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What is Medical Transcription?

When doctors see patients in hospitals, clinics and physicians? offices, they dictate important information about the patient’s history, physical examination, diseases, procedures, laboratory tests and diagnoses. The medical transcriptionists translates the oral dictation into detailed patient records that accurately communicate medical information.

Medical Transcription Job Market

There is a strong and growing demand in the medical transcription job market.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, “Demand for medical transcriptionists is expected to increase due to rapid growth in health care industries spurred by a growing and aging population.” Their report also says, “Contracting out transcription work overseas and advancements in speech-recognition technology are not expected to significantly reduce the need for well-trained medical transcriptionists domestically.”

Why choose Medical Transcription Career?

People become motivated about medical transcription for many different reasons. The most significant reason is to be able to work from home and enjoy all the benefits of working from home. Other benefits are decent income (expect to earn between $30,000 and $40,000 annually once you’re well-trained) and job security.

How to Becoming a Medical Transcriptionist

To become a qualified medical transcriptionist, formal training is required. Besides the skills required for general transcription, medical transcriptions must have strong working knowledge of medical language and terminology. Many medical transcription companies prefer to hire the experienced transcriptionists, but they will waive this requirement if the new hire are graduated from the top 3 medical transcriptions schools.

Medical Transcription Training

The TOP 3 medical transcription schools are: 1. Andrew, 2. M-Tec and 3. Career Step. All three schools offer excellent distance learning /online course. Students who successfully finish the medical transcription courses from the 3 school have no problems finding a medical transcription job.

Training is critical to become medical transcriptionists, and choosing the right medical transcription training school probably is one of the most important decisions to make. Following are some basic information about the top 3 medical training schools, and you can always contact them directly to request free information.

Andrews School

Tuition of the program is $3800. Payment plan (24 months) with no interest charge is available.

M-Tec:

Tier 1 Premier Program: Cost $3495, offers approximately 1155 clock hours of optimum training; (Strongly recommended if plan to work from home for additional medical transcription practice)

Tier 1 Basic Program: Cost $1925, offers approximately 555 clock hours of optimum training;

Tier 2 Premier Program: Cost $3395, offers approximately 1119 clock hours of optimum training;(designed for the healthcare professional RN, MA, RHIA, LPN, RHIT) wanting to make a career change.)

Tier 2 Basic Program: Cost $1825, offers approximately 483 clock hours of optimum training;(designed for the healthcare professional RN, MA, RHIA, LPN, RHIT) wanting to make a career change.)

Career Step

Online Platinum-Level Enrollment - $1560
Online Gold-Level Enrollment - $1320

The Career Step Medical Transcription training program is designed to be completed in 640 hours, or full time for a period of four (4) months. Career Step provides access and services for a period of eight (8) months beyond the initial four (4) month period, providing all students with access to all materials and services for a period of twelve (12) months. (extensions are available)

The above top three schools are ACCP approved medical transcription education programs. Personally I prefer Career Step due to the cost of the program. It is significantly lower than the other two schools without sacrifice of the quality of the education. You can request free information package from them here.

Legal transcription job market is unique and there is little competition and plenty of jobs. Legal transcriptionists are widely used by large corporations, private practice attorneys, governmental departments (such as court system), insurance companies and banks that all have a need for more accurate legal records.

Legal transcriptionists listen to dictations, such as count hearings, testimonies, interrogations and pleadings, and type them into documents that are edited and turn them into easily understood records. Those records are extremely useful for lawyers for research purpose and to win a case.

While looking for legal transcriptionists, many companies require individuals to have a strong working knowledge of legal procedures and terminology, these skills are necessary in addition to the skills required for general transcription, and usually companies prefer the individuals who have prior experience in the legal field.

If you want to become a legal transcriptionist, but have no prior experience in both legal and transcription fields, you might want to get into general transcription first, at the mean time get legal transcription training (which is preferred by many employers) to prepare you for legal transcription work.

Regarding training, many community colleges offer associate degree or certification courses in legal transcription. In addition to college course, many employers will allow individuals to train on the job. While working as a general transcriptionist, you can express your interest in legal transcription, and you might get such training opportunity and eventually get into legal transcription.

Here are some companies that offer legal transcription jobs (and general transcription jobs):

CyberDictate - cyberdictate.com
Neal R. Gross - nealrgross.com
SpeakWrite - speak-write.com
TASK Document Services - usetask.com
Ubiqus - ubiqus.com

Ready to enter the field of general transcription? Here are something you need to know.

What kind of work does a general transcriptionist do?

General transcription work could include but not limited to: Interviews, business meetings, conference calls, focus groups, press briefings, radio shows, video shows, panel discussions, seminars, lectures and speech etc.

Who would use general transcription services?

Many businesses and professions use general transcription services, such as: government, insurance companies, financial professionals, teachers, students, marketing researchers, professors and other general businesses and corporations.

How do I get started if I have no experience?

Fortunately there are some transcription companies will hire workers with no experience. However, you still need to have the required skills I mentioned in my last post (Transcription Job overview), and practice and be prepared to take transcription tests which could include transcribing a short audio, grammar and punctuation tests.

Please remember how fast you do a certain transcription job depends on the quality of the audio, how familiar you are with the audio material subject, your listening skill, your grammar, proofreading and editing skills. Another point is since audio sujects vary greatly, if you have a basic knowledge of a wide varity of topics, you probably will find the job much easier.

Following are some resource you can use to test and improve your skills:

• Sample audio test: here is a a good audio sample test: http://www.freelancetranscriber.com/transcriptiontest.pdf
• Practice audio: do a google search for “free podcasts”. Podcasts are usually crystal clear audio and short, and you will have a variety of topics to choose from.
• Grammar: grammarbook.com (the blue book of grammar)
• Typing: although typing skills is not essential, a few companies do require minimum speed. Following are some free typing test and practice sites:

learn2type.com
testmytyping.com
typingtest.com

There is no formal training for general transcription, it is just a matter of getting your foot in the door and doing it regularly to build your speed. There are companies that willing to hire with no experience, such as TigerFish and AccuTran. TigerFish even have their test posted on their website. You can also check your local transcription companies and craigslist looking for temporary assignments that will give you the experience to apply for other companies later.

Here is a few good companies that offer general transcription jobs:

Accutran - accutranglobal.com
Cambridge Transcription - ctran.com
Domenichelli Business Services - moderndayscribe.com
Escriptionist - escriptionist.com
Morningside Partners, LLC - fdch.com
Mountain West Processing - mountainwestprocessing.com
Net Transcripts - nettranscripts.com
Rapidtext - rapidtext.com
SpeakWrite - speak-write.com
Tigerfish - tigerfish.com
The Transcription Company - transcripts.net
Ubiqus - ubiqus.com

What is transcription? Transcription is the process of creating written text from recorded or live audio. It’s a manual act of typing the spoken word, from any audio format, to paper or computer file. Quality and efficient transcription service is very much needed in many businesses and professions.

There are three type of transcription - General Transcription, Legal Transcription and Medical Transcription.

Skills required for all three transcription work:

1. Above average knowledge of English grammar and punctuation;

2. Excellent listening skills, allowing the transcriptionist to interpret sounds almost simultaneously with keyboarding;

3. Advanced proofreading and editing skills, ensuring accuracy of transcribed material;

4. Versatility in use of transcription equipment and computers, since transcriptionists may work in a variety of settings;

5. Highly developed analytical skills, employing deductive reasoning to convert sounds into meaningful form;

6. Good typing skills.

General transcription: there is no specific training for general transcription.

Legal transcription: previous legal experience is usually required;

Medical transcription: formal training/course from a reputable medical transcription school is required.

Transcription is a great work from home option, since most transcription companies allow their qualified transcriptionists to telecommute. If you have good skills of typing, listening, English grammar and language, you might want to give it a try. I will be exploring the above three transcription jobs in the later posts, so stay tuned!