Home Medical Transcription : A Decent Living or a Scam?

By Stephen Bucaro

No doubt you have seen many ads by medical transcription schools claiming that you can make big money typing medical transcription at home. Can you really make a good living doing medical transcription at home, or is it just another scam? In this article, you'll learn honest facts about home medical transcription.

Can you really make a decent living doing home medical transcription? Yes and no.

Yes - Many people are earning $50,000 to $80,000 or more per year typing medical transcription at home. They work where they want, when they want, and as much as they want. The amount of medical transcription work that needs to be done FAR exceeds available transcribers to do work. When I say demand exceeds supply, I mean situation is desperate.

No - Reading a few booklets and listening to a few tapes will not make you into an instant $50,000 per year medical transcriptionist. If you're not ready to commit to between six months and a year of hard study and practice, find another means of earning a living.

Typing medical transcription is not like typing a letter to your mother. It's far more challenging. Below are some of challenges you must be prepared to meet.

1. You must have a good understanding of medical terminology. You need to know how to spell names of latest medical conditions, drugs, medical tests, treatments, and procedures, and just knowing how to spell them is not enough. Because of challenge #2 decribed below, you need to have some familiarity with medical conditions and what tests, drugs, and treatments are related to that condition. It's difficult to learn this with a mail order medical transcription course. This type of knowledge comes from experience.

- You don't need to be familiar with ALL medical terminology. Many transcriptionists specialize in specific areas such as gastroenterology or opthalmology. However, when you want to go on vacation, you'll need someone else to take over your work while you're gone. In reciprocation, you'll need to cover for someone else when they go on vacation, and they may be transcribing to a different field than you're familiar with.

2. You need to be able to extract transcription from a noisy electronic recording. Unfortunately, many doctors mumble, garble, don't enunciate, don't speak up, or talk too fast when they dictate. Combine above problems with a thick, foreign accent and you can have real dificulty understanding what doctor is saying. In many instances, only way you will be able to decipher what doctor is saying is if you are familiar with medical conditions and what tests, drugs, and treatments are related to that condition.

- Doctors dictate "on fly". They don't have time to think about proper sentence construction as words emanate from their mouth. Frequently sentence they started doesn't make any sense or has an error by time they get to end. Do you edit what doctor said, or just type jiberish as dictated? Usually a doctor appreciates when you clean up their dictation. On other hand, medical documents are often presented as evidence in legal actions. You're taking on liability if you change what doctor actually said.