Deciding to be a medical transcriptionist at home is a great career choice. It’s challenging and the pay is pretty decent. You have to know quite a bit before you can become a medical transcriptionist at home, however.
This is not something to do on your own. While you can study up on the skills you’d need on your own, you’re better off going through a good quality online medical transcriptionist training course. That way you won’t be missing out on some of the skills you didn’t realize you’d need.
These are the skills you need and that you need to be certain your medical transcriptionist training course will provide to you.
1. Knowledge of medical terminology.
This one should be obvious. You can’t transcribe medical reports if you don’t know the terminology and know it well.
2. Grammar and style.
You should have excellent grammar if you’re even considering medical transcriptionist training. The time you’re spending on your formal training is no time to be reviewing grammar basics.
You will need to learn about the style of the different types of medical reports and documents. They’re done in a certain way to make it easier for doctors and other medical personnel to find the information they need about a particular patient.
3. Anatomy and physiology.
How much do you know about the human body? You need to learn more.
This is a vital skill. It will help you to understand what the doctor is talking about, especially when you’re dealing with two completely different things that sound very similar. When you know the part of the body being discussed, you usually know which word is being said, even when they have similar roots.
4. Pharmacology.
You’re going to learn a ton about medications that may be prescribed. You’ll especially need to know the difference between the brand name and generic names of drugs, as the difference can be important. This is one of the areas where you need to keep up as well, as new medications come out all the time.
5. Disease processes.
What are the different stages to various diseases. The ability to understand what the doctor is talking about once again comes in very useful.
6. Transcription technology and practice.
Lots and lots of practice. Any course worth the money will require you to complete many hours of real doctor dictation. This is one of the big steps in getting the skills that will make you a productive medical transcriptionist. Without it, there’s no way you’ll earn a living wage, maybe not even minimum wage.
7. Privacy and legal issues.
Patient privacy is a huge deal, and there are laws you need to be aware of as a medical transcriptionist at home.
Beyond these concerns, I like to recommend self paced, online medical transcriptionist courses. These make it easier to continue working at your current position as you train for your new career, or you can go through the work as fast as you can learn it if you aren’t already working or otherwise occupied. It’s nice to not be slowed down by those who aren’t learning as fast as you are, or pushed to hurry up when you need a little more time.
