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My boss just told me... sm - Tree Hugger

Posted: Jul 18, 2013

that a "transcribers" job is to type what they hear and only what they hear, and that the doctors will be held accountable for their mistakes. This made me laugh.

Dare to dream (big sigh), - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
if only it were true.

Question here - EVERYTHING HEARDr

[ In Reply To ..]
burps, farts, peeing, etc?

Aside from the obvious lack of knowledge of our - occupation title

[ In Reply To ..]
And any boss of an MT should know that, any statement that follows that is in question, right? And, you're right, laughable.

Obviously what is wrong with holding doctors accountable for their mistakes is that anyone reading the document has NO idea whose mistake it is. The voice isn't readily accessible to everyone, and even if it is, virtually no one is going to retrieve the voice unless in extreme circumstances, i.e., complaint to the MTSO who will hopefully listen before reprimanding the MT. And down the road, voice may not be available, so in that circumstance, who will be blamed for a mistake? The "stupid" MT who isn't present to defend her/himself.

I'm not saying we're perfect, or we know more than doctors, but since we've heard some things so many times that even a specialist who is referencing something not in his specialty may dictate incorrectly, we should be given leeway/respect to type the correct term after proper research/documentation.

...isn't that why we get paid the big bucks? ;-)

aside from the obvious . . . - leave errors in

[ In Reply To ..]
As much as we would like to give them a better document and we do have the experience and knowledge to make corrections, I think the MTSO is right in saying just type what you hear. Sure some sentence structure is, punctuation, verb-tense-agreement, etc. might be up to our discretion, but if a specialist dictates something incorrectly, in our opinion, it should be left incorrect even for our liability. Every time an MT corrects a dictators language, especially terminology, we give them an opportunity to turn our skills and focused attention against us. If they know we are transcribing verbatim they cannot blame the transcriptionist and have any substance to their claim. If we are "cleaning up their words" then they can say the MT changed it, even when we didn't, because they are used to us making changes. We give them an out and set ourselves up to take the blame. Transcribe what you hear and save yourself potential liability, especially if you an IC.

both "leave errors in" and "occupation title" make very, very good points... - Des

[ In Reply To ..]
and I agree with both of them, except for the statement "transcribe what you hear."

What we hear is subjective and it will always be subjective. There's no such thing a 100% accurate verbatim, no matter how hard we try. Even if clients know the account is to be transcribed verbatim, when an error shows up in a report, they'll simply say that the MT misheard/misunderstood the term/phrase, instead of placing the blame where it should be, which is on the dictator.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard gastroenterologists actually dictate "the patient has melanotic stool," or doctors will dictate in the med list that the patient is currently on both Coreg and carvedilol. Really?!!

Errors like this drive me crazy, but I was okay with correcting them as long as I was getting PAID to correct them.

I've been in the medical records field for a long time, and I've heard how coders, nurses, doctors talk about transcriptionists. Every single mistake in that report is our fault. Just like "occupation title" said, they're not going to re-listen to the recording to see who actually made the mistake. They don't care. It's easier to blame the person who isn't there to defend herself/himself.

Ask if you are allowed to use... - (see message)

[ In Reply To ..]

... [sic] when transcribing a medication dosage dictated in error or an incorrect medical term or getting left and right mixed up. I would want to make sure it is understood that I transcribed an error like that exactly as dictated and that it is understood that the dictator made the error and not me if I were sure the dictator made a content error.

If I had your boss... - Rose

[ In Reply To ..]
They would have gotten reports on a patient who changed gender 16 times in the report, had a surgical history of a prostatectomy and hysterectomy and needed both breasts removed and was an an oxymoron.

typing verbatim - jac

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The best option since I am an MT of 32 years, a CMT, and also a QA editor is to send any discrepancies to editing with blanks, whether the boss complains or not about too many sent to QA. I do that myself if I have to and to heck with them if they don't like it. Ultimately, someone higher up must decide if the blank needs to stay and to contact the client who will then contact the doctor and try to fix it. Many blanks do go into the permanent record and nobody is at fault if they can't get an answer from the dictator or client. This can also count against them when the hospital needs to renew their accreditation. Hope that helps.

typing verbatim - jac - Tree Hugger

[ In Reply To ..]
Interestingly, we don't have QA in our hospital, remember the doctors are supposed to be held accountable for their mistakes.

no QA in your hospital? - jac

[ In Reply To ..]
Okay, thanks, but I am not sure what you are saying. If I got it right...if you don't have an actual QA person in your hospital, then an MT should always take blanks that can't be solved between co-workers helping out straight to the boss or whatever your boss tells you do to. If the boss says to leave the blanks in the report and the medical records people put it in the chart for the dictator to sign, they can then fill in the blank and return it to the clerks and the MT. That is how we did it 20-30 years ago and maybe different institutions still do that. I hope I clarified that okay for you, Tree Hugger...why do you call yourself that?

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