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MLS are guessing rather than leaving blanks.. - oh my goodness

Posted: Jul 10, 2013

Just was notified by my TSM that an account isn't happy. They feel the MLS are guessing and they have found errors to prove it. Someone needs to let these clients know how Nuance is enticing some MLS to guess. They would surely reconsider outsourcing their work and maybe this is the start of hospitals hiring their own MLS again. Wouldn't that be wonderful?!

guessing - xx

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I have often thought about sending a letter to the client anonymously to let them know just how badly the people who are entrusted to transcribe their reports are compensated and the very high standards we are expected to keep and the fear of not enough line count or too many blanks. Hmmmm, maybe I will do just that.

Do It!! I would love to see some of these companies taken down - a few notches on the totem pole. sm

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It could start a whole new ball rolling, just think of it, some of these companies might actually be held responsible for their own mess. Wouldn't that be great!!!

I'd do it myself, if I worked for one of the 2 worst who were pushing out the crap work.

What a great idea! - Oh my goodness

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I've actually thought of that too! Keep guessing everybody! LOL

Nuance leaves few options for the MT - Annie for short

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If you guess, which you should never do IMHO, or even just make a subjective change you will get killed in post audit = no bonus.

If you leave blanks and send to QC you end up sending more than 10% to QC = no bonus.

And now they are going to offer bonus to QC for catching (or creating) more errors = no bonus for MT.

It is a lose/lose situation at Nuance.

Personally, I know I am not getting the bonus ever so I average 15-20% to QC weekly. I am on a horrible account that has a bunch of mandatory QC review dictators and I never guess even if it is the difference between the words "of" and "an" or similar. It just isn't worth a 1.0 error deduction. I can only assume that type of "error" is about to become much more common with QC's new bonus structure.

I would rather they just get rid of the bonus entirely and treat the MT with a modicum of respect.

TOTALLY agree!....sm - LoveMT

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You just took the words right out of my mouth. I got slammed by QA for correcting an obvious grammar error, and I was dinged for that. However, I also got dinged on the VERY same account for NOT correcting a grammar error because the account is "modified verbatim" and we are supposed to correct incorrect grammar or any other glaring errors as long as it doesn't change the meaning of the sentence.

The latter IS actually exactly what we are supposed to do, which I normally do all of the time. BUT, when I got dinged for doing it, I QUIT doing it and got dinged AGAIN for it.

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I also got dinged for changing the patient's age to the CORRECT age after it was dictated wrong (only off by 1 year), and again we were always instructed on this account that we should double check the patient demographics for correct information. I tried to get the thing reversed since I did exactly as I was supposed to have done by correcting the patient's age, but it was refused. I just don't understand how they expect us to do something 99% correct when there is no consistency in our "instructions" per each account we work.

I'm to that point where I just want give up because it's just not worth the anxiety and frustration that it causes to have to do this job, and I have always loved doing medical transcription whether it be the editing part or the straight transcription part... I just hate what the sharks in this industry have done to destroy our pay and try to chip away at our self-esteem at the same time.

It would be wonderful - qwerky

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Unfortunately, the only thing that'll happen is MLS will get fired and companies like Nuance just hire new people to replace them. Even if the hospitals were aware of how the MLS were treated, they wouldn't care. They would hire chipmunks to transcribe if they could do it without errors.

Seems like you want to discourage anyone from even trying - to do anything that might help? sm

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Would you rather see things stay the way they are, as horrible conditions for all MTs?

If someone's got the guts to try something, I say go for it. Each person would need to weigh their own risks and consequences for their own actions.

But if no one ever tries to do anything, how would things ever get changed?

Sure, everyone has to weigh the costs for themselves but, I am more --sm - anon

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interested in seeing something take a risk if it is meaningful and has a real possibility of changing things.

If the MT sends this letter, she/he runs the risks of getting fired. It may get the attention of the hospital but then the hospital will likely switch to a different large national. Even the other nationals that do not offshore ran out of work consistently.

Hospitals go with MTSOs for one reason and that is to save money. If they truly cared about the people working for them, they would have kept their in-house departments. I think if most of us honestly evaluated the situation, the bad-guys would not only be companies like Nuance and M-Modal but the hospitals too who willingly took the bait in order to save some $$$. They are just as complicit in bringing transcription to the state it is in now as the MTSO's are.

The trouble with boiling frogs - Anon

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What they would really like is for us to do the job for free, but they have not yet figured out how to get us to show up for work every day. Instead, they just whittle away at our stash of peanuts a little bit at a time by saying, do this for free, do that for free and jocking with how they count the lines.

It's the same concept as boiling a frog. If you drop it in boiling water it dies right away, but if you put it in cold water you can turn up the heat slowly and the frog will adapt. So have we as MTs adapted to those pay cuts. Right now we are trying to swim in a pot of 200-degree water and fussing about it. What these companies will learn soon enough is that they can hire, fire, replace us, but eventually they will find they have exhausted their frog supply so that there is no one left to hire.

I relish the day, which appears at hand as I see the desperation for companies like Nuance and M-Modal to hire new people. When these companies ask you to refer someone and you would not refer your worst enemy for employment with the company it is a sign they are on the brink of dire straits as far as new hires.

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