There are quite a number of medical transcription aspirants who look forward to joining the profession solely to be able to work from home. And then there are those who do not want to take work to home. Home-based medical transcription has its pros and cons. And it is recommended you analyze both the sides before making a decision about home-based medical transcription.

Home-based medical transcription is good because of the comfort and flexibility it offers. You get to choose your own work timings with home-based transcription. So, if you are most productive in the wee hours of the morning or in the mid-afternoon when nobody is at home, you can choose to fix that time as your working time. Home-based work also helps you save costs. You can save commuting costs as well as the money you would have spent in buying office wear.

Working as a freelancing medical transcriptionist, you have the liberty to accept and reject work. You do not need to work on every task that comes your way. You can choose the ones that you are most comfortable with.

The reason home-based medical transcription doesn’t offer you a smooth ride always is the isolation and the absence of guidance. The home-based medical transcription job expects you to work completely on your own. The profession requires you to keep learning. Now, learning in isolation can be quite a challenge. Add to that the responsibility of conforming to the Health Insurance Profitability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Home brings along with it household responsibilities and several distractions. Keeping a balance between your professional and personal life while being at one place can be quite challenging.

I would advise you to work as a regular medical transcriptionist for some time, understand the challenges of the job and study the challenges in the home-based work, and then decide whether you want to be a home-based medical transcriptionist or not.

Everybody, well almost, wants to be able to work from home. Add ‘home’ to any job and it will become lucrative enough. Being able to make a living while being at home promises to be such a pleasant opportunity. But all that glitters is not gold.

Home-based medical transcription adds more challenges to the already challenging medical transcription profession. It is not for the faint-willed. Only the most dedicated and disciplined can work as a home-based medical transcriptionist. Why, you ask. Well, let me take you through the difficulties in medical transcription from home.

You are responsible for your office

Your work at home begins with setting up your home office. It is from this office that you will be starting out a new career. Therefore, don’t convert just any corner of your house into your office. Your office has to be spacious, comfortable and peaceful. Setting up the office also means getting all the equipment and furniture in place. You need to get a comfortable working chair for yourself or you’ll end up damaging your neck and back. And you will need a phone dedicated completely to your work. In the conventional office, your employer takes care of these things; at home, you are your boss!

You are responsible for the security and confidentiality of medical information

One of the biggest responsibilities you have as a medical transcriptionist is the security and confidentiality of medical information that passes through your hands. You have to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for data security. Now, this is not an easy task in any way.

You are responsible to keep yourself focused and motivated

Distractions are aplenty when you work from home. You have to keep distractions away and remain focused over long periods of time. Moreover, the medical transcription work may tend to become monotonous in the long run; it is up to you to keep your interest intact in the work. Yes, you have got to keep yourself motivated.

When working from home you are responsible for just every aspect of work. Now, doing everything right to earn goodwill is not easy. This is why it is important you figure out whether home-based medical transcription is for you or not.

So you like home-based medical transcription? Have you looked only at its benefits or are you aware of its challenges too? It is extremely important to look at both its pros and cons before you commit to the home-based work. Here are a few questions that will help you figure out if you should become a home-based medical transcriptionist.

• Can I work in isolation?
• Can I work without any supervision?
• Am I disciplined enough to stick to a routine?
• Will I be able to fight all the distractions at home?
• Can I invest time in learning regularly?
• Can I keep myself motivated in the long run?
• Will I be able to maintain a work-life balance working from home?

Now, these questions are self-explanatory. Home brings to you not only comfort but also distractions. You have got to be extremely disciplined if you want to pursue a career from home.

Even though you have people at home, you will be isolated when it comes to your professional life. You may enjoy a few days working without co-workers but soon you may start missing some presence around.

The nature of the medical transcription work is such that it may tend to become monotonous in the long run. Now, without supervisors or co-workers around, how will you keep yourself motivated? You will ruin your career if you cannot motivate yourself.

You must keep in mind the long-term problems in home-based work before you go for it. You have got to be more committed than the fellow transcriptionist who goes to a regular office.

Home-based medical transcription is so full of benefits. You get to work from home, you get to make your own routine, and you get to save time and money. But it can be difficult to work from home. Along with comfort come responsibilities and distractions in home-based work. Let’s look at why home-based medical transcription can be difficult.

You have got to be highly organized and extremely disciplined. At home, you are your management and you are your boss. You are a one-person company. You have got to look at every aspect of the work and deliver the highest quality work to clients.

Even when you are at home, you are expected to switch off your personal life while working. You cannot afford to get distracted. Disconnecting from the personal life while at home is not an easy task and something that most people can’t do.

At home, it is you who has to handle crisis situations in work. There will be absolutely no guidance and supervision at your home office. You cannot afford to panic when faced with a difficult dictation. This is something not everyone bargains for.

The nature of the medical transcription work is such that it tends to get boring over time. And with no one around to join you in your complaints about the job, you have to keep motivating yourself. This becomes difficult when you work in isolation.

It is important you understand the pros and cons of home-based medical transcription before you commit to it.

Home-based medical transcription sounds like a great idea. It is, for many reasons. And yet, it may not be that great for a lot of reasons. Yes, there are problems in home-based medical transcription that can get to you. Let’s look at the major ones.

• Irregular inflow of work
  If you are not associated with a medical transcription company and work as a freelancing transcriptionist, you cannot expect a regular inflow of work. Even if you have contracts with your client, they are short-term ones. You will find yourself on the lookout of work almost all the time. The only way you can ensure a good, steady flow of work is by being consistently good.
• Distractions
  Home is where the heart is, and the heart loves to wander. You will find many reasons to get distracted while working from home. Often, people tend to treat these distractions as an advantage of home-based medical transcription. However, they are detrimental to your medical transcription career.
• Absence of supervision
  Not having a boss is a delight, of course, but not always. As a home-based medical transcriptionist, you do not have constant supervision, requiring you to be extremely disciplined. Moreover, you are required to handle crisis situations on your own. That’s never easy.
• Isolation
  While you may enjoy not having co-workers for a while, an isolated working environment is not always productive. You have got to learn to spend your non-working time wisely if you want to deliver good work all the time.

Do share your experience of working from home.

We have discussed the challenges in home-based medical transcription several times in this blog. Today, something got me thinking about the problems of working from home again. It started with a call that I made to my friend last morning. I called her at around 8 and found out that she had been working the whole night and she had just hit the bed. Her chosen profession allows her to work from home. At several of our casual meetings, she has cribbed about not having time for herself and how her routine is going haywire. I have always wondered why she chooses to work from home when she can’t handle it.

The problems in home-based work do not arise only because of external factors like distractions and domestic responsibilities. It can also arise from how you take the profession. If you take home-based work for granted, you will end up chasing deadlines only at the eleventh hour. Planning goes for a toss for several people who work from home.

Routine is something a lot of home-based professionals don’t think about. They often skip meals to make time for work. Some people can be often found watching a movie on television at the time when the rest of the world works. Well, one would think that’s the flexibility of working from home. It’s true, but it does not mean you procrastinate when you have a lot on your plate. These very people have to end up skipping meals and sleep in order to meet deadlines.

I understand there are off days when you have to work late nights and prioritize work over regular meals and sleep. But if this is happening consistently, you have either take too much on your plate, or you are just not serious about your work!