No. But some people will make you think so. The fear of the future of the medical transcription profession arises from the many misconceptions people have about the profession.

You may hear that technology will sooner or later replace medical transcriptionists. They thought that the human workforce will become redundant when the computers came into being. However, nothing of that sort happened. The voice recognition software was said to be a threat to the medical transcriptionist’s job. The truth is that the software is not smart enough to replace the human transcriptionist. It requires doctors to spend a considerable amount of time with it, in training and using it, beating the whole purpose of saving their time. Moreover, the results of the software are never 100% accurate, requiring human intervention to deliver logical records.

Another fear is that there won’t be many jobs in the future. With the number of elderly people increasing in the country, the requirement of medical documentation has been increasing considerably. And as long as the world needs medical records, it will need medical transcriptionists.

The fear of outsourcing has entered the medical transcription field as well. Many think that outsourcing to other countries will take away medical transcription jobs from them. Though some medical transcription jobs will continue to be outsourced, not all companies are keen on sending work outside the country. This is because medical transcriptionists in other countries need additional training in understanding the various accents, adding to the training costs. There are several other costs that companies are wary of. And there are just too many medical records to be created round the clock.

If you are still unsure about the profession’s future, get in touch with senior medical transcriptionist and seek their advice.