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

anything better than at-home professions out there? - xgenra

Posted: May 30, 2010

If at-home is really that bad, then is there a better school where I stand a better chance of getting hired after I'm done?

Is there some kind of course I could take to get certified so as to fill in the blanks? to teach what at-home isn't?

schools - check this

[ In Reply To ..]
check out AHDI web site and check out other posts on the new MT board. But do check also all the hospitals and companies that are letting their MTs go because of being taken over by electronic medical records and offshoring. This profession is not as good as it used to be. If you want medical try being a CNA or something, that kind of thing is always needed badly. I am getting out of this after 35 years, making no money anymore and my last year's taxable income was 13K. Cannot live on that, especially if you need to raise kids on that.

That is a sad amount of money compared to what many others are making - I would quit if I were you too

[ In Reply To ..]
First I would quit the company that is just paying you that much. Then if I got the same results at another company I would wonder if maybe it's just a case of burnout our misplaced career, in other words, maybe MT is not a good fit for you or you aren't a good fit for MT.

I do know that there are quite a few experienced MTs with lots of years under their belt finding that employers expect more these days. What was accepted 30 years ago or maybe with one clinic or doctor's office just isn't marketable these days. The MTs who are closer to retirement age sometimes prefer not to keep up with the changes, refuse to do anything other than what they've always done. That is a sure sign that your income is going to go downhill. You can choose to keep up or do something else, fortunately, so everyone has options. MT is definitely not for everyone and even if it's been 'right' for a person for 35 years, that doesn't mean there won't come a time when you're tired of it and don't want to learn the skills the NEW MT is required to have. We're all different and we all have times in our lives when we want to learn and other times when we want to coast and be paid on the fact that we 'used to be' really good at what we do. I've been there and done that. In fact, sometimes I still have to fight wanting to coast for the rest of my work life. It's a constant struggle.

I suffered burn-out as you describe, too (sm) - Ye Gads

[ In Reply To ..]
My burnout came as a result of going from acute care to radiology when I moved to a new area and radiology was all that was available. We all have our favorites, to be sure, but after a couple of years of radiology, I could FEEL the burnout. When my shift time rolled around, I found myself dreading it. It was a rotating group of radiologists yet it was like transcribing the same report over and over and over again. I would catch myself totally "zoning out" while I was transcribing, NEVER a good thing, and that 8-hour shift felt like a 24-hour shift. My productivity never went down and I found all sorts of little things to keep my focus, but I was miserable.

Rather than give up MTing, I took on a part-time MT job doing a mix of clinic and acute care, just 2-4 hours a night, to break up the monotony. That did the trick and rejuvenated my love of MT. I found myself looking forward to my acute care and clinic work every day and it made the 8-hour radiology shift much easier to tolerate.

When it came down to it, I left the radiology position and took the FT position I was offered for the acute care position. My love of MTing returned, someone else is happily churning out those radiology reports, and everything ended happily ever after.

Burnout SUCKS. I was fortunate to find a way around mine but I understand some others might not be so fortunate.

so, for tha same report over and over, didn't you make a template? - no message, just wondering

[ In Reply To ..]
x

Ya, one would think some cut & paste and you're in there - without knowing the particulars. nm

[ In Reply To ..]
q

Yep, even with normals it was the same thing ad nauseum - Paid by hour so no big deal for templates

[ In Reply To ..]
The reports had just enough differences where it couldn't be a standardized, across-the-board macro (every one of these bozos had to have their own special normal foot, normal chest, normal hand...and then RARELY used them). Even the MRIs and CTs would go on for 2-3 pages and be essentially normal at the end of the report. It was mind-numbing.

Had we been being paid on production and they actually used normals, maybe I'd have been too busy counting my money to get bored, though, huh? I never looked at it that way :-)

I would quit too - my reply

[ In Reply To ..]
I did quit the job that I only made 13K with. I sat for hours waiting for work everyday. It was not that I did not want to learn new things, it was they did not have anything for me or anyone else to learn. I have done every work type, I have been a supervisor in every jog I have had. The first job lasted 15 years before they offshored, the second job was 15 years and they offshored. It is not that I am not willing to learn anything new and I do keep up on things, and even working the night shigt to get work to make the money, but now they are even taking away paying for spaces, so there goes more money out of pocket.

I realize there are some that actually have work to do to make the money, but apparently I have not gone though enough jobs yet to get the work to get the money. I am still working on getting that job, but as anyone knows they are almost nonexistent anymore.

I don't agree with your last statement but wish you well - nm

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

Why getting a course to 'fill in the blanks' doesn't work - See message

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm not critiquing any course specifically, but I do know that it doesn't work to take a poor course and then fill in for its shortcomings. Students don't know what they don't know. Employers aren't going to tell you why they don't hire you. The 'important' part of an MT course is the whole thing, from the very initial easy attempts at transcription to the work you'll do that is as close to on-the-job MT as possible. Since all that is missing from a poor course, which often just teaches from canned recordings (not real MDs actually dictating) and giving you lots of fun quizzes to keep you busy since there is nothing of value in the curriculum, there is no way to fill in what's missing. It's all missing. Many times they should call these courses "Introduction To" Medical Transcription, but even that is a very bad idea, because people graduate from them thinking they are medical transcriptionists, when they are far from it. That's just my opinion, of course.

Introduction to MT . . . - Read the Fine Print

[ In Reply To ..]
Read the fine print on a lot of those schools like AHP. They often DO call the course an "introduction to" MT. They KNOW they do not provide a complete education, they KNOW their students can't get jobs, and they avoid being blamed for it later by just saying up front that they are an introduction to the field. In some way or the other, they admit they aren't teaching what you need to know.

Unfortunately, a lot of the kinds of people who would be taken in by slick advertising and cheap tuition don't have the ability to understand what they read in the fine print. They don't read it at all or they don't understand what it means. They tend to be very gullible--they believe everything people tell them . . . if it fits with what they want to hear.

Another characteristic of those people is that they always thing they'll be the exception. When they hear that few people get jobs after AHP, they think they'll be the exception.

Xgenra - Old MTSO

[ In Reply To ..]
There are many, many schools out there that are better than AHP (which I view as a joke). My top two choices are:
1. Andrews.
2. M-TEC.

Contact each of them. Prepare a list of questions for their rep before you call. Get a feel for each school and then pick the one that seems to meet your needs the best. I think you are wise to realize the inadequacies of AHP. Many people who did the AHP course find that once they are on the job, there is so much more they need to know. Put yourself into the hands of a good school (not a matchbook that advertises in women's magazines, please!) and you will greatly increase your chances. Good luck to you.

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