• Is a Medical Transcription Career for you?

• Managing time between working at home and your family.

• Health & Nutrition Section - Great Article and Offer that is a must to read.

• Updates and News to MTatHome students about any changes or news with MTatHome.com

You also must be able to have a good typing speed with a high accuracy rate of 98%. The accuracy is the most important because there cannot be errors on a document that will become a permanent part of that patient's medical record. Other doctors will read the transcribed document and sometimes go by what they read. If you have made a huge mistake on the transcribed medical document it could cause problems for that patient if the medical profession or yourself do not catch the mistake. Therefore, the medical professionals usually will only allow a 2% mistake rate on documents that are transcribed by professional Medical Transcriptionist.

You can practice and work your way up to 98% accuracy. It is not as hard as it might sound, it just will take some time and effort on your part.

Over 1/2 of the people that want to work at home are either moms or dads that want to be home with their children, or to at least be home when they get home from school if they receive their schooling in a public or private school away from home as many children do. This is a wonderful thing to be able to be near your children and family.

However, you must realize that when you are working in your home as a Medical Transcriptionist you are "working" just as you were at a job away from home. You will need a quite place to work away from distractions such as the T.V., children playing loudly with friends, etc.

This is very important because you do not want to make mistakes because of not being able to hear what the Dr. is saying in the dictation you are transcribing. Headphones are also a necessity when doing Medical Transcription from home. We never recommend listening through your PC Speakers because it is not private and can muffle the words you are hearing.

If you are a person that loves to be around others all the time when working and does not like to work alone, then working at home may not be for you. However, if you are self motivated, can get started each day with out being told to start working, and can manage your time well with getting your work done and not getting distracted to the point that nothing gets done then you should be fine.

With every professional career choice there are always the pros and cons of the situation, however we have found that over all MT's that work at home successfully say that the pros well overcome the cons of working at home.

The most challenging for most is being able to divide their time between their work, their family and even time for themselves, which everyone needs in this stressful world today.

We will touch more on the family vs. working at home issues in another article here in this newsletter, so be sure to read it if you get a chance.

Back to the MT Career Choice, MT's can make a nice living working from home. They are not going to get rich, but can live nicely on their pay once they have gotten some experience, a high LPH (Lines Per Hour). There are those that end up hiring MT's to work under them in their own company that will make much more than just an individual MT working from home, but for the majority of MT's their salary can range approximately anywhere from $15K - $32K or more a year. A lot of how much you make will depend on the how fast you type with high accuracy, how many hours you work per week or month. If you are an MT or thinking about being an MT we do recommend joining MTDaily Forum because there are wonderful MT's on there that help each other out with Transcription questions from the simplest ones to the most complex ones.

Their website is listed below, you can also visit our home page for more information as well at: http://www.mtathome.com

Choosing Medical Transcription as a Career - Is it for you?

Medical Transcription is a very important link in the health care industry and has become a very highly respected profession for both those that did the work in a Dr.'s office and those that are now more commonly known as "at home Medical Transcriptionist" that transcribe from their home office.

Technology has allowed this profession to move from being a rarity to hear of someone working at home because of the fact that you had to live near by your employer so that you could pick up the tapes and deliver them back with your finished work.

It is now more commonly known as "digital transcription" because you can live basically anywhere and be able to transmit your work digitally with the updated technology that is available now days. This can be done through a computer, phone line and secure file transfer.

While working at home as an MT is a very rewarding job, it is also important to know that it can be a very demanding job at times. You can choose your own hours, the number of hours you want to work a week or month, however there are times that you would need to be able to get a dictation transcribed in a much faster time line if it is an emergency situation. This would be known as a very fast turn around time frame.

Working at home with the kids at home -

For those of you that have kids and work from home I hope you will find this information useful.

Most people that have children want to work at home so they can be around their children more. The thought of putting kids in daycare scares a lot of people now days. It is important to know that working at home with children home can be a huge responsibility. It is much different than working in an office.

In order to be successful in this combination you must set boundaries right from the start. In a lot of families the "home computer " is for everyone's use. You do your work and your children use it to play games on or do school work on. When working at home this can become a problem. For instance- if your computer is used for any other purpose than your work then you cannot use it as a tax deduction.

Also if your children are used to being able to use your computer they might have a hard time understanding why they cannot do this when you are working. If you only have 1 computer and have to share the computer, then I suggest using a system like Windows XP so you can have separate log in names with passwords to protect your work files.

It is real important to let your family know that work time is just that - "work time". Most children wait till you are on the phone to ask every question in the world. This can cause problems if that phone call is a client you will also want to explain to the kids that mom/dad's business phone should not be answered by them.

A lot of work at home parents will start each workday off by spending a little time with their children/child.

Be sure to set time aside for the kids - if you are worried about not being there to answer your business phone then simply put a message on your voice mail that you are away from your desk and will return the call when you are done and be sure to return the calls that you missed. If you have a certain time frame that you accept business call then try to answer them when at all possible. Depending on what type of career or business you run from your home will depend on if you even will need to get many business calls at your home office. The wonderful thing about technology is that a lot of people will use email to communicate now days instead of placing a phone call.

Depending on your child/children's age you can let the kids help you with things like sorting papers, filing papers, passing out flyers with you (if your work requires advertising), and many more things that you can have them assist with and it is a fun way for them to feel included in your job.

Some parents will even pay a few dollars for assisting and it makes your little helper feel important because they got to help and make a little spending money at the same time.

I have stressed this before on how important it is to have the family respect your work time One way to do this is to set up certain times that you will spend with them. Be sure to keep that time. When you do the children and your spouse will start respecting your work time a little more. It is really easy to get caught up in your work when you are working from home, even more than if in an office. Time can get away from you and if you are working all the time your family can become resentful and not understand. If you are not running a business and are working for an employer you will really want to try to stick to the hours you have set for yourself to work only those hours.

Another problem that many work at home moms and / dads seem to have is friends and family that do not live with you seem to not understand that you can not just "drop" everything with your work to go shopping, help with "to do" lists, go to the golf course, mall, chit-chat on the phone, etc.

Be sure to set limits from the start. Let them know that during certain hours you cannot do these things and are devoted to your work. Explain to them that it would not be any different if you were working at an outside of the home office. You would not be able to just walk away in the middle of work to go do these things in "most" cases unless it was an emergency. Now, I am not saying that when you work at home you can not set your own hours and schedule in free time to do certain things, because you can if you feel you will not get behind in your work. However, it is the phone calls that come in the middle of work or the "drop by" visits from friends or family while you are trying to work that I am referring to. Just remember to try to keep it professional even though it is your home you are working out of you are still "working".

Have a Family Night that you and your family go and do something away from the house together. It is important to get out of the house to do things when you work at home and all you ever see is your 4 walls in your office and in all the other rooms. When you worked out of the house you probably saw more of the outside world then you do now that you are working at home. It is really easy to fall into a "home body" and not get out of the house very much, but in order to succeed in working at home you need to relax away from the house. Sometimes with your family, and sometimes just taking time for yourself! Taking time for yourself is just as important as taking time for others. You need time to unwind and relax and just get away from your work, kids arguing, etc.

What it comes down to is organization! Organizing time for you, time for your children, time for your spouse, and time for all of you together on top of the time you need for your work. It can be done, but it will be a challenge in the beginning until you get a system going. It will also take the understanding and assistance of others in your family as well. This is why before making the decision to work at home you really should sit and discuss it with the ones that it will affect in your family. Yes, it is mainly a positive effect to have you home while working, however there can be the challenges that I spoke of and probably a few more, yet in the end if everyone pulls together it can be a very rewarding experience!

The Cost of Waiting to Add SUPPLEMENTS

· If all women of child-bearing age used multivitamins with folic acid, it should reduce the current incidence of neural tube and several other birth defects by 50% or more.
· If pregnant women used a multivitamin containing zinc, there would be substantial reduction in the number of babies born with low birth weight. Currently 295,000 "low birth weight" babies are born each year at an annual cost of $3.1 billion.
· Supplementation with calcium and vitamin D could reduce the rate of hip fracture by at least 20%. This means 40,000 to 50,000 fewer hip fractures each year for an average annual savings of $2.5 billion.
· Adding enough fiber to our diets to bring us to 30 to 35 grams a day would cut the risk of our number three cancer killer, colon cancer by 40%.
· Regular supplementation of vitamins C & E could conceivably delay the onset of cataracts by 10 years, thereby reducing the need for cataract operations by half and saving $2.0 billion a year.
· Long-term vitamin E supplementation has a great potential to reduce the incidence and mortality from heart disease. The potential savings are a 40 to 50% reduction in heart disease incidents and a savings of $8.4 billion.

In North America a year's supply of micro-nutrient supplementation costs less than three visits to a physician and much less than hospitalization for one day!

Many of the supplements that are purchased in Health food stores and through catalogs and online are very good.

Though, when you purchase and use products from a number of manufactures you may not be getting just what you think you are. Mixing manufactures may result in getting an excess of one nutrient supplement and not enough of another.
Shaklee's commitment to clinical research is behind every product it makes. The ideal balance of nature and science is not achieved by guesswork. It is a meticulous process of research and development, testing, re-testing, and refining. That's why Shaklee has spent millions on clinical research. We're committed to bringing you the very best of nature and science.

My wife's daughter has had Psoriasis for many years and on good days it was bad and on bad days it hurt me just to see it.
Soon after we were married, Linda commented that Tammy's Psoriasis was looking as good in the mornings as it did when Tammy had gone to bed. Not understanding just how Tammy's Psoriasis was in the mornings, I asked Linda.
Linda explained that before we were married that when Tammy got up each morning her Psoriasis would always be inflamed more that when she had gone to bed. Now Tammy would get up in the morning and her Psoriasis was not any worse and some days it would in fact look and be better.

With a little head scratching on my part we finally realized that all of Tammy's bed linen and clothing had been through 3 or 4 wash cycles.

Having been a Shaklee Distributor for a number of years before getting married, I had been using the Shaklee "Basic L" laundry powder for many years. Basic L laundry concentrate is hypoallergenic, dust-free, has no fillers and is bio-degradable.

Our deductions proved correct and was verified a year or so latter when Tammy had a stay over and the next morning her Psoriasis
had flared up.

New Years Offer from SC Enterprise / Shaklee
On-line orders placed with http://www.shaklee.net/sfcouncil from 1 January to 27 February 2004 will receive a 5% rebate check from My office.

Remember that by becoming a Shaklee member, you will automatically receive a 15% discount on Shaklee products, no minimum or maximum order required. Access to nutritional, personal care, and household products of unmatched quality, all backed by the 100% Shaklee Guarantee.

24/7 Online ordering and in-depth product information on the shaklee.net Member Center

You are able to sign-up online with no paperwork to sign or fax and get logged-in with a web password -- in less than 5 minutes.

Thank you, Steve Council (a Shaklee distributor since 1981)

Remember to Bookmark! http://www.shaklee.net/sfcouncil

· New ways to contact our MTatHome staff online. You do not have to have any software to contact us online, you can do so straight from the student area by typing your message in the blue text box that is on the home page of the student are and it will page any online MTatHome Staff member that may be online at the time. If they are away from the system then it will leave a message for them when they return and will reply via email.

· The other ways is by AOL Messenger, ICQ, and MSN Messenger.
Of course you can also still reach us by email, which is always a great way to get support. Yet, we wanted to allow additional ways to contact us in case you had a question that might be able to be addressed by an online staff member. Our phone lines stay very busy with incoming calls from new customers inquiring about our course, companies placing jobs with us to refer out our New MT's to, and also student support questions. Therefore, we wanted to encourage the use of the students using the Online Methods of contacting us when you have a question about the course.

· Student Message Board - Students, Please use the student message board to talk with other students about the course, your career that you all have in common and just getting to know other MT Students that are studying the same career choice that you are studying. It is very helpful to one another to be able to communicate and get to know each other. We also do have MT Chats from time to time and we post the time and dates in the student message board area as well as email notices out to those that have signed up for reminders.

· This price increase will NOT affect anyone that has already ordered the course before January 31, 2004. If you ordered the course at the regular price of $779.00 or even a sale price your course price that your purchased it at will not change. It will only affect those that order on or after Jan. 31, 2004.

· NEW HOURS - Because we do give support for customers that are all over the US and Canada we have customers that are on many different time zones. Many customers still work a job while taking the course and therefore can not call, email or contact online staff until they are off work.

We have received many requests to have our online support open later in the night because those that are on the West Coast may just be starting to study at 9PM when we were closing at 12AM, therefore we have changed and extended the hours to try to service everyone and accommodate the best we can to everyone's time zone and situation.

We understand that many of you study early in the day and many late at night. Therefore the following changes in our hours have been made so that it can better serve you and the public.

· IN OFFICE HOURS - 2 PM Early Mothers Day - n - 12 AM Early Mothers Day - n (Total of 10 Hours)
· ONLINE SUPPORT - 12PM - 2AM Early Mothers Day - n (Total of 14 hours of Online Support)

Please remember that if you have any questions about your course you can always email student support anytime at: studentsupport@mtathome.com and our staff will get back to you as soon as possible. There are times that we may have up to a 24 hour turn around on replies if we have received a lot of emails during that day, however most are answered with in 8 to 12 hours or less.

We hope you have enjoyed our newsletter and remember, as always those if you decide you want to be removed there are removal instructions at the bottom of the email.

Thank you,

MTatHome