Anyone else doing medical transcription at home?

[olddoglover]

Not much work and low pay but not much choice if you can't go out to work unfortunately.

@olddoglover it's dire. don't know where all the work is going.

It's terrible isn't it and we are just being left with the work no one else wants to touch.

I emailed the so called help team with a question yesterday I'm still awaiting a response, why do they always try and fix something that wasn't broke to begin with, definitely a step backwards.

I don't understand why people complain about the caps problem amongst other things. Would you prefer AI to get amazing and then none of us have any work.

@juju1507 I'd like to know where all the work has disappeared to. Clinics that I regularly used to type I don't see any more. The doctors must be working, at least a couple! No messages or updates, and as you say, the new contact system is very hit and miss, not that the old one was brilliant....

@Gally123 I agree so many clinics have disappeared in the last few months. I remember when we had good interaction with our TLs and we were informed of upcoming changes. Sign of the times I suppose sadly.

Hello, I hope it's okay to jump on to your thread with a question? I'm not a medical secretary so wouldn't have the skills for this work, but I am a very experienced editor/proofreader, with a medical background (clinical back in the day, academic journals nowadays). I noticed both on the thread and on some of the transcription companies' sites there's mention of proofreaders or checkers, but no route to applying for that kind of work that I can find so far. Do any of you have any info you could share about how I might approach this? For various reasons (happy to bore you with the details if necessary) I'm fairly desperate for a bit more home-based work at the moment and could really use a bit of help, if anyone has a contact or a link or a story about how they went about it. Sorry if this is really cheeky - I realise you've got your own conversation going on.

@BarbaricYawp As I think mentioned previously on this thread, or a similar one, you would need experience as a medical secretary, depending on which company you applied to - DICT8, Acuro etc 5 years or so, plus a reference from your consultant, and you may need to sit a typing/checking test. The details would all be on the company's website.

Even for proofreading?

@BarbaricYawp they don't call it proofreading, it VR transcription but the same thing really.

Ah, OK, thanks, I was seeing them as two different skillsets. I've got 30 years as a proofreader and figured someone with that amount of experience also being an experienced medical secretary was probably mutually exclusive.

I guess I'll drop a few emails and see if anything lands but it sounds as though it probably won't. The way you all describe your work, picking jobs up off a platform and working from home, is very similar to how I might work with a typesetting or production company, and it's exactly what I need more of right now.

Thanks.

I agree with Marlo 52

Paid already today :-)

Yep me too!

@BarbaricYawp re: proofreading medical documents
I concur with the other ladies, that most companies require a medical secretary qualification. Proof reading is not the same as editing the VR, but is the second stage after a letter is typed up. So a transcriptionist and a proof reader are two separate roles but both require a thorough knowledge of medical terminology, medical secretary qualification, and obviously an O-Level pass in English grammar etc. Hope that helps!

Thanks @Wandalust69 that's helpful. I think I assumed they were two separate processes by, say, different departments.

any thoughts about Slack?

@Marlo52 Slack seems a good way to keep in touch except I keep forgetting to sign out. I also seem to have turned off notifications for messages somehow so just notice them when I sign in or out.

@Marlo52 I've checked - it is "strongly suggestive" that we join/use it - it is not compulsory. I don't like the idea that every man and his dog knows my personal email address. I have other queries as well. It seems unnecessary, so I am not signing up to it at the moment, which has been accepted as no problem.

@Gally123 - I agree with the email addresses, everyone can see everyone, can't see the point in having a separate app to join just to send a message because surely the old style was just as easy as you could see the answer to your message sent straight back while being active on the main system but now you have to log in to this other. It all seems a bit unnecessary to me to have such an intricate system of communicating

I couldn't understand why they were doing it but didn't think I had an option. I thought the other version was better, have to keep remembering to have this app on as well now.

There is also very little work currently, not sure what is going on, was told there is same volume of work just more workers logging on. Don't believe it though.

@Marlo - I didn't think I had a choice either and I agree with the work flow, none existent in some hospitals for me and I also think they have breached the confidentiality act sharing our emails as I didn't realise I would be seeing others on there, I thought it was just going to be between myself and the company like before and if you notice their emails are all works email, ours are personal ones

I didn't even realise you could see our email's. I have not really seen any emails apart from the Tpro staff but just see the names only of other people so not sure if I am looking at it wrong. Haven't even gave it much time to look into it anyway. I must check it out later.

Slack should be the name of the work nevermind the app lol.

@Marlo52 - yes just click on any member and view profile and it gives it you - not good really, I only found this out when I was rummaging around the app to make sense of it all, still no idea what good this is going to be for the self employed

Oh yes, I see what you mean, I don't like that either.