Yes, I have better things to do with my time besides complain...but the board seems a little slow and I feel like "venting". I'm sure a lot of you can identify with some of these!! Read on...

1. Doctors who don't know where the "pause" button is on the touchpad: Sometimes I do dictation where I spend more time listening to a doctor rustle through a chart or discuss his/her weekend plans with the nursing staff than transcribing...whilst I contemplate what I will be doing this weekend...working.

2. The "spellers": You know, the ones who spell everything I already know how to spell and then slur over something I have never heard of, like a surgical instrument, a disease, bacteria, etc. Oh and don't forget the ones who spell something that you thought was spelled a different way, go through the trouble of looking it up... only to find the doctor has misspelled it!

3. Doctors with beepers: Why do they always hold it up to the microphone/receiver before shutting it off? Do they want me to know they have a page? Do I care? No!! But then maybe they are trying to drum up business for their ENT buddies when I have to get my perforated ear drum fixed!

4. Residents, P.A.s, R.N.s who dictate for the "real" doctor, a.k.a. "the readers": Why do they have to give me a day-by-day of EVERYTHING??? I would say including whenever the patient goes to the bathroom, but I guess that is a pertinent thing to dictate... hmmm

Well, that's it for now... I know there are more and maybe you have some too?

Jeany:

You may have opened a can of worms here.

On spelling: Ditto on everything you said. Happens to us frequently. One client still spells some very basic terms and medications. We've only been doing his work for - 10 YEARS. His work has been going out 100% error free for almost the same amount of time. I cannot even remember the last time we had a report returned for an error. Go figure.

We have one client who likes to dictate after midnight. The only problem is, she's almost falling asleep the whole time she is dictating. She talks while yawning - her voice is barely audible - she makes all kinds of mistakes - good luck figuring out what she's saying. She never edits. She dictates then tells you to correct it right after you've transcribed it. - Arghhh!

How about this one. One specialist we've had as a client for two years always waits about four weeks to pay us. His last bill had a late charge of $5.46 on it. He calls me today saying he thought it was unfair and would I reverse the charge. We had a short discussion about payment terms - again - and I reluctantly agreed. By the way, he is currently enjoying a huge discount over other clients. The bill he was disputing had a $200.00 discount on it. Also, two days before he called, we gave him 10 new Philips' dictation tapes, which would be worth about $80.00 - for no charge, since he would not buy new ones himself and the ones he was using were just cr*p. I thought he was phoning to thank us for the free tapes - no luck - just wanted his $5.46 credit. He bills about $500,000.00 a year.

I think this is going to be a good thread.

SOMara

SOMara,

Loved your stories! However, I think I would have lost my patience with "Dr. Moneybags Squeaky Wheel" a long time ago!!

After posting last night, I went back to work and remembered my REAL #1 PET PEEVE: Doctors that want their dictation typed "ver batim". Don't they realize that the one joy I get from transcribing is turning their fragmented, often grammatically incorrect ramblings into full sentences that actually make sense? My skin actually crawls when I have to type something like this, knowing someone is going to read it and wonder, "where did she go to school?" I feel like attaching a disclaimer to every one I type like that.

Can you take one more? ...well here it is anyhow... No fault of the doctor, I don't think, but when there is a constant beeping sound in the background (heart monitor, patient call button, etc.). It's torture!! The doc might as well be standing over me dripping oil on my head!!!

Hope you're right about being a good thread. I love stories [img]http://www.medword.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

Hi Jeany and SOMara,

I just loved reading your stories. (I'm not an MT yet - still in school).

However, your topic does bring up a concern of mine that I haven't seen discussed yet.
I've heard a lot about mumbling, slurring, bad tapes, etc., and it makes me wonder - what is an MT's liability when honest mistakes are made? I understand the finished document is a medical/LEGAL document, and with all the problems with dictation, mistakes I'm sure do get made - sometimes with possibly grave results. My question is: if the MT does make a mistake caused by the dictator, what is the liability here? Have there been any cases?

Thanks for all your help - past, present and future.

Kathy

Kathy,

SOMara may be better able to answer this question, but the one thing that is always stressed is not to guess. The agency I work for has what they call "deficiency notes" where all blanks are documented and while they only require the line number of the blank (for time sake), I usually try to put a S/L or the reason (word cut off, background noise, bad technical quality). Sometimes it's hard to tell if they say the patient "does" or "does not" have a specific condition and in this case I always leave it blank because that could have a legal impact as well as an impact on future medical treatment for the patient.

I personally have never known of a transcriptionist or a doctor being held liable for something incorrectly dictated or transcribed, but I suppose it's possible and maybe someone else would know. I do know, however, when I worked in a hospital, if there was a case that was potentially going to court or was going to court for sure, the Medical Records Department, doctor, etc. would go over the chart with a fine tooth comb, especially type-written/transcribed reports. On a few occasions, I have had to ammend reports but all of this is documented on either the ammended report or the original is also made part of the record...to the best of my knowledge.

Also, the doctor is supposed to read and sign his transcribed reports and has the option of correcting any errors. So I assume he would be responsible for the final document.

Hope that helps you out. You are right, there are a lot of horror stories associated with conditions beyond our control and it can be quite frustrating. Just keep in mind that they are just that...out of our control, so don't be discouraged when you encounter them.

Jeany

Kathy:

Everything Jeany stated is accurate as far as I know in most countries based on British Common Law and in the United States. Also, Jeany is correct in stating the physician is ultimately responsible. They are supposed to catch our errors whether they sign the report or send it out marked "Dictated but not read."

That said of course, MTs do have a very serious professional, moral, and ethical responsibility to transcribe the dictation as accurately as possible. Experienced MTs also often point out errors physicians make in drugs, drug doses, dates, etc.

Since even a report on a regular patient visit comprises part of the patient's medical record and therefore possibly one day part of a court record, (patient may be in an MVA, or sue someone for medical reasons, etc.) we are unwavering in our company policy of 100 percent accuracy in all reports - with no guessing of words. "If you can't hear it - you can't transcribe it" is what we believe.

SOMara

Another story:

One of our clients "does not believe in hyphens." Believe it or not, this physician told us directly not to hyphenate any words. No amount of explaining the rules of grammar and basic word/sentence construction convinced him that his request was ludicrous. He decided he could ignore the rules. We still do his work but don't put our name anywhere on the reports.

SOMara

A light went off in my head when I read your post about the non-hyphen doctor. I cannot remove my "MT number" from reports because they are automatically electronically entered, but from now on, when I do a "ver batim" doctor, I will leave a deficiency note stating that the report was "typed ver batim". If the office wants to rip it up, that's up to them, but as you stated, we have a responsibility to be professional. It's too bad some doctors don't have confidence in MTs to let us do our job.

Your statement about being professional, ethical, etc., also made me think about something I had not thought about in ages... I used to work with a girl who was a "skipper". She would pick and choose tapes and at times, even hide tapes that had difficult doctors on them. One time, she listened to the beginning of a report that was from about 2 years previously. She erased it stating, "She has no business dictating something that old"!!! Can you believe it? Anyhow, not five minutes later the Medical Records Dept. called and requested the very report she had just erased!!! You should have seen her face. I would like to say she learned her lesson, but she didn't. After she left, we found a stockpile of tapes that she had hidden so she wouldn't have to do them. How's that for ethics??

I am really enjoying this thread on "pet peaves"! I am so glad I found this mb...I
have just set up my office to begin doing
medical transcription in the next few days.
I am excited and nervous but you folks have
given me comfort in the thought that there will be a place where "I" can VENT, too!
Thanks for being here!
Teresa

To Jeany and SoMara - thank you both so much for your very informative replies. I first realized that medical documents can become legal documents when I read a book on becoming a medical transcriptionist by George Morton. It had never occurred to me before and this litigious (sp) society we live in can be scarey. This concerned me because of the huge responsibility we bear, but your answers relieved my concerns a lot. I used to do office dictation as a secretary and I would get the impression that the dictator could care less about getting the information across correctly. Nevertheless, I LOVE transcribing and can't wait to get started in this field! Thank you again for your replies.

A question for SoMara - when I first started posting questions on this BB a few months ago, I would get an e-mail notifying me that a reply to my question had been posted. Has the e-mail notification been discontinued?

Thanks for all your hard work and correspondence. I love this site.

Kathy