Medical Transcription - a Real Home Business

You've seen the ads in the back sections of a lot of magazines. "Do Medical Transcription From Home! If you can type 50 words per minute, you can be your own boss and set your own hours!" Then you happen to notice that this particular advertisement is among 20 others that promise overnight ways to get rich from the kitchen table, and you decide that it is just another hollow promise.

Well, I'm not promoting those classes that the advertisement is probably trying to sell you through the mail. But...as a member of a family who has benefited from the at-home medical transcription business for the past twenty years, I can tell you that the work is quite real, the jobs are quite available, and the money comes in a paycheck just like any other job you might take on. So maybe you shouldn't give up on the idea just yet. There are, however, a few facts that you might want to know before making a final decision about the medical transcription field, and whether or not it's for you.

Let me tell you the Smith story first. I mentioned that I was a part of a family that has benefited from the transcription business. You see, back in 1987, when my wife was busy rearing our two young daughters, she was also trying to earn a few extra bucks by teaching piano lessons in the evening. (I swear that I must have heard "The Spinning Song" and "From a Wigwam" about thirty times a week.) Then one day, she saw an ad in the local paper where a local physician was looking for a transcriptionist. Since she had done some medical transcription during a part-tim job while in high school, she decided to give the office a call, and inquire about the job. "I could only help out if I can work from home," she said, thinking about the need to be a stay-at-home mom. The doctor had no problems with that arrangement, and gave her the job. She soon picked up a few other local accounts, taught me to do a couple of them, then picked up even more when the internet became a household item, and now, almost twenty years later, we have brought one of the daughters on-board as a new employee, and we couldn't be prouder. It is a bit of work, but the money has always been good. Still, there are a few tips that I could offer someone just thinking about entering the field, things that have been learned over our own twenty years in the business.

I've been asked the same types of questions about the business many times. For example:

What is medical transcription? How is it done?

Well, when the doctor finishes examining a patient, he typically ducks into the next room, and dictates the detailed notes of his examination onto a tape machine or a digital recording system. Then, a transcriptionist plays back that dictation, listens to it over a headset while typing the report in the correct format, such that it becomes a medical record. The transcriptionist uses a foot pedal to control how much of the dictation is heard before reaching a stopping point, and then moves on when he/she has completed that particular section of the sentence. The finished report is either printed out to paper, or returned to the electronic data base of the healthcare organization, and becomes a part of the patient's medical records.

How does the transcriptionist get paid?

While some transcriptionists work by the hour, most are paid by the number of complete lines of type on the report, or sometimes by the number of keystrokes required to type the report. You can see why the best paid transcriptionists are the ones with the quickest fingers.

Don't you have to know a lot of medical language?

Well, yes you do, which is why it is important to have a biology or medical background, or to find some credible training courses that teach you the basics of human anatomy, medical terminology, and the names and uses of the standard laboratory tests. You may have to pay a little more for the better courses, but they're worth it in the long run if you don't have to spend all of your time looking up words or wondering if you are understanding the dictation correctly. Secondly, all serious medical transcriptionists will surround themselves with a few important reference books, including a Dorland's medical dictionary, the Saunders book that describes and provides spelling for all the newest medications (a yearly publication), and one the style guides that are published by AAMT (American Association for Medical Transcriptionists). These basic reference sources will be used constantly, even by the most experienced professional MT.

Is it expensive to get into the business?

It's not free, but as home-based businesses go, it is as reasonable as they come. A computer with a standard word-processor is obviously the important part of the work station, but so many homes have computers nowadays, that those interested in the transcription business probably already are computer-savvy and internet-ready. The reference books that were mentioned above could probably all be purchased for about 150 to 200 dollars, but will be effective tools for many years, even if one doesn't buy all of the newest revisions. A transcriber is standard equipment in many types of offices, and one that plays the micro-tapes, which most of our local doctors use, can be purchased for about 180 dollars, new.

What about privacy issues?

Good question. As a medical transcriptionist working for a healthcare provider, you will be required to sign an agreement ensuring the privacy of the patient's records while it is in your possession. You must keep in mind that, even if the subject of the report is someone you know personally, you do not have the right to say one word to anyone about the contents of the dictation. This is both a moral and legal obligation on your part. This is all governed by the HIPAA rules (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), and you can be in some serious trouble if you happen to disclose any information that has been entrusted to you by the healthcare professional. You should even get in the habit of turning off your computer screen when you leave the room to take a break, or placing finished reports immediately in a closed folder, in order to make sure no one else in the house has access to this information.

What kind of money can you really make, say part-time?

I can only go by what we have done in the past. My wife, a speedy typist, and one who has been fully trained in the business, could usually make from 18 to 26 dollars per hour, depending on the type of report, how well the doctor could be understood during the dictation (some not born in this country have dialects that can be difficult to understand without hearing the same phrase a few times), and whether or not she was typing in a familiar field of medicine (radiology, gastroenterology, etc.) The beginner would obviously not expect to earn that much right away, but one earning 8 to 10 cents per line might be able to reach a rate of 12 dollars per hour with just a few weeks of experience, especially if you happen to transcribe the same dictator over and over during that time. (Most tend to use the same phrases day after day.)

Other than local doctors, who can I go to work for?

Check the internet. There are quite a few transcription companies that farm out work to remote workers. Some may require to you take a test to measure your skill level, or may require that your work be examined by an editor for awhile, but these are generally steps that be completed without too much extra effort.

This all sounds pretty good, especially if I can make money and stay at home. There must be some down sides to this. What might those be?

One thing that my wife used to complain about is that it can be a very lonely business. (It never was for me, because I only did my transcription work after I had spent 8 hours in the factory already, socializing with all my cohorts.) One has to concentrate when transcribing, and being tied to a computer screen and a headset for hours at a time can, there is not a lot of time for visiting with others. In fact, if you have kiddies at home when you are trying to work on medical dictation, you will need to block out some of the normal home noise and distraction, or you will be working to the wee hours of the morning to try and get your work caught up.

A second thing is that the successful transcriptionist has to be self-driven. Remember that you are only getting paid for the product that you complete. No one will be there to prompt you to go back to work after a break. You'll have to be your own supervisor. You'll have to turn off Oprah and work steady in order to have some free time later in the day.

A third little problem is the vacation thing. If you are working exclusively for one of the big over-the-internet transcription firms, you probably won't have this trouble, because there are generally plenty of MT's in the pool to cover for you when you are gone. If you have local accounts, where you are the only transcriptionist in the organization, you may have to make special arrangements or find your own substitute if you need to be gone for more than, say, a week or so.

Other than these inconveniences, the business can be very rewarding. Medical transcription has been good to us, and we have appreciated it. One of these days, voice recognition software may finally advance to the point where transcriptionists are reduced to being editors, but overall, that science has not yet fully matured. There are still plenty of us out there cranking away at the keyboard, taking care of business. If you've looked past medical transcription once, thinking it was all a snake oil pitch, maybe you should look just one more time.