Medical Transcription Career

Since the 1950’s medical transcription of patient records has been used in many areas of the medical profession. It's primary use is to enable the doctor keep accurate patient records since it is can be quite difficult for the work weary doctor to do it alone. So this is where people who have been trained can come in to transcribe the reports plus earn an income at the same time.

Clinics, healthcare facilities, hospitals, the individual sector, laboratories and physician groups require these services and there are quite a large number of medical transcription companies that compete for the provision of these services.

However as there is a strong demand with the right preparation, training and tools you too could compete for the paid work.

Qualification requires that you enroll in an institution that follows the American Association of Medical Transcription or AAMT syllabus. This syllabus is available in training (vocational) schools and colleges.

However if you wish to study on a part time basis there are also programs online where you could study within your own timeframe.

It is really important for you to learn the medical terminologies often used by doctors so that you can transcribe accurately the results of the individual patient’s consultation notes,clinical notes, discharge summaries, laboratory reports, operation reports, autopsy reports, psychiatric evaluations, X-rays as well as any referral letters to other specialists.

Once you have been contracted to carry out the work you need to ensure your work is error free because the doctor does not wish to spend time correcting your work or in the worst case attracting unwanted attention from his colleagues because of your mistakes... an unwanted result could be that the doctor decides to cancel your contract in order to source a more accurate transcriber for his work.

As in the case of many industries some medical transcription services have outsourced their servies abroad because of the cheaper labor available. India and the Philippines are two countries that have scored quite well in this field as a great majority of the people speak English quite well.

Some of the transcription services that have undertaken by them include emergency room transcription, general Surgery transcription,physical medicine transcription, gastroenterology transcription,maxillofacial surgery transcription, internal Medicine transcription, cardiology transcription, plastic surgery transcription, chiropractic transcription, and radiology transcription.

Now to run an MT service usually a toll free number is required, plus equipment such as computer dictation systems, digital recorders, computers and a stand alone server are required.

The onus is on the(your) medical transcription company to ensure that they undertake to provide a secure line of communication - particularly in today's climate where identity theft is rife and the Privacy Act strict. This line of communication needs to be hack proof so that any information about the patient remains private. Using hardware that is HIPAA compliant secured with 256 bit AES encryption should provide the requisite protection.

Is there a career for you in medical transcription? Well, if you can supply the transcriptions back to your client on time and error free you should make money.Plus if as a contractor of these services you are no longer able to handle carry out all the work alone you could train other people to work for you or even subcontract to you. Another option is to hire people who have undergone the same training as you to work in your company. Basically you could start your own medical transcription company.

Will your medical transcription company be an ongoing venture? It seems that although there computer programs being built for the doctors to encode the data of the patient themselves, there are - fortunately for you - some issues that still have to be dealt with before medical transcription can be phased out. And it looks as if this will take some time to come to fruition.