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.