4 Myths about Medical Transcription

If you’ve been scouring around the net looking for information on whether what you’ve heard about medical transcription was true, then congratulations, you’ve come to the right place. Medical transcriptionists and students are probably no stranger to rumors about the industry—the most famous of which is that medical transcriptionists are a dying breed. And with slowed medical spending fanning the fire, more transcriptionists are resigning to the so-called fact that they’ll be retiring in the next few years and should be looking for a fallback career. Is your job really doomed to extinction as many outsiders have been saying? Our team of subject-matter experts debunks some of the most popular medical transcription myths below: MYTH No. 1: Job opportunities are getting scarce. According to popular notion, jobs that are used to be available for medical transcriptionist are now being outsourced overseas. Well, remember the the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), The act that mandates health care providers to implement stricter rules for protecting patient information? For the uninformed, this act has restricted activities of outsourcing medical transcription services abroad, leaving medical transcription providers no choice but to keep outsourcing to a minimum and only within the US. MYTH No. 2: Transcriptionists earn very little. Medical transcriptionists earn a median annual salary of around $32,900 according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. This is not as big as you may have expected and in comparison with what other allied health care professionals earn, but it is more than enough for any single medical transcriptionists or those who are not obliged to support their families. And this rate is more than enough to live far above the poverty line. MYTH No. 3: Speech recognition software and the new EHR (Electronic Health Records) system will rid you of your job. Speech recognition software and EHR system are being incorporated to the job to make the medical transcriptionist’s life easier. These are still imperfect and erratic technologies that are continuously being developed. As a medical transcriptionist, you need to keep an eye on the errors as they occur and correct them. MYTH No. 4: You need special software or equipment to be employed. Yes, you do need special tools like a foot pedal and voice recognition software to do your job as a medical transcriptionist. However, these things are not pre-employment requirements that you should bother yourself with, nor should you be denied employment for lack of these. If an employer wants you to invest and buy equipment from them prior to landing a sure job, then run for the hills. It’s probably a scam. Employers will set you up with no upfront cost; always remember that. As with other fields, there are always notions surrounding medical transcription that may encourage you or hold you back. But you already have the medical transcription facts—and it is always up to you whether you’d like to give medical transcription a chance or not.