February 26th, 2010
Medical Transcription at Home – Interviews
Interviews with medical transcription experts, instructors and students talking about medical transcription jobs at home and medical transcription training. Listen to Med Workshops’ series of Medical Transcription interviews.
This is a highly informative interview of a very well known Medical Transcriptionist talking about her medical transcription job. How to be the most productive while working in Medical Transcription at home. Interview by Chris Mills of Med Workshops.
This interview is in MP3 format. You may download it to your computer. Listen by using MP3, Windows Media Player or Real Player.
Posted in Transcription Tips | No Comments »
November 16th, 2009
Some thoughts off the cuff…..I think one aspect of flexibility, though at first seemingly frustrating, can be turned around to be seen as a great challenge; almost fun. I know I may sound a bit naive, as I am “only” a student right now. I also do not mean to marginalize the issues of experienced MTs who have legitimate gripes in what can be a demanding job.
I am a strong believer in re-framing thoughts, feelings, etc., in our lives. It’s amazing how a different perspective can change everything. Instead of, “Why do all these accounts, doctors, etc., want everything done a different way; why so “nit-picky?”, say to yourself, “I can be the BEST at sorting all this out! I will make notes, reminders, and think up memory tricks, etc., until I have a way of transitioning between ALL the requirements, ALL the different dictators’ preferences as they want to “throw” at me!”
Student
Posted in Med Workshops Biz, Newbie Medical Transcriptionists, Study Tips, Transcription Tips | No Comments »
November 16th, 2009
Q: What do I do when I can’t understand at all what word a doctor is dictating?
A: When you are actually working you will have a log to note this on. When you cannot understand what is being said you will leave a blank such as this: The patient came in with a history of ___________ for two weeks.
Posted in Newbie Medical Transcriptionists, Transcription Tips | No Comments »
November 6th, 2009
Q: Having had lots of experience in writing, I become nervous when I review the preferred formats page on the Med Workshops site and in the first line, see this: “SUBJECTIVE: The patient is a 35-year-old female who complain of a cough for one week.”
Clearly, the word should be complains. Also, “one week” should be “1 week” per the MT Workbook. What should I do when dictation is grammatically incorrect?
A: Good catch. We change the samples often. The doctor may dictate “complain” instead of “complains”. We use real-life sample reports. You must transcribe verbatim. The “one week” is correct in this instance. I know I know! There can be 2 or more correct ways and this is the preferred way per the AAMT Book of Style—- that’s life in Medical Transcription. Amazingly, the old AAMT folks used to be the people who wrote the textbooks we use–surprise-surprise. We can’t change it. If you went through our program and didn’t experience these inconsistencies, we wouldn’t be introducing you to the real world; the work world. As the mother of Medical Transcription, Vera Pyle said, “there are often several acceptable ways to transcribe the same report”.
Please don’t get nervous. Being nervous is a distraction you really don’t need. Just learn to develop flexibility. Detail is obviously very important, but you’ll need flexibility too. You will need to learn this valuable lesson or you will get into squabbles
with your future employer. A tired and harried supervisor will not want to argue minor points with you. If you do it too much, your promotions and rate of pay will suffer. We see the work side of this everyday. We get feedback from our grads each week.
Perfection doesn’t exist in this business. The doctors set the tone for this. They demand things be done their way and it is often WRONG and the MTs get quite irritated. For instance- type verbatim. If the doctor says the patient is here on “April one in the year two thousand and nine” you have to type it that way. You don’t type it April 1, 2009 or any other variation. I know what you are thinking, but don’t worry, you will get used to this and adapt.
Posted in Editing and Proofreading, Grammar and Style, Newbie Medical Transcriptionists, Tips on Typing, Transcription Tips, Your Doc | No Comments »
November 6th, 2009
Q: When a date is dictated, “April one, two thousand nine,” I must type as dictated and not 04/01/2009 as I had thought. I saw the sample report in Med Workshops with that date format so it seems my assumption was wrong. When the dictator says the date numerically, “Four, one, two thousand nine,” that’s the only time I type it numerically as well (04/01/2009). Is my reasoning correct?
A: Your assumption is correct, you must type verbatim, including dates as dictated.
Posted in Abbreviations, Newbie Medical Transcriptionists, Transcription Tips | No Comments »
November 4th, 2009
Another comment from a recent student, now in Mentored Internship:
“I also appreciate the existence of such a high quality program that focuses on doing things right, professionalism and actually “pipelining” MTs into employment. It is refreshing, considering the many disappointing choices out there that are, unfortunately, still attracting many naive students, who so often cannot find work after graduation and are left hanging. I imagine (and hope) some of them find their way to the MedWorkshops make up class!!”
Posted in Employment Questions, Internship Questions | No Comments »
November 3rd, 2009
Q: What can a “newbie” MT expect to earn after graduation?
A: I don’t have a simple answer for questions on beginning income for post graduate students who are placed by Med Workshops. When you work from home in this field, you are not on an hourly or salary pay scale. I know you will earn at least 5 to 7 cents per line depending on the company and the difficulty of the transcription they would like you to do. I don’t know how fast you will be or how many hours you will work. For instance you might want to work 10 hours, but the company only has 8 hours of dictation- or maybe it will be vice versa.
Rule of thumb on this is- give yourself three months or so to earn and learn after graduation. If possible, keep your other job if you have one. This is a tough field to learn. However, once you gain some experience you will begin to enter what the MT calls “the zone”. You’ll be able to do your MT typing without struggling at it or maybe it’s that you won’t have to think as hard. Because of auto correct, macros and your growing skills, you will begin to fly through your transcription. This is a new language and also, a hand, foot, eye and ear bit of coordination. The people who are really good, belong in another league and earn very good money. They can also find work almost anywhere in the U.S. quickly.
Posted in Newbie Medical Transcriptionists, Typing Production | No Comments »
October 30th, 2009
What is internship really like? Here’s what a newly graduated student/intern had to say:
“It feels good to be wrapping everything up and moving on to actual transcription!!
I just finished my internship last Friday so I will actually get paid for all the work I did this week. Yea! I am enjoying learning tons of new information but I would definitely never say that this process is easy. Xxxxxxxx Company most definitely expects you to figure out a lot of things for yourself. Unfortunately the only way to do so is trial and error, but I suppose they expect the new people to make mistakes. I was transferred to a new crew this week, which will be my permanent crew. The proofer, Pat, has been great!! She is very helpful and answers all my questions in good detail. I can tell that I will learn a lot from her. I am up to doing about 60-70 minutes of dictation a day which takes me 4-5 hours and keeps me very busy since I still have a full time job as well. I still struggle with some doctors that don’t speak clearly or who use a lot of unfamiliar terminology. When I get assigned those doctors I only do about 30 minutes of dictation. I’m starting to feel more comfortable with my work and am looking forward to improving my speed and being able to transcribe many doctors. I will keep you up to date on my progress!”
Posted in Internship Questions, Typing Production | No Comments »
October 27th, 2009
Q: What do some of the corrections mean on my typing test?
A: In a short summary, when the punctuations are hi-lighted such as commas, that means they added unnecessary punctuation. If it says something like this: 7×4(-)mm that means what is inside the parentheses is something that should have been there but was not.
I know a lot of this seems very nitpicky and minor but just little changes and omissions can alter the whole meaning of a sentence.
Posted in Editing and Proofreading, Testing and Scores | No Comments »
October 27th, 2009
Band-Aid or band aid? Band-Aid is a trademark name and needs to be capitalized.
Posted in Editing and Proofreading, Transcription Tips | No Comments »