medical transcription school – Medical Transcription Basics

Tag: medical transcription school

Is It a Good Idea to Go to School to Become a Medical Transcriptionist?

March 1, 2011 / Stephanie / Comments Off

A career in medical transcription is interesting to a lot of people, but there are a lot of reasons to be concerned about the career as well. The idea that you might be able to work at home is appealing to a lot of people. Concerns about electronic records and voice recognition software make it less appealing. Is going to school to become a medical transcriptionist a good idea? Is it still worth it?

You absolutely need to consider the future of medical transcription. It’s extremely relevant even when you’re training up for your first job. Good training will allow you to consider what’s happening within this industry.

It must first be noted, however, that there are still a lot of jobs out there for traditional medical transcriptionists. It has not vanished, and won’t for some time. Electronic medical records don’t automatically end the need, and not all doctors use voice recognition software. It takes time to make those changes.

Those won’t entirely do away with the need for medical transcriptionists anyhow, and if you have the right training you might just be able to take advantage of that. Places that don’t need medical transcriptionists because they’ve gone all electronic may still need help with their medical records, with transcriptionists working in an editing capacity. You’d be catching the errors the software makes in the record, and make no mistake, they will be there. Voice recognition is far from perfect.

Paying attention to where the industry is going is how you make your schooling worth it even if you don’t specifically take medical editor training. You may prefer to do the basic medical transcriptionist training to start, then add in medical editor training once you have some experience. A medical editor will still need to know how to do the work of a medical transcriptionist in order to do that work accurately. Such jobs will keep being out there for some time; the U.S. Department of Labor expects medical transcription jobs to grow by 11% by 2018. This could change as it’s only a forecast, but it is a good indication that the jobs aren’t going away too soon.

There is one more thing to consider when you’re wondering if going to school to become a medical transcriptionist is a good plan. That’s your own dedication to your training. It won’t be worthwhile if you aren’t a serious student. Taking classes isn’t a magic pass to a job. You have to gain the skills. You have to do hours and hours of practice transcription from real doctor dictation. You must learn the vocabulary. If all you want is to get through the classes fast, they might not be the best choice. You’re better off if you plan to take the time you need to learn all the skills.

Get free information from Career Step about their online medical transcriptionist training.

Which Online School Is Best for a Medical Transcriptionist Diploma?

February 23, 2011 / Stephanie / Comments Off

If you want to get into medical transcription, you’re going to need to get an education in it first. There’s a lot you have to know, and it’s a challenging career. You want to find the best online school to get your medical transcriptionist diploma.

There are several good choices available to future online medical transcription students. Once you know how to tell which are good, you can pick from them and decide which is the best for you.

The most important thing you get from an online school is not your medical transcriptionist diploma. It’s the skills to work as a medical transcriptionist. If you don’t really develop those skills well, the diploma is nothing more than a piece of paper.

Also important is the reputation of the online school with potential employers. It doesn’t matter how dedicated a student you were or how well you learned to transcribe medical records, if employers have had too many bad experiences hiring graduates of a particular school your odds of getting a job at that company goes way down. You want to go to a school that has the trust of many employers.

The program should teach you many of the basics first, such as medical terminology, anatomy, physiology and so forth. You can’t rely on a spell checker too much when you’re a medical transcriptionist, so all these things must be familiar, not just so that you spell them correctly, but so that you can hear the doctor say them and transcribe the report correctly. Many medical terms sound extremely similar to one another, and you must understand them well enough to catch the difference and to know if the doctor may have made a mistake in his dictation.

That’s only a part of what the school must teach you. They must also have you transcribe many hours of real doctor dictation for practice. This is where you learn how to put it all together into the medical record. You learn all about how to do this in the other parts of your training, but without a lot of practice you aren’t going to be prepared to do this in real life.

Cost has to be a factor for most of us. There aren’t many who can just pick a school with no thought to expense. There are very limited options for financial aid as a rule, since most programs don’t qualify for the usual financial aid programs.

You can just go with the most expensive school, but that’s not necessarily the best bet. Price isn’t everything. Make sure that if you go with an expensive school that the quality is worth the expense.

Don’t go for the cheapest either, although I would hope that would be obvious. It’s not cheap running a good online medical transcriptionist school. Too cheap means the school is probably lacking in some way.

Many schools will offer some sort of payment plan even if they don’t have other sorts of financial aid. There may also be benefits to paying the entire expense at once. Figure out what will work for you.

With some research into these factors you should be able to narrow down the field and pick the right online medical transcriptionist school for your needs. Once you’ve signed up, it’s up to you to make it through the classes and become a medical transcriptionist.

Get free information from Career Step about their online medical transcriptionist training.

Is Schooling Necessary to Get a Job as a Medical Transcriptionist?

February 8, 2011 / Stephanie / Comments Off

Going through medical transcriptionist schooling may seem like an extra, expensive step to getting a job as a medical transcriptionist. Why do you need to spend thousands of dollars and several months learning the skills for this job? Isn’t it just typing up what the doctor says? How can that take special schooling?

It does indeed take special schooling for most people. The skills needed to become a successful medical transcriptionist aren’t as simple as they sound.

You aren’t just typing up what the doctor says, for example. Many doctors don’t dictate all that clearly, which means even just typing up what they say isn’t a particularly easy thing. You also have to understand what they’re saying and make sure it makes sense. Doctors are human, and they misspeak at times. They can name the wrong body part, wrong medication, wrong disorder… or just so mangle the pronunciation that you don’t know right away what they really said. Your schooling helps you to learn how to deal with these situations.

There are a lot of formatting rules for medical transcriptionists to follow as well. That’s not something you can always tell from what the doctor dictates. You have to know what the correct format is for the type of report being dictated.

Taking the time to get your schooling can even impact how much you earn as you work. It’s not just a matter of starting pay rate, it’s that many medical transcriptionists are paid on production. The better you know your work, the faster you can transcribe, and the more you can earn.

There are very few openings for untrained people wanting to get into medical transcription. It’s even challenging to get started when you do have training if you don’t pick a trusted school. Most openings state that you need at least two years of experience. If you want to get past that requirement, you need a solid education to show that you can do the work.

It’s also impractical for employers to train most people to do the work. It takes at least four months to learn this job, and 6-9 months is not at all uncommon. That’s a long time for an employer to let an employee sit in a training room.

There’s also too much risk to letting someone with insufficient medical knowledge do this work. Medical records are very sensitive. They must be transcribed accurately. If you can’t trust an employee to get the work done right, you’re not going to want to hire that employee. Why should an employer consider you if you don’t have some way to show them that you can do the work?

Get free information from Career Step about their online medical transcriptionist training.

What Is the Best Online Medical Transcriptionist School?

February 3, 2011 / Stephanie / Comments Off

If you’re going to pay for the training you need to become a medical transcriptionist, you probably want the best training you can get. How will you know when you’ve found the best online medical transcriptionist school?

You just have to know what you’re looking for and what makes a great medical transcriptionist school.

It’s not just the price, of course. A higher price does not guarantee a better education. Good schools will usually cost more than bad schools, but that’s not a guarantee. Schools can set their fees to whatever they think they can get for their training, after all.

AHDI Approval is one good indicator that you’ve found one of the best online medical transcriptionist schools available. They only approve a relatively small number of schools, and only after they meet strict criteria in terms of training, finances and more.

Cost is a factor in terms of what you can afford. If you’re trying to decide between two schools, sometimes it comes down to the one you can better afford to attend. You can’t go cheap, but if all else appears equal, you may not need to go with the most expensive either.

Some things you’ll find to be true of most programs. You’ll often see that online schools allow you to learn medical transcription at your own pace. This is great if you need to work another job while you train or if you have small children or other family members to care for. You can do your training when your other obligations allow. You’ll then also be learning how to manage those obligations once you complete your training and find a job.

Quality programs also have teachers available to you by email, chat or phone. Most students don’t just learn on their own. It’s important to be able to ask for help when you need it. Having a qualified teacher available to you is vital to your long term success.

You also want to know that employers trust the school and will hire their graduates. Otherwise, you’re going to have quite a time getting past the standard requirement of two to three years experience in medical transcription that you see in most job ads. Finding a job with training but no on the job experience is a bear no matter what industry you’re talking about. If the training you’ve gone through is sufficiently trusted by employers, you’ve just minimized the experience issue.

Schools often but not always have job placement assistance. It may be as simple as job boards available to new graduates. You want your school to give you some sort of resources for landing that first job. You can’t always rely on the big employers having a need for new employers. You need to know how to find other employers so that you can apply for as many positions as it takes until you find a job.

Get free information from Career Step about their online medical transcriptionist training.

Choosing the Right Medical Transcription School

January 8, 2011 / Stephanie / Comments Off

A great education is vital to getting started as a medical transcriptionist. Choose wrong and it become very difficult to land that first job that gives you the experience you need to have a great career.

The basic curriculum a good medical transcription school should include:

Medical terminology
Grammar and style
Anatomy and physiology
Pharmacology
Disease Processes
Transcription technology and practice
Privacy and legal issues

AHDI Approval is a great way to be certain that the school you choose is providing what you need to know to work as a medical transcriptionist.

I strongly recommend taking an online course such as offered by CareerStep if you are going to work at home in medical transcription. This gives you training conditions more like the working conditions you are seeking, and the company has a good reputation with many employers. It also has financing options for those who have concerns in that area. They are AHDI Approved.

Do not just sign up for a cheap course. There are many cheaper courses out there, but they don’t cover all the information you need and you are unlikely to get a job after graduation. Better to spend a bit more and build the career you want.

Medical Transcription Basics

Medical transcription training and schooling tips

Tag: medical transcription school

Is It a Good Idea to Go to School to Become a Medical Transcriptionist?

Which Online School Is Best for a Medical Transcriptionist Diploma?

Is Schooling Necessary to Get a Job as a Medical Transcriptionist?

What Is the Best Online Medical Transcriptionist School?

Choosing the Right Medical Transcription School

Medical Transcription Resources

Choose Your Medical Transcriptionist Training

Top Medical Transcriptionist Training Articles