Medical Transcription - a Real Work-At-Home Job

Want a real work-at-home job? No, really, I mean a real job that you work from your home with benefits and everything.

No phony baloney MLMs or scams. Just real work that you do at home instead of in an office an hour away from home.

Look no further than medical transcription. Medical transcriptionists have been able to work at home for years. In fact, I've worked at home doing medical transcription for over two decades.

To paraphrase Barbara Mandrell, "I was working at home, before working at home was cool."

Back in high school, I never thought I would be sitting in front of a computer for hours on end, listening to doctors attempt to speak English. I wanted to play the flute, in a symphony, of course, and therefore, I majored in music in college.

That's why I'm a medical transcriptionist today. That, and the fact that I wanted to raise my children at home when they came along. Babies are huge motivators!

So here's the up side:

1. Working at home. Enough said about this.

2. No office politics. No gossip. No personalities. I worked an in-office job once where the other transcriptionists got mad at me for doing too much work! I was making them look bad!

3. You don't have to raise your hand to go to the bathroom. Your personal idiosyncrasies aren't the topic of office conversations. I've heard people laugh about what other employees eat for lunch.

4. No wardrobe worries. Work in your jammies!

5. No expensive lunches. I don't like paying an hour's wages for my lunch, do you? But when everyone is ordering Chinese, you kind of feel obligated to join in.

Now, how about the down side:

1. You have to learn the medical lingo, but that part isn't too bad if you're fairly intelligent. A short course or a self-study program can get you going quickly.

2. Doctors don't always speak intelligibly. In fact, they usually don't. This is the crux of what makes medical transcription so difficult. Speaking fast, mumbling, background noises, and all manner of annoying sounds contribute to making getting the doc's words onto paper a tough prospect. And believe me, they don't understand and they don't care!

3. Many doctors speak English as their second language and are very difficult to understand.

4. You have to sit basically motionless for hours at a time.

5. It can be hard to get the first job.

6. Unless you can bang out a lot of transcription, 7 or 8 cents per line doesn't add up too fast.

7. It's boring. Mind-numbingly boring.

Bottom line, it's hard work.

Now you need to decide if the up side outweighs the down side. If it does for you, it can be a great life.

The next step?

Can you type? Can you type fast? Okay, good.

The next part is transcribing. That is, listening and typing what you hear. You can buy practice tapes or trying taping yourself or someone else talking, then type from the tape. Can you stand it? Then you might be a good medical transcriptionist.

There are a lot of courses available on-line for becoming a medical transcriptionst. If I were starting out right now, I would go through one of the transcription services that repays a portion of the cost and will hire you once you complete the course.

Who else benefits from working at home as a medical transcriptionist?

Spouses of military personnel or those who are required to move frequently, people living in remote and rural communities with few job opportunities, and the handicapped.

The benefits are there, but consider the cost as well. If I had it to do over again, I personally would not. I would retrain for another career. But that's the benefit of hindsight! Make an educated choice and go for it!