What will the profession of medical transcription look like in 2020? I think we can tell a lot by what it looks like right now.

Today, a medical transcriptionist can receive an e-mail from a doctor, hospital, or medical specialist regarding a dictation report that is due by the end of the day. The medical transcriptionist can get her assignment and go online to see the specs of the medical document in need. After becoming familiar with the assignment, she can then start typing her medical document into a form field on the client’s website while listening to an audio recording uploaded to the site earlier that morning. When she is finished she hits “Send” and the client will be notified the job is done.

By 2020, the medical transcriptionist will be able to take dictation in real time. She’ll have pre-arranged an appointment with the client to receive dictation at a certain time on a certain day and at that appointed time she and the client will log in to their respective computers. The client will dictate while the medical transcriptionist transcribes. Afterwards, the medical transcriptionist will spend a few minutes editing her document – online, of course – then send it on to the client.

This process should cut down on the time to delivery for medical documents and the medical transcriptionist will be able to demand more income for her services.

It is no secret that the largest employers of medical transcriptionists are hospitals. In fact, 40% of the medical transcriptionists employed are employed by hospitals. However, hospitals are not the best payers in the industry.

It is true that hospitals pay medical transcriptionists a fair wage. If you are employed by a hospital then you can expect to make about $16.58 per hour, or $34,480 per year. These numbers represent the mean earnings of medical transcriptionists in a hospital setting. Depending on the part of the country in which you are employed, your skills and your experience, you earnings could be more or less.

But who pays more?

Medical and diagnostic libraries, in May 2009, paid medical transcriptionists $18.60 per hour mean salary and $38,680 annual salary.

These salary figures are an increase over the May 2008 means of $15.88 per hour for MTs in a hospital setting and $17.26 mean hourly wage for medical transcriptionists in a medical and diagnostic library setting.

Just as well, medical transcriptionists are the second highest paid healthcare support occupation in a medical and diagnostic library setting. Only physical therapy assistants make more. Medical assistants and medical equipment preparers fall below in average yearly and hourly salary.

It is clear that the medical transcription profession is growing. The demand for qualified medical transcriptionists is driving salaries upward and this will likely be the case at least a few good years into the future.

Is there an ideal relationship among doctors/dictators and medical transcriptionists? Well, there are some definite ways to keep the lines of communication open and to foster a better relationship with the doctors and medical professionals you’ll be working with. Here are some tips to help you make the most of your medical transcription job.

• Honesty – Always be honest. If you can’t meet a certain deadline, tell them. You may not get this job but you’ll gain the respect of the doctors and their staffs and they will eventually send work your way.
• Efficiency – Always meet your deadlines.
• Competency – Always meet the standards of the industry and go above them.
• Courtesy – You will inevitably need to call a dictator to clarify information. Before you take a job, find out the best way to contact your dictator and when they are most available. By setting this up in advance you increase the expectation of good communication.
• Professionalism – Always be professional, no matter how close and personal you become with your clients. You are still working for them.

If you do your best work on every task then you’ll build a solid reputation as a medical transcriptionist who cares and who can get the job done. Don’t squander your opportunities. Create them.

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.

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.

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.

Apart from throwing challenges at you and paying you for your hard work, every profession teaches you something in the process. Yes, the medical transcription profession develops certain skills in you. But how?

The profession teaches you to manage time better. With deadlines knocking on your door every few hours, you have to manage time very well. The profession teaches you to squeeze work in tiny slots without compromising on quality. Time management is a skill that will help you in every aspect of your life.

Medical transcription teaches you to be independent. This is one profession that requires you to work without supervision, whether you are at office or home. This requirement makes you work on your own and depend on yourself. This helps you improve your decision making capabilities and become self reliant.

The nature of the medical transcription work is such that it makes you patient. The stringent deadlines, the difficult recordings and the additional rounds of reviews make the medical transcription profession an extremely demanding one. However, all the demands and challenges in the profession make you patient.

The profession equips you to motivate yourself. With time, medical transcription work becomes monotonous. In order to make sure that the quality and productivity does not suffer, you have to keep yourself motivated. This trait will help you never lose focus of your targets in life.

Medical transcription teaches you to be dedicated. All your skills will fail if you are not dedicated to the job. The medical transcription profession teaches you to be dedicated in order to be successful.

As you make your way into the medical transcription field you soon realize that yours is a responsible job. And they told you that before when they said that the medical records you create are going to help run the healthcare and insurance industries smoothly. That ought to be a responsible job. The records you create have the potential to impact the safety of a patient if you aren’t too careful. So, medical transcription is such a huge responsibility. Wanna know what all goes in the transcriptionist’s checklist? Read on.

• Filter relevant medical information out and discard the irrelevant information and noise from voice recordings.

• Analyze the voice recordings in order to transcribe it into meaningful text.
• Follow up with doctors for additional information if the recordings are incomprehensible or there are gaps in the recordings.
• Analyze the transcribed text and give a logical flow and meaning to it.
• Ensure that the transcribed text is correct grammatically.
• Make sure there are absolutely no inconsistencies in the medical record.
• Check the medical record for spelling errors and make necessary changes.
• Proofread the record thoroughly before delivery of the record.
• Incorporate the changes suggested by doctors and reviewers after the review rounds.
• Ensure security and confidentiality of the medical data.
• Deliver medical records on time.
• Ensure 98 percent overall accuracy and 100 percent accuracy in terms of critical errors.

Now, this checklist points to the difficulty level of medical transcription. However, don’t let this deter you from joining the profession. Just make sure you have the potential for it and you and the job suit each other.

Many times in this blog we have said that medical transcription is not everyone’s cup of tea. It is not. What makes it difficult? Let’s find out.

Medical transcription doesn’t give you a list of eligibility requirements, making people believe that anyone can do the job. However, the profession requires a certain aptitude which is not explicitly defined. This often makes people ignore analyzing their own potential before joining the field.

The profession expects you to meet every deadline. Deadlines are meant to be sacrosanct in any field but more so in this field. You are required to turn around medical records in 24 hours. Sometimes, you may have to deliver records in a matter of a few hours.

Now, you do understand that meeting deadlines is not enough if the quality of your work is bad. The quality goals in the medical transcription work are extremely high with a required accuracy of 98 percent. And when it comes to critical errors, the profession has zero tolerance.

As a medical transcriptionist, you are required to keep updating your knowledge base. You have to spend time and effort on learning almost every day. And this makes the job difficult.

Stringent deadlines, high quality goals, incomprehensible recordings, and learning and research requirements, can put quite a lot of pressure on medical transcriptionists. This is why we say you should look into the pros and cons of the profession well before committing to the profession.

If you have any question about the medical transcription profession, feel free to ask us.

Medical transcription has its challenges. And it is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. That is why we insist you make sure you have the potential before you commit to the medical transcription profession. Wondering why medical transcription is not easy? Read on.

For starters, the profession has zero tolerance when it comes 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 medical transcriptionists can meet this quality goal.

Add the pressure of deadlines to the quality goals and you have a monster profession. You cannot relax with respect to medical transcription work. Every task comes with a tag of its required turnaround. You have to deal with deadlines every day, and some tasks need to be completed in a matter of just a few hours.

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 people stay away from the profession.

Irrespective of whether you work in an office or at home, 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.

It is, therefore, important to gauge your potential before you enter the medical transcription profession.