Medical Transcription Service - A Good Way to Work from Home  

A medical transcription service requires good language and listening skills. It also needs a good knowledge of medical terms, their meaning and spellings. Work is not a problem. There's a flood of medical records to be transcribed. These records include medical history and physical reports, clinical notes, office notes, consultation notes, discharge summaries, letters, psychiatric evaluations, laboratory reports, X-ray reports, pathology reports etc. The money is good, and the business can be done from home. Learn more.

Skills required

There are only two skills needed in a medical transcription service. The first is knowledge of medical terms, and the second is the ability to convert voice files into document files, which means you should be able to type as you listen. This is not difficult work.

If you are not familiar with medical terms you should enroll yourself in a medical transcription course. There are several training programs available which teach you a smattering of medical terms. They also teach you how to transcribe tapes accurately and swiftly. This training is useful because most of these companies use tapes or audio files that have been recorded by doctors.

Most companies like to hire medical transcriptionists (MT's) who have worked in a hospital or clinic, and are conversant with transcription work. However, they don't mind handing out contracts to individuals who want to work from home.

Payment

The payment for MTs is good. You can work out a flat rate based on the volume of work or on a per-hour basis. The average rates for a beginner vary from $8 to 12 per hour while the experienced MTs can make $12 to 20 per hour.

Equipment

A home-based medical transcription service can be run from a small room that can house a computer, a filing cabinet and a selection of medical dictionaries. The computer should be linked to a phone so that you can log onto the net to submit completed reports or to receive fresh audio files. It is useful to have a printer, because some hospitals or clinics may insist on printed reports instead of soft files.

There was a time when you needed a tape recorder with headphones to listen to the dictation stored in cassettes. Today medical records are being mailed over the Internet. But there is no harm in keeping a transcriber.

Since you will be glued to the computer for most part of the day you will need an ergonomically sound chair, non-glare lighting, and air conditioning to be comfortable.

If, however, you plan to set up a medical transcription service on a large scale then you need to hire space in a commercial area. You will need several work areas, each with its own computer, sitting and transcription facilities. The systems can be hooked to a local area network, and to a common printer. A common server can be used to link the systems to the net.

The investment, in such a case, will be heavy. You will also need an accountant and a network engineer to take care of the systems. Ideally, you should set up a commercial medical transcription service after acquiring at least five years of experience, and having built up a reasonable amount of savings, not to mention extensive contacts within the industry so that you are sure of a steady stream of work.

Financing

It's not difficult to obtain funding for a medical transcription service, especially a home-based one. It becomes even easier if you have MT experience. The banks then know that you can generate enough income to return the loan.

A commercial medical transcription service needs heavy funding, and for this you need a good business plan. The business plan must name sources from where you anticipate to get work, your past experience, your income-expenditure estimates over a five-year period, the number of MTs you plan to employ, the volume of work you anticipate etc. etc. This has to be a comprehensive and detailed document. However, there is little doubt that a medical transcription service is a fairly safe business. The work is assured and the rates are good. You only need to be computer-friendly to make it a success.

About the Author

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