There are 8 reviews of this career. |
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Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
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Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
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Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
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Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
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Author: |
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Anonymous |
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Date: |
March 15, 2007 |
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Being a Medical Transcriptionist is a lot of hard work, but the payoff is that you get to do it from home. You absolutely must have good training from a reputable school. The best school to attend would be an on-line course that generally takes 6 months to 18 months to complete. This time period is basically of your choosing, as you must study and learn at your own rate. Good research skills are needed, and can be developed over time, in order to help you decipher the various pronunciations that doctors use for all terms. Good listening and reasoning skills are also a must. Patience with your learning curve is a help.
The learning never stops, even on the job, as there are always new drugs, procedures, research, equipment and doctors to deal with.
The pay is by transcribed line; a normal starting rate is 5 cents a line with most people topping out around 9.5 cents a line. The average line count for a seasoned transcriptionist with 5 or more years experience is 12,000-15,000 lines per 8 hour day.
You must be disciplined enough to be able to work from home and treat this as a normal job. You can't just go watch a movie in the middle of your shift or take nap. There are doctors and hospitals that need these transcriptions very quickly. You have to remember that just because you work from home doesn't mean that you can't act professional when it comes to your job.
The worst part of the medical transcriptionist career is the new interns that try to make up their own "fresh and hip" slang that no one else can understand, or the doctors that like to eat, converse with others, go to the bathroom, or use their cell phone to call in. Most doctors speak like they write: indecipherably. It is hard to do when you have a lot of background noise such as spouses, kids, music or televisions when you are trying to work as it creeps into your conscious and throws off your rhythm of typing and listening. If you are good at languages (imitating them, speaking them) or music (finding the patterns or beats) you will especially excel in this line of work. Typing speed is not the goal, accuracy is. This is a medicolegal profession and extremely necessary to the entire medical field. There is no chance that medical transcription will even be taken over completely by automatic recorders, as none of the doctors I have ever transcribed for speak clearly enough or consistently pronounce words in the same way for this to ever happen. If you don't rely on human contact to do a job, are self-disciplined, and are a hard worker this would be a very good job for you. |
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Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
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Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
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Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
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Author: |
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Anonymous |
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Date: |
December 29, 2006 |
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This is a good career to have if you understand what you are getting into. There are a lot of misunderstanding about what a medical transcriptionist is and does.
A medical transcriptionist is a specialist and must have a strong understanding of medical terminology. Contrary to what a lot of HR people think, you can not take any good typist off the street and have them do medical transcription. A medical transcriptionist is a vital part of the medical team. They are supposed to help ensure the accuracy of the medical record.
A person entering the medical transcription field should not believe the magazine ads hyping huge pay amounts. It doesn't happen very often.
A good medical transcriptionist must be able to use transcription equipment and have a good ear. Doctors tend not to be clear in their dictation. A lot of them have foreign accents, mumble, talk in a hurry and dictate with all kinds of background noises (including using the bathroom).
A medical transcriptionist has to type constantly 8 hours a day. This tends to lead to a lot of carpal tunnel and tendinitis.
A medical transcriptionist needs to have good English and grammar skills. The doctor will dictate a report, and then you have to put it into correct format that makes sense. You have to be part word dectective and figure out what they are trying to say. You have to understand context. Did the doctor say "autoantigen" or "auto engine"?
Sadly these days a lot of medical transcription is being outsourced to people that aren't familiar with the institution or area names. Focus now is more on productivity than accuracy. If you don't meet a certain quota you get docked pay. Degree of difficulty is not taken into account, so a complex surgery or foreign doctor transcription will not pay as much as a family practice visit.
A lot of transcription is done at home. This can be rewarding to some people. They can choose the time-frame that they work, and it is fun to sit around in your pajamas if you want to. If you work at home, you have to remember that you are working. You can't be distracted by personal phone calls or small children. This will make you less productive, and your pay will be docked.
Medical transcription can be a rewarding career for someone that likes playing with words and contributing to the medical record. You can hear interesting stories and get some good laughs. As long as you understand what you are getting into, it's worthwhile. Times have changed, so I can't say that if I had to do it over again I would do it again. I like the focus to be on accuracy rather than productivity. |
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