Career Options for Medical Transcriptionists

The job outlook for the medical transcription industry is seen to grow by 6 percent in the next seven years. It may not be as fast as the progress for other professions, but it’s decent. Despite this slowdown, medical transcription is still one of those medical jobs that one can do without leaving the comfort of their own home. It is a perfect option for housewives, medical practitioners, retirees and other professionals who simply love to work independently.

The salary rate for medical transcriptionists is more than enough to pay the bills and support a family (especially for single moms). The median pay for medical transcriptionists according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics is $32,900 annually, with an hourly rate of $15.82 per hour. And with outsourcing paving the way for an abundance of available jobs, the rates could go higher depending on the volume of output you produce.

Most companies that hire onsite medical transcriptionists require the latter to have at least some level of experience or certification. They, however, tolerate applicants without experience and train them themselves as long as the applicants are certified. Online companies, on the other hand, prefer medical transcriptionists who have an ample amount of experience in the field and certifications to show.

To become a medical transcriptionist, one has to train by enrolling in training such as www.meditec.com medical transcription course, which would teach him or her the rudiments of transcribing and basic medical terminologies. The course will then proceed to the training proper where the student is informed of how to operate the audio-transcription software and foot pedal. Additional techniques are also provided to ease the work of the transcriptionist and to help them better their skills.

The career path for medical transcriptionist is usually geared towards becoming a healthcare information management supervisory position or as an editor (Quality Assurance editor) or medical transcription trainer. In some cases, medical transcriptionists can also transition to the roles of medical billers and coders, or that of a healthcare administrator provided that they receive proper training and experience from their superiors. Some medical transcriptionists can also seek copy editing or transcribing jobs from other industries, like publishing or medical journalism. Seasoned ones, who have had more than five years of experience in the field, can also enter the academe as a medical transcription instructor or teacher. Indeed, the possibilities are endless with a medical transcription career. 

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How to Become a Medical Transcriptionist

Not a lot of people are aware that doctors rely heavily on the skill of a medical transcriptionist. In fact, doctors base their diagnosis and prescriptions based on previous diagnosis, lab test results or previous medical histories transcripts-- of course, all transcribed by a medical transcriptionist.

For some people, a medical transcriptionist's job may be just be a bit of typing, but it takes more than transcribing a patient's history or doctor's note. It involves a lot of analysis too and data interpretation, mostly to make sense of a jargon-heavy medical diagnosis or report.

Being a medical transcriptionist is a good fit for people who have a knack for medical terms, writing, editing and homebased work. There are medical transcriptionists working onsite for hospitals, clinics and transcription service providers as well should medical transcriptionists want to work in an office setting. The job also pays well at $15 an hour.

With healthcare services steadily increasing, it's almost impossible for aspiring medical transcriptionists to find a job. Contextually speaking, the rise in demand for healthcare services is brought about by aging baby boomesr requiring more services. The encounter between patients and health care providers has increased both via face-to-face sessions and electronically. Either way, someone has to transcribe the recordings of what transpired during the session. This is where the medical transcriptionist enters the picture.

Becoming a medical transcriptionist takes about six months to a year, on average, if you count in the internship. Assuming you spend 15 hours a week studying, finishing a program in six months is certainly doable. Enrolling in a program is your first step in becoming one, of course.

A medical transcription program will equip you with the skills and knowledge essential to the job. Specifically, the course will acquaint you with medical, surgical and pharmaceutical terminologies; and copyediting. The program will also broaden your understanding of the medical transcription profession as well as the theories behind it. Once you've completed the coursework and final exam, you'll receive your certificate of completion right away.

On-the-job trainings are also offered by medical transcription providers at a minimum fee. Some providers like www.meditec.com offer free internship programs for the creme de la creme of its students. In order to qualify for this kind of internship, students would have to pass a ceiling grade, in this case, 90 percent.

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Practical Tips for the Medical Transcriptionist

Quick: What’s the difference between a medical transcriber and a medical transcriptionist? If you answered that the first is the equipment and the second is the person who uses that equipment, then you’re well on your way to success in the field of medical transcription.

You see, medical transcription demands of its practitioners not just precision but also a wide stock of knowledge. You won’t last long in the business if you don’t have both.

Now that you’re embarking on a medical transcription career training, here are some practical tips to transcribe by:

1.     Don’t rush. You’re not in the ER; you’re in a field where accuracy is paramount, where a small error could snowball into something that can endanger someone’s health. Some tend to liken medical transcription to other types of transcription. It’s not a good comparison. Transcribing medical records is a lot more demanding on your accuracy, sense of fidelity, alertness, and knowledge of the field. Slow down. Advice: Set your transcribing machine at a slower speed.

2.     Right References. Be right. That is, be correct based on the right references. The medical profession is a science not an art (notwithstanding terms like “medical opinion” or “the medical arts”). In fact, it is much more a science now than it was just 10 years ago, what with the advent of genetic engineering, stem-cell research, and nanotechnology. So, arm yourself with the right reference materials: an updated copy of the Physician's Desk Reference, for one; bookmarks to reputable medical websites and pharmaceutical companies, for another. You may even want to have a basic Latin-English dictionary on hand since most ailments go by a Latin name. You’ll need to take pains to look up unfamiliar drug names and medical terms with Latin names so you can put in context the medical notes you’re transcribing.

3.     Leave Blank an Unfamiliar Word. If you’re in doubt, leave a blank (or an easily noticeable marker) in place of the word you can’t decipher. Don’t guess (“it sounds like”) because there’s no such thing as a half-right word. Play it safe because it is the correct thing to do. When you’re ready to proofread, simply refer to your markers and go back to each spot on your recording where the problematic words appeared. Again, slow your machine down.

Now, you’re all set.

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MTIA Becomes CDIA, and an eBook for Medical Coders

In March 2011 the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) officially became the Clinical Documentation Industry Association (CDIA), to reflect the group’s envisioned expanded role beyond medical transcription, editing, voice, and speech recognition. CDIA said that its new involvement now addresses every point in clinical documentation, including medical billing and coding training, pharmacy technician classes, and medical transcription training,

The new name is an adaptation to the evolution of the industry, now pulled beyond its original form by technological change and outsourcing. According to CDIA, the overwhelming majority of the businesses doing medical transcription are small firms now struggling to cope with the changes in a still highly profitable industry. CDIA hopes to become the industry resource for these companies.

“Complete and accurate clinical documentation is mission critical for healthcare providers,” said Peter Masanotti, a founding partner of CDIA. He explained that information captured without quality-assurance measures or best-practice processes often produce errors that could snowball down the healthcare delivery system. CDIA coordinates with other organizations and standards-setting groups to develop best-practice processes and guidelines to ensure quality clinical documentation.

Meantime, a new eBook for medical coders was recently released by its author, Nancy Krall, of icd-diagnosis.com, a help website for medical coders in search of the correct medical codes to use in their documents, for those who need to prepare for credentialing exams such as those in medical billing and coding training, in pharmacy technician classes, or in medical transcription training.

The eBook, ICD Medical Thesaurus For Coders, supplies coders with the synonyms they often need to look up the correct symptoms or diagnoses so that billing claims can be paid. Being a thesaurus the medical terminology in the eBook has been matched up with synonymous terminology which has the same or similar meaning of the original medical term. Krall, as a nurse and a trainer in a coding department, saw the need for a resource to help coders with the medical ICD terminology. ICD Medical Thesaurus is available at Amazon's Kindle Store at amzn.to/yzvVlB for $3.99.

The eBook comes at just the right time. The shift to ICD-10 by October 1, 2013 means that the 14,000 medical codes in ICD-9 that the medical community now uses will balloon to some 64,000 codes. The extra 50,000 codes will enable medical coders to be a lot more precise than before in coding for specific disease diagnoses. Krall hopes that ICD Medical Thesaurus will make it easier for medical coding employees to find the correct codes for problem-free claims.

Meditec, a top portal for medical billing and coding training, pharmacy technician classes, and medical transcription certification classes, provides medical coders the right coursework to be able to work right away with ICD-10 when it’s implemented.

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Medical Transcription and Medical Transcriptionist’s Technologies

The Pacman of the medical transcription (MT) world has done it again. For those of you who are just beginning their medical transcription professional career but like to keep close tabs on the industry news, here’s an update: Major medical-transcription firm iMedX Inc., of Shelton, Conn., has gobbled up yet another MT organization; this time it’s the National Medical Transcription LLC (NMT) of Port Washington, N.Y.

The New York firm said that it will soon incorporate its customers into iMedX following the buyout. iMedX, for its part, explained that the buyout will increase its customer base, especially in the Mid-Atlantic region. NMT, which specializes in medical transcription systems, becomes the tenth firm (at least) in the medical software field to be assimilated by iMedX since March 2008.

iMedX is privately held, and is backed by New Canaan, Conn.-based RFE Investment Partners. The company makes the TurboScribe, TurboRecord, TurboRx and TurboFlow medical transcription software products.

The rapid expansion of iMedX reflects the robust health of the medical-transcription industry in the U.S., belying fears that outsourcing is hurting the industry.  It also reflects the industry’s ever-growing reliance on new technology.

One such technology, however, is causing concern among medical transcriptionist. It doesn’t need any medical transcription training, it doesn’t need any coffee breaks, and it sure doesn’t need to get paid. It’s called speech recognition transcription (SRT) software and it’s giving newly-fledged and veteran medical transcriptionists alike an inferiority complex. But should it?

SRT is a child of the computer age we live in. It enables the translation of a voice file into an editable text file in much the same manner that your scanner’s OCR (optical character recognition) magically transforms a page of your book into, say, a .doc file. SRT completely cuts out the traditional middleman, the transcriptionist, from the process. Theoretically, it can make the transcriptionist completely unnecessary, obsolete. But that time has not yet come because the technology to do it is definitely not yet here.

The two main stumbling blocks of SRT in medical transcription are transcription accuracy and medical terminology. To put it simply, it cannot yet transcribe well enough for the job, especially if that job is loaded with medical jargon. SRT, at this stage, simply makes too many mistakes to be considered reliable. In one recent study, in fact, over 600 radiology reports were transcribed, half by a medical transcriptionist, half by SRT. The SRT reports returned an error rate 800 percent higher than the transcriptionist’s report.

At Meditec.com, a premier provider of many online courses (including pharmacy technician courses, medical billing and coding training, and medical office management training), reliability and accuracy are focus points of its medical transcription training program. They will serve well the aspirant medical transcriptionist in a future that will see SRT attempt to make inroads in the medical transcription world.

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Medical Transcription Career

One of the popular jobs nowadays is that of a medical transcriptionist. This career offers opportunities to those individuals who prefers or has no choice but to work from home. This is one of the career choices for those people who are fixed at home due to family reasons (housewives or people taking care of relatives) or those who can’t leave home due to medical conditions – they add up to the earnings of the family by working online without having to sacrifice certain needs.

Transcribing voice records of physicians of healthcare personnel and making a report out of it is the main task of a medical transcriptionist. Most professionals in this field are very keen in listening and have fast typing skills. Of course editing some sentences and correcting grammars are part of the job. Those who are familiar with medical words and terms have a good advantage in this job. 

Being able to do different jobs at the same time or multi-tasking is one of the plus factors for this career. One sample of multi-tasking they have to do is to listen to recordings, record it and edit it at the same time – this is common for those working from home but for those working directly in healthcare facilities have a wider range of responsibilities. 

There is now a lot of software and improvements in technology that makes a medical transcription career easy to conquer. There are now technologies such as voice recognition that translate recordings to written text. The MT’s job would then be to edit the report as not all systems are perfect.

This career does not require a bachelor degree but a vocational training in a medical transcription school. One thing that a lot of people liked is that aside from training centers, this field is also offered through online courses – both training and certification.

Medical transcription training educates the individual for all of the traits needed for the job. Medical terminology and procedure familiarization is one of the trainings included along with English and grammar language courses. It could take up to a year or two to finish the course (depending on the school schedule or your pace in online training). 

This industry is increasing its demand because it is a truly promising job. Interested people can look up both online or a nearby training center for their training. One sample of a good provider is Meditec– a site that you can visit to start your very own career in medical transcription.

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