medical transcription schooling – Medical Transcription Basics

So you’re in a rush to get through your medical transcription schooling and start working. That’s great. Wonderful in fact. That’s one of the best ways to ensure you waste your time and money on training that won’t actually get you work as a medical transcriptionist after graduation. But there’s still more you can do to make yourself as unemployable as possible as a medical transcriptionist.

1. Fail to research school quality.

You might hit it lucky and pick a great medical transcriptionist school, or you might pick one of the worst. Don’t do your research and let Fate take you where it may for your education. This way you can later complain that there’s no way to get into medical transcription and that it’s all really a scam.

2. Skim through your studies.

All a medical transcriptionist really does is type up what the doctor says, right? You don’t need to pick up all that terminology or learn about procedures and stuff. You can make it work by just listening to the dictation. No problem.

3. Only work your self paced course occasionally.

It’s one of the great things about self paced medical transcription education. You can do it on your own time. So if there’s a party or something you’d rather go to, head off. Then find other reasons to skip out on your studies the next night, and the next. Hey, there’s that great TV show you’ve been meaning to watch. School will be there later.

At least until you find out you’ve run out of time on the program you signed up with. Why can’t they give you a reasonable amount of time to finish the course? It’s not your fault you didn’t get it done, is it?

4. Don’t review assignments after you finish them.

The grades don’t really matter, or what you missed on the test. All that matters is that you’re one section closer to done. You can pick it up as you work. Employers don’t care about how well you did in your training, do they?

5. Choose the school with the least time spent on practice transcription.

You want to get moving fast, don’t you? You can build up your transcription skills more when you’re getting paid for it. All you need in your training is enough of it to learn the basics. It won’t matter that you’re earning less than others and really not being productive later because at least you’re getting paid to do the work.

While none of these will guarantee that you’ll never find success as a medical transcriptionist, they can make the path to your career much more challenging, and may well keep you out. Medical transcription is a highly demanding career, and employers expect a lot from their employees. Make sure you make a good choice in your training so that you get off to a good start with your career.

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

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.

Medical Transcription Basics

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How to Ensure Your Medical Transcription Schooling Is a Waste of Time and Money

1. Fail to research school quality.

2. Skim through your studies.

3. Only work your self paced course occasionally.

4. Don’t review assignments after you finish them.

5. Choose the school with the least time spent on practice transcription.

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