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

Letter to Washington Post - Lee

Posted: Feb 27, 2011

Since all our complaints seem to fall on deaf ears and our jobs are ultimately at stake, by way of another example, 200 MTs at University of Utah Hospital just their jobs to a company that outsources. Maybe if every MT in the country would write at least one newspaper something could be done to stop the outsourcing. Can't we rattle a few cages? Here is what I sent to the Washington Post:

To the Editor:

I am a medical transcriptionist. I work from home. I am wondering why the Federal Government, which seems to want to "create jobs" is allowing hospitals to hire companies that outsource their medical transcription services to foreign countries. Since hospitals receive Federal money in the manner of Medicare and other monies added to the kitties by way of insurance agreements, would it really be legal to allow those sensitive reports to leave the country and deny American Transcriptionists their livelihoods? It looks as if my taxes are funding the outsourcing of my job.

How did you sent it? e-mail? snail mail? nm - ndmt

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To How - LEE

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Most newspapers have an on-line site. Just click on "contact us" or letters to editor section and type away. They will acknowledge receipt of your letter.

Sounds great! {sm} - digiti minimi

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Good for you!! I assume you looked at the comments for that story. One poster said the University needs the money saved for charity cases. That poster doesn't realize those ex-employees will be the next charity cases. I lost my job due to offshoring and am glad to know they offer that. I will call them the next time I get sick and see if they treat me for free as I have no insurance now.

Is there a link to this article? - interesting.

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Good letter to the editor. I wish I could write a letter about the hospital I recently left. They have built buildings that are supposed to house physician offices "in the future" and have a "medical mall" that is mostly empty and just this last year built another "medical center" that will house an additional outpatient surgery center, doctors, and I think some inpatient services that was built "for the future" but are having hospital wide cut backs and lay-offs (including me)! They give lavish dinners and programs, parties, and every year give the Department Directors big bonuses if they have met their goals but have cut out employee Christmas gifts, gave a gift certificate for a meal in the cafeteria for birthday, and have drastically reduced the celebrations for hospital week. They jerk the employees around and treat them badly while saying "we have to cut costs". You don't see managers/directors taking any kind of cuts like losing bonuses, reductions in hours or benefits, etc. They also reduced the annual merit raise to 2% or less, while the deductions for benefits went up.

Why can't you write - sm

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Why can't you write a letter? Just type in the name of the newspaper you want to send it to in the search engine, go to the website and find the spot to click on to write comments or write to the editor, etc. Pretty easy to do.

Sounds exactly like my recent experience. nm - digiti minimi

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ABC4.com is the website nm - digiti minimi

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that sounds exactly like a - large medical clinic in

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Palo Alto, CA

Strange about U. of Utah - up to now they've - been running job ads for MTs. (nm)

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nm

In'stries much larger than MT offshore. Do you really think g'ment will - stop offshoring of MT before it stops SM

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offshoring for the auto industry, banking industry, or any other industry for that matter? Get real, this is our reality and better learn how to make it work for you.

How? - do you make it work for you?

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Just curious. How can we possibility make this work for us? I think fighting this on all levels is worthwhile. I don't want our country to have offshored banking, autos, MTs. What is wrong with at least TRYing to keep the jobs here? Maybe the Chamber of Commerce thinks it is good but I do not believe President Obama does, so what about more visibility of these robber barons doing the same thing the Wall Street barons did, i.e. taking the govt money and running (in this case with our jobs to other countries). How can we possibility accept that and make it work for us?

You search til you find that MT job where the $ you make is worth - amount of effort you put in. Also, SM

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find all the twists and tweaks to get faster/better. Learn VR and learn which VR platform clicks with you, allowing you to earn decent money. This is probably no longer the industry that can support a family, but it certainly is an industry that can contribute to the support of a family. And that is ok. Jobs like that are needed. If it doesnt work for some, they can stay and complain, or they can do what they need to do, whatever that may be. When I read posts about how it need to go back to how it was, I think of telephone switchboard operators of old. In same place we are now but they didnt have message boards to go to.

I just cant see anyone coming to OUR rescue when there are so many in our position,but bigger industries, bigger financial concerns, more people in a specific group.

I agree with everything you say - and still

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Even though I do very well (comparing to what I hear others say here) I still am faced with huge insurance costs, huge deductible, out of pockets. I don't want to go back to the way it was, I like VR, but there are other forces here squeezing us as workers. Telephone switchboard operators were not faced with competition from other countries stealing their jobs, just technology. I do not fight technology because history proves this is futile, but the ABILITY for companies to offshore the MT jobs while taking govt money is something that should be fought - if there are still MT jobs left, we should fight for them.

Technology is what allows our jobs to be offshored. Really not so different - from operators. And other, larger companies with

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more people get g'ment monies in tax breaks, grants, loans, etc. Why wowuld g'ment restore MT to bygone days when it hasnt done it for auto industry, port patrol, which is now offshored in that offshre companies come here and patrol our ports, even nursing, which offshores in the aspect of bringing nurses from offshore b/c they will work cheaper. Why in the world will our little MT industry, a fraction of the size of other industries that have jobs disappearing OS, be "saved" by the g'ment. Take off the rose colored glasses, MT IS NOT GOING BACK.

been searching four years. just how long does it - take to find a co. that pays decently?

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To me decent means the $ I get is adequate for the amt of - work I put in. Dont care cpl, SM

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I want to know $ per hour. I agree, might take LONG time to find what you are looking for. OR your might be looking at MT thru rose-colored glasses, wishing for MT to return to days of yore, which, IMO, aint gonna happen. OR this may not be/no longer be a job that is a good fit for you. I dont think MT is capable of being a 1 bread-winner, support the family type job. I also dont think you can expect a perfect MT job to pop up. You need to figure out all the ways to maximize you earning power as MT.

are you serious? - I watched Obama on townhall meeting

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I watched the townhall meeting that Obama did online about offshoring of our jobs, and directly address medical transcription jobs, and he said that "these jobs are menial jobs, not worth saving, and that we need to go back to school and learn how to build wind turbines."

Obama does not care about our jobs, and no one in government is going to do anything about this either! This is our NEW GLOBAL WORLD! You want a chance at a good job, move to India.

Agree - MT

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I saw Obama on TV at a town meeting and he does not care about offshored jobs.

Can you provide a link to this? - I find it hard to believe

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Call center jobs, maybe, and I kind of agree with him there, but if he said that about MT jobs I will write to him and put him straight. I am no way going to ever be able to build a wind turbine, that's for sure, and I truly believe we are skilled professionals and I would like to express that to him. A link, please, to this blasphemy.

I do not have a link anymore - watched obama

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It was over a year ago, but there were MULTIPLE posts on this board at that time regarding it! It was not just me that saw it.

He said MT jobs were LOW SKILLED, LOW PAID jobs and that we did not need them. He said we needed to go back to school to learn how to build wind turbines.

Maybe if you search townhall meeting?? I dont know. All I know was that I saw it online and I was besides myself!

Low paid... HUMPH! I used to make 40,000 part time!

Okay, I have searched the archives and even - Googled this

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And I really can find nothing but him on Google saying he is against outsourcing to India, on this board (regrettably) the main discussions seem to be whether he was born here and whether he is a Muslim. Are you sure he mentioned MT specifically? I will keep looking for a link to that.

MT menial work... funny... - Disgusted

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I guess accurately recording a document that has to do with someone's life and well-being must not mean much. I guess everything people said about him was right and that he discriminates against the sick and elderly.

town hall meeting - MT

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I think it may have been a townhall meeting in the Cleveland area about a year or two ago.

Here is the closest quote I could find - and no MT mentioned

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"When can we expect jobs that have been outsourced to other countries to come back and be made available to the unemployed here in the US?" was a question posed to him.

"Not all of these jobs are going to come back... What we've got to do is create new jobs that can't be outsourced," Obama answered.

If you can find a specific reference to MT work I would appreciate this. I don't think what he has said above can be denied, really, in any field, but if he has called MT work unskilled and menial I would like proof of that and not just "someone said it" and "everyone agreed."

town meeting - MT

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From what I vaguely remember, I don't think he mentioned MT work at all, but I do remember that he said something like it is alright for certain jobs to go offshore and that we in the US have to get involved in new technologies such as wind turbines, etc.

Thanks. I don't see this as an indictment of - our profession as some do

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By President Obama. I rarely find anyone who would diss our work as menial if they know what it involves. It is most certainly NOT menial. I also think most people have issues with the HIPAA stuff going overseas. I do think when taxpayer funds are involved and the work goes offshore, there is nothing the hospital admin who "cut costs" would like more than if we MTs just "get over it" because they know this direct use of federal funds to offshore work like ours is not what they want us bringing to the attention of the public.

have no clue where to look for this - watched obama

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I just know that a lot of people posted questions, specific to MT jobs being offshored. I, in fact, posted a question about this also.

He did answer an MT posted question. I cannot recall verbatim what the question was anymore becuase it was before he was elected. He, in fact, did say to the MT question that these were "low-skilled, low-paid" jobs.

I wish I kept the townhall meeting somehow.

Thinking you are one who makes up "evidence" to bolster your - position. nm

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I made Obama do a townhall meeting on the internet??? - what powers I have

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If I could do that, I would have darn sure made certain that he was not elected president!

Evidence post was for poster who saw Prez talk about MT. - Nobody else can find that discussion. nm

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yeah, that was me - watched it with my own 2 eyes

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I did watch it, I am not crazy, I am not making it up for some strange reason.

I do not have a date... there were multiple postings on this very board when it was taking place. I do not control what posts are left in archives.

I know there had to be others that still post here that saw it and can confirm what I am saying.

I honestly do not care if you believe what I am saying or not... It did happen. He said our jobs were low-skilled and low-paid.

I agree. Whining, complaining, threatening to strike or picket... - will do no good. sm

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The majority of the MTs that post on this board feel that if they make enough noise that somehow the industry is going to turn on its ear and revert to the way things were 10 or 20 years ago. Not gonna happen. Voice rec/editing is here to stay. Offshoring is here to stay. Lower wages are here to stay (when compared to years past.)

If you want to rattle cages... - ME

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If you want to rattle cages... the Washington Post, or any media for that matter, is not the best choice. This is not to say 'don't write them' only that its just ONE action you can and should take. After all the washington post does not write the law -

Keep in mind that our whole economic system is based on CAPITALISM - and as such profit will always be the guiding mandate for all corporations. Now some are clearly more 'fair' than others, but AS LONG AS WE EMBRACE the capitalism model, we will ALWAYS be at the mercy of the corporate mentality to return as high a profit for themselves and shareholders as possible.

This DOES NOT mean I support socialism or for communism, etc. It DOES mean that we have to see things as they are: The capitalism model is intended to have the worker bees support the rich and powerful.

Where is it written that we can't have FREE ENTERPRISE without pushing the bulk of the citizenry into near-slavery?

One last thing: Please realize the MEDIA is made up of huge for profit corporations - so does anyone here really think they are on the 'little' guy's side?

ME - Lee

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Well put. I did write several papers, my U. S. Senator, and Whistleblowers. Mute on all fronts. You are so right. I just don't want to go down without a fight.

Outsourcing - medgal

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AMEN, SISTER! I do NOT get how the companies doing VA accounts can outsource to another country either! THAT is a breach of Homeland Security if I ever saw one!

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