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

Need a chance! - Kay

Posted: Feb 20, 2012

I am a 40+ year old transcriptionist who has been self employed for 15+ years. I am a hard worker and good at what I do. Unfortunately my accounts are drying up because of the "Obama Kickback" to physicians who are willing to convert to EMR and I need to get a job on-line. But as I am finding out no one is willing to give me a chance because I have no acute care experience. I have worked for all kinds of providers: urologist, pediatrician, endocrinologist, but none of that seems to matter. How do I get experience if no one is willing to let me try? Is there a company out there willing to give someone a try that is a hard worker? Any help is appreciated :)

I don't understand why they think a good clinic or IC - MT cant do acute care. - Meerkat- sm

[ In Reply To ..]
I worked for a large clinic for many years, and did all specialties there. The only difference between that and acute care work was that they had no inhouse patients, and didn't do heart transplants or anything like that. Still, they had a satellite surgery center, where they did abdominal and orthopedic surgery, and I typed that, too.

Later I moved away from the clinic, and took a job at an MTSO, doing all acute-care. Other than a few procedures, and a few new words here and there, there was really NO DIFFERENCE. I had no problem making the switch, other than I now had to learn multiple hospital account formats.

I think the "no acute care experience" excuse for not hiring is just a thinly-veiled way of saying "Americans need not apply".

You just might be right. - Suzy Q

[ In Reply To ..]
I have been told they will not hire me with 30 years behind me and most of it in hospital, acute care. It was Transcend, but she told me it had to be recent acute care. Well I have been working with VA Hospitals and doing lots of in-patient history and physicals and consults. It was kind of a blessing in disguise for me though. Turns out Transcend is not where I would want to work anyway from everything I see posted about them. I did work for them previously-- not sure if that may have been part of decision.

Yeah, I agree that if they don't want to hire you, they are not going to, no matter what. Just keep on looking -- you will find something eventually.

By the way, I want to add that the rules of hiring have definitely changed since I started on-line work in 2007. Then I was hired almost at once with nobody asking me if I had recent acute care experience. Even in 2007 I had plenty of experience -- in-house, but still I was able to get a job much easier then with no hassles and no game playing. I just did not realize this business would change so much!!!!!

"Must be RECENT acute care" is about the same as - the nefarious "Must be presently employed."

[ In Reply To ..]
(Which they talked a little bit about on "60 Minutes" last night).

Good MTs doing higher-complexity clinic work - can move over without

[ In Reply To ..]
too much fuss. Some significant slow-down at first, perhaps, but everyone has to build speed on new accounts.

As for why they won't consider you, there are tons of qualified people applying, whereas a lot of the people coming from clinics are very unskilled and don't have anything like your experience. 20 years typing a GP's SOAP notes and business letters for instance?

If you really feel you can do the work, my suggestion is to pick a small business offering low wages and apply there. Lie about your experience if necessary. Some businesses specialize in providing entry ports to an industry for low pay. Probably just expanding the work you do in place to include some H&Ps, discharges, consults and surgeries would do. You could also claim a couple of private clients who admit to local hospitals. My first acute care experience was an attending physician for many patients in a respiratory hospital in LA (GREAT learning experience--those poor people all had everything horrible wrong with them) who had all his reports typed up by the tiny service I was training at. Or? Once you have a 2-3 months' official (and real) experience, you can start applying elsewhere. My next acute care account was LA County/USC Medical Center through a larger MTSO. Since I had, technically speaking, acute care experience, I didn't have to lie exactly, just fudge the amount a bit.

That suggestion will get a lot of people feeling all virtuous, of course, and I'll just consider that gift to those my good deed for the day.

My hub's philosophy? - me

[ In Reply To ..]
Baffle 'em with b.s. :) LOL. There IS a big difference between acute care and clinic IMO. Typing one or two different clinic types like ortho or chemotherapy notes does not constitute ability to type acute care hospital work types like burn victims, plastic surgery procedures, vascular surgery, etc. That's not to say it cannot be learned....but there is a difference in clinic work and acute care work, otherwise, it would not be advertised as such. Find a mentor - there are some places who will do that - MQ used to be one of them....but with all their changes, who knows any more...good luck to you in finding a decent gig.

Little clinic, maybe. I worked at a huge clinic and did - all specialties except pathology.

[ In Reply To ..]
That included plastic surgery, grafts, op notes from surgery center, radiology, biopsies, wound care, and more.

I'm finding now that I'm on acute care for an MTSO, I'm using less than half of my former transcription skills. And still doing SOAP notes, except the ratio actually seems to be higher than before.

As I mentioned earlier, the only thing that slowed me down was the new accounts, which will slow anyone down at first, and the less than perfect software the place runs, which hasn't gotten any better. That has gotten worse.

Although some MTs, especially newer ones with less experience, might have difficulty making the transition (only at first, because let's face it - this is a job where you learn something new every day), MTs with lots of clinic years under their belts will have no trouble, unless their clinic work was limited to just one or two specialties. But an acute care MT would have just as much trouble changing specialties.

You really shouldn't put down clinic work, because I find the actual acute care dictation to be easier. The slow as molasses software my co. uses? That's a whole 'nother problem.

It's frustrating! - Kay

[ In Reply To ..]
The frustrating part is that I work for docs that dictate their H&Ps, cystoscopies, prostate biopsies, etc to me and I transcribe them and they send them to the hospital but it is not in-patient acute care with an actual hospital! If anyone has a name of a little company that might give me a chance, I would appreciate it. I have sent in approximately 40+ resumes to several companies on-line and I even passed the test with Medquist at a Tier 3 (now M*Modal) but when it came to the telephone interview, I didn't have the experience they wanted so they said I didn't fit what they were looking for. But I passed the test at the highest Tier for them!

Maybe? - Kay

[ In Reply To ..]
Yes!! I had a company contact me! Maybe this will work out.

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