Start a Medical Transcription At Home Career

Copyright © 2008 Simplistic Solutions

As a medical transcriptionist, I do get asked several times a month, how I got started in this business. So many people nowadays want to work from home, especially mothers with young children. That’s the primary reason I started my home business ten years ago, so I could be there for my daughter. I didn’t want someone else taking care of her after school instead of me.

It’s really not hard to start a medical transcription business. The start-up costs are low compared to many other home-based businesses.

You need a form of education, via home study courses or by attending your local community college. You do NOT need a degree in medical transcription to start a business either. In a short amount of time, usually nine months or less, you can be working from the comfort of your own home, just like me.

You will need some equipment, such as a computer, a printer, a transcriber, and some reference books. All of which can be purchased second hand if need be. The latest and greatest equipment is not necessary to get started.

Now, there are some special skills you will need, outside of the education, which include:

* Excellent grammar skills

* Good Listening Skills,

* Basic computer skills with a word processing program

* Research Skills

* Ability to type – your speed will increase with experience

* Must be detail oriented

* Ability to work on your own

* Ability to maintain work deadlines and be a self-motivator

You will also need some computer programs such as a medical spellchecker and a word expander utility to cut down on the amount of actual typing you do. Some programs, such as Microsoft Word® include this type of utility. It is the best invention by far, in my opinion.

Basic bookkeeping is necessary, but not difficult. A good bookkeeper is great to have when it comes to taxes and advising you about saving money with tax deductions for your business.

Medical transcription is usually paid by the amount of work transcribed. Therefore, it is quite normal to charge your clients by the line. If you charge 13 cents per line and type 200 lines per hour, (this is a very comfortable speed to type) your hourly rate would end up being about
$26.00.

Being self-employed does have some pitfalls. One must consider, as with any home based business, that once you become self-employed you are responsible for securing your own health insurance, and putting away money for retirement.

However, there are many positive things about being self-employed, as I’m sure you can imagine. For me, what I love the most, is the flexibility I have with my time. If I want to work late in the day I can, and if I want to work early in the morning, that’s up to me. Running a home-based medical transcription business is a lot of fun.

Medical transcription is not for everyone, and it is important before venturing in to any business that you weigh up the pros and cons of it all and do what is best for your situation.

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Michele Miller is a home-based business owner and author of an Ebook about starting a medical transcription business.
http://www.medical-transcription-at-home.com

How To Be A Medical Transcriptionist Review

Cynthia Peavler Bull's book How To Be A Medical Transcriptionist is targeted to "beginners", the folks that are thinking that maybe Medical Transcription is a career they might enjoy.

Ms. Bull says in the book that she earned a diploma in transcription in 1997 and worked as a transcriptionist for some time after that. Her main business now, as you will see in the book, is Marketing.

The sales letter is interesting. It starts off with asking who wants to make $70,000 a year in medical transcription (see below), and then has endorsements by several prominent Internet marketers (who know nothing about medical transcription). It does promise some nice bonuses in the book.

There are some interesting sections in the book, such as how to protect yourself if there are mistakes in your reports, and the importance of continuing to train your ear and improve your listening skills. But the information about what one can actually expect to earn doesn't say much, and indeed doesn't do much to dispel the myth that she blatantly trumpets as the headline of her sales page:
"Who Wants To Make $70,000+ A Year Working In A Home Based Business As A Medical Transcriptionist?"

Make no mistake, there are people out there who are making that much money in transcription. But they aren't "newbies", that's for sure, and almost all of them have businesses with their own employees. They aren't making it via their own typing. Generally. There are exceptions. And guess what? The ones making it via their own work have no lives to speak of; they are typing 6-7 days a week, 12-14 hours a day. When I met my wife Pam, who types at 100+ wpm and has 25 years of transcription under her belt, she was making 70K, and she worked 6-7 days a week, 12 hours a day. And making more per line than is generally found these days.

Other than those interesting sections, the book is generally pretty fluffy and doesn't at go into the "dark side" of transcription, except to say in a few sentences that it's not just typing.

There are a couple of sections near the back of the book I found interesting as well; one series of questions answered by three or four other transcriptionists, and an interview with with another woman.

The remainder of the book is a series of links to affiliate products and plugs for her personal growth works. I can see putting a couple in there, but this is overkill.

Overall: I think that some people might appreciate her writing style, and there are some good points in it, but overall it is pretty lightweight, and seems more like a vehicle for pushing a bunch of marketing products than a serious attempt to provide real quality information to prospective transcriptionists.

Medical Transcription and Voice Recognition

According to the U.S. Government Dept. of Labor, the need for transcriptionists to be greater than for other occupations up through 2016: "Employment of medical transcriptionists is projected to grow 14 percent from 2006 to 2016, faster than the average for all occupations. Demand for medical transcription services will be spurred by a growing and aging population.”

The need for transcriptionists will continue until two things happen, neither of which will happen very soon: First, voice recognition (VR) technology must progress far beyond its present level, and second, the vast majority of physicians must adopt that technology.

Voice recognition technology is still in its infancy. I have continually tried the latest and greatest offerings by the software companies. My experience is that even for a person who has a great deal of time and energy to devote, the process of getting the VR software to understand him or her with a high degree of accuracy is difficult in a technical environment.

Unless the person is very careful to enunciate clearly, and also consciously limits the vocabulary in the dictation, there are going to be a lot of mistakes.

And every person who wishes to use the VR software must spend the time to get the system configured to their voice. Physicians are always overworked as it is; most simply will not spend the effort currently required to get the dang thing to work for them.

Then there are the issues of vocabulary and accent. Each medical discipline comes complete with its own list of terms that the VR software would need to be able to understand. The doctor would have to teach each and every word to the software - tedious and time-consuming work to say the least.

Also, in our melting pot of a society, a large percentage of doctors come from some other country than the United States. Since the software comes from the factory pre-configured to understand a Mid-Western U.S. accent, all those doctors will have a devil of a time getting the VR software to work properly for them.

Once VR technology progresses sufficiently to allow true ease of use, a majority of physicians must actually start using the software for there to be a significant impact on job opportunities in the Transcription world.

If you want to get the real story about what it’s really like to be a professional medical transcriptionist, then you should pick up a copy of Inside Medical transcription by Pam Lyon. You can get your copy here.