Is Medical Transcription A Legitimate Home Based Business?

Yes, it is and it has been for decades. It is not one of those widely advertised scams that you would see online or in newspapers like the medical billing industry is plagued with. Medical Transcriptionists have three options when deciding how they want to work:

1) Work inside a practice, hospital, etc.- if you take this route then you could make the equivalent of $9-15 per hour depending on your skill, accuracy and geographic location. As with any other job you will be supplied with everything you need (including benefits) by your employer.

2) Work as an independent/self employed medical transcriptionist – This is when you work completely for/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 depending upon the amount of work, clients and type of equipment that you use. A lot of medical transcriptionist around the nation rather doing business this way (including me) and once you see the pros and cons of the business and speak to a CPA you’ll see that this route is rather lucrative and you’re the boss. Simply put, you own the company so you do whatever you must to make it a success. Or;

3) Contract with a national company – with this type of medical transcription you are referred to as Statutory Employee. It is the same as the above mentioned position with the exception that the company you contract with usually pays 7.5% of the FICA tax, they might give you certain equipment to do the job their way and they will assign the workload expectation and pay.

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.

It 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. Today many home based 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 of a national company they may require you to use a modem to download and transmit the work.

What Skills Does A Home Based Medical Transcriptionist Need?

Let me put it this way, having a computer at home and knowing how to type fast is not enough to become a successful medical transcriptionist. You MUST:

Take A Really Good Online Medical Transcription Training Course (or attend a good school-college-trade or vocational school),

Have Good Listening Skills,

Great English Grammar Skills,

Excellent Computer Skills,

Superior Research Skills,

Possess High Typing Speeds With Great Accuracy,

Pay Great Attention To Detail,

Have A Great Foundation In Medical Terminology, Anatomy, Physiology, Pharmacology, Laboratory Tests And Values, Medical Equipment and Procedures,

Possess The Ability To Work Alone (Usually you won’t have much contact with others),

Possess The Ability To Work Under Pressure And Sometimes Under A Deadline, and

Posses The Ability To Sit In Front Of A Computer For Extended Amounts Of Time.

You will need to invest in several different types of publications such as: an English dictionary, a grammar and style guide, a complete medical dictionary, a drug index, a laboratory and pathology word book, a medical word book by specialty, a surgery word book, a medical abbreviation word book, other specialty word books and a physician directory and other journals.

You will also need to use several different pieces of software such as a medical spellchecker and an abbreviation system such as PRD or Smartype. You will also need to learn all you can about your own computer so you can employ all the ticks and shortcuts within it to greatly enhance your productivity. Remember that you need to always have your hands on the keyboard because the more you type and type accurately is the greater your pay will be.

What’s The Initial Investment Needed To Do Medical Transcription?

This varies and it depends on several factors like:

Do you already have a home office or if you’re starting from scratch?

Do you have formal medical transcription training or not?

Do you already have most of the books you will need?

Do you have the necessary software programs to do the job professionally?

Do you need to purchase additional software or hardware?

The great thing is that you can buy most of the things you need (used) from places like eBay and other places that support the home based medical transcription industry. Your four major purchases will be your medical transcription training, transcriber, computer and reference books so your investment will be very minimal compared to doing medical billing from home where the investment can be as much as $6,000 to get the business off the ground.

$400 a week working from home