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Medical Transcription Overview
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Planning For
Your
First Client/Job As you plan your MT future, here are a few things you should know. There are distinct "levels of difficulty" in medical transcription work. The most difficult (in my experience) may turn out to be your MT course work! I personally have not encountered anything as hard in the "real world" as the work I was trained on, especially with the foreign-accented dictators the course used. However -- I did contract for overflow Discharge Summaries from a local hospital and found the work very rigorous. This particular hospital is a teaching institution so, in addition to unfamiliar procedures, I ran into green residents who used every abbreviation known to the medical world and many that they themselves coined. This is certainly one situation where I agree that you need an experienced MT nearby to help. Generally, hospital work is the most difficult transcription. You will have many dictators to get used to; the likelihood of foreign physicians is high; the work itself is harder as there will be unfamiliar procedures, equipment and drugs. Also, you may be asked to meet more administrative requirements than a private office or clinic (methods of billing, patient identifiers and logs, etc.). I was also required to provide an Errors & Omissions insurance policy and sign a contract before I began work for the hospital. Because many of the long-distance MT services contract with hospitals, you will probably run into these same types of problems and levels of difficulty working for these services. (And, without experience, it's unlikely you will be hired by a service.) Services may also require you to purchase or lease compatible equipment and you may have phone charges involved with obtaining and submitting work. You may either be considered an employee or a statutory employee -- in either case, you will be "employed" (as opposed to being a contractor where you are effectively "the boss"). Services may provide some compensation benefits, however, and you may be able to specify the amount of work you prefer to do. You probably won't be able to pick and choose the type of work or the providers for whom you transcribe -- although some services are more flexible than others. You will probably be required to undergo some training on the service's methods and equipment, and you will be expected to conform to their style and quality standards. Back to the local opportunities, you may have fewer dictators and less demanding administrative requirements at outpatient surgery centers (as compared to hospitals), but the work itself would be similar to that of a hospital, without the chronically ill patients, of course. Large medical groups that provide in-house procedures may have work that seems difficult at first, but these offices also tend to do the same procedures over and over, so once you do the initial research, you should be able to settle in with a degree of expertise. You may have to accustom your ear to more providers' dictation -- but the more experience, the better. This is a good source of overflow work as many of the larger groups have in-house transcriptionists who DO get sick and DO go on vacations, and often these groups will contract on an ongoing basis to home-based transcriptionists to supplement their in-house staff. Walk-in urgent care clinics have easy work (in my opinion) and have lots of it, particularly if they service the workers' compensation needs of local employers. Many will require transcribed reports from specialists on contract who take referrals from the clinics. You may also run into general secretarial work in this environment. As many of these clinics are owned and operated by large chains, once you get your foot in the door you may have more business than you can handle. Be aware that these clinics often work 364 days a year and will require a similar commitment from you. (This should definitely be determined at the outset -- and you have the right to state your own terms.) Smaller (one, two or three physician) groups or individual doctors may also have what seems like difficult work at first but, again, once you do the initial research you will be comfortable with the repetition. You will also get to know the individual providers' idiosyncrasies well and come to anticipate their next phrase. They (obviously) will not have as much work as the larger groups or clinics, and you will need to have several of these clients to provide full-time work. You will also run into a "feast or famine" work situation with these groups as the doctors may take extended vacations or their patients simply won't schedule elective appointments and procedures at different times during the year. Collections have been known to be a problem with the smaller, leaner offices, and line rates can be the lowest of your local clients. As you first start out with only entry-level skills and just the course training for experience, you will want to consider working for clients at the "easier" level. Working on your own at home is stressful enough at the first without adding the additional pressure of very difficult work. You may also prefer to start work in-house at an office or clinic, or within an apprenticeship program through your course or via a local established MT. Be aware, however, that many employers will not hire a "newbie" MT who has no for-pay experience, and many working MT's do not have the time or desire to continue a newbie's training on their own clients' work. Its unfortunate but true that some very ill-prepared newbies have spoiled entry-level positions for the rest of us. Horror stories abound on the Web and message boards from experienced MT's who have kindly tried out newcomers and have been appalled at their lack of training, cavalier attitudes about working, sadly lacking English skills and overall poor performance. If you are lucky enough to obtain an apprenticeship or mentored position, you can expect to make about half the usual line rate (or less) during your training. The mentoring MT will have to proof every word of your output - including listening to the tapes at times - and, frankly, an experienced MT can actually produce the work faster than the time this process will take. Consider yourself lucky at any price to obtain this sort of position. It won't be forever, and you will have invaluable "postgraduate" work under your belt... and, best of all, you can market yourself as "experienced" once you complete this program. Your job at this point is to figure out which of the above options suits you, and which you will "attack" with your marketing plan. It's not too soon to think about updating your resume, to think about business cards and stationery and to begin "picturing" yourself in your new daily life as a medical transcriptionist.
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