The easy entry, the good pay, and the flexibility of the medical transcription profession make it very lucrative. However, don’t get carried away. The profession has its share of challenges. Let me present to you four factors that may deter you from becoming a medical transcriptionist. Not that I want to scare you, but you should know what you are getting into.

• Stringent deadlines: The deadlines in this profession are not like any other. You will have to deal with them everyday. You won’t get much time ahead to plan. In fact, at times you may be given tasks that have a turnaround time of just a few hours.
• High quality goals: The medical transcription profession is not just about meeting deadlines but delivering quality in the limited time. And the quality goals are extremely high. While the overall goal is 98% accuracy, the profession does not tolerate a single error when it comes to critical errors.
• Learning: Every job has some learning to do on the job but the learning in medical transcription profession is equivalent to studying. Yeah, you have to continue learning even after your training. This is because the medical transcriptionist needs to keep updating his/her medical knowledge.
• Research: If you think the profession is just about transcribing, you could not be more wrong. You need to create a complete medical record. For this, you need to analyze information, research and refer to materials. If you are not ready for making that effort, you cannot handle the work.

If these factors don’t bother you, welcome to medical transcription.