Medical Transcription?

[Partaria]

I'm the mom of a four month old babe. I've got to go back to work next week, and honestly, I can't stop crying over it. I don't want to go back, but unfortunately, DH doesn't make a lot of money, and we cannot survive on his income alone.

I want to look into jobs that will allow me to work from home. Has anyone had any luck with doing medical transcription stuff from home? Can you tell me what it took to get up and running on that (courses, etc), how much you earn, how difficult it is?

[Partaria]

anybody? :)

[cutiehoop]

I have known quite a few people who have worked from home as medical transcriptionists. Here are a few tips I can give you. Since you will be listening to doctor dictation, you need to work in a quiet room- so while the baby is sleeping or preoccupied with something else. Since your baby is so little, that shouldn't be a problem. I knew of a single mom who worked early in the morning and when her daughter woke up, she would work while she watched Sesame Street and then they would have the rest of the day together. Most of the medical transcriptionists I know say that the work isn't very challenging but the benefit of being able to work from home is what they like the best and it isn't a difficult job.

Employers will test your skills before they will even look at your resume so you need to get good training. You are going to need to learn how to spell medical terms, how to recognize them when you hear them, how to set up a medical record, and a really good course will help you increase your typing speed. Most medical transcriptionists are paid by production- per line or report. So the faster you can type, the more amount of money you can make in a smaller amount of time. I found a great resource for what types of subjects a good medical transcription course should include at http://bestmedicaltranscriptiontraining.com/choosing.html

If you are unsure about all this, you can see an online demo of a medical transcription course. That way you can see what it would be like training for this career. The demo is at http://www.careerstep.com/demo/?uid=ref10077

As far as pay, according to the US Deptartment of Labor, "Wage-and-salary medical transcriptionists had median hourly wages of $15.41 in May 2008. The middle 50 percent earned between $13.02 and $18.55." But again, they usually get paid by production so the faster you can type, the more money you can make per hour.

I could go on and on so I hope this is what you are looking for. Good luck!!!

[CookiePie]

One of my dear friends does Medical Transcription from home.  She must log in & work specific hours, which are pre-set.  She has been doing this for 20 years & makes about $15/hr.  But she does not have job security!  Her company is one of the bigger companies & keeps aquiring more of the smaller companies.  The rules keep on getting stricter as far as how many errors you can have and they continue to ship the jobs to India to save $.  Unfortunatly this isn't something that I would suggest, because I beleive it will be very difficult to find a job, and keep it.  She has been thinking about going to school to become a CNA, so that she has a back up marketable skill!    

[Kathi Mora]

Medical transcription is definitely not “easy” work, but it’s doable if you are trained for it. You can start by looking at some medical transcriptionist training programs at vocational schools like Career Step. This school specifically offers Medical Transcription courses online, so it’s both convenient and affordable. As far as wages are concerned, I think you can make anywhere between $10 and $20 per hour doing MT work.