So you want to be a medical transcriptionist but the expense of paying for classes is getting you down. Then you hear about a free training course. Shouldn’t you just go for that?

Odds are that no, you shouldn’t.

The simple problem is that most free training courses are in fact scams. They’ll probably try to sell you software while claiming that the training itself is free. But then their training won’t be enough to get you an actual job as a medical transcriptionist.

There’s a very good reason why most medical transcription training costs significant money. Your teachers need to be paid for their efforts, and if they’re teaching at a good online school, they were probably excellent medical transcriptionists before. Their knowledge and skills are worth money to you and to them.

The free medical transcription training scam is most common as a part of a work at home job scam. They’ll say that the company will train you on the job for free if you just buy their software for a $300 or so. But you’ll never meet their quality standards to become a paid employee, assuming you even get the software working. In the meantime you’ve lost some money and are wasting time you could have better spent learning real medical transcription.

Top it off with the simple fact that legitimate employers are picky about who they hire as medical transcriptionists. You’ll be working with people’s private medical information. They need well trained employees who really understand the kind of work they’re doing and the absolute need for accuracy and privacy. Employers want employees who are either experienced or who have gone through a trusted training program. There aren’t any free programs that meet that criteria for any employers that I know of. At least not legitimate employers.

It may amaze you to hear that free can be a scam. That’s the simple, sad truth about working at home. There are many people who know just how desperate others are to work at home, and they have no problem with taking advantage of the situation.

Paying for a high quality course may be difficult. Many people who want to work at home want to do so in part because they’re desperately short of money. But paying for a course is an investment in your future career. Do your research before signing up for any training program and look for the payment plans they may have available. In many cases you won’t need to come up with all the money upfront in order to take a high quality medical transcription online course.

It’s not free, but Career Step’s medical transcription course is a great value if you’re ready to get serious about a great career as a medical transcriptionist.