Medical Transcription Test Coverage: What Do I Have to Study?

So you’ve finished all the coursework needed—what’s next for you? No need to make second guesses or get nervous prior to your final exam. You can get your medical transcription certification easily by getting quality online medical transcription training from a trusted e-learning provider. Without proper training, you won’t have a hard time passing your exam.

What Topics Does Medical Transcription Training Cover?

Medical transcription training would give people with or without medical background a review of medical terminologies, especially pharmacological and surgical terminologies. Meditec’s course curriculum, for example, covers the following:

• Complete Medical Terminology I    25 HRS
• Complete Medical Terminology II    40 HRS
• Pharmacological Compendium    10 HRS
• Surgical Compendium    20 HRS
• Medical Transcription Theory & Practicum

Medical transcription training often takes six months or more to complete, as long as you make it a point to study at least 15 hours of lessons every week. In some cases, the whole course may even last up to nine months or a year. Once you’ve passed training, you’ll receive a certificate of completion which you can already present to potential employers on your job interviews.

The Job that Awaits You

Medical transcription is perfect for people who are interested in starting a vibrant career in healthcare information management. As an allied healthcare professional, medical transcriptionists are exposed to medical words and information daily. It is a great job for people who’d like to hone their grammar, typing, editing and listening skills.

Medical transcriptionists transcribe voice recordings of what had transpired in a patient-doctor consultation. They interpret data and organize them in a readable and accurate file for the reference of doctors, coders and medical billers.

Based on Bureau of Labor and Statistics data, medical transcriptionists have the potential to earn $15.82 an hour. They can also learn more depending on the volume of their output, especially if they work on a freelance or contractual basis. Medical transcriptionists can work from home, or can be employed fulltime in hospitals, clinics and transcription providers.

Don’t settle with fly-by-night medical transcription training providers that make empty promises. Be shrewd in choosing the right medical transcription training provider for your career enhancement. Choose Meditec.

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Top 5 Reasons a Paralegal is Too Cool for School

The legal world isn’t something like what you see in Ally McBeal, Judge Judy or something newer like The Practice. Or maybe it is to some extent—with more crass people, more paperwork but less melodrama. Forget about snagging some gossip-mongering session with your colleagues and long coffee breaks—those were in fact privileges, according to this first-hand account of a paralegal. You’ll spend the day buried in piles of paperwork, editing thick documents and serving plaintiffs.

You should be running for the hills by now after reading this introduction, but being a paralegal isn’t the worst thing in the world; Forbes.com has all the data to prove otherwise. According to Forbes.com, the job of a paralegal or legal assistant is one of the top underrated jobs of all time in the United States, with a whopping average median salary of $47,000 and a very low unemployment rate (4.6 percent). It is also one of the careers pink-slipped employees have been transitioning into in recent years. Forbes.com also said that less stress is associated with the job since paralegals don’t deal with clients, face-to-face.

For those of you who have been eyeing the profession to call your own, you’re on the right track if you have a knack for analyzing documents, technical writing, legal research, legal terminologies, and picking up new skills. Here are more reasons for you to build a career as a paralegal:

1.    Train in the comfort of your own home. Paralegal training is now available online. Programs usually take 12 months to complete, that is, if you study at least complete 18 hours of instruction a week. And right after passing your exam (usually with a required 70 percent passing score), you’ll receive your certification online, which you can readily download, print and present to potential employers.

2.    No need for a degree. A college education can get you places but its lack thereof doesn’t mean there will be a dearth of opportunities for you. As long as you have a highschool diploma or have passed your GEDs, you are qualified to undergo paralegal training.

3.    Brush up on skills needed for a legal career. Constantly coming across legal terminologies and working closely with attorneys, judges and other legal professionals will help you get better on the job, and even earn you skills you need for a promotion. These skills include research and citation skills, grammar and communications skills, transcribing, and auditing legal documents. The job obviously will make you well-versed in local and international laws as well.  

4.    Work hard for the money. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, paralegals earn a median average income of $46,680 a year. Paralegals earn an hourly rate of $22.44 as well. The average rate for paralegals is $50,220 a year. Now what’s going to make this data more interesting is if we take into account how much associate degree holders and non-degree holders make as a worker, as compared to those with Bachelor’s degrees. BLS data show that bachelor’s degree-holders earn $1,066 weekly, on average, while those with an associate’s degree make $785 and non-degree holders earn $727. Do the math and you’ll get around $32,000 worth of average annual salary, which still makes the salary of a paralegal by far higher than what is expected of non-degree holders.
 
5.    It’s a stable career. There are 276,030 paralegals and legal assistants employed in the United States right now, according to the Census Bureau. Employment outlook is rosy for the profession and the BLS forecasted the profession growing by 18% in the next seven years.

Meditec offers paralegal training for students interested in building a career in law. Meditec’s paralegal program spans 980 hours worth of instruction and is designed by seasoned authorities in the field.

Do you have success stories to share as a paralegal? What do you think of this blog post? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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Is Medical Transcription a Dying Career?

Many medical transcriptionists are claiming that the transition to voice recognition has changed the way they work forever. While the use of voice recognition software has undoubtedly made the lives of transcriptionists easier on the job, it did pose some employment challenges for some of them. And one would only need to visit answer sites and MT forums to believe this assumption. There, you’ll find out that most medical transcriptionists are being paid less because of a lighter workload, because the voice recognition software is robbing them of their work load.

Basically, what’s happening is that the voice recognition software now transcribes the recorded data for the medical transcriptionist; all the MT would have to do is review the file for errors. Some software has the option to autocorrect errors saved in its history, which in turn, rids the MT of the job to edit errors. In some cases though, MTs still transcribe the entire voice recording especially if the voice of the dictator hasn’t been recorded in the system yet. Otherwise, MTs would only have to edit the transcript for errors, and are only paid for the number of lines they edit and lines they actually have to encode. 

Bureau of Labor Statistics data don’t lie either. In 2008, the growth forecast for the career was at 11 percent. Two years later, however, the rate has gone down to a mere six percent, which is considered slower than the average for all occupations. There has been little movement in employment rates as well, with 5600 new medical transcriptionists to be employed between the period of 2010 and 2020. Overall, there are 95,100 medical transcriptionists working in the United States—a number dwarfed by that of medical records technicians (there are currently 179,500 medical records technicians in the US).

Despite these unwelcome changes, many people are still pursuing medical transcription as a career. And it isn’t entirely a bad idea. Medical transcription doesn’t require one to have a degree or certification and should certifications be required, training to become a medical transcriptionist takes only a few months. Training with Meditec, for example, takes six months tops, including the practicum (on-the-job training). The compensation isn’t bad either—at $15.82 an hour or $32900 yearly, an MT salary is enough to put food on the table. The salary is also enough to sustain one’s lifestyle, especially if you still don’t have a family.

Current MTs don’t have to worry because the demand for MTs worldwide is still strong, and you only have to go online to find gainful employment. Meditec’s seasoned subject-matter experts advise newbie MTs though to aspire to become a medical transcription editor, since it is a more stable job. Editors are more in demand and can readily shift to other fields, like web content, technical writing and medical writing and editing. Editors, also, make around $20 or so hourly. And if you want to shift to another healthcare profession, you can always turn to elearning companies like Meditec for assistance.

If the future still seems hazy for you, consult with Meditec. Download our free career guide to help you create a blueprint for your career future. Our career guide can help you match your personality profile to the job descriptions we’ve created. 

Are you facing the same struggles as medical transcriptionists worldwide? Do you know some income-generating tips for medical transcriptionists who want to earn more? Share your ideas in the comments section below this post. 

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Jobs that Can Benefit from Medical Billing Certifications

Medical billing isn’t exactly popular among people in the allied healthcare field. And who could blame them? Most people have a natural aversion to numbers. But what not a lot of people don’t know is that medical billing presents a lot of opportunities to those who are willing to study it. This is why a number of companies offer medical billing certification training in conjunction with their basic medical training packages. Here are some of the portable jobs in the allied healthcare industry that can benefit from medical billing certification: 

1. Medical Transcriptionists

Medical transcriptionists can up their chance of getting hired if they know how to do billing. They also get to increase their income potential by obtaining a medical billing certification. It’s a win-win for companies and transcriptionists—transcriptionists can get to fill in and answer the need for medical billers, should it arise within the company or their jurisdiction; and companies need not to worry about losing profits. Having a certification in medical billing also gives the medical transcriptionist an option, should he or she wishes to switch career.

2. Pharmacy Technician

Pharmacy technicians who work onsite at medical institutions have more things on their plate than drugstore pharmacy technicians. In some instances, they would be asked to make rounds at the hospital and address billing/insurance issues for prescription medications. Thus, having a medical billing training comes in handy for these professionals.

3. Medical Coders

Medical coders basically do half of the job of what medical billers do. If not for the codes they key in, billers will have nothing to bill. The coding skills they have will give them the edge in mastering billing terminologies and skills, while the billing skills will be an added career benefit for them as medical coders.

4. Customer Service Representatives

Customer service representatives working remotely for hospitals, especially in-house representatives, can benefit tremendously from having a medical billing career. First of all, they can switch to medical billing with ease should positions become available, and be promoted or hired for higher positions. And if they want to transition to another company, they can do so too with ease. On the other hand, most health care providers and billing outsourcing providers also look for medical billers with some level of customer service experience.

5. Medical Office Managers

Medical office managers need to know the office from inside and out, right? Sometimes, when jobs needed to get done and medical billers need an extra, helping hand, medical managers can help out with billing collections and audits. Medical billing training also comes in handy for medical office managers, especially when handling insurance issues that have been escalated to them by subordinates.

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A Survey of Pharmacy Technician Salary in the United States: How Much Do They Earn?

Pharmacy technicians assist licensed pharmacists in selling prescription drugs at hospital, clinics or grocery pharmacies. Aside from coordinating with health care professionals, physicians, pharmacists and customers for verifying prescriptions, they also pack, measure and mix medications. They also perform clerical and administrative tasks such as answering phone calls. In bigger health care institutions, a pharmacy technician’s scope of tasks may even include preparing more complex medications like intravenous medications. They may also be authorized to administer and deliver medications to patients. 

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics estimates that over 108,300 new positions will be added to the number of pharmacy technician jobs in the United States by 2020. Currently, there are 334,400 pharmacy technicians in the United States. As for job outlook, BLS data shows that career growth for pharmacy technicians is forecasted at 32 percent, which is considered faster than average.

Salary Range of Pharmacy Technicians in Different US States

The BLS reports that in 2010, pharmacy technicians earn a median annual wage of $28, 400 or $13.65 per hour. Salary.com reports a higher median average salary: $31,921. This salary is just the estimate for Pharmacy Technician 1 (Level 1) and may increase depending on experience, jurisdiction and demand for transcriptionists in the area.

Job opportunities abound for pharmacy technicians in the states of California, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois and New York, based on BLS study. The said states employed 11,390 to 28, 670 pharmacy technicians in 2011. The said competitive markets also have a higher median annual wage for pharmacy technicians. For example, the median annual salary for California pharmacy technicians average at $38,380, or $18.45 per hour. 

Pharmacy Technician Training Requirements

Aspiring pharmacy technicians do not need a college degree in order to qualify for training. A high school diploma or equivalent will do for the pre-training requirements. The same goes for employment requirements.

According to Salary.com’s profile for the job, pharmacy technician may not need prior training for the job itself, although some institutions prefer so. Employers also prefer pharmacy technicians who have had one to three years of experience of working for a health care provider.

What to Expect from the Job

Based on a study published on the website of the National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, certified pharmacy technicians have a low turnover rate at their place of work. Job satisfaction and career commitment are also reported to be at modest levels. Over 3,200 CPhTs were included in the sample, as provided by the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board. The study has also found out that pharmacy technicians receive high levels of support from shift supervisors, pharmacists and colleagues.

Resources:
http://www.meditec.com/pharmacy-technician-training/
http://www.bls.gov/

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