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

Medical Transcription being obliterated? - Amy

Posted: Nov 02, 2009

I am doing online school for MT and was told last night that there won't be any need for MT's after July 2010 as all the DRs are required to go electronic and they will be just speaking into a computer and the computer will do this for them. Is this true? I was so hoping to make a great career out of this. Any input appreciated.

dying trade - mush

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I am a recent grad and I am very disappointed in what I'm finding. I don't know about the date of July 2010, but I know that all of the doctors in my area have gone to electronic medical records because they have to if they are to keep their Medicare and Medicaid funding. My doctor told me that this makes each office visit take up to eight times longer because the doctor must do the job of the transcriptionist and they are struggling to find work for the one transcriptionist they have. If you look at the MT boards on the internet, they all seem pretty gloomy. I had high hopes too. It seems the schools don't want to confess that it's a dying trade.

A changing trade, definitely - Happy MT Robin

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I don't know that I would characterize this as a dying trade, as so many will, but it definitely is a changing trade. The key for smart, savvy MTs will be whether we can change with it. Electronic medical records in and of themselves will not do away with MTs. There are some narratives that will always have to be dictated. The account I am on full time uses EMR and yet they still dictate stuff.

The field is definitely changing. Voice recognition is here to stay. Some of the less efficient programs will be weeded out eventually and I believe that we will all be doing VR in some way shape or form at some point in the not very distant future.

I don't think that there will be as much of a need for as many MTs as there has been in the past, but that's the way the world works. Technology comes in and changes things. We just have to learn to work with the changes.

At 2-3 cpl for VR, what exactly does a "smart, savvy" - do to make a living on that chickenfeed?

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nm

2-3 cents per line for VR is ridiculous - VR here

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A person doing VR can only do so much. When people start taking cuts in pay such as this, then you will make zilch. Four cents should be higher but for most that seems to be the going rate. Anything lower than that is, you are right chickenfeed.

I'm one of those chickenfeeders at 2 cpl - BJ

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nm

Why? - nm - VR here

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d

Medical Transcriptionists are going to stay - sm.

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I am an MT Star since 2001. I still remember the discussions from 2001 when they predicted June 2005, the doomsday for transcription industry on same boards, but nothing happened.

Keep one thing in mind ... the day computers become so intelligent to understand perfectly what humans are saying ... doctors, lawyers, accountants, factory workers etc. will be going home too.

The only thing I anticipate by July 2012 is more QA jobs than MT jobs.

Tried to find link for the discussions, but only found MTStars site from 2001 (no boards). Interesting to see how it looked in 2001.

http://web.archive.org/web/20020809091502/http://mtstars.com/

Computers are that intelligent, believe me - Doing VR

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The majority of my work is VR. Some of it is almost A letter perfect and that is with ESLs galore. I work on Escription which is supposed to be one of the better ones. I think where you made the comparison about doctors, lawyers, etc., etc. going home just not the same. We are not working with the public like they do. There are some robotic surgeries being done but a person has to be there to guide the machine. Thank goodness my DH is an over the road 18 long haul driver.

Would've agreed last year. Not now. This is a dying trade - and there will be less and less need...sm

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for traditional MTs. Many places have laid off or let MTs go due to clients going with VR/EMR. As VR/EMR slowly takes over, only jobs left will be editing and they won't need as many for that either. I would never go into this as a career right now. Question getting out of it every day in fact and I've been an MT for many moons. Used to think it was all chicken little talk but hitting too close to home to ignore it now.

I remember as late as 1992 my boss saying - Doing VR

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that computers would never be able to do what we transcriptionists did. Worked inhouse then. Well, here about a few years later and the work that comes from the computers now sometimes able to understand better than my ears especially when it comes to the ESLs. I used to love, love this profession but now it gets on my last nerve a lot of days, especially when on the weekends because seems the majority of the work is done by the ESLs. I mean, can we not have a day where every other one is English speaking?

Just lost job to EFR - Marci

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I was just told I'm not needed after December because the clinic is going EFR. My friend just lost her doctor to it. Before I left the hospital after nine years they had just switched to Escription which turned us into editors and YES the system did learn and get "smarter" by remembering what we changed things to so it would eventually change it automatically if he dictated it again. Slowly but surely it's getting more difficult. Especially for experienced MTs. Seems national companies are willing to hire so many newbies (which is great to get started don't get me wrong) for cheap and not pay very much to those in the business 10-20+ years. Sorry. Had to vent :).

let me put it to you this way - Snow Bunny

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I would tell anyone considering this business now to consider something else. And, I'm not new to the business. I've been a MT for more than 30 years.

I totally agree, Snow Bunny - gourdpainter

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There may still be MT jobs around for a few more years but I see it rapidly going back to where I started....a minimum wage job.

It is not minimum wage if you know what you are doing - Knowing

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Companies are going to VR but if you are fast and know what you are doing, making over $20.00 an hour, as far as I know, is not the minimum wage yet.

I've been at this for 35 years. 10 years ago -sm - Zircon

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I was making almost $25 an hour inhouse at a hospital. Now I work at home for a national, the work is far more demanding in terms of ESLs, variety of specialties, number of hospitals' account specifics to remember, and terminology to know inside and out. And oh, yes - they also want the work done faster, with 99.9% accuracy, and our daily quota is higher. The software I have to use is slow, complicated, and unreliable. And when I factor in the number of hours I have to work each day to meet the line quota, I'm only making about $7.00 an hour. At that wage, a tank of gas or a box of cereal are luxuries.

Minimum wage, then I would suggest - Knowing

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you need to work somewhere else. My job asks for 98% accuracy, the software is no where slow. No wonder you are making what you do. I do not work more than 8 hours a day. I do not make what I did years ago but then I worked many more hours and jobs than I do now but on the average, no it is not like years ago as far as pay goes but still my pay is not minimum wage and nobody doing this type of work should work for wages like that.

I would've changed jobs already, but there seems - to be no where left to go.

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Each MT company is worse than the last. The main reason I haven't gone back to school to do something else is I haven't found anything I would be any good at, or that I'd be able to stand, even if I were good at it. Not to mention I could qualify for early retirement in less than 3 years. But that's no help, either, as being an MT all these years, I don't have enough saved to be able to retire, probably ever.

1970s pay now - Donna

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I agree with Zircon. I have been doing MT for 40 years and as an independent much of that time. There was a time I could make $45 to 60 an hour. Now, we are making 1970s wages. At 66 I can retire and make as much $$ as I want without being penalized by SS. In the meantime, I am going to go back into Medical Staff services, where I can be paid well. It is so sad to invest so many years into a career I have really enjoyed. So much of our jobs have been sent off shore and the services are not paying any more than they did in the 70's and 80s, yet I am sure they are raking it in. This work climate reminds me of the "Grapes of Wrath" where the workers went West for a good wage only to find when they got there they were told they would be paid much, much less and to take-it-or-leave it. Just my 2 cents worth.

it can be - Snow Bunny

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Depending upon which variables are involved. Here are three things which can definitely keep you from reaching $20+ an hour:
1. Nothing but the dictators from hades.
2. Physical ailments such as rheumatoid arthritis.
3. A very low line rate and/or not counting spaces.

I agree that some factors slow us down- here's another one - flexing for nothing

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4. Horrible accounts and unwieldly platforms. I've got one pays by the dictated minute - they do 0.07 minute normals all day long, and it takes 12-16 steps to toggle between platforms, look up and type in two identifiers, copy in the normal, change the font, etc. It is literally impossible to make any money on this account doing normals.

Minimum wage - gourdpainter

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#1 and #3 are enough to put that $20/hr completely out of sight and add to that no/low work and some are lucky to even make minimum wage.... Someone said $20 wasn't that hard if "you know what you are doing." You can know what you're doing all day long and be faster than the devil but if there is no work available that equals low/no money.

Gourdpainter, 1 and 3 both pertain to me, 2nd does not - Knowing

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I am glad I work for a company where the work is steady. I fuss all the time about how many ESLs we have now. My hubby has his computer in the same room with me and he gets all kinds of #@II@%**@@ on the weekends from me. Having said this, I still am able to get the amount I want in my 8 hour day. My line rate is 4 for VR and 8 for straight and the majority is VR. It can be done, like I said before. My doctors are sure not cream puffs, most like was said the doctors from hades.

dying profession - probably

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I remember being in CA in the 80s and 90s and was even on the Board of Directors for a large medical transcription association in southern CA. We were told about VR then and we were worried about it then taking over our lives. It is coming closer and closer, but probably not has fast as we anticipated.

The association that I was on is no longer meeting, although it was one of the largest ones around. We used to attend seminars and symposium several times a year, and learn lots and have speakers at our meetings and keep us updated on things in the medical field, but even that is falling away.

It has really been a changing field, especially in the last 5 years, but it really is not looking good. If you are young enough to still find something else, do it. I am in my late 50s and to start over now will be hard especially when you need a 4-year degree to do anything good now. I just hope I can have a job for the next several years until I retired, but the pay checks are definitely getting smaller all the time. Kinda hard to retire and live on what I make now.

who told you this? - n/m

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n/m

MT - Amy Snow

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A friend of a friend on Facebook. I have heard about it, but didn't know it was a SURE thing.

'A friend of a friend on Facebook' does not equal 'a sure thing'. - sm

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Yes, the MT field is changing, but there's no way doctors will ever be able to fly through a report & VR understand perfectly without MT corrections, like when they say, 'oh no go back where I said x and change it to this, and now go back to wherever we were...' And entering info into EMR is very time-consuming, and most doctors don't appreciate wasting their time on clerical-type work.... We will always be needed in one form or another.

Doctors saying go back and do thus and so - Lynn

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I have been in this field for many years and believe it or not, at 1 time I did some transcription at home using a correcting Selectric typewriter. The dictators are a thousand percent worse about saying go back and put this here, changing their minds, etc., adding in other diagnoses, etc. It was not this bad in years past or I surely could never have done on a typewriter.

but.... - mush

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like I said, doctors don't like spending the extra time doing it themselves, but if they don't they lose their Medicaid and Medicare funding. Where I'm from, that's MOST of their patients.

Switching to EMR doesn't mean - sm

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they have to do it themselves. They can still hire people to enter the info into the EMR system for them.

But most likely they will hire Indians to do it for them. - n/msg

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enter for them - mush

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My doctor said her office asked about that option and they were told no.

What I saw on online school listing, OMG - Questioning

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Reading this past week on one school I saw them listing their qualities and I would think really hard about a place who talks about something being
ms-spelled- that is exactly like it was on their ad. Good quality school.

A young man with whom I had been talking about jobs - recently asked me if thought MT was -sm

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something he could learn and make a living at. He has a young son to support, as well. I told him, "NO, don't waste your time and money in MT school", because it was likely there would be few, if any decent jobs available. I told him that although there are still many jobs, they pay next to nothing, that few if any MTs have seen a raise in the past decade, and that most of us had had further pay cuts this year. I also told him that those of us who've been in MT for years and are good at what we do are being priced out of the trade.

There will probably still be a need for some MTs in the future, and for VR editors, but unless some kind of a miracle happens in the way of a government crackdown on what has become largely a "scam" industry, the pay will not only continue to be cr@p, but will continue to get worse.

People in America can't afford to live on what an Indian MT makes, and that's all the greedy MTSOs want to pay anymore. If I had it to do over again, I'd have learned to do something else. Might be a good idea to shop around for another career while you still have time on your side.

advice - 7DayMT

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Pursue this career if you like it but keep your options open (for example, learn some other skills as well - coding or general office skills - or get a Bachelor's degree). We really don't know what the future is in MT - although I doubt it will come to a crashing halt on one particular date. Certains kinds of transcription - operative reports, consultation letters as opposed to office notes- kind of hard to imagine being entered into EMR, but I guess you never know.

meant for OP Amy - 7DayMT

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or anyone thinking about MT for a career

MT - Amy Snow

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That is kinda what I was thinking. I am so close to being done with my schooling, I can't just quit. So I will finish and see what is out there. Then if I need to do some more schooling, etc. I will. I am a SAHM of four kids and while we don't NEED this money to live on, it would be a wonderful help to our family. Thank you for all your advice.

Editing - DV

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We'll be doing an editing at that point, which doesn't pay NEARLY so well.

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