When recording material for transcription

• Check the recorder each time to ensure that it is working properly.
• Replace batteries periodically. Weak batteries cause fluctuation in recording speed and volume.
• Record at the recorder’s highest volume.
• Spell our participants’ and company names when applicable.
• During interviews or conferences, balance microphones between speakers or directly in front of each participant so all voices are heard by the transcriptionist.When recording on micro cassettes, record on the 2.5 speed for best quality.
• By not rewinding tapes once you have finished recording, we know at a glance how long each tape is, allowing us to schedule your work promptly and keep production moving.
• Tell us what the outcome of your project is so we won’t spend time and money transcribing any information that is not required.
  

Source : http://www.andersontypefast.com/

Using Amazon Mechanical Turk for transcriptions: Effective, but it's a kluge

Andy Baio has an interesting review of Amazon's Mechanical Turk being used for "cheap, easy" audio transcription. The review immediately caught my eye -- I've been manually transcribing interviews for years, and, as Baio notes, it's a royal pain. Human transcription services are one alternative, but they tend to be expensive and a hassle to arrange. I've been waiting for some company to launch a cheap, automated, accurate transcription service or software package. Could Mechanical Turk be the answer?

After reading the review, I've come to the conclusion that it's not. The service is cheap, but it is definitely not automated -- remember, this is Mechanical Turk, which is a marketplace for buyers and sellers of services that need to be done by human beings. I did not try to transcribe anything through Mechanical Turk, but Baio's 1,143-word review describes a multistage, manual process that involves:

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Transcription job: Home, sweet, home

Editor's note: This is one in a weekly series of profiles on locally owned and operated businesses in Southern Oregon.

What do you do and how long have you been doing it? I do radiology transcription for major hospitals on the East Coast. I've been doing this 16 years.

How long have you lived in the Rogue Valley? We moved here in 2001 from Stillwater, N.J.

What inspired you to go into this line of work? I retired from the corporate world because it was getting too rat-crazy and I wanted to be home with my 7-year-old son. So I went back to school to get the certification I needed. I wanted a good income and to be home with my son when he was younger.

What decision or action would you change if you could do it again? I probably should have begun doing this sooner rather than later. The more experience you have, the more money you make. I'm starting to make good money now and if I had started at a younger age, I'd be making more now.

What's the toughest business decision you've made? Deciding on what's a good account and client and what's not, and staying away from companies that outsource work outside the U.S. I'm an independent contractor and sub-contract for people all over the United States. My interest is finding companies that hire only people in the U.S.

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MessageSling Makes Mobile Voice-Text Transcription a Two-Way Street

When you're at your desk, you have many ways to access and reply to voice-mail messages. You can use your desk phone with its ergonomically engineered keys or, increasingly, your PC with its speaker or headphone, keyboard and mouse. The process is a lot less convenient for mobile phone users. Limitations in both handsets and the circumstances where they can be used present major obstacles. Worcester, Mass.-based startup messageSling plans to use speech-to-text technology to help overcome some of those obstacles.

Launched in January 2008, messageSling made a splash at this month's DEMOfall 08 show. The foundation of its offering is a fairly conventional stand-alone voice-mail service. Users instruct their cellular carriers to forward unanswered calls to a messageSling number. They can then access their messages in the traditional way by dialing in and navigating a key-press menu. Users can also listen to their messaes as MP3 audio files, either as delivered in email messages or on the messageSling Web site.

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Medical Transcription Practice Tapes: Ways to Achieve Proficiency in Medical Transcription

Medical transcription is one of the most popular home businesses and is always high on the list of those who want to work at home. Running your own medical transcription business involves typing medical notes, including a history and physical, operative reports, follow up reports etc., so that the physician has detailed information about that patient. The physician also needs a medical transcript to send to the insurance companies so he/she can be reimbursed for services rendered.

A keen sense of hearing is an ace in the game of medical transcription. A typical hearing acuity alone will not assure a 100% accuracy in the medical transcripts you produce. If you wish to master the art of medical transcription, you need to have a well-developed sense of hearing. In this field, you can't afford to make mistakes when you're typing what the doctor says. This is because there is a very thin line between each word's pronunciation as with the terms "a rock" and "Iraq". And, in a case like this, slight misheards could mean a difference between life and death especially when you're dealing with the patients' medicines. We all know that it's hard to find a medical transcriptionist who is born with an excellent sense of hearing. But, it does come with practice. You have a lot of potential to achieve good listening skills. As we always say "practice makes perfect". You can start training your ears by watching English TV shows or by talking to different kinds of people and study their voice patterns and pronunciations. Also, you can start listening to the varying accents in English of American, Australian, British, Mexican, or Indian doctors. Really, it's your choice. Although, the best approach is exposure to real physician dictations, you can also enhance yourself through the use of medical transcription practice tapes.

But what are medical transcription practice tapes? Actually, medical transcription practice tapes are recording and storage devices used by doctors for their dictations, which are converted as wav or voice files in the computer just like that of an mp3. But, there are also those medical transcription practice tapes being used by students in some medical transcription schools, which may be bought online. They are not really that different from those used by physicians except for the fact that they are utilized for a specific purpose. Medical transcription practice tapes as the name implies are only used for practice and not for actual transcription. They either contain simulated or real physician dictations. Medical transcription practice tapes are for the use of beginners who have no exposure to real physician dictations as well as for already established medical transcriptionists who just want to attain a higher level of competency in the field.

Although medical transcription practice tapes may be rented, the best option for beginners is perhaps to have a copy of their own. These days, you need not go to a specific store to purchase medical transcription practice tapes. They are available online from several websites that specialize in medical transcription. They usually come in two sizes, that is standard-sized medical transcription practice tapes and micro-sized medical transcription practice tapes.

The duration of dictation for these medical transcription practice tapes and the level of the terms' difficulty vary as well. As an added feature, answer keys are provided to compare your work with.

Whoever said you can't learn on your own must be bluffing. Medical transcription practice tapes can truly make a difference in your performance, although it is necessary to have medical terminology skills beforehand. In fact, for beginners, early exposure to actual dictations could give you the edge you need, and for seasoned transcriptionists, or people going back into the field of medical transcription, the extra practice will definitely improve the skills necessary to become a true medical language specialist.

About the Author:
Michele Miller is the author of an ebook about medical transcription at home. http://www.medical-transcription-at-home.Visit My Websites to Learn More!

Transcription work may be what you are looking for

Transcription is one area where work at home opportunities are fantastic. Many companies are now creating a large number of audio and video files from meetings, phone support calls, and other interactions. These files are difficult to study and analyze when they’re in multimedia form, and transcribing the conversations into text files allows the company to more easily keep records and analyze events. All these files, however, need to be written down first, though. While there are a few companies who do this, or have people in house to take care of it, a large part of the work is now being outsourced. This offers a fantastic opportunity for anyone looking for a great way to work from home and earn some extra income.

Getting involved can be extremely simple. Many companies that need to hire transcriptionists to work at home advertise online or on their website. Other companies act as portals for people looking to work from home as a transcriptionist. Usually, they will ask for writing or transcription samples to ensure you are qualified, and then begin regularly sending the recorded media to be copied down. The job is extremely simple, and is ideal for anyone looking for a good way to work at home. Listen to the recorded media, write down exactly what is said and format it a way that is easy to read. The transcriber doing the work from home can then check carefully for any words that may have been misheard or attributed to the wrong person, and send the complete work back to the company.

Of course, it isn’t always as simple as that. Some work requires a good deal of specialization which, if you are looking for an easy way to work from home, may not be something you have. Transcription that is extremely technical, in the legal or medical fields, or esoteric in another way, may be rather difficult to interpret for the layperson doing the work at home. However, for someone who has a background in that area, who perhaps works as a paralegal during the day, such problems shouldn’t be difficult. In fact, having that degree of skill, especially in a field typically filled with people who work from home may give you a leg up on the competition.

Technical sophistication and esoteric information may not be the only problem faced when doing transcription work from home. A far more likely scenario is being given a recording that is simply inaudible or impossible to decipher. For whatever reason, a microphone or recording malfunction, or even just a quiet speaker, some recordings may make it nearly impossible to transcribe. However, there are a few routes around even this. For short, hard to hear gaps, using the surrounding context is likely to give a clue to the meaning of the indecipherable portion. If only one word is difficult to hear, it can probably be inferred from the surrounding sentence, especially if it is a common one.

On the other hand, some recording faced when doing transcription work at home may be far larger. For longer and more intransigent gaps, it may be necessary to attempt to enhance the quality of the recording using common sound editing software. A few tricks may be necessary to remove static and other problems.

Overall, transcription can be an excellent way to earn a little money doing work from home. It may even be possible to solely rely on it, turning the work into a small business of sorts.

The best information about transcription work can be found at Best-offers-online.net. It has many different work from home jobs available. Anyone can get a good job doing work at home at: www.best-offers-online.net .

Source : http://www.articleselections.com

Medical Outsourcing Services are going Global

The outsourcing of medical services enables patients to get the best medical attention from specialised doctors. State and federal legislations ensure that the doctors providing these medical outsourcing services have been properly trained and licensed. Without proper documentation and permission, the doctors are not allowed to render medical outsourcing services. This has been touted as the most promising yet contentious area of outsourcing. The services that can be outsourced could be anything from keying in transcriptions of the treatment records into structured documents to physically sending the patients to another country for treatment.

Medical services have been outsourced due to the shortage of specialists who can do the job in the country. Medical outsourcing services are enthusiastically welcomed, with some of it being done in India and elsewhere because it saves them from long hours of work.

India is particularly favoured for such medical outsourcing services because of the time zone differences. Other countries providing such services are Australia, Switzerland, Israel and Brazil. These countries are also equipped with the latest technology, which allows radiologists to read images from far-flung places. Remote medical services like radiology and clinical services are also being outsourced. Clinical services include oncology, orthopaedic services, molecular imaging and disease management. Outsourcing radiology not only involves substantial cost savings, but also ensures timely diagnosis and treatment for patients. The saving of time is a critical factor and outsourcing medical services leads to reduced workload pressure on radiologists, faster turn around time for patients, and cost savings.

India is fast becoming the main hub to outsource medical services. Not only does India have talented pool of medical professionals but also the latest medical technologies and techniques. Outsourcing teleradiology to India gives access to innovative solutions, which have helped improve an unwieldy clinical process. Competent and trained professionals, time zone advantages and in-built quality advantages are some of the advantages of outsourcing medical services. Other services include using the service of radiologists at a remote but competitive country to interpret scan images such as CT or MRI. Blood and urine samples of patients are also now sent to India for pathology tests to cut cost. The labs conduct the test and the results that are uploaded back. Another growing area of outsourcing is bioinformatics and biotechnology. The outsourcing of medical services also ranges from data analysis to basic research.

Source: Article Submission Service

Transcription work may be what you are looking for

Transcription is one area where work at home opportunities are fantastic. Many companies are now creating a large number of audio and video files from meetings, phone support calls, and other interactions. These files are difficult to study and analyze when they’re in multimedia form, and transcribing the conversations into text files allows the company to more easily keep records and analyze events. All these files, however, need to be written down first, though. While there are a few companies who do this, or have people in house to take care of it, a large part of the work is now being outsourced. This offers a fantastic opportunity for anyone looking for a great way to work from home and earn some extra income.

Getting involved can be extremely simple. Many companies that need to hire transcriptionists to work at home advertise online or on their website. Other companies act as portals for people looking to work from home as a transcriptionist. Usually, they will ask for writing or transcription samples to ensure you are qualified, and then begin regularly sending the recorded media to be copied down. The job is extremely simple, and is ideal for anyone looking for a good way to work at home. Listen to the recorded media, write down exactly what is said and format it a way that is easy to read. The transcriber doing the work from home can then check carefully for any words that may have been misheard or attributed to the wrong person, and send the complete work back to the company.

Of course, it isn’t always as simple as that. Some work requires a good deal of specialization which, if you are looking for an easy way to work from home, may not be something you have. Transcription that is extremely technical, in the legal or medical fields, or esoteric in another way, may be rather difficult to interpret for the layperson doing the work at home. However, for someone who has a background in that area, who perhaps works as a paralegal during the day, such problems shouldn’t be difficult. In fact, having that degree of skill, especially in a field typically filled with people who work from home may give you a leg up on the competition.

Technical sophistication and esoteric information may not be the only problem faced when doing transcription work from home. A far more likely scenario is being given a recording that is simply inaudible or impossible to decipher. For whatever reason, a microphone or recording malfunction, or even just a quiet speaker, some recordings may make it nearly impossible to transcribe. However, there are a few routes around even this. For short, hard to hear gaps, using the surrounding context is likely to give a clue to the meaning of the indecipherable portion. If only one word is difficult to hear, it can probably be inferred from the surrounding sentence, especially if it is a common one.

On the other hand, some recording faced when doing transcription work at home may be far larger. For longer and more intransigent gaps, it may be necessary to attempt to enhance the quality of the recording using common sound editing software. A few tricks may be necessary to remove static and other problems.

Overall, transcription can be an excellent way to earn a little money doing work from home. It may even be possible to solely rely on it, turning the work into a small business of sorts.

The best information about transcription work can be found at Best-offers-online.net. It has many different work from home jobs available. Anyone can get a good job doing work at home at: www.best-offers-online.net .

GotVoice Broadens Speech-to-Text Availability

GotVoice Inc.'s voice-to-text transcription capabilities have been available to many voice-mail users for some time. The GotVoice service could access major carriers' and enterprise telephony vendors' voice-mail systems, grab the messages and turn them into text for email or SMS delivery. But there was a problem for the customers of smaller carriers: many such carriers used third-party voice mail and IVR (interactive voice response) systems that were somewhat outdated. As a result, they couldn't be certain that GotVoice would work for them. To solve this problem, GotVoice has completed additional development and testing of its technology to assure that it works with such systems.

How It Works

GotVoice uses automated transcription to convert voice-mail messages to text. Exploiting the fact that voice mail has predictable structures and content, it can transcribe messages with 90 percent accuracy, with a small amount of human intervention in cases where words aren't clear. GotVoice can also convert text into synthesized voice messages for delivery to phones or groups of phones.

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The Basics Of Radiology Transcription Jobs

Are you interested in a job in radiology transcription? We've got all the information you need right here. Read on for plenty of details regarding what this job is, what you need in order to do it, and what to expect from this rewarding career.

What is radiology transcription?
Radiology transcription jobs are a branch of medical transcription that specializes in patients undergoing radiology procedures. Let us elaborate.

Every day, all over the country, patients are in and out of hospitals, clinics and urgent care centers. While there, they are given multiple tests and undergo several different procedures. Patients are often under the care of multiple people at once, including nurses, specialists and physicians.

Now keep in mind that all of this activity must be recorded in the patient's records for future reference. It must all be combined with all of the patient's past history and any other relevant information concerning the patient's treatment. This is vital for two reasons. Number one is the health of the patient; all activity must be documented to ensure the patient is getting the best treatment possible. Reason number two is to protect the hospital in the case of their activities being called into question.

This is where the transcriptions comes in. If you're looking for jobs in radiology transcription, your job will revolve around recording various activities for patients undergoing radiology treatments and procedures. You may simply be helping keep records of ultrasounds, X-rays, and sonograms received by the patient. You may also be working on the therapy side of radiology, where your job will include keeping records of chemotherapy and other forms of radiology treatment.

So how do you know if you have what it takes to get a radiology transcription job?

Requirements
Needless to say, radiology transcription jobs require excellent knowledge of computers and fast, accurate typing skills. But that's not all. A radiology transcriptionist should also have a good working knowledge of medical terms and procedures. You will spend a great deal of time transcribing information from doctor's recordings and you'll need to know the terms that are being used in order to ensure your record is correct.

As a radiology transcriptionist, you'll also be required to have excellent grammar and spelling skills, and the ability to research information in medical texts when you feel it's necessary, i.e. when a term comes up with which you're not familiar with. Finally, you should be able to work independently if you're interested in a transcription job. Many transcriptionists work from home and under minimal supervision.

How to gain the necessary skills?
Most transcription jobs require previous experience in the field. Naturally, in order to get experience you need to land the job first and the quickest way to do that is through training.

You'll find many courses available on medical transcription. Some are at-home courses that you can take through the mail or over the Internet. Make sure to check the validity of these courses before signing up for them- some of them will 'train' you, but won't actually teach you the skills necessary to succeed in the job market.

Your best bet is a local community college or learning center. Many schools offer evening classes for adults interested in learning medical transcription. Although no special degree is required, what you learn by attending these classes will be invaluable- and should help you land your first job too.

Keep in mind that if you're interested in radiology transcription jobs in particular, you'll need to brush up on the area of interest and learn as much as possible about radiology. Study the terms and processes well and ask local hospitals what they look for in radiology transcriptionists when they're hiring.

The field of radiology transcription jobs is fairly competitive. Among all medical transcription jobs, radiology seems to attract a great deal of interest. And little wonder- the field of X-rays, ultrasounds and chemotherapy is one of the most exciting medical fields working today.

About The Author

Rita Henry is a contributing editor for Jobs In Radiology, the leading job and resource site for the Radiology Industry. To learn more, please visit http://www.jobs-in-radiology.com/.

Medical Transcription Career Benefits

Medical Transcription Career Benefits

What are the benefits of a medical transcription career? This article gives you more information about why a career in medical transcription is a great choice.


Have you been thinking about a medical transcription career? What's holding you back?

Medical transcription is a great career choice which allows you the flexibility to work from home, earn a good living and have full career control.

As a medical transcriptionist your work will be exciting and vary every day. You'll build relationships with doctors and other hospital staff. You'll have a career that's lucrative, exciting and prestigious.

There are also many differnet choices for jobs. You can choose to work from home for a national online company or for a local company.

You can choose to work at a local hospital or doctor's office. You can start your own local business with small doctor's accounts.

Or you can choose to start your own home based medical transcription business. Your clients can be local where you pick up a micro cassette (where the dictation is recorded) or you can choose to have national clients where they dictate onto wav files which you receive over the internet.

The possibilities for medical transcription job choices are endless. You can choose as many or as little of the above choices as you'd like. Medical transcription is a business where you really do have full control of your earnings and growth.

And there is no shortage of medical transcription jobs in site, so you can be sure this will be a long-term profitable career. Here's what the US Department of Labor has to say:

“Employment of medical transcriptionists is projected to grow faster than average for all occupations through 2014. Demand for medical transcription services will be spurred by a growing and aging population.”

Source : http://www.askthemt.com/

Legal Transcription- The Language And The Job

No doubt, one of the things that make legal language hardest to understand is its unusual words and terms. Some legal terms such as-judge, court, interrogation etc. are relatively well known, where as others are complete mystery to non-professionals. Some legal writings tend to consist of very long sentences, sometimes hundreds of words in length. This makes the transcription job harder. Below are some tips and hints of the legal terms encountered in legal transcription and how to transcribe a document successfully.

Some difficult legal words and terms

. Without knowing these, transcribing legal documents will be almost impossible.

1. Arbitration-A method of alternative dispute resolution in which the disputing parties agrees to abide by the decision of an arbitrator.
2. Assignment-The transfer of legal rights, from one person to another.
3. Bankruptcy-This is a process governed by the federal law to help people, when they cannot or will not pay their bills.
4. Bifurcation-Splitting a trial into two parts: a liability phase and a penalty phase.
5. Certiorari- It refers to the order of a court so that it can review the decision and proceedings in the lower court.
6. Deed-A written legal document that describes a piece of property and outlines its boundaries.
7. Defamation-The publication of the statement that injures a person’s reputation.
8. Deposition-It is a process in which a witness testifies under oath, before trial.
9. Escrow-The deed of a property will be in escrow( in pending), until the completion of the real estate transaction.
10. Foreclosure-When a borrower cannot repay a loan and the lender seeks to sell the property.
11. Immunity-Exemption from a legal duty or penalty.
12. Implied warranty-A guarantee imposed by law in a sale.
13. Intestate-To die without a will.
14. Plaintiff-The person who initiates a lawsuit.
15. Pro se-A person who represents himself in court alone without the help of the lawyer.
16. Quash-To nullify or declare invalid.
17. Slander-Defamatory oral statements and gestures
18. Subpoena-An order compelling a person to appear in court or produce documents.
19. Suvoir Dire-Means speak the truth.
    

Tips to become a good legal transcriptionist

Below are certain rules you have to keep in your mind to become a good legal transcriptionist.

1. Listen to a legal phrase or group of meaningful words carefully again and again before transcribe, till you are not sure.
2. Understand each legal testimony correctly and use them appropriately.
3. Analyse what is being dictated, listen dictator’s voice, and follow it as a guide.
4. A 1-hour tape will take not less than 3 to 4 hours, depending on your speed. Maintain a good speed throughout, so that you can finish it in time.
5. Review document for a second time and improve it by studying rules.
6. Use information found in the appendix, prefix, suffix sections of legal reference texts, whenever necessary.
7. Edit the final copy, which should be free of spelling, punctuation, grammar or any other errors.
8. Proofread the transcript with 100% accuracy.
   

Legal transcription involves the conversion of audio files into typed transcripts. Modern day legal transcription technology has gone digital and is highly effective.

This article is issued in general public interest, and contains information on transcription services compiled by GMRTranscription Services.

Key Benefits Of Medical Transcription Software

The increasing demand for skilled medical billing and coding specialists can be attributed to the growing use of medical transcription software for healthcare organizations around the globe. Medical transcription software has slowly replaced the need for manual transcription services that could take up to a week to turnaround a dictation; today’s innovative software and technologies are designed to automate the dictation-to-reporting process so that the final product can be retrieved within 24-48 hours.

Many medical transcription companies now use medical transcription software to capture the dictation and turn it into an accurate report. Coding specialists must be trained to use the this specialized software, and these programs offer several benefits for any data processing agent.

Some of the key benefits of medical transcription software include:

1. Easy voice capture and speech recognition capabilities. This makes it easier for the medical transcriptionist to capture the doctor’s dictation with utmost accuracy. Doctors can submit their dictation via phone or other recording device to make the audio file available to the coding specialist, and the voice capture technologies can make this process more accurate than conventional methods.
   
   
2. Medical spell checking and dictionaries. Since a coding specialist may not understand medical terminology and phrases, a medical spellchecking function may be incorporated into the medical transcription software. This also makes the data capture more accurate and can save time in the grammar and spellcheck process.
   
   
3. Easy document distribution. After the report has passed quality control and is ready for submission, medical transcription software can make documents available in a variety of formats. The report can be synchronized to a doctor’s handheld deviceor computer, or simply sent in electronic form for easy printing.
   
   
4. Supports a variety of audio and video formats. Medical transcription software has been designed to support several audio and video formats so that doctors using different types of technology can benefit from the services. With fewer limitations, more healthcare organizations can begin to use medical transcription services with ease.
   
   
5. Quick and simple editing interface. If errors are present or a medical transcriptionist needs to go back and edit certain areas of a document, the software allows for simple editing with a text editing tool and keyboard short cuts. This reduces turnaround time and improves the accuracy of all reports.
   
   
6. Time code stamp functions. Medical billing and coding specialists can make use of time stamp functions on all their data with a touch of a button. This also reduces turnaround time and provides better, more accurate data for the doctor.
   
   
7. Integration with many healthcare systems and programs. Doctors and physicians can access data easily with today’s innovative medical transcription software and platforms. This reduces time for finding and retrieving data so that reports are readily available, at their fingertips.
   

Medical transcription software used by transcriptionists today offers several benefits for healthcare organizations of all sizes. With accurate reports and efficient turnaround times, the software can make the entire dictation-to-reporting process very simple. Quality control also ensures that all reports are HIPAA-compliant and free of errors so that your healthcare organization can benefit from consistent reporting for the long-term.

Article Source: http://www.212articles.com/