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

What are your thoughts on - Next two months

Posted: Oct 28, 2010

One of the posts below mentioned something happening in the next two months or by the end of the year (can't find the post now). Also, I recall some administrative e-mail alluding to the same, the e-mail about how CBay is poised to take over more Medquist assets. Is something going to happen to us that we should know about?

Thoughts - Thoughtless

[ In Reply To ..]
What difference does it make, what they say, they are going to do what they are going to and not take into consideration of any of the MTs. I think they would like to dump everyone and just send to India and let them (clients) eat cake. Do your transcription correctly or you will see it in the end result from a foreign country. I am ready to jump before I am pushed. I don't want to give them that satifaction. One word here, Spheris! Oh yeah! Happy Holidays to all of us from MQ. Worried whether we will have a job in the new year! Hopefully unemployment will cover our tushies!

I think they are getting ready to dump - Let them lay me off

[ In Reply To ..]
a whole lot of us. They have even taken away our ability to take our expansions with us for those who did not back them up to a flash drive before upgrade to 6.1. Has anyone noticed that a CURRENT (since upgrading to 6.1) expansion file is no longer accessible on your computer? Support told me that this file is now encrypted and neigher they or you have access to them anymore. Support will not be able to restore your expansions if they become corrupted. If any of you computer geeks out there know how to access this encrypted file, please let me know.

TAA and unemployment then - NJA Queen

[ In Reply To ..]
Although I think MQ would much rather have their MTs quit in order to "justify" moving the work load to India, perhaps not enough of us have quit or have quit fast enough for their evil plans. However, then we would be eligible for TAA and unemployment so I say bring it on too.

I did not know that about the expansions, man am I grateful for this board. Certainly not having access to our expansions is worth a TV or a Wal-mart gift card, oh wait, forgot who we work for :)

I found out about the expansions because - Let them lay me off

[ In Reply To ..]
I was regularly backing them up and then one day noticed the file I had access to was the same one from before the DQS upgrade (by the date modified) with any new expansions not in there, so I called Support and they said MQ decided to encrypt this file and not even Support has access to them.

You bet I am going to hang on to the bitter end and pray for lay-off to take advantage of TAA, dotting all my i's and crossing all my t's to try and avoid being fired first. I have a part time gig that can become full time, but it is as IC and I really do not want to deal with the hassel that comes with being IC and would rather get out of MT altogether through TAA retraining.

What do you want to do next? - CA-MT

[ In Reply To ..]
I'd love to stay in medicine as I now have 30 years of experience, but also want to work at home. Any suggestions? I think billing will be going the way of MTing. TAA doesn't help you choose the profession you want, but will say whether your desired profession is one in which they will pay for training, i.e., one that is needed in the future.

Good question, to which - Let them lay me off

[ In Reply To ..]
I have not the slightest clue! I have been doing at-home MT so long, don't know if I can even fit in anywhere working out of the home, LOL. I am afraid I have become somewhat "socially retarded." I don't think there is anything else in medical you can do at home that will be around for long. Nursing: Been there, done that, didn't like it. Maybe look into some sort of computer tech job I can possibly do from home? I don't know. I love animals, so maybe vet tech? I have way too many carnivorous plants (my hobby), so maybe go into business for myself selling them? What about some type of business helping out new MTs just getting started (oh wait, nevermind, need something sustainable)? This is something I will have to think about and research, take my mind off MQ and dream.

Ditto on socially retarded. - Hermit

[ In Reply To ..]
I don't think I'd be ever to work outside the home. I just think about it and I dread the drive, the social interaction, annoying coworkers, getting dressed...

I hear ya, especially the annoying coworkers - Let them lay me off

[ In Reply To ..]
I don't think I could "work and play well with others" in an office situation full of women anymore, talk about annoying, backstabbing, throw-you-under-the-bus after-being-nice-to-your-face coworkers! I never did learn to play "the game" and that is why I took my ball and went home to work. I learned a very valuable lesson though...the toes you step on today may be attached to the arss you have to kiss tomorrow.

Playing the game - IamNMT

[ In Reply To ..]
A** kissing seems to be a very valuable job skill these days. I'm terrible at it (way too truthful) and everyone sees through my lame attempts. A lot of people dislike the ones who practice it routinely. Unfortunately, they are the ones who always seem to get what they want. Zt least we still have our dignity.

All I can say is that they are - Let them lay me off

[ In Reply To ..]
smarter than me, so more power to them. I also wish to keep my dignity, no knee pads here. What goes around comes around eventually and I have had a few wonderful opportunities to see this happen to someone who deserved it. Payback is a biotch.

Me too, but I am applying. Have no choice it seems. - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
After the last E-mail from corporate, I think we are on our way out, but it was so vague I am not sure.

Why didn't all of us receive this corporate email - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
I never received this. What exactly did it say or is it on MQCentral somewhere that I can access it? Any help appreciated. Thanks!

I did not get one either, and would love to know - what it said

[ In Reply To ..]
It must be pretty bad that several have got the opinion we are all gone soon. Could anyone share this, either posted or e-mailed?

Letter - nan

[ In Reply To ..]
I seem to remember an email not too long ago with two guys names on it talking about more work going to India, but I can't for the life of me figure out where that email is. I was going to copy and paste it for you, but it is gone. I went way back in my email and it is not there. Weird I guess I could be wrong, but I remember two guys names on it. Oh well, sorry

came from Tony James on 10/08 - NJA Queen

[ In Reply To ..]
Here is the basic: Big push of ASR and a big thanks to all of us for helping with customer retention and satisfaction. So basically he thanks us and tells us there will be even more ASR, which as you know it, means even less money for us. Oh and MQ has a bright future (I read that as a a bright overseas future).

Different day same s#@t. - mom2huskies

[ In Reply To ..]
Our CEO obviously do not care about MT retention and satisfaction.

Here's the letter I referred to - From October 28

[ In Reply To ..]
It was not from "T.J." but from "S.S." (can't give personal names on MTStars) The letter sounded to me like a bunch of corporate double-talk to me, like "thanks for all the money you made for us, now here's your hat and there's the door."

Dear MedQuist employee:

Over the past few weeks CBaySystems Holdings Limited has taken several important steps toward its goal of increasing its ownership of MedQuist. These steps include:

Ã�Â· Refinancing the debt that was incurred from prior acquisition activity to take advantage of favorable market conditions;

Ã�Â· Entering into an agreement with certain of MedQuistÃ¢ï¿½ï¿½s large stockholders to exchange their MedQuist stock for CBaySystems Holdings Limited stock;

Ã�Â· Announcing a proposed offer to exchange shares of CBaySystems Holdings Limited common stock for the remaining outstanding shares of MedQuist Inc. common stock; and

Ã�Â· Approving a proposed initial public offering of CBaySystems Holdings LimitedÃ¢ï¿½ï¿½s common stock in the United States.

The debt refinancing has been successfully completed, and CBaySystems Holdings Limited hopes to complete the remaining steps over the next two to three months. We believe that these transactions will allow us to better recognize the full value of our combined organization in the financial markets. As a MedQuist employee, you can expect our industry leadership and strength to continue, leading to greater opportunity for employees and customers as the combined organization:

Ã�Â· Continues to invest in our future, delivering innovative solutions that include advanced speech recognition, natural language processing and other new technology-enabled services;

Ã�Â· Maintains our position as the largest employer of medical transcriptionists and editors in our industry; and

Ã�Â· Continues to seek new and unique ways to deliver clinical documentation in such a way that end-user providers continue to rely on us for their documentation services.

YouÃ¢ï¿½ï¿½ve been working extremely hard, and the results are clear. Over the past 18-24 months, everyone at MedQuist and CBaySystems Holdings Limited has been doing their part to operate more efficiently in order to compete in the current market. In addition, MedQuistÃ¢ï¿½ï¿½s integration of SpherisÃ¢ï¿½ï¿½ customers and employees has set the stage for MedQuist to continue in its leadership role in providing cost-efficient clinical documentation solutions to our customers. MedQuistÃ¢ï¿½ï¿½s recent operating results reflect the success of these joint efforts, and we will strive to continue these operating results in the future.

We are grateful to all of our valued employees who have worked tirelessly over the past two years in bringing MedQuist and the entire CBaySystems Holdings Limited organization to this new threshold of opportunity for continued growth in the coming years.

I never saw this, but....sm - mb

[ In Reply To ..]
Thanks for posting this here. I guess my CCM thought I didn't need to see it, as I never got this email.

It looks to me that in a few months our paychecks will say Cbay and not MedQuist anymore. It would seem this is going to happen, especially if they say they are going to trade peoples' Medquist stock for Cbay.

I have no idea how this will affect us here. I guess time will tell. I don't believe it will mean things will get better for us. I think what might be next for us is a drop to 50% of our line rate for ASR. Anybody else have any thoughts?

This is scary! - mb

[ In Reply To ..]
I googled "medical natural language processing" which is mentioned in that memo, and got the following:

What is the MLP?
The MLP â�� Medical Language Processor â�� is a system that transforms free-text clinical documents into an XML structured representation of the information in the documents. Document sentences are parsed, further processed to eliminate ambiguities, and mapped into medically labeled structures, called Information Format Units (IFUs). The IFUs are enriched by the addition of medical knowledge tags drawn from the Structured Health Markup Language (SHML). In this form they become Health Information Units (HIUs), the basic unit of description in the final representation. Processed documents are installed in a clinician-oriented viewer to provide users selective access to textual information needed for patient care, or they can be used in other applications.

I don't see any mention of a human editor involved in this at all!!!

Maybe "free-text clinical documents" are - MT

[ In Reply To ..]
what we type/edit and this is put into some system that manipulates it? Who knows. I seems MT is a doomed profession no matter what anyway because nobody wants to pay for real people anymore who can actually think. The writing is on the wall and I would not recommend this profession to anyone. The only ones making any money from MT are the MT Schools and MT corporate executives. Nobody cares, not even "our" government, what happens to MTs. It seems the government is doing everything in its power to have health care records automated and/or offshored so that when they take over health care it will be as cheap as possible for them.

Letter - nan

[ In Reply To ..]
That's the letter I was talking about. I can't find it in my email. I know it was there, I read it too. Even looked in my deleted and couldn't find it.

Thanks

Expansions? - ame

[ In Reply To ..]
What are you talking about expansions gone? Mine are there. My problem has been that when you make a new heading it does not stay there as saved and you have to make a new one everytime you type that heading.

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