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

Hypothetical situation - John Doe

Posted: Feb 19, 2014

Let's say for a moment you get this kind of exchange: TSM: When will be making up the time you missed from your appointment? (note, MT was lying, this was really an interview for a job that didn't pan out) MT: I won't be. To be honest, I don't really like this line of work at all, my motivations are being here are strictly financial. Your company is just a stepping stone, a crutch, until I can find something that can get me out of this dying industry. Has management gotten lax enough so that the MT would not face any serious consequences?

Doesnt sound like the MT - would care if there were

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serious consequences.

Well, to be fair - John Doe

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this is a crappy job, and only a fool would really see any long term career potential in it.

Even when it wasn't a sinking ship, I never cared about "the needs of the patient and the customer." That's a card the companies keep dealing from the bottom of the deck to guilt us into being at their beck and call 24/7 for little to no money.

So you never cared about the needs of the patient - or the customers?

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thats really harsh. How did you end up doing MT to begin with? I certainly would'nt want you typing or editing any of medical records. If you feel that way, you should seriously just quit now. Why wait to finish school or anything else for that matter.

I didn't choose it (more) - John Doe

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but when I started, it was actually a viable alternative to cultivating a collection of nametags and hairnets. And I was pretty damn good at it until Spheris got gobbled up by MModal and they turned into micromanaging tyrants. Seemed like I was the only who had the courage to say that I wasn't going to take the herd culling practices lying down.

John Doe - Texas MT

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Hypothetically speaking, I hope to God that you do not transcribe/edit a report that is being dictated about me or my family. You probably won't care if you type a wrong medication dosage that could potentially harm me or someone in my family. No, I probably won't die, someone will catch the error, someone who cares about my wellbeing. Go Away John Doe. Run Fast! You are a disgrace to this forum. Go take your holier than thou attitude somewhere else.

Sorry, but YOURS is the "holier than thou" - attitude. Most of us dont

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get into MT to change the world, or to be the Mother Theresa of the medical records industry.

I don't care about the needs of the - customer

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They certainly didn't care about my needs when they closed the MT departments and sold to the lowest bidder. As for the patient... no one is going to live or die if I decide I don't want to work today. Some other schlub will be there to do the scutt work.

Don't give me the holier-than-thou attitude that I should be willing to sacrifice my time, my pride, my dignity, my life for this crappy, dead-end job. I am not. And like the OP, I am only still here until I can find a viable way out.

So yes... I don't care about the needs of the patient or customer. I have to care about the needs of my family because, honestly, their needs outweigh all others.

Needs - MTtired

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IMHO, if the emphasis was on patient quality care like it used to be, the dictators would know what they are doing and speak clearly. Reports a great deal of time look like Swiss cheese because of them, NOT the MT. Horrible, deplorable dictators, period. Put the blame where it belongs. In a production based job, we should not be having to go through what we do, and incentives are lost based on this. Get bad dictators a lot? What happens...no incentive if more than 10% is sent to be listened to...AND lets add points to blanks that ARE filled in even if the MT does not agree! Yet "when in doubt leave it out." If some MTs are taking advantage of that, then filter them out, not punish everyone. It's just an excuse to cut more. Teamwork? My foot. The only thing I see in team work is how it all comes down on the MT as to why it is our fault and what we have to do to make it right instead of having them learn the language better/speak clearly/or pay someone who will that knows what they are doing. Would make sense to me if the hospitals or the doctors who have issues with not being able to dictate should have to pay for QA, not the company, and then MTs could have a fair chance at making incentives. IMHO, feel like I have been in a Kangaroo Court system since this all began. Bah!

BRAVO!! I concur wholeheartedly! - no message

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x

I am reposting your comment on the main board. Too good not to. - no message

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Customer needs - Texas MT

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Get on Facebook, search for the "Healthcare Documentation Today" page. There is an article posted regarding medical record errors. It is a very interesting article regarding the other side of what we do.

john, john - so you consider all MTs fools??

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Could you be any more condescending? Take your attitude somewhere else. You are just full of yourself.

I agree with you John Doe - tootiredtocare

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I have lost any ounce of give a crap I may have once had in this job. This is a dying industry. There is no upward mobility for us. We don't get raises. We don't get promotions. We get our pay cut more and more. We get our benefits cut. We even get our PTO taken away because of no work because the company can't manage to not overstaff.

There is absolutely no concern for us. It doesn't take long for that to beat a person down until they no longer care about the work they do.

Best of luck to you getting out of this. I'm looking as well.

I'm trying to get out, too. - sm

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I still do care about accuracy and doing a good job, but I agree with everything else the above poster wrote. Nuance hates the MTs. They have nothing but contempt for us. They took MT wages, cut them in half, hired a bunch of QA/QC/whatever they're called and gave them our money. Karma is a you know what, Nuance!

Whatever they're called? - Texas MT

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I'd sure like to see where all that money is. I'm a "QA/QC/whatever" and I'm making less than I did in 1985, doing the same exact job that I'm doing now. So... REALLY??????? I'd better sign off from this thread or I'm going to blow a gasket!!!

Please do - Em

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We can all do without your input, QA/QC/whatever.

To Texas MT - Person to whom you responded.

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Please know I meant no disrespect to you. I wrote QA/QC/whatever because I can never keep all the names straight. There is also a QA1 or QC1 and postaudit. How do we say or type all that quickly? Also, I would like it to be known that I have always appreciated constructive criticism from QA and have respect for you. As far as our pay being cut by 40-50%, I don't think it is coincidental that that is when all the FIESA crap started. Rumor has it that that is where MT money went.

Person - Texas MT

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Thank You. I appreciate your kindness.

"Blow a gasket?"... - sm

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Now you know how the MT feels when receiving petty, nit-picking commentary deemed "feedback" from self-important QA/QC/whatevers. Don't let the door hit you on your way out, QA/QC/whatever.

Gasket - Texas MT

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I am an MT first! I've been one since 1978. I DO know what it feels like to receive petty/nit-picking commentary. When I first started working as an MT, I worked at a hospital, second shift. When I arrived to work one afternoon one of my reports, with red marks all over it, was sitting on my desk. Everyone in the office could see this report, as they walked by my desk, before I got to work that day. It does not feel very good! I was mortified. I do not consider myself self-important. I'm always on the MTs side and I am fair in my feedback when I do my QA/QC job. I always keep in the back of my mind that incident. I do not know why you have to be so rude!

MT vs QA/QC is - what Nuance want

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They would like nothing more for us MTs to blame QA/QC so they don't have to own up to the fact they pretty much made what was previously a relationship based on actual QUALITY into a tool for them to take money off us via QA/QC audits. The aggro you hear by us MTs is because they have made the QA/QC our executioners (a bit dramatic, but still). You are not the ones getting docked for mistakes, we are.

Texas MT, I do truly believe you are one of the good ones from what you have posted. Our base pay also (usually a few months post takeover by Nuance) has shrunk dramatically (mine has halved). But...

I lost the production "bonus" in December and I am a pretty high producer. I now have $100 less per week = $400 less per month and $1200+ less over the quarter. I pray I don't lose it again, but for all I know they will stick me with a mass of audits in the last week or so of March like they did in December, and despite proofing and double proofing, I will miss some little thing, some other little thing there, before you know it the bonus is gone again.

I am now struggling to pay my electricity bill that has for some reason doubled.

I think when MTs criticize QA/QCs, it is because you guys do not lose money like we do based on someone's critique of your work, so while we might be just shooting the messenger, the message is awful - that despite many, many perfect reports that use a myriad of skills and years of experience, the one that matters is the fact you put platelet count 935,000 instead of 975,000 and for that you deserve to lose $100 per week.

I know I should not be angry at the QA/QC who did that to me since I know they were doing their job, but why is it the job of QA/QC to take away our bonuses? That's bad for them and us.

I am very angry with this because I think it is the height of unfairness to get money taken off you for making a mistake, and bonus schmonus, it is a penalty. Because of what FIESA did to me, my already shaky financial security has been truly threatened, as I'm sure many others' have.

I imagine you as a QA count on a certain amount per hour - you are not going to be told they will be taking $100 a week off your pay for 3 months because you made some mistakes, but that's exactly what happens to us.

Whether Nuance meant this to happen or not - frankly they probably could not care less, what they have been doing is the practice of many corporations nowadays, suck the money from the bottom up to the top in any way, shape or form you can get away with and hope nobody draws attention to you in the media, otherwise it's all fair game.

We are in the unenviable position of being completely invisible in the sense we are not an obvious factory shutting down and having to train our replacements (though that IS what is happening in the sense that the speech engine is our replacement and we are training it so the work can be completed by those not as skilled as us).

I think quibbling between MT and QA is not productive and I think if we can understand the other and commiserate that is better. Nuance is only too happy to let this happen so we don't point the finger at whatever level of "management" devised the awful FIESA and its nasty consequences, where it firmly belongs.

In this case.... - Vicki

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Nuance will "get what it wants" ---as long as QA/QC are given license to dissect and split hairs over petty nonsense that does not in any way affect meaning and, in the case of blanks, is usually subjective guess-work on the part of an arrogant proofreader. It's bad enough that any conscientious MT is subjected to this grade-school silliness in the first place, but when bonuses are impacted, don't fault the MT for justifiable outrage. It is completely unreasonable to expect MTs to have an attitude of: "Thank you, oh wise and knowledgeable QA/QC. May I have another."

The phrase - "given license to"

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Seems to imply they are chomping at the bit to get at our work and dock our pay. I don't believe that is the case. They are given guidelines and the fact that the performance of their job requirements results in our pay being docked is not their desire, it's the management's desire.

I completely agree with justifiable outrage, just that the outrage should be directed at the actual perpetrators of this monstrosity, and if we can get QA/QC on our side rather than on the defensive, that is much better.

My TSM asked me if I wanted to be a QA and I said no way, I could not be responsible for taking someone's bonus away, but having said that if you are a QA in the job for years doing it the same way, now all of a sudden the outcomes are that your co-workers, MTs, are getting docked, that is not fun either, but not really the QA/QC fault, just the fact Nuance has used them to pad their profits at our expense.

The standard.... - NYMT

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While the standard pat excuse for aggressive nit-picking by overly eager QA/QC is that they are "required" to do this, this is hogwash. The QA/QC should be held every bit as accountable as the MT. Any QA/QC found to be repeatedly indulging in unnecessary petty deductions should be held accountable. If a QA/QC will not distinguish between trivialities, their own subjective preferences, and valid issues that affect a report's integrity, then they should not be in QA/QC.

Personally, my gripe is - there is $ penalty attached

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Why are we MTs singled out to get our pay chopped because of mistakes, because it's easy?

You are right about QA accountability, but QA/QC are paid by the hour, what are they going to do to them if they find them guilty of aggressive nit-picking? For that matter, what if a TSM doesn't make one too many TATs or has too many people OOW - do they get their pay chopped? And last but not least I doubt very much those at the very top of this structure get any manipulation of their pay unless it is bonuses for extracting money from us.

IMHO there should be NO financial penalties attached to MT reviews because I would wager it does not improve quality one bit (their claimed reason for instituting the "bonus" which is in actuality a penalty).

It is nothing more than a method of extracting even more money from us and it is a dirty trick they don't have to justify which targets MTs. Apparently, we are the easiest of targets to get our pockets picked and the money directed upwards.

MT vs QA/QC - Texas MT

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I agree. Quibbling is not productive. I would be upset too if I were still typing with the $ being taken away. It is not fair. Can I tell you what I am dealing with? I make less per hour than I did in 1985, doing the same exact job. That is a tough pill to swallow. We are all in the same boat. (I know, I know... I'll probably be blasted for that one.) It is the MTs who are paid by the line who are suffering the most. I get it! I wish it could change, but I do not see that happening any time soon. I'm just biding my time until I can retire and do something else that is fun.

Actually, I think management laxity is not the key here--sm - anon

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I think that an MT in this situation is not essential to the company but is also not worth the effort of firing. Management probably assumes the MT will take themselves out of the equation soon. It really is only an issue if the accounts are out of TAT because of the MT but many accounts are now overstaffed so it is unlikely to happen.

What's up with the overstaffing? - I wonder if the DOL has interest in what goes on.

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It is really abusive to MTs to make us sit here for 12-14 hours to get in 8. I mean, come on, we do have lives.

Management - GrannyG

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Management dogs us until we finally just throw our hands up. They are experts at digging and pounding day after day after day after day. Bring those lines up or face the consequences. It's their way of getting you online and working without clocking in for an hour to get your line count up faster with more of an average lines per hour rate then. They know exactly what they're doing and they do it well. Unfortunately for them, some of us old timers know what time it really is. They won't get a free minute out of me. Not this old battle dog. I've been around since we used 5 colors of NCR paper and 5 colors of Liquid Paper to handle the errors. I've seen and heard it all but I think Nuance takes the cake.

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