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

Just a question..seriously I dont know. - nunya

Posted: Dec 20, 2014

Has there ever been a union for transcriptionists? I have never heard of one, but have often wondered if that would be beneficial. I mean if the people want it..why not. But I don't reallly know about how these unions and things work. Maybe Ive watched too much TV, but it seems like back in the day when they had unions, nobody made a move without consulting the union. The Teamsters...that is what I'm thinking of. Again, It's just a memory to me now, but any thoughts or comments on the pros and cons of a union?

Kaiser MTs were in a union. - anonMT

[ In Reply To ..]
I knew a few who worked there I do know that they quit having any in-house MTs and not sure how they did that, but they eliminated everyone and the union didn't matter. My friends no longer worked there when that happened, maybe someone else can enlighten us?

Surely there must be something for us....I'm keeping the faith anyway!! nm - nunya

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nm.......

I hope that faith puts food on your table and pays bills - because a union will do NOTHING. sm

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If it could, dont you think there would have been one set up by now???

And who's going to start it? Anyone who's actively working MT probably isn't going to risk their job by publicly putting themselves in the spotlight. People are too paranoid and afraid to buck the system and lose their job.

I tried to start a small facebook page a long time ago for MTs who wanted to speak out. Nobody let out a peep. A couple people "liked" it, but nobody said anything.

Face it. Unions are not going to do any good. It's way too late now to start anything, even if it could do any good.

Wrap yourself tightly in that faith so it keeps you warm this winter. Or maybe use that faith to start organizing the union yourself.

well that's a thought, I will keep my faith as always and if I do starve,, well I could stand t - nunya

[ In Reply To ..]
seriously though I can understand not wanting to speak up. Hell we are all so busy squabbling for the scraps at the MTSO's table that we seem to have forgotten our God given right to speak up. I for one cannot afford to lose my job, but I couldn't afford to lose my sanity either. The only difference is which one will nourish me the most. You told it like it is and I respect that, however, I don't do negative and perhaps, just a guess on my part, is maybe why your page was not a success. Some people have a harder time saying things that others and everybody is walking on eggshells these day, myself included. Some times an outspoken person will intimidate a more introverted type of individual. I can see that unions are non-existant in this field, but the times they are a changing and who is to say that if the right person comes along and presents the idea in a feasible way, that it won't happen? I think this is an employees market, although the big picture right now says otherwise, but need dictates change and I will keep the faith. BTW if you try wrapping yourself in a little bit of that faith, I think you will find it can be a very warm companion :)

I was an in-house MT and AFSCME member, they sm - acuteMLS

[ In Reply To ..]
very easily eliminated our jobs with 60 days' notice, outsourced all the transcription to Nuance and the.end.

A union doesn't protect you at all, in my case all the hospital had to do was give us notice this was going to happen.

In my experience ... - Chi-town MT

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... all unions were good for was taking your money to line their pockets.

That's the truth. The president, vice and all the shop stewards sm - acuteMLS

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managed to turn what was supposed to be a marginal part of their jobs (union business) into a full-time gig, never managing to get the work they were hired for done.

Kaiser MTs - Ben Tover

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I was a Kaiser MT in the early 1990s. I always considered my union dues payment for my health, dental and vision coverage. I will say this...I would give anything to have that job back now.

Facility vs Industry Union, sm - nothappy

[ In Reply To ..]
I worked for a small hospital that was taken over by a large hospital system. When Nuance took over all the hospitals in one sweep, some of the hospitals had unions and some did not. Those that had unions, the MTs kept their jobs and "bumped" others in the hospital according to seniority for clerical jobs. My hospital did not have a union and I was laid off. It all depends on what was negotiated in your contract, it's called a job security clause. Now consider this, we no longer work for a facility and we work in the industry. So if we had a union here in the U.S. for MTs who worked for the national MT companies, there is no where else to outsource other than overseas. So what do we have to lose if we unionized, nothing! Not every facility in the U.S. wants their work outsourced overseas. If the U.S. would expand HIPAA to state no medical work could be outsourced, we would be golden! My husband is in aerospace and has been in a union his whole life and he makes a six-figure income with spectacular benefits and has never been laid off. It's all what your union negotiates with the company. I will finish this message in another post due to length.

Unions, continued. sm. - nothappy

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Now we really have no way to know who would be interested in forming a union because we all do not know each other and cannot get a head count. A union will tell you it would be a significant undertaking because of that. MT companies do not give the names of their employees out, so the union would have no way of contacting us. We would essentially have to spread the word and collectively get together on our own somehow and spread the word to see how many MTs are interested and then go to the union and tell them how many MTs are interested before they would consider exploring the issue with us. It would be a significant undertaking and could only be done by spreading the word through social media. We would need an anonymous website with info and we would all need anonymous emails to collaborate. It would take some time, but I feel it would be worth the effort. For those that say unions just line their pockets and do no good for the worker consider this, could our industry get any worse? It worked for Norma Rae!

If Korea can hack into Sony, I'm sure it must - be possible to hack MTSO HR

[ In Reply To ..]
employee lists. The information exists; someone just has to figure out how to obtain it.

To Not Happy. sm - Unions

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Thanks for the great posts. My husband is also a long-time union member, as were other family members. It all depends on the strength of the union and the strengh of the contracts they negotiate. Another idea would be an anonymous Twitter account.

Your problem is not going to be solved by - a union.

[ In Reply To ..]
How is a union going to help with pay and working conditions when there are no jobs left in MT?

Your employer is the foremost developer of front-end SR technology, which involves no MTs at all. Nothing leaves the facility, nothing is offshored, nothing needs or gets "edited," and there are no MTs at all, ever, anywhere.

Your employer's goal is to sell that software to facilities, not to maintain an MT shop in the US or India. Your employer buys other MTSOs and gets outsourced contracts at facilities, but it is NOT to enlarge its pool of MTs, but to enlarge its pool of FRSR clients. The facilities are aware of this, too, and they WANT the FRSR.

Your employer is already selling and installing that software. The VA has a huge contract with them for it and whole slews of their medical centers use it already.

Clamoring for unionization and praying that things will turn in your favor is not helping you. Instead, you really do need to be looking for another job outside MT.

Claiming that editors will always be needed is deluded thinking. The SR that you see is not what the hospitals get and the crummy product you see is not the product the doctors see. What they get is much better and, honestly, they don't care about spelling and punctuation.

Please stop trying to hang in there. Find another job!!!

Documentation supporting this comment. - read and digest

[ In Reply To ..]
here is a link: http://www.nuance.com/products/physician-speech-recognition-solutions/index.htm

Read and really think about it. It won't happen overnight but this is why they truly don't care about us. I think the above comment is spot on.
They need us for a bit longer as some will be slow to implement this, but especially for younger MTs, this will happen in your work life. Move on! Going back to school within 5-10 years of retirement was not in my plan, but as we know, plans are always subject to change.

Absolutely agreed. sm - Ben Tover

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Pretend you are watching a science fiction movie about robots taking over a factory job. You're shocked, right? Then you think, "Wait, that's already happened. Well, I'm still ok." Guess what? We are the humans training the robots now.

Front End SR - rock bottom

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My doctor whom I see uses Dragon. He cleans it up himself or it does not get cleaned up. He is really not impressed. Another physician I saw quit using Dragon because he could not get it to work right no matter what they did. Everything said in the exam room is recorded (patient-physician visit).

The idea that hospitals and clinics will leave the providers to 'clean up' the text is laughable, but unfortunately dangerous because that document goes via electronic medical record all over the place.

Yes, there will be a time when the hospitals and clinics will trust the speech wreck and will trust that the providers will clean up the text until they get seriously sued, and the lawsuits will go round and round. We have seen the million dollar settlements that supposedly were caused by errors in transcription caused by some "MLS." I put that in quotes because transcribing what is dictated is not an error.

However, when one facility gets sued for trusting the electronic MR that came from another facility who got it from a clinic, the corporate culpability will be quite high, and fortunately, the law does not necessarily allow finger pointing to get out of the responsibility, they are all responsible.

At that point, the bean counters will realize what a serious mistake that was. Transcription will be back on board, albeit at a much more elevated level. There will be fewer MLS, but they will be highly very highly trained because cleaning up speech rec without the audio will be rough going.

For me, I'll be long retired.

CDI is only getting bigger with sm - nothappy

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pay-for-performance,DRGs,ACOs,etc. Clinical documentation improvement is of the utmost importance as these hospitals and physicians are not getting paid for fee-for-service any longer. They are getting paid based on adequate documentation, so front-end speech rec will never take over and quite frankly,speech rec will never be accurate. They told us a long time ago it would take over and it has only become speech wreck. M*Modal's system is so much better than Nuance's engine, but never near what it should be at this point in time in technology.

Sorry, not talking about the "speech wreck" - you experience.

[ In Reply To ..]
This is what we keep telling you that you are not hearing ... the SR that does the crud that you "edit" is terrible, but it is not the same SR or the same workflow process that goes into front-end SR. It isn't the same as one-doctor Dragon, either.

Denial isn't helping you.

Agreed. Ask the MTs who have/had a union and got booted - like the ones in PA and will be in WI. sm

[ In Reply To ..]
The ones out in PA got booted, excuse me, sold to Nuisance despite a union. It's happening to UW Madison and I believe UW Milwaukee Hospitals right now, and wasn't there another big hospital that I can't recall the name of right now. A union can do NOTHING for you if the hospital sells out to a DIS-service like Nuisance. It's all about the hospital saving money when they sell out to a service and they DO NOT CARE about the MTs.

Unions wont help with this because they know there's nothing they can do about it. Especially in Wisconsin where unions will soon be a thing of the past thanks to their moron governor.

The sooner you all realize a union can't/won't help you, the better off you'll all be. Sad to say, but it's nothing but the truth.

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