A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry
I think QA is messing with me - fatigued AND tired
Posted: Jul 13, 2011
I"ve been audited, failed and have been on 100% QA for about a week now. It is horribly disheartening. I have been trying and trying and trying to redeem myself. I have been an MT for over 25 years and every day I feel like my years of experience and expertise are meaningless, like everything that I have ever done is garbage, like I don't know a darn thing...
Well, I have been "stashing" reports on a daily basis, (without any critical info) for reference, especially the ones that are ripped apart by QA, AND deleting them at the end of my day. Today I was getting SLAMMED by QA and I quit halfway through my day to compare their "corrections" to my original work because sometimes the green highlighted areas make it kind of confusing TO ME. There are things in there that I flat out DID NOT TYPE!!! Things like " The Dr. ____ patient, CBC shows a white count of CBC shows a white count of 0.3" and just other BOGUS stuff that I clearly did not do.
I called up the QA person, talked to her for a bit and got chewed out for "saving". I said I understood, but when my back is against the wall I needed personal references for betterment and assured her that all the samples I saved were deleted. I redirected to the "corrections" and she said she was going to review and get back to me. I told her that it was not fair that if they were basing my performance on what they had, it was obviously keeping me in 100% QA, based on something that I'm not doing!!! She said she didn't think I was right, but again said she'd check it out. That was 4-1/2 hours ago. how long does it take? I'm soooo disgusted.
Has anyone else successfully had them review your 100% audit punishment and got off on something like this? I've been sick in my stomach today and my anxiety level is off the chart. I've had to take double dose of my meds!
they're messin with you and you'll never get an answer and that's - how they want to keep it
[ In Reply To ..]They want to force us out, get newbies for less pay that won't question how it's suppose to be, just bang out VR reports for pennies. I'm sorry for us who are experienced, know our stuff and are made to feel just like you describe. I also am disheartened and sad. I don't know what to tell you. I'm looking for a new job at 56 years old. I have no money, no retirement, who wants to hire an over-the-hill lady who has never, ever done anything else? Not even Wallyworld wanted me as a door greeter...
QA - Hammer
[ In Reply To ..]If this was happening to me, the first thing I would do would be to call my CCM. I would let her know that I was comparing reports and I would ask permission to send her reports as I completed them, rather than save them to my computer, so she can see for herself the discrepancies.
Then, tomorrow when I start work I would type as usual, and for each and every report I would go over and proofread each one with the dictation, in essence listening to each job twice.
My guess is that if QA is altering your reports prior to their final edit in order to make you look bad, that once your CCM knows, and since you've already brought it to QAs attention, that the behavior would be stopped...and if your CCM can prove it, you never know, maybe she'll be looking to fill a QA position.
My heart breaks for you. This is my worst nightmare. I pray tomorrow is so much better than today.
Oh...and get a good night sleep tonight!
I listen to almost every report twice -- not because - my client has EVER
[ In Reply To ..]complained or sent one report back, but to make sure to satisfy QA and meet that blessed 99% compliance. QA has made my life h*[[ ever since I started with MedQuist. I work ten times harder to please QA than I do the client. They are a piece of cake.
Any changes a QA make can be seen - whether they leave a marker or not
[ In Reply To ..]If a QA makes changes to text without leaving a marker, those changes can be seen when that QA is audited. If they are messing around with your reports, the CCM should be able to see it.
I swear they are doing that to me also - where are you saving them
[ In Reply To ..]I know stuff is changed and I cannot prove it. Do you just copy to e-mail or something. I know first hand they changed stuff without putting the green highlight which is, I thought, not allowed. I thought any time they changed stuff they had to highlight it. Then, there is other stuff in there that I am certain I never put in there.
The person causing your problem is not the one - to fix it. Who needs you working? Go there. NM
[ In Reply To ..]x
This has happend to me as well... - (sm)
[ In Reply To ..]I alerted my supervisor and she said it was impossible for QA to do this without me knowing, etc., etc. I knew it was happening and now other people here are confirming it because it is happening to them. My question is why? Why are people doing this? Is this a lazy way people in QA make themselves look good or is it encouraged by management for some reason? I thought they were trying to get rid of me because they hired me on the higher end of the pay scale but, if that is the case, why did they bother to hire me in the first place? This has happened to me at 2 different companies and I really would like to have some answers. If anybody has any insight on to why this is going on, please post. Thank you.
QA - me too I think
[ In Reply To ..]I don't work for MQ anymore, but I was pretty sure this was happening to me too. Sometimes I would look at the corrections and think "there was no way I typed that." But I didn't know how to prove it either. I just don't know what the purpose would be for doing that???
me too--sm - anon
[ In Reply To ..]When I was on 100% QA during training I noticed stuff like that too. I remember specifically editing to add/remove a word or phrase that the voice recognition messed up, and on my QA proofed report, it looked like the QA person fixed it because I had missed it. I talked to my CCM about one specific instance and she never responded back. There were 3 or 4 more times, and I notified my CCM and the person I contact with account specs related issues. Again, I didn't hear back, BUT it does not happen as often anymore. I asked if I should copy my reports, minus any identifying info, so I could have proof and CCM told me that was against the rules...
QA - been there too
[ In Reply To ..]I would go to a supervisor and explain, if you have not yet. Just remember, if you don't make mistakes, they don't have a job. I'm not saying you are making mistakes, but they need for you to have them. I don't like them either and am sure there are some capable of sabotage. Go easy on yourself.
You seriously believe that? - MME do not only do QA
[ In Reply To ..]Only 30% of an MME's work is actually QA and nearly all of it is just filling in blanks, not picking apart a report or changing things to keep them on 100%. We do not like 100% work, we hate it. It costs us money. MMEs also do straight transcribing and editing most of the time. The only difference between an MME is that we are in the entire BOB (which I know some MTs are also) and type by TAT, and then have an occasional QA report thrown in, usually with a blank to fill in, and we pray its not 100% unless we know it is by an MT that doesn't make mistakes. For you, which do make more money on, ASR that gets it all right the first time or ASR that you have to correct constantly?
Even if all the MTs and MEs never made a mistake or a blank filled in, an MME would still have work, easily.
If you don't make mistakes, it makes our job that much easier. We don't want mistakes. Our money makers are long reports with no errors and just 1 blank.
Before you judge us, understand us.
MMEs are allowed to have have a primary acct. sm - Talk to your CCM
[ In Reply To ..]If I was an MME I would talk to my CCM about having a primary account and then secondaries. It is done. I know for a fact.
I have no problem with what I have now. - sm
[ In Reply To ..]Even though I jump around all over the place, I have the CPs memorized as they don't vary a whole lot and I'm not having any issues.
GOOD FOR YOU! - Smart move!
[ In Reply To ..]Good for you for being wise on having "proof" of work/corrections. Good for you for calling QA on it. If QA yelled at you, they were in the wrong and probably worried because THEY GOT CAUGHT.
Now I would take it to the CCM.
YOU ARE AWESOME!!!
I wouldn't make a copy of a report as it's against HIPAA - and will get you fired
[ In Reply To ..]x
If making copies of reports violates HIPPA... - (sm)
[ In Reply To ..]....then how it is that most companies provide samples of a given dictator with personal information removed? The same goes for the tests that most companies give to prospective employees. Most of the tests are real reports with identifying information removed. I think that whole violating HIPPA story is misinformation.
If you include the patient name, MR# or other patient identifiers - it is a HIPAA violation
[ In Reply To ..]x
Exactly, and any MQ or hospital headers - or footers.
[ In Reply To ..]Still, a smart move you did by having proof. You probably did MQ a favor by doing what you did BECAUSE it shows their software system is having problems with this particular account.
It has to be ASR, right? If not, then there is are serious other issues going on.
If you DO NOT include the patient name, MR# or other patient identifiers - it is NOT a HIPAA violation..
[ In Reply To ..]....which was the point I was making. So, to summarize, you may make copies of reports as long as you leave out all pertinent identifying information, such as that stated above. If you save the report by the job number, then you will be okay....I believe.
I just have been HIPAA certified (with 2 As) - for a college program.
[ In Reply To ..]I know it is 2 A's because I had to know it for the college exam.
Health Information Portability and Accountability Act. As long as there are no phone numbers, patient name, address S.S.(basically ADT info), hospital name or work employer name on the report, then you are okay. Also would not be showing the report around to family, friends, neighbors. Strictly for a copy use. After all, we do look up repository reports. This is to cover your butt only which is why you are copying report.
Hogwash. HIPAA does not offer certification. Your SCHOOL - certified you. BIG difference.
[ In Reply To ..]Geesh, I wish some of you would actually learn what your education is really based on!
How ridiculous.
We have to be HIPAA certified for our clinicals - this fall to work in hospitals.
[ In Reply To ..]It is normal for any college to get their students ready for their clinicals. I also had to be bloodborne certified and First Aid/CPR certified and will have a background check in a few weeks.
:)
Gee, sorry your so unhappy.
Umm, do you want me to fax the certificate? - MQ had us take a test for HIPAA too.
[ In Reply To ..]MQ had all of us be in HIPAA compliance. Don't you remember taking the test a few months back????
That wasn't HIPAA certification - it was
[ In Reply To ..]MedQuist's program. MedQuist is HIPAA certified and they are required by law to inform all their employees regarding HIPAA through training. No certificate was mailed to any MT. You answer the questions following the slide presentation, pass the test, and click the button stating you understand the HIPAA regulations.
Gee, - good-bye
[ In Reply To ..]x
YOU ARE CORRECT. I did not say certification - we need to be in HIPAA compliance.
[ In Reply To ..]Now a days, it is good to be certified for almost anything. Looks good on your resume. Also looks good to have volunteer work.
By offering to fax - a certificate
[ In Reply To ..]you are, in essence, stating you were certified.
"Certification" means that a state of affairs has been stated to be so, by means, most commonly, of a document self-described as a certificate.
Are you a working MT, or a student?
I have never, ever been asked in an interview or on an application if I do any volunteer work. Having worked in medical transcription for close to 20 years now, I can tell you that doing volunteer work will not make a transcription company choose you over another applicant, though I commend anyone who does volunteer work on a regular basis.
Yes, working MT for over 25 years. - AND studying physical therapy
[ In Reply To ..]at college AND volunteering at hospitals/clinics.
I will never go back to transcription again.
What bothers me, is how reports are going - overseas,
[ In Reply To ..]and HIPAA is strictly for United States. It is not right that "patient" information is not regulated overseas, especially by HIPAA.
Here are some websites if anyone needs to be - in HIPAA compliance.
[ In Reply To ..]There are so much more ways to be HIPAA certified. It was low cost for me since we had training through the college program.
http://www.hipaacertification.net/
http://www.hipaaacademy.net/hipaacertification/chp.html
http://www.ehow.com/about_5061174_hipaa-certification.html
HIPAA is a government act and has NO certification. - Those are certifications that an educational level
[ In Reply To ..]LOL It is NOT HIPAA certification! HA HA HA
It is simply stating you've sat in training on HIPAA to a certain number of hours.
Too funny.
Yes, for MQ. I need it for college, a certificate, - showing I had HIPAA training.
[ In Reply To ..]For my clinicals this fall for physical therapy training.
I believe MQ policy - states
[ In Reply To ..]that you may not keep a copy of a report. That is why the original poster got yelled at by QA.
Let's face facts. If the OPs job is already in jeopardy because she's been 100% QA for weeks and not making improvements to the quality of her work, they don't need much to terminate her. This MT needs to proofread, proofread, proofread...and not give her CCM any other reason to fire her. And she needs to speak to her CCM immediately regarding her suspicions.
MQ is in the midst of change. They are actively terminating employment of those MTs who are not meeting their scheduled hours, line counts and quality reviews.
QA doesn't pay worth a darn. They don't have the time or the desire to sabotage an MT. Since we all work at home, they don't even know the MTs, so what would be their motivation? They will always have jobs because they will always have blanks. The sabotage claim is plain 'ol ridiculous, IMO.
Similar circumstances and found to be - the fault of MQ system software
[ In Reply To ..]Software glitch, however, it took a wise QA to catch it and did some detective work. Something to do with the software which showed sometimes doubles of words. Seems to mostly happen with ASR accounts. Maybe that is why we acquired MModal?????
Total software glitch on some accounts.
Riddle me this...for what reason would QA have to mess with you? - The Riddler
[ In Reply To ..]None of what they do is counted against you.
If you are audited it is by a special QA person and it does count and then you should definitely do something about it.
As someone said, its a software glitch. I've seen it happen, particulary when I accidentally double click on upload. Then when it goes through spellcheck it does something funky and deletes and smooshes words together and then proceeds to upload. I've caught it doing this more than once and had to go through the whole report changing things back.
It's called "planned obsolescence". And they've - been planning it for a very long time. nm
[ In Reply To ..]
QA doesn't get paid - more if you make
[ In Reply To ..]more errors. It's really the exact opposite. The quicker they can get in and out, the better. It makes much more sense to me that either it is a system glitch or you overlooked errors, especially if it was in speech rec., where nonsensical speech can trick the eye.
Exactly - Batman
[ In Reply To ..]MMEs don't want to find any errors in the reports because: A) Then we have to 100% review at the 3 cpl rate for just filling in blanks instead of 4 cpl. B) We don't like to see the US MTs make mistakes as we want the US MTs to look better than the ILPs.
QA/MME don't have any reason to make an MT look bad and change their reports. We are on the same level as the MT/MEs, the only difference is that we occasionally get a report to QA. Compared to MT/MEs, we have no extra resources, inside information, or tools besides the shortcut key to leave a feedback marker.
Exactly. QAs are worker bees too, not management. - sm
[ In Reply To ..]Plus as a former MQ QA, I will tell you QASAR simply won't allow you to make changes without being inside a marker.
That rule has changed since you were QA - Came about with DQS 6.1, I believe
[ In Reply To ..]QA can now do edits outside and marker directly into the text. It's only recommended for little edits. They still want you to use a feedback marker for anything big or something you want to leave feedback on.
QAs get paid so little and have to fly through reports. - sm
[ In Reply To ..]Why on earth would they take the time to change your text & then mark an error for it? We're just like MTs, cranking out reports as fast as we can for our few little cents per line. We have so many accounts and MTs to check, and we aren't management, so we have absolutely no motive to go out of our way to hurt anyone. This was more likely an ASR mistake. ASR quality is so poor, and it's so easy to miss little things on it.
QASAR will not let QAs make ANY changes to a report without - sm
[ In Reply To ..]opening up the QA marker so they can be tracked. If QAs try to just type or delete in the report without opening the marker, you just get a warning beep & can't do it. Period.
THAT IS NOT TRUE. - changed
[ In Reply To ..]It did happen to me.
QA can make edits without marker - I am QA
[ In Reply To ..]We can make edits without putting it in a marker, but this is only supposed to be used for very minor edits such as correcting spacing or making a word plural, etc. Sometimes, MTs put the right word in but leave a marker for QA to confirm it. I just delete those markers without putting them within yet another marker.
This is true - MME also
[ In Reply To ..]This changed occurred when they implemented the new DQS. However, these edits can still be seen by those above us. Like how DQS keeps track of everyone's keystrokes and mouse-clicks and how much time is spent not typing. Just because we don't see something, doesn't mean its not happening behind the scenes.
I think all this hatred toward a QA/MME is the cause of ignorance for what we do or how things change with us also. As someone said previously, we are no different than an MT/ME, subject to everything they are.
Three of my accounts let me, but the others do not. - It is not across the board.
[ In Reply To ..]x
I hear ya - Bailey
[ In Reply To ..]They have been after me for a week. I have 16 years with this company, always had great reviews, got raises when I asked, and now I dont seem to know anything. I think they are just after the old timers to get rid of the higher earning MTs. Just my opinion.
QA - jarrfan
[ In Reply To ..]I am really beginning to believe that QA is paid by how many mistakes they can find (real or imagined)because nothing else makes sense. They treat me like I am a 5th grader. They are rude, leave comments like "you should know better" yeah, there are way too many chiefs and not enough indians. It appears the goal of the company is to have under educated, step above McDonalds servers so they can pay them minimum wage and pay 20 people to monitor this one person's work.
Report inappropriate comments - MME
[ In Reply To ..]There is no reason why an MME should leave such a comment, no matter how bad the mistake was. This needs to be reported.
MMEs don't have any more company information than MTs. We don't have special privileges. We don't have access to anything an MT doesn't. We don't get any special treatment by our CCM. As said before, the only thing different is we get QA reports added to our pool.
The reason for pickiness or mistake finding is because we are scared of audits as you are. If we miss a mistake, we are to blame, we get performance managed.
When you become an MME, you have a 1 or 2-hour training session on how to use the feedback marker function and what rules we need to follow. Then once in a while you get a QA report, fill in the blanks at 3 cpl or 100% review it at 4 cpl, and send it on. If a mistake is incidentally noticed when filling in a blank we are required to do 100% review at 3 cpl. DQS functions and looks the same except for a command to leave feedback.
As said elsewhere, would you rather have an ASR report with no errors or one with constant corrections? Same thing with QA reports.
We are at the same level as you, no special treatment at all. Those MMEs who are snarky or are overly anal need to be reported as it is their personal issue, not higher directives from the almighty MQ. We are in the dark as much as you are.
I think QA is hiding my car keys - conspiracy. nm
[ In Reply To ..]xx
audits/corrective action - mecmt
[ In Reply To ..]I had a report where I had some blanks in it that went to QA..I got marked down for the blanks and one of the blanks QA filled..the report was audited and the QA got the blank wrong and I was the one that marked down even further for QAs mistake!!! needless to say my percentage went to a 98.96% so my CCM gave me a verbal corrective action and now I have to have an "informal" phone call next week with her..not sure what this means..maybe I should have taken the job with Execuscribe that I was offered the other day..
They can see whatever QA does. - You need to let your CCM know
[ In Reply To ..]If it wasn't your mistake, you need to let the CCM know as they can see who does what on what reports. I've never been audited on a post-QA report, only pre-QA or non-QA. I'm not sure who marked you down for a blank being filled. Was it marked by the auditor or the QA? As QA don't do scoring, at least not on purpose, they just do feedback.
Bogus audits - ex-MQ
[ In Reply To ..]There have been posts on here for months about suspicions regarding bogus audits, which from my miserable time at MQ,I believe they are doing.
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