Many times, medical transcripitionists are able to work from home. Here are some common questions asked about this career and answers to them:

Q. What is the job of a medical transcriptionist?
A. Medical transcriptionists are professionals who transcribe dictations recorded by physicians and other healthcare professionals. The dictations are typed out by the MT and made into electronic form to be kept for permanent health records for patients. These records can then be looked up by any professional trating the patient to better treat and diagnose the patient.

Q. Where do medical transcriptionists work?
A. Medical transcriptionists can work from home, in a healthcare facility or office, or in an office of a medical transcription company. Many MTs work from their homes as home-based employees or independent contractors for a larger company. Some hospitals and clinics have MTs onsite and at home. This is one of the most frequently found positions to work in from home.

Q. Is there a high demand for MTs to work from home?
A. Yes! The medical field is ever growing and every patient needs updated records every time they visit a healthcare professional. The need for medical transcriptionists will continue to grow. The need for workers from home will grow as well as the lack of overhead saves the companies money.  As technology changes, electronic records are becoming mandatory and raising the demand for well trained and skilled MTs. 

Q. What equipment is needed in my home to be a medical transcriptionist?
A. A standard computer, a word processing software, and transcription equipment such as a foot pedal are required (depending on the employer). You will need to have regular office things such as notepads, pens, a phone, and such available as well. Also, reference books of medical terminology and a medical dictionary should be a part of your home office.

Q. How much does working as an MT from home pay?
A. This depends on your employer. You can be paid hourly or by the amount of work you complete. You can also work only part time or full time. This is a career in which you will make decent money, especially as you grow in your career. Typically, work from home is based solely on productivity so the better you are the more you will be paid.

Is your ultimate goal to work from home? Becoming a Medical Transcriptionist is an ideal way to have a stable career, with the flexibility to set your own schedule and be there for your family. Here are some things you can do to give your medical transcription career an advantage:

1. Enroll in a medical transcription school that offers job assistance.  Once your training is complete, you can learn how to create an effective resume, conduct a solid job interview, uncover job leads, and more. Choose a school that goes the extra mile for you and provides job assistance.
2. Join a professional association. Connect with other medical transcription professionals. Choosing an association, such as the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI), gives you access to other professionals in the field. Find out first hand what it’s like to work as a Medical Transcriptionist and even gain a lead on job opportunities.
3. Contact doctors in your area. If you want to really know what doctors require from their Medical Transcriptionists, contact them and ask pointed questions. Do they outsource their medical transcription jobs? Do they require experience before they let a Medical Transcriptionist work from home? This is a great way to learn what you need to do to work with doctors in your area.
4. Get experience. After you complete your medical transcription course, try to get experience. Contact a local doctor’s office and maybe offer to work at a discounted rate for the first month or arrange to start an internship. This can provide the doctor with affordable medical transcription work and also enable you to get experience under your belt, leading to your ideal work-at-home medical transcription job.

If you are a qualified and trained medical transcriptionist then there are employers ready to hire you right now. A variety of employers are willing to hire trained medical transcriptionists because a qualified MT can make them money, earn them profits and save them time. Four employers ready to hire you right now are:

• Your local hospital – If you are like most Americans, you live within minutes of a hospital. Forty percent of all medical transcriptionists work in a hospital. You can too.
• Doctors Offices – Many doctors offices hire medical transcriptionists to create medical documents for their private practice or team of physicians.
• Medical Transcription Service – Like the temp service that became popular a few years ago, there are medical transcription companies that hire medical transcriptionists on a part-time or full-time basis to work for their client base.
• Yourself - When you work for yourself as a medical transcriptionist you are your own boss. You set your own hours and pick your clients. Wouldn’t you like to have that kind of freedom?

You can find employers to hire you by joining a job bank or posting your medical transcription resume online.

It’s easy to say. “I want to work from home as a medical transcriptionist.” There, done. Now, where’s the work? I mean, the job is well paid, the hours great and I can work whenever I feel like it, can’t I? Sorry to burst your bubble.

The pay, starting out, is good but not great and you have strict deadlines so you can’t really work when you want and take frequent vacations. Take a couple of days off and someone else will step in and do the work. Then you can take all the time off you want – and don’t want, since you will no longer have a job.

Even though you work from home, a career as a medical transcriptionist is just that – a career. As with any career, it has to be nurtured and developed at a steady pace. Initially, your income will be quite low, it is only the most experienced transcriptionists that can command top dollar. If you ever get to that level then, yes, you too can command top dollar.

Your career starts with comprehensive training, in fact, Your career will be dogged by continued training as you learn new diseases and medical terms.  Once you have completed that training you will need to advertise yourself to the medical world at large.

You will sit waiting, watching your inbox, praying for work – and it will be slow in arriving. Over time, as you build a reputation as a top class medical transcriptionist, that work will start to flow faster.  So, while the theory of working from home is that you can work when you want, in reality, you cannot – once a job arrives in your inbox you will have a set time limit to complete the task. There is an upside, of course. Like all careers, put the time and effort into it early and you will find that as time goes by you can: earn good money, work the hours you want and even take the days off you want – you just have to earn that right first.

Medical transcription jobs can be difficult, yet often it is the transcriptionist themselves that make the job hard for themselves.  Here are a handful of tips that could turn what is a tough job into a much easier one.

Organization: Like all professions, being organized is one of the essential keys to success. Medical transcriptionists should ensure their workspace is clear and dedicated to the job at hand; that all essential equipment is in place and working; and that all non-essential items are out of the way. Medical transcriptionists should also ensure their working time is organized and not disrupted by non-work related distractions.

Time: A job is a job, even a work from home job. You should clearly define what your working hours are and stick to them. You can then shut out external distractions and get on with the job. Distractions only serve to lengthen a working day – often with frustrating consequences.

Maintenance: There is nothing more frustrating than having equipment that breaks down on a regular basis. A good maintenance program will ensure your equipment is always in good working order. Part of the maintenance program should include restocking consumables such as batteries, paper and printer inks or toners.

Those three components, if addressed properly, will ensure you have a smooth day at the office – the home office included.  Ignoring just one of those areas could lead to frustrations and it is those frustrations that tend to spoil our day at work. It’s very easy for one frustration to magnify into several – cut those frustrations off before they begin and you will have turned all your tough medical transcription jobs into relatively easy ones.

Critics of the medical transcription profession and laymen have often compared the medical transcriptionist’s job to that of the typist’s. The medical transcriptionist is considered a glorified typist by many. In today’s post, we will look at what makes the transcriptionist different from the typist.

• While the typist does not necessarily need to possess a good command over English, the medical transcriptionist must have excellent knowledge of English grammar.
• An individual has to undergo an in-depth training in order to become a medical transcriptionist. The typist, on the other hand, needs to possess an above-average typing speed only.
• The typist does not create anything whereas the medical transcriptionist creates medical records. The medical transcriptionist is fully responsible for delivering complete medical records.
• The typist is responsible for accurately typing information but the medical transcriptionist is responsible not only for transcribing information but also for making sense of it.
• The typist does not need to analyze information. The medical transcriptionist has to analyze transcribed information logically.
• The medical transcriptionist has to research extensively in order to deliver records. The typist’s job requires no such research.

The medical transcriptionist is responsible for delivering relevant and meaningful information. The typist’s job is limited to typing correctly. This makes the jobs completely different from each other. Those who compare the two have absolutely no idea of what the medical transcription profession is all about. Medical transcription is a specialized profession whereas typing is not.

If you would like to be a medical transcriptionist, it is important you understand the challenges in the job. Once you realize that you can join the profession, take up a good medical transcription course.