my mt story

Remember the good old days when you saw a patient then dictated a quick SOAP note?  You trusted in skilled transcriptionists and coders to document the care and ensure that you and your institution received maximum reimbursement.

But using professionals cut into profits and, man, those EMR salespeople were slick talkers, so ignorant pencil-pushers decided shoving all the data in the EMR  and requiring health care professionals to do hours of clerical work was best.

I started transcribing at 7 cents/65-character line in 1988 with the Syllabus for the Surgeon's Secretary and Webster's Medical Speller  as my references.

My paradigm shafted in 1990 when I signed on with digital dictation inc and discovered Nirvana.  A steady stream of challenging work with no distracting coworkers or supervisors.  One logged on, downloaded an audio file, then transcribed it using text expanders and a library of saved normals to improve efficiency.  We verified the spelling of every eponymously named orthopedic dohickey and AIDS drug.