Read before choosing MT as a career:
If you’re looking to get into medical transcription, please read my revised information first.
I have been a medical transcriptionist since 2006 and it has been a rewarding career opportunity until the last 2-3 years. I have noticed that a lot of the work has been outsourced and that the pay rate has also decreased dramatically. A year ago, I lost a few doctors and had to look for a part time job as a MT to supplement the loss until my employer was able to find new work. I have to say it was the toughest job search I have ever done. Back in 2006, when I first looked for work as an MT, there was an abundance amount of companies hiring, whereas now it was like pulling teeth.
The only work I could find was VR editing (voice recognition) for 3 cents a line. If you don’t know what VR is, it is a software that converts the spoken word into visual characters. Basically, the doctor will talk into a microphone and whatever he says will be typed out by the VR system. Then, as a medical VR editor, you review it by listening to the doctor and comparing it to what was typed out by the VR system. Sound easy, right! That’s what I thought.
I decided to give it a try as the company that hired me said it was minimum editing, which I thought I would be correcting a few errors and would get a bunch of reports done to compensate for the decrease in pay from straight typing. Boy was I wrong! When I started proofreading the reports, it was 90% me fixing what the VR system incorrectly typed out and for what… half of the pay.
To make a long story short, after researching and having the experience of looking for work and not finding it, that’s when I realized that medical transcription was no longer a career that was in high demand anymore.
I realized that if the company I worked for lost its doctors again, then looking for work as an MT would not be option. That’s when I started researching what career I could get into that was still in the same field I was in and came across medical coding and billing. I decided to take a course in medical coding and billing with Career Step while still working as a medical transcriptionist with my employer. I will keep you updated as I progress in this field.
If you feel that medical transcription is still a career you want to pursue, please feel free to continue reading the information I gathered when I was first pursuing a career in medical transcription.