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Medication Dosages - TIQ
Posted: Mar 08, 2013
Is an MT expected to look up and confirm all medication dosages in a report, even when dictated clearly?
doctor is responsible in the end. ridiculous. don't, say you did. - if they are THAT bad God save the patient NM
[ In Reply To ..][
In a QA evaluation I was given an error for not - TIQ
[ In Reply To ..]confirming the med dosage. It was dictated clearly and not one of the common medications. Being paid production, we shouldn't be responsible for this.
For some reason they DO think we are responsible for this. - NM
[ In Reply To ..]x
I agree with you, not right and not common practice that I know of. - sad. would not work there.NM
[ In Reply To ..]/
Nuance recently told us, not that we had to look up each - med, but that we were responsible for correct
[ In Reply To ..]dosages. Not just common meds, which I do agree all competent MTs should know, but all meds. As with confirming names and dates, mistakes are supposed to be caught by us.
We're, of course, not paid even a quarter penny more for this sudden upgrade in expertise and responsibility, which, let's face it, is a far bigger difference between skilled and newbie than just being able to make out the dictation itself.
If You Are Not Familiar - ...then, yes
[ In Reply To ..]I have always, always looked up doses I am not familiar with. After time, you really rarely have to look those up because you get so used to them. Every now and then a rare med comes up and you have to look it up. New meds come up, too, but once you look them up once or twice, you should remember them, basically.
You should type what the doctor dictates. - sm
[ In Reply To ..]We should not have to look up what a doctor clearly dictates. If we "catch" a mistake on the doctor's part, then we can kindly flag it for him. Otherwise, HE said it, we type it.
As someone stated before, doctor's work in specialties, but we type all specialties. I worked in an office with an endocrinologist and patients would sometimes want the doctor to go ahead and write a prescription for something that they generally got from a different doctor and the doctor would tell them no, that he wasn't sure about the dosage of that medication or he wasn't clear on that medication. So, they get paid MUCH more than we do and it is okay for them not to look up a dosage, yet we are expected to know every single dosage and every single medication? That is crazy talk!
not quite... - Des
[ In Reply To ..]MTs are support for the dictators. It's our job to catch most dictator mistakes and either fix them or flag them, not as a courtesy, IT'S OUR JOB.
It's ridculous to think we should be paid top dollar for just "HE said it, we type it." If THAT is all we're supposed to be doing, then 4 cpl is fair pay.
Catching most of their dictation mistakes, including medication dosages such as levothyroxine 125 mg or vancomycin 1 mg, is what earned our top dollar pay.
This is also how we catch our own mistakes. If an MT doesn't know in detail what he dictator is talking about, how is the MT going to know when the term she just transcribed is incorrect, even though it's clearly what she "heard" (or should I say mis-heard) him dictate.
Anyone can just type what they hear. It takes a true professional MT to interpret and transcribe correctly what's being dictated.
There are always going to be ambiguous dictator mistakes that we can't fix or catch, but as professionals it's our job to know the difference.
BTW, with Google, all you have to do is type in the drug name and then a number, such as "levothyroxine 1" and it'll give you auto-fill suggetions which will 99% of the time answer your dosing question.
Furthermore, as another poster said, once you look it up a few times, you won't have to anymore because you'll remember it.
Who is getting paid top dollar these days?? - Not I said the fly! sm
[ In Reply To ..]Please share where, sick of making minimum wage! Oh and part of the reason I make minimum wage is that I do care about accuracy and look up what I can. In no way do I believe I should be required to know every drug and its correct dosage, nor should I be expected to look each and every one up (I've seen upwards of 40 drugs per patient in acute care). I'm not an MD and I'm not a pharmacist. Pay me those wages and I'll gladly do it.
go back to school - Des
[ In Reply To ..]Get financial aid to pay for your education until you graduate. If you're making minimum wage, then you'll most certainly qualify.
The problem isn't verifying drugs/terms, it's that you don't want to have to do the work. You think that all you should have to do is type what you hear, or THINK you hear, and that should be good enough and they should still pay you $16+/hr. WRONG! It̢۪s our job to continue to learn and get better with every report, and to KNOW what̢۪s being dictated versus just assuming.
Do you really think that doctors, pharmacists, nurses, aides, techs aren̢۪t required to regularly participate in (and pay for) continuing education just to continue to practice? Just FYI, aides and techs average about $12-$14/hr and they work their backsides off. They̢۪re on their feet all day, every day. They have to purchase their own uniforms, pay for the additional gasoline expense, daycare, etc., all while having to pay for their continuing education requirements just to keep their certifications and licensures so they can continue to work, and they get to do it for about $14/hr. None of these things is required for an MT, even when we were making top dollar.
We used to be paid top dollar because we were assets, not financial drains. A lazy MT is a financial drain. An MT who doesn't care if what she's transcribed is correct is a financial drain. An MT who can't (or won't) catch and verify simple dictation errors is a financial drain. An MT who can̢۪t (or won̢۪t) follow instructions is a financial drain.
Bottom line, when our overall value was high, our pay was high. Now that our overall PERCEIVED value has dropped, our pay eventually followed suit.
regarding doctors not refilling meds for another doctor's patient... - Des
[ In Reply To ..]The reason that one doc doesn't fill another doc's Rx like that is for continuity of patient care. This is most especially true with pain medications.
Doctors don't refill other doctors' patients' medications because they don't know what was discussed between that doctor and the patient, including exactly why the patient is on that medication and, yes, also the correct dosage. Patients are often put on medications for offlabel reasons, such as being put on an antiepileptic medication for bipolar disorder or weight loss.
If that patient is transferring his/her care, that's a different situation altogether.
Yes, doctors get paid more than us, but they have to KNOW more than us and they're responsible for much, much more than us. They're on the front lines; we're their support.
Would you want someone supporting you who had no clue what you were doing or just didn't care about helping you do the best you could do?
I agree - with you
[ In Reply To ..]I look up anything I'm not familiar with.
I don't care too much about what is "expected" of me, my standard is what I expect of myself.
I type what is said, flag it so doc knows his error and hopefully - pays more attention next time. NM
[ In Reply To ..]Not saving his arse from a law suite.
Short answer, NO. I only check when it does -sm - XXX
[ In Reply To ..]not seem right or if not clearly spoken and I need to see if it is 15 or 50, but I can also just check the patient's chart (as I can access it) and do that too especially when the doc is butchering the drug name and it is impossible to figure out. If I think (or know) something is wrong then I notify the doctor's office just to be on the safe side. This does not happen very often though luckily.
Of course it depends on who you work for - - sm
[ In Reply To ..]but when I come across something that's an obvious mistake like that I'll put a (sic) to let them know that that was the way it was dictated, not my mistake. Nobody's ever called me down for it, so I'll keep doing it unless they do.
Medication Dosages - TIQ - going hungry
[ In Reply To ..]I was told by my last job and my new job YES, it is our responsibility, the transcriptionist, to know the dosages of medications, even though I did not go to pharmacy school or medical school. I typed Brovana 0.05 like dictator said, it was 0.005 and got pointed. More work, less money in our pockets. Ridiculous.
You do not have to "know" - the dose, but...
[ In Reply To ..]..you should know that you don't know, and look it up. I doubt anyone said you have to know all the medication doses/dosages.
If there is a med that's new or that I'm not familiar with, I look it up to double check the dictator.
If you were sick in the hospital, wouldn't you want whoever is transcribing YOUR report to do that?
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