I've been quite stressed out about my work situation since they started going to speech recognition and took away unrestricted overtime. Needless to say my income keeps dropping with each new development. I've always worked on Monday which is my day off, because there is always lots of work and it is the only way I can produce enough work during the week to keep my income up. Saturday is my workday, but there is generally no work, and so I have been taking paid time off every Saturday for half day or a whole day so that I can still work on Monday and not go into overtime and chance getting in trouble. Working on Saturdays is agonizing when there is no work, and I have so many other errands I could be taking care of instead.
I decided to be brave and ask my supervisor if it would be possible to change my schedule so that I permanently work a half day on Monday and a half day on Saturday. That way, the Monday work won't pile up and be late, and if there is work on Saturday, I am still there to cover it. It made total sense to me, but I was positive I would be told such a thing isn't allowed.
I was quite surprised when the response I got was in favor of me trying it out for a few weeks and if all goes well we can make it permanent. I have no qualms about it going well, since I've virtually been working this schedule on the sly with no detriment to the work on the weekends.
She even agreed that it was a win-win situation for us both.
If I worked away from home, having to go to work 6 days a week would be a drag, but since I just have to walk in the den, putting 4 hours in during the entire day, is like not working at all. It will also be a bonus not to have to use PTO on Saturdays anymore, or at least only take 4 hours if I need the whole day off.
It is refreshing to actually have something positive happening with my job. I love what I do, its just the industry as a whole is heading in a new direction (sending work to India and going to speech recognition) and its been a little scary wondering what the future is going to bring.
7 comments:
I've been wondering how you were doing with work. It sounds like the industry will all go to computers (via speech recognition) eventually, just because it is more efficient and cost effective.
It will definitely be interesting to see how and what we cut to fix the health care problems we face.
I am totally surprised at the out sourcing. That really makes no kind of sense to me, but I do understand why they would go to voice recognition. Though it sucks for the 1000's of transcriptionist all over the country.
Have you considered doing something like the medical billing and coding? I noticed that careerstep is doing that now.
The outsourcing is ridiculous. Our company has always outsourced and the quality of the work I have seen is substandard at best. We had 500 India MTs when I started and when Spheris bought us out they expanded to thousands of MTs, giving them the best accounts.
Speech rec isn't bad, it just pays less per line. At least our company is still having us edit those reports, while some hospitals using Speech rec require the doctors to edit their own reports. Speech rec is definitely not the way to go if you don't have someone editing the work. It is amazing what the speech recognition engine "hears" versus what is said at times.
From what I understand, billing and coding is also becoming more automated somehow without a person doing it, and is moving away from home-based business, back to the hospital. I haven't heard anything promising of late in that field either.
....and furthermore, Doctors in the United States should insist that their work stay in the United States. I don't understand these hospitals that think they are going to get quality work out of people who don't even speak English. Some hospitals refuse to let their work be outsourced but what we need is all hospitals to be aware and not allow their work to go there. There are also transcription companies that refuse to outsource. If I ever decide to switch jobs I will not work for another one that does.
They actually gave us a lecture on billing and coding to stress the importance of it as far as the legal concerns go and recomended purchasing the software for it instead of hiring it out. And this is only a couple months in to on our 4 year education. So I am sure this is the first of many lectures to come.
I think they are also promoting physicians editing their own transcripts in hopes of cutting down on medical errors that result from transcription error because at the end of the day the physician is responsible for the patient and the one that will take the heat for an error. I just can't imagine hiring it out unless you worked for a hospital or clinic that covered you under their liability inurance. It is an awful reality that we outsource jobs to other countries, but the medical industry is no exception here. I wonder if an american company exists that doesn't outsource work, or parts or whatever.
It is just a gigantic mess, how it will get sorted out remains to be seen. I think we all have our ideas and opinions as to how it should go and what should be done but I don't think there is any one solution that will make everyone happy.
It sounds like a lot of stress. I hope that your boss continues to let you work the schedule that you want, and I hope that you continue to have work!
I am happy its still working for you. I never did sign up for the program I just went back to giving massages. And it looks like I won't have work too much longer with Kane's business! Hopefully I can stop working full time in a year! Well full time for a Massage Therapist is typically only 25-30 hrs/week. But at least we won't have to rely on my income!
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