A Career In Medical Transcription
Medical transcription has been in use since the 1950s. This is used to keep records of patients and since the doctor cannot do it themselves, this is where people like you who have the training can come in to help them and at the same time make some money.
There are a lot of medical transcription companies that offer their services to clinics, healthcare facilities, hospitals, the individual sector, laboratories and physician groups. Given the strong demand, you can even get into it yourself with the proper training and the equipment needed for this to work.
To qualify, you have to enroll in an institution that follows the syllabus designed by the American Association of Medical Transcription or AAMT. This is available in vocational schools and colleges. Those who dont have time to go to school may also find a program online so they can learn at their own convenience.
The important thing for you to learn are the medical terminologies often used by doctors so they will be able to transcribed the patients autopsy reports, clinical notes, consultation notes, discharge summaries, laboratory repots, psychiatric evaluations, operation reports, X-rays as well as referral letters.
Once given the job, you have to make sure that these are all error free otherwise; the doctor will decide to cancel your service and find someone else who can do a better job.
Just to give you an idea, some medical transcription services have been outsourced abroad because of cheaper labor costs. Two countries that have been doing quite well in this endeavor include India and the Philippines as majority of the people who come from there speak English quite well.
Some of the services that have been offered to them include cardiology transcription, chiropractic transcription, emergency room transcription, gastroenterology transcription, general Surgery transcription, internal Medicine transcription, maxillofacial surgery transcription, physical medicine transcription, plastic surgery transcription, radiology transcription and surgery transcription.
What kind of equipment is needed in order to have a medical transcription business? Most MT companies would require a toll free number, digital recorders, computer dictation systems, computers and a server.
They have to make sure that the line of communication is secure and that it is hack proof so information about the patient does not fall into the wrong hands given the rising number of incidents relating to identity theft. This is achieved or course using hardware that is HIPAA compliant secured with 256 bit AES encryption.
What kind of career do you expect with medical transcription? For those who are starting out on their own, they can make money if they are able to keep a client with error free documentation and submit this back on time.
If they are no longer able to handle the load themselves, they can train other people to do it or hire people who have passed through the same training and then hire these individuals to work for them. In short, you are able to start up your own medical transcription company.
Will medical transcription still be around for the foreseeable future? Many experts say yes because although there are already computer software programs that have been built and used by doctors to encode the data of the patient themselves, there are still issues that they have to deal with before medical transcription which has been around for more than 50 years will be phased out.