There’s one very important thing you want from any online medical transcriptionist course you might choose to take. You want it to prepare you to work in the real world, very possibly from home. Without that, you’ve just wasted your time and money.
Do online medical transcriptionist courses really provide that, or are they just one of those online fantasies?
You may be glad to hear that some of the best medical transcriptionist courses available are in fact available online. Some of the schools most trusted by medical transcription employers are online. Many of the programs approved by the AHDI are online.
That doesn’t mean every online medical transcriptionist course is a good one. Many aren’t. You really have to be picky about the program you choose. It’s very easy to set up a school online, or at least something that looks like one. You need to confirm that the course you’re considering is going to be worth the time, money and effort you put into it.
A simple check is to look for AHDI Approval. This means their curriculum has been reviewed and should be enough to train you up as a medical transcriptionist. An experienced medical transcriptionist must be involved. This isn’t a formal accreditation process, but it’s the nearest thing available that has industry acceptance.
You can also check with employers. Some have partnerships with certain schools, and that improves your chances of a job, should one be open, after graduation. Partnerships do not guarantee a position, but it is helpful to know when certain employers give extra consideration to graduates of a particular program.
The most important thing to consider is how you will treat your online course of study. Are you going to take it as seriously as you would if you had to attend classes in person? Online courses don’t work out for everyone. Some find it too difficult to take them as seriously as they know they should.
You must take your online studies seriously if you want to become a medical transcriptionist. This is your best chance to build your skills before you get a job. If you hope to work from home right from the start it becomes even more important, as you won’t have anyone right there to help you if you encounter a problem. You really need to know your job.
That’s another benefit to studying online if you want to work from home. It’s practice in self discipline. Want to know if you have what it takes to work from home? Set up your studies on a schedule as close as you can get it to what you would like to have if you were to work from home. By the time you’ve graduated, you’ll know if you can handle it or if you should search for an office based medical transcription job.