Even after learning about the eligibility requirements, benefits, and challenges about the medical transcription profession, people find certain questions bothering them. Do you too have a question about the medical transcription career that is bothering you? In today’s post, we bring to you answers to some of the questions you have in your mind.

The role of typing speed in medical transcription career

Many medical transcription aspirants ask me how important typing is for a career in medical transcription. Well, typing is important for the profession and an above average speed helps. However, it is definitely not one of the primary skills of a medical transcriptionist. The transcriptionist’s job is to decipher the voice recordings and turn them into relevant medical records. This requires sound medical knowledge and the skill to analyze and interpret information.

The future of medical transcription

The medical transcription industry is one of the rarest to have emerged unscathed from the recent recession. The US Department of Labor projects that the number of medical transcription opportunities will grow at a rate of 14 percent to 2016 from what it was in 2006. This rate is more than the average rate of growth of other occupations. Thus, there are several opportunities for the interested with a promise that the opportunities will keep increasing.

The money in the medical transcription profession

A medical transcriptionist’s income depends on his/her experience in the field and his/her proficiency. According to the US Department of Labor, the mean hourly wage of a medical transcriptionist is $15.84 and the mean annual wage is $32,960.

The importance of the medical transcription training

People often ask me if the medical transcription training is mandatory. Well, it is definitely mandatory for those who have absolutely no medical knowledge. The training equips one with medical knowledge and transcription skills. Thus, anyone with the right aptitude can become a medical transcriptionist provided he/she undergoes proper training in medical transcription.

If you have more questions and concerns, just ask us.

Joining the medical transcription profession requires you to possess a certain aptitude. Discover the aptitude, complete a good medical transcription course, and you are ready for the profession. However, if you are thinking of making a career of it, you have to enhance your existing skills and develop new ones. Let me tell you how you can make this profession your career.

Discipline is the work when it comes to medical transcription work. All professions need you to be disciplined, but medical transcription more so. You have to set up a routine, and stick to it. You have to become your own boss and start monitoring your progress. All this requires tremendous amount of discipline.

You need to possess organizational skills. When you start work, do you have everything necessary within your reach? Or do you have to get up several times in the midst of work, spoiling your flow? You should have all transcription aids ready when you begin work. You should be proficient in planning and tracking your work and keeping accounts. If you are looking at making medical transcription your career, you need to be highly organized.

You should be able to motivate yourself all throughout your stint in the profession. The work in medical transcription tends to become monotonous and boring in the long run. You will have to keep it from becoming uninteresting. You have to keep motivating yourself in order to perform well consistently.

Can you be a student throughout your career? For the medical transcriptionist, the learning does not end with the training. He/she has to keep updating his/her knowledge on a regular basis. Now, one has to possess the willingness to learn for doing that. Without this attribute, one cannot rise in this profession.

So, do you think you can make medical transcription your career?

The medical transcription profession has been a lucrative one for a long time now. What makes it so popular? Let’s analyze the reasons.

For starters, the entry into the medical transcription profession is easy. The profession does not ask you for formal qualifications or any kind of experience. Everyone is eligible to become a transcriptionist though not everyone can. Why? Because you need a certain aptitude for the profession.

Given that it doesn’t have any stringent prerequisites, the profession pays really well. And your income increases as you gain experience and proficiency in the field.

Another quite unique feature about medical transcription is that it is highly flexible. No other profession offers as much flexibility as this one. You can choose to work from home. You get to choose your work timings even if you work in an office. You even get to say ‘no’ to work you don’t like when working as a home-based transcriptionist.

The medical transcription profession also provides immense job satisfaction. As a medical transcriptionist, you contribute to the cause of making your nation healthy. You realize how critical your work is and feel proud of it.

The victorious emergence of the profession from the current recession has proved that it is stable and secure. Now, which other profession can claim to be as stable?

The profession hands over to you some of the biggest skills you could ever learn: patience, dedication, self-motivation, independence, and time-management. These skills stay with you forever and help you achieve success in all spheres of life.

You get the idea. If this post makes you interested in medical transcription, start looking into the profession’s expectations and challenges to find out if you fit in the scheme of things.

The medical transcription profession is a specialized profession, so it can’t be easy. In today’s post, we will look into the exact reasons it is difficult.

Zero tolerance of critical errors: The profession expects 100% accuracy with respect to critical errors in medical records. And it is quite obvious given that a critical error can impact the safety of a patient. However, not all transcriptionists can meet this quality goal.

Everyday deadlines: You cannot relax when it comes to medical transcription work. Every task comes with a tag of its required turnaround. You have to deal with deadlines everyday, and some tasks need to be completed in a matter of just a few hours.

Everyday learning: The profession requires you to keep learning even after you have got that job. Didn’t you just complete an in-depth training? Yes, but the medical transcriptionist has to keep updating his/her medical knowledge or his knowledge will become obsolete. However, not all people have that willingness to spend time and effort on learning, making many stay away from the profession.

Independent work: One of the unique features of medical transcription is that you are required to work independently, without supervision. While this may sound enticing in the beginning, handling crisis situations on your own becomes a challenge not many want to encounter.

Now, these factors set the basic premise of why medical transcription is difficult. The profession requires a tremendous amount of discipline, motivation, and willingness in order for you to survive. Do you think you can handle it?

No matter how skilled you are, you need to pay attention to small things in order to excel in any profession. In today’s post, we bring to you some simple tips to make your medical transcription work easier.

• Keep all the software updated and handy. Make sure you have the medical spell-checker, the medical abbreviation expander, the American Association for Medical Transcription (AAMT) style guide, and all reference materials available when you start work. You may lose a lot of valuable time looking for them during work.
• Don’t commit to work you cannot handle. You may be able to meet deadlines in spite of the load of work, but can you ensure quality? You risk losing your goodwill by turning over bad work. You may even compromise on your health. Think of the long run and start saying ‘no’ to extra work. This rule applies more to the home-based transcriptionist.
• Don’t flag too soon and don’t ignore flagging when required. You are required to flag a document when there is some information missing in it. However, there are cases when people flag documents because they are reluctant to research. And there are times when a genuine flagging case is ignored. Both the situations should be avoided as they make lead to major inaccuracies in your medical documents.
• Inform doctors when they are sending out poor dictations. Letting doctors record poorly will eventually affect the quality of your work. You don’t have to be rude with doctors, but you have to make sure they understand that the poor quality of dictations will cause errors in medical records.

Simple, right? And yet, these are things one is likely to ignore. If you would like to add to the list here, let us know.

If you are interested in getting into the medical transcription profession, here’s what you should learn about:

• The expectations the profession has of the medical transcriptionist
• The challenges the profession throws at the medical transcriptionist
• The benefits and perks of the profession
• The medical transcription process
• The required aptitude for the profession

Once you have understood the benefits and challenges of the profession, you need to find out if you are suitable for the job. You should look for a medical transcription course only after you have ensured that you are fit to handle the profession. Let’s have a look at what the job is like in this profession.

The medical transcriptionist filters relevant medical information out and discards the irrelevant information and noise from voice recordings. He/she analyzes the voice recordings so that he/she can transcribe meaningful text. If the recordings are incomprehensible or there are gaps in the recordings, he/she follows up with doctors for additional information.

The medical transcriptionist is required to analyze the transcribed text and give a logical flow and meaning to it. He/she ensures that the transcribed text is correct grammatically. He/she ensures that there are absolutely no inconsistencies in the medical record. He/she checks the medical record for spelling errors and make necessary changes. Before the delivery of the record, the medical transcriptionist proofreads the record thoroughly. He/she incorporates the changes suggested by doctors and reviewers after the review rounds.

Now that you have a fair understanding of medical transcription work, you will be able to make an informed decision as to whether you want to join the profession or not.

Very often I come across people who ask me how they can find out if medical transcription is for them. So, in today’s post I bring to you a questionnaire and the reasons the questions in it are important.

Do you have an above-average command over the English language?
If your grammar is poor, you will not be able to bring sense into the medical records, which may lead to misrepresentation of facts.

Are you proficient at handling the computer?
If you are not comfortable handling a computer, you should develop your computer skills before you join the medical transcription course.

Do you possess above-average analytical skills?
You are required to analyze information logically in order to render meaning to medical records.

Can you work independently?
If you long for guidance and supervision in all stages of work, this profession is not for you. You should be extremely disciplined and mature to handle work on your own.

Are you willing to spend time and effort on learning?
The profession requires that you keep learning throughout your career. Obsolete knowledge can cost you your career. You have to make time for learning almost everyday.

Are you willing to research extensively for work?
As a medical transcriptionist, you are required to refer to external material in order to ensure that medical records are complete and accurate.

If the answer to each of these questions is a ‘yes’, start looking for a medical transcription course.

The medical transcription profession is unique in many ways. There are many factors that make it different from other professions. Let’s dig out those factors.

The first and the most obvious factor is the fact that the profession, though specialized, does not have any prerequisites. The profession boosts your morale by allowing an easy entry. What it asks for is just the right aptitude. You don’t need to produce degrees or experience certificates to make your way into the industry.

Now, given that the profession doesn’t ask for any academic or professional qualifications, or any experience, medical transcription pays really well. Your income increases as you become proficient in the job.

Unlike other professions, medical transcription lets you choose your work timings. It even allows you to work from home. You can even fix up the number of hours you want to work. Know any other profession that offers as much flexibility as medical transcription?

Since you are responsible for creating medical records that are integral to the functioning of the healthcare and the insurance industries. You derive a sense of satisfaction and pride from this. Now, this is also something not all professions can offer.

The medical transcription profession teaches you to be patient, focused, disciplined, and goal-oriented. You also learn to work independently and motivate yourself. All these skills help you develop not only as a professional but also as an individual.

Now that you have an idea of why the profession is different, don’t go by what any lay person tells you about the profession. And if you are interested in the job, learn about its pros and cons before making up your mind.

Imagine a third-grade teacher telling his/her class that the earth is flat! That is sacrilegious for a teacher, right? Every profession has a list of must-nots, and medical transcription too has quite a few. Today, we will look at what you are not allowed to do as a medical transcriptionist.

For starters, you cannot afford to compromise on the security of medical data. Irrespective of where you work, in an office or at home, you cannot let anyone access any work information, even by accident. Make sure your cabinets are locked, unnecessary papers shredded, and your computer inaccessible. Don’t let your work computer be used for personal purposes by anyone, including you.

As a medical transcriptionist, you cannot commit even a single critical error in the medical records you create. While the overall quality goal is 98 percent accuracy, the profession has zero tolerance when it comes to critical errors. A careless error on your part can risk a patient’s health. And you can ruin your career with even a single error of this kind.

Flagging medical documents inappropriately is a complete no-no. At times, you may be faced with recordings that have some parts absolutely incomprehensible. It is important you don’t assume things in such cases. Make sure you flag such instances. At the same time, don’t flag something because of your lack of interest and energy to research. You cannot afford to miss flagging certain instances or flag incorrectly.

You can’t afford to miss deadlines as a medical transcriptionist. Missing a deadline will not only add unnecessary pressure on you, but also make you unpopular with your client or employer. The medical transcription deadlines are sacred, and you have to make sure you meet them, every time.

Now that you have an idea of what you shouldn’t do as a medical transcriptionist, you will be able to make a better decision as to whether or not you want to join the profession.

Even the medical transcriptionist who loves his/her job will not call the work easy. The medical transcription profession, with its myriad challenges, is anything but easy. Expert medical transcriptionists, however, have learned the tricks to keep the deadlines and quality goals from getting on their nerves. In today’s post, we bring to you a few tips from the desk of experienced transcriptionists.

Never shirk away instances of incomprehensible recordings. Always follow up with the doctor on missing information. If you are in the habit of leaving the information missing and wait for the doctor to provide it during reviews, you are working the wrong way. You will end up losing valuable time as you not only have to plug in the information at a later stage but also wait for it to be reviewed. The best thing to do is to follow up with the doctor who recorded the information as soon as you find gaps. This will solve your problem early on and save you time.

Flag documents appropriately. In medical transcription, a document is flagged if it has critical information missing. It is important to note that improper flagging may cost you your credibility. Do not flag to avoid researching on it. Also, do not refrain from flagging when you cannot find the right information.

It is important that you don’t guess when a piece of information is missing. Working with the same kind of information over time may make you assume when there is no clarity in the available information. If you can substantiate your assumption with research, you can go ahead. However, if you are just making a guess, educated or otherwise, you may end up changing the information. Remember, your work can directly impact the safety of the patient.

Hope these tips help enhance your work experience.