A profession that has long been associated with health care professionals for making their task easier, medical transcription is surrounded by many myths by now. For some, it’s just a typing job that requires high speed, and for others, it’s a dwindling career option with the advent of EMR (Electronic Medical Records) and other technologies.
Medical transcription service is as interesting and challenging as any other profile that requires expertise and dedication. The attraction of this service lies in its flexible approach in terms of working hours and location. Freelance and part-time medical transcriptions can work from anywhere with high internet connection. All they need to show is commitment for the turnaround time and correct knowledge of medical terminologies in recorded dictations.
Medical transcription is important not just for medical professionals, but also for patients and insurance companies to clear policy claims. Doctors and health care centers have the option of appointing in-house transcriptionists or getting the service of experts in the field via outsourcing. Third-party medical transcription service providers ensure several layers of quality control, adding to its reliability. With medical transcription service becoming an important element of the health care service, it is even more important to have a look at myths about it.
It is a mere typing job
Those who can type really fast are at the benefiting end when it comes to adopting medical transcription as a career option, but this is not the only thing required. The interest in learning new medical terminologies on a regular basis and a high concentration power to work on extensive medical reports are other requisites of this profile. It also requires a thorough knowledge of the working of this system, technologies required and the security policies adopted.
No training is required to become a medical transcriptionist
Medical transcription is not a layman job that can be performed by anyone. It requires as much training as any other job. Just memorizing few medical terminologies cannot help anyone in clearing even the interview round, as a fair knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and other medical stream is needed to best understand the dictations from doctors.
EMRs and other technologies will cut down on transcription jobs
Various speech recognition technologies and EMRs have entered the world of medical transcription, which are assumed to take over the manual task completely. But is this the case? Complete digitization of the task of taking medical dictations and turning into medical reports is practically impossible. Humans make errors, but relying completely on technology can have irreparable results. Encryption of medical documents and confidentiality of patients can be best obtained with the combined effort of human and technology, and not in isolation. A report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics further strengthens the brighter prospects of the transcription job. Employment opportunities for medical transcriptionists are expected to grow by 8 percent in the period 2012-2022.
It’s not an ambitious profession
It’s the flexibility of the working location that makes the profession of medical transcription a preferred option for freelancers and part-time job doers, but this doesn’t mean that it lacks the streak of ambition. Companies dedicated to the medical transcription service have different layers to ensure utmost quality of reports, and thus, there are plenty of opportunities to excel and move up the seniority ladder.
It’s a low stress job with plenty of free time
Taking dictations is not just about typing whatever is spoken by doctors, but is more about deciphering different medical terminologies spoken in a thick accent. The expertise in medical transcription profile comes with experience and with the understanding of different accents and speaking style. It’s a task that requires mind to stay active so that no word is missed out on. Most of the transcription requirements have the turnaround time of less than 24 hours, and meeting deadlines is another challenge.
It’s in demand in developed countries only
Earlier in 90s, most of the medical transcription jobs were outsourced to third-party companies in developed countries, but things have changed by now. Since 2010, compliance with federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for the confidentiality of patient’s personal information became mandatory. In the present scenario, health care companies prefer outsourcing the transcription task to such sources with whom they can connect more frequently, both on phone and face to face, to ensure security of documents.
Further, patients in developing countries are becoming more aware about the importance of health insurance, and thus, want documented medical reports to make claims.
Such myths and negative rumors just cannot waver the motivation of individuals in this profile that makes many promises for a brighter future.
