How Do You Start A Career in Medical Transcription and Work From Home?
Most who are new to medical transcription from home don't know how to get started so here is an expert overview of the medical transcription industry and medical transcription jobs.
What is Medical Transcription?
Medical transcription is the process whereby one accurately and swiftly transcribes medical records dictated by doctors and others, including history and physical reports, clinic notes, office notes, operative reports, consultation notes, discharge summaries, letters, psychiatric evaluations, laboratory reports, x-ray reports and pathology reports.
Medical transcription involves receiving dictation by tape, digital system or voice file, the use of ear/head phones, a foot pedal for start-stop control, a variety of word processing programs and sometimes the use of a printer and a modem.
Is Medical Transcription a Legitimate Work from Home Career?
Medical transcription is most definitely a valid work at home career and, unlike work at home medical billing, it is not plagued with widely advertised scams that you see online or in newspapers. Medical Transcriptionists have three options when deciding how they want to work:
- Work as a Medical Transcriptionist inside a practice, hospital, etc. - If you take this route then you could make the equivalent of $9-15 per hour in a medical transcription job depending on your skill, accuracy and location. As with any other job you will be supplied with everything you need (including benefits) by your employer.
- Work in medical transcription independently on a self-employed basis - This is when you work completely for and by yourself: You take care of your taxes, you sign up and maintain your own client/accounts, you market your services, you provide your own benefits, etc. You'll probably start out at the equivalent of $10-15 per hour (or 6-14c per line) and in time (years) you could be earning the equivalent of $15-$40 per hour working at home as an independent medical transcriber, depending on the amount of work, clients and type of equipment that you use. Or;
- Contract to provide medical transcription services with one or more national, regional or local companies as an at-home Medical Transcriptionist - This is called "work from home medical transcription" and it is the same as the independent/self-employed medical transcription option 2, except that the company with which you contract usually pays 7.5% of the FICA tax (their share of the "SE Tax" you'd otherwise have to pay as a contractor), they might give you certain equipment to do the job their way and they will assign the workload expectation and set the pay scale.
Today, many work at home medical transcriptionists still deliver their completed work back to the office, but with technology being what it is now, it's just as simple to deliver the work via a modem. If you work from home in medical transcription for a national company they may require you to use a modem to download and transmit the work.
Up Next: What You Need for Medical Transcription Jobs
This article is part of the Home Work Guide
