is to catch fraud. That's the whole deal behind that. And luckily, for everybody and their dog who want to change jobs and thereby insurance, the ACA (Obamacare) eliminated pre-existing conditions and the Congress didn't see it or we'd all be screwed. Some doctors won't go EMR because they figure it's enough money until they retire or whatever. :D Private insurance pays whatever it pays, however it pays, whenever it pays as worked out between the 2 parties (that's the doctor and the insurance not the political parties) ;)

They probably figured out your MTSO was gouging them and dumped them. Or decided to use the VR/SR or front-end drop-down menu that the computer developers wrote into the software to sell it to the clinics and hospitals. You should be mad at the boys that made it up, developed it, then peddled it to everybody. That's who cut you out of a job. And they told you for decades they were going to do it. IBM has been struggling with VR technology since the 60s or before. I just know that it was going nowhere and when Stanley Kubrick was working on 2001 Space Oddyssey he called his friend from IBM working on that to be a technical advisor for the movie - and he went.

You've probably never wondered how they named the computer, HAL. Well each letter is one up from IBM.

Da-DAAAANNN-dah-dah-dah-dah (insert appearance of monolith HERE!)

(Exit stage left.) And, yes, I said left on purpose. Wait for it. :)

I've had way too much coffee this morning and way too little work. ;) I need a job, I need a real job. Turns out MT is just my hobby.. all these years... just a hobby. Can't think...can't ...Daisy, Daisy... Dave what are you doing? Dave?

MTs gone wild - Rosie Jetson

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HAL, I think you are cute.

Must go make dinner and push some buttons.

A robot's work is never done.

I just got your name :D my caffeine has worn - IMANMT2

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off and now I have work. That's funny.

I feel like Cinderella after midnight. I'm wearing rags, missing a shoe, and now I have to carry this stupid pumpkin home.

Must commend you on this post - I had no idea

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That HAL was IBM down one, wow! Amongst other things. In fact, now I want to see the movie, which I have never sat through actually.

I have no problem with the EMR per se. We have all typed about drug seekers and for that alone it should be extremely effective.

As far as transcription - I just hope there are enough doctors who refuse to use the EMR for transcription of ops or standard letters to keep us going for awhile.

Some doctors I type have repetitive letters yet doggedly dictate again and again. I have to wonder if they are doing this not for themselves but because they realize we are in trouble and they don't want to do us out of a job.

A girl can dream, can't she? I like to think of them insisting on dictating the same way that I refuse to use one of those automated checkouts (besides the obvious, meaning I would probably make a booboo and have the alarms screaming), because why should I do that when there's a perfectly good worker there to do it?

What should happen when our jobs disappear due to EMR (or anyone's job due to any type of automation) is that we are offered retraining and also that the wealth created by this automation is spread so we get paid for retraining, paid more per hour, required to work less hours, etc., but that is not happening and probably never will. For shame.

I don't understand the movie. At all. - IMANMT2

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A salesman from IBM told it to me. I was working up a request for information the army put out for a huge contract wanting VR and all that jazz plus more. He was trying to tell me that it would never do what they were wanting it to do by itself.

I had a list of the participants and Medquist and I think dictaphone or DVI went together. I think that was when they started developing the stuff they use. Actually, a friend of mine, he was a QA for software development at the time, his friend worked on the software. Work being the key word. It was work getting it to work.

I'm taking computer science and the instructor said, "Computers are stupid." They are really, really fast but stupid. They need programmers to write for them to include every possible scenario.

So... they can make twice as many mistakes as us in half the time? Ahh, progress. I LOVE the smell of progress in the morning. :)

Thanks, you are a hoot!!! no message - kshel

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:D

Confirmation bias is a terrible thing to kick. - Alina

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.

You're confusing correlation with - causation

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Look that up. It's a good thing to know.

That is correct. But those who hate Obama will blame him rather than finding solutions - to issues

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for which they need to take personal responsibility.

It is just so much easier to blame Obama - than to go through all

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the trouble to research & educate yourself. Darn it! Wah!

EMR - patricia

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No, you can't blame Obama for all of this. But some of his regulations have played a role in it. Wake up, guys, look at how much our jobs have went downhill just in the last few years. When you go to file your taxes and pay penalties for not having insurance 12 months of year you may sing a different tune!

Which regulations? - deb

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Anything specific?

The clinic I worked at for years was already - on an EMR way before it was - sm

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ever mandated. We had EMR even before we were on the internet or had a website. EMR was simply a paperless medical record storage and retrieval system that we transcribed directly into. Back then, even with an EMR, MTs were absolutely necessary. It was the progression of the internet and VR capabilities that made doing away with MTs possible. HMOs were greedy, and enabled and encouraged greedy hospitals, which in turn spawned the proliferation of greedy MTSOs.

Greed begets greed. But Obamacare did NOT beget the demise of MT.

EMR was started by GEORGE BUSH in 2004 - EMR History Lesson

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Here are several links that give the history of EMR. It's been in the works for far longer than Obama.

http://www.healthtech.net/post-acute-care-blog/bid/114719/A-Brief-History-of-Electronic-Health-Records-EHRs

http://www.managedcaremag.com/archives/0406/0406.news_launches.html

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/technology/economic_policy200404/chap3.html

Outsourcing of medical transcription started over 20 years ago - Depressed

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where I live - way before Obamacare. It is just the greedy CEOs of the hospitals who have started this.

Just to weigh in, MTs have been heading for - none

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extinction for a long time. I would love to help any organization that supported more pay for MTs but, reality check. It won't matter. We edit. Although, I wonder what would happen if just regular, off the street, medical clueless person/typist tried to do what we do. This is an easy question. They wouldn't have a clue. You must not only know anatomy, physiology,chemistry to name a few. That type of report would the docs get if someone not trained to do this work tried to do it and sent it to a doctor?! I would love to see that. Depressing dead end.

I don't know about writing the hospitals but - IMANMT2

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there are things we can do. We are, after all, the people who do the work that makes so much money for everybody involved.

The first thing we can do is band together but that isn't going to happen en mass. So, next. A few of us can come together. We do share a common cause. Everybody has to be like minded, dedicated, and responsible. One bad apple tends to spoil the whole bunch or how the whole barrel is perceived (which is what we've been up against with outsourcing all along - bad press). You'll never work so hard as when you work for yourself.

I don't think it's too late because healthcare is, above all else, a business. And as long as any solution proposed makes good business sense it will be utilized. And cheaper, convenient, efficient transcription is what everyone is after. Emphasis on cheaper. Let's throw accurate into the mix as well, or is it just understood?

To depressed - Not going to happen

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I would like to see those numbers. When you factor in hourly salaries for an entire department, benefits, overhead and equipment costs, they are not saving money, especially when people expect to be paid $20 an hour. Your department also needs a manager who expects to be paid a hefty salary. I went through a department closure a few years ago and I have seen the numbers. It is not a cost saving to have in-house transcription. If you write to all the hospitals in the area, be prepared to show them some numbers and not just your subjective opinion.

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