Quality Assurance – it sounds so important and it is. Mistakes in a medical report can adversely affect patient care. I have to wonder, though, how adversely affected was the patient when I forgot my comma before the conjunction but? How adversely affected was the patient when I spelled out two instead of using the numeral 2? And what about the compound modifier where I forgot my hyphen? Gosh, I sure hope that patient survived his hospital stay!
I have nothing against the medical editor. Heck, I've been one. Still am one, if you want to get technical. I consider medical editing a vital part of the transcriptionist's job. We all make mistakes and as such we do need a system of checks and balances in place. I'm all for checks and balances. I want to know when I've made a mistake. I want to know how I can correct it so I don't make that mistake again, but who provides the checks and balances for the QA department?
The QA department is a wonderful learning tool for the medical transcriptionist. Problem is, there are some editors who don't view themselves a resource. They think of themselves as the medical transcription expert. Some don't know what they are talking about and simply exist to fill in the blanks, right or wrong, and send the report on as fast as possible. Some refuse to believe they make mistakes and refuse to acknowledge their mistakes when made. Some take sadistic pleasure in finding errors in reports no matter how minor the error, as if it were a game of cat and mouse.
The problem with QA is that it has ceased being a resource and has become a rival with the MTs. It is us versus them. When did this war between QA and MT begin? It began with the shift from hourly pay to production based pay for MTs. Quality is held over our heads like a guillotine - anything less than 98% and the guillotine blade drops and cuts off our paychecks, our benefits, our livelihood.
Don't get me wrong. I fully believe that quality is very important - more important than quantity. The problem is quality is extremely subjective in this business. Just ask the AAMT! They supposedly set the standard with the Book of Style and then RESET the standard with their second edition. Then figure in the personal preferences of the QA editor, the personal preferences of the client, and the personal preferences of the service owner, and it's enough to give the average medical transcriptionist an aneurysm trying to keep it all straight. The plan, I guess, is to keep changing the rules on us so they can keep dropping that guillotine blade, chopping at our pay little by little until we simply type for free because we've been penalized for our mistakes.
What is the solution? I'm not sure, but maybe it should start with the medical editor remembering that they were medical transcriptionists once, remembering that they are human and fallible, and remembering that their preference isn't necessarily the right way to do things, but just simply ONE of the right ways. The medical editor, who expects us to take their criticism gracefully, should just as gracefully take our criticism. Accept when your wrong and say "I'm wrong!" Don't let your ego get in the way. Remember, you are here for US, we are not here for you. Your job depends on us, ours does not depend on yours.
Finally, let's tell the AAMT to take a hike and take their Book of Style with them. All they have done for us is muddy up the waters. We end up doing it the way the client wants in the end anyway.
We are all part of the same team. It's time we started acting like it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Most companies don't pay enough to go back through ones work looking for mistakes. I do it right the first time, and there may be an occasional typo or style-slip. So what! If the job is paying peanuts, why should I cut my wages further with proofing. My motto is "when in doubt, leave it out." I'd rather leave an entire sentence out than enter false information. I also would never spend more than two minutes looking up a word or drug on an account paying less than .10 per line. If they don't care to pay for quality, why should I give quality for free. Any American MT who does QA work for ESL scribes should find another profession to destroy.
Leave an entire sentence out than enter false information? That's just as bad. Sorry, when in doubt, flag it. I don't know whether this person is an MT or QA/editor, but I'd hate for that person to be transcribing my medical report. Either type it or flag it. No harm done either way.
I also wonder if this person who responded first just leaves out medications or other words just because that person cannot find it in less than 2 minutes.
With regard to this QA bash, I've worked in QA before but make better money with MTing. I think I gave good feedback because I did get a lot of "thank you" emails from MTs for the feedback. I think I provided them with more than just a word. I gave them a sentence before and after with their blank/error. I will always remember this one particular MT who frequently laughed at her mistakes and kept making the same mistakes over and over again. It was very frustrating to read her laughing emails over and over again "oh, I did it again, huh? LOL LOL" That MT was on full-read QA for over 6 months.
For an account or MTSO that pays well, I have spent an extreme amount of time looking up something. For a job with the MT giants that does not pay well, I just will not give them that extra time. If there was a QA person, maybe I would leave a blank. The instruction to leave things out came from the doc himself. There's jobs and accounts in this biz. For a job, I would never put in the EXTRA effort because I'm making less than $10 an hour. I've never been fired from any company with this attitude. You get what you pay for. When I'm on account work, I make $35 an hour average. I have one account that has started switching around, trying out the cheaper India outsourcing as well as the cheap US MT's. They leave for a while but come back. The office manager has big ideas about saving money, but the girls actually handling the charts tell me how bad the cheap product is. Eventually, they'll work through this and realize the same thing. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
Post a Comment