How Do You Get Around the Experience Requirements for Medical Transcription?

One of the most intimidating things for many people looking into medical transcription as a work at home career is the high percentage of jobs that require 2-3 years' experience before an employer will consider you.

Or so they say on the Careers page of their websites. If you make the right choice with your medical transcription education, fortunately, you can get around that.

There are 3 main schools that employers have come to trust. These are the Andrews School, M-Tec and Career Step. Each of these schools has a medical transcription education program that is sufficient to help students reach a level of skill that employers can trust. Your skill level matters far more than your experience level, once you get employers looking at you.

Attending one of these schools is one of the best ways to get that first bit of attention. Each of the schools has a reputation with employers, who know that their graduates are worth testing.

Yes, testing. Even if you graduate from one of these programs you will need to prove to potential employers that you have the skills the courses taught you. You may be able to find out from your school which employers are most willing to consider their graduates for positions.

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Long-time Medical Transcriptionists Tell All

If you are evaluating medical transcription training options in order to start a career as a medical transcriptionist, you very well could benefit from hearing how my wife and I launched our business years ago. We struggled through some tough times together, and we are happy to share what we learned here with you. Hopefully you will be able to benefit from this information and not repeat the mistakes we made. I can say from personal experience that being able to work from home as a medical transcriptionist is one of the most liberating opportunities that you will find - anywhere.

Medical Transcription has become very personal to me. To help you understand, let me tell you a bit about my history with the industry. My spouse actually went through medical transcription training years ago by tutoring on the job with her mother, who was a long time medical transcriptionist and who owned a medical transcription company. Back then, there really weren't many other options to receive Medical Transcription Training. You could say that she went through the school of hard knocks. Actually, you could say we both did. It was a difficult and stressful time. And since medical transcriptionists are typically paid on production, it was a very lean time for us financially. Her line counts were extremely low during the first 6 or 8 months of apprenticeship... and so were her paychecks.

Over time, however, she improved her production and eventually I felt emboldened by her progress to the point that I went out and started selling our own accounts. I approached clinics, hospitals, physician offices -- pretty much anyone who would listen to my pitch and I would sell them on the idea of using our Medical Transcription services. We teamed up with my wife's parents and began to expand our presence in the marketplace. It was slow going at first, but eventually we built our little Medical Transcription company up to a level where we had dozens of medical transcriptionists working for us. It was an extremely exciting time!

This new career allowed my wife to work at home as a medical transcriptionist and be there for our young children. We were all happier with the flexibility that her Medical Transcription Training afforded us. I think our kids were the happiest of all. And the pay just kept getting better and better. For one thing her typing speed increased dramatically over time -- which meant more money in her pocket. More importantly, though, she got to the point where she didn' t have to stop and look up difficult medical terms so often. She actually got to where she had transcribed enough medical reports that she could generally anticipate what the doctor was going to say next. I was totally impressed as I watched her work! And I became even more impressed when I asked her to let me have a try at the keyboard. I put on the headset and pushed the play button on the footpedal all excited to type my first report... Guess what? If you are evaluating medical transcription training options in order to start a career as a medical transcriptionist, you very well could benefit from hearing how my wife and I launched our business years ago. We struggled through some tough times together, and we are happy to share what we learned here with you. Hopefully you will be able to benefit from this information and not repeat the mistakes we made. I can say from personal experience that being able to work from home as a medical transcriptionist is one of the most liberating opportunities that you will find - anywhere.

Medical Transcription has become very personal to me. To help you understand, let me tell you a bit about my history with the industry. My spouse actually went through medical transcription training years ago by tutoring on the job with her mother, who was a long time medical transcriptionist and who owned a medical transcription company. Back then, there really weren't many other options to receive Medical Transcription Training. You could say that she went through the school of hard knocks. Actually, you could say we both did. It was a difficult and stressful time. And since medical transcriptionists are typically paid on production, it was a very lean time for us financially. Her line counts were extremely low during the first 6 or 8 months of apprenticeship... and so were her paychecks.

Over time, however, she improved her production and eventually I felt emboldened by her progress to the point that I went out and started selling our own accounts. I approached clinics, hospitals, physician offices -- pretty much anyone who would listen to my pitch and I would sell them on the idea of using our Medical Transcription services. We teamed up with my wife's parents and began to expand our presence in the marketplace. It was slow going at first, but eventually we built our little Medical Transcription company up to a level where we had dozens of medical transcriptionists working for us. It was an extremely exciting time!

This new career allowed my wife to work at home as a medical transcriptionist and be there for our young children. We were all happier with the flexibility that her Medical Transcription Training afforded us. I think our kids were the happiest of all. And the pay just kept getting better and better. For one thing her typing speed increased dramatically over time -- which meant more money in her pocket. More importantly, though, she got to the point where she didn' t have to stop and look up difficult medical terms so often. She actually got to where she had transcribed enough medical reports that she could generally anticipate what the doctor was going to say next. I was totally impressed as I watched her work! And I became even more impressed when I asked her to let me have a try at the keyboard. I put on the headset and pushed the play button on the footpedal all excited to type my first report... Guess what? She went upstairs for a snack and came back down to find me curled up on the floor in the fetal position out of sheer frustration. I could no more transcribe an operative report than I could fly to the moon! Her school of hard knocks medical transcription Training had definitely paid off -- in spades!

As technology advances came into the picture she was able to create macros on her computer that automatically inserted whole strings of common technical words and phrases with one or two keystrokes. You cannot believe the difference this made in her productivity. It was amazing! As her productivity went up, so did our income! We could finally do some of the things we had been putting off for so long for lack of money. Life was good!

About the Author

Chris Dunn has created a website to help stay-at-home moms (and dads) to explore Medical Transcription as the perfect work-at-home career and quality medical transcription training options. See: http://www.MedicalTranscriptionTraining.com/

Source : http://www.webraydian.com/

Why Transcription Work Is Ideal Data Entry Work

If you know how to type, you can provide transcription services for businesses from home. You don't have to be a medical or legal transcriptionist or know medical or legal terminology. You don't even need any specialized training. All you need is typing skills, a transcriber for tape transcription and a specialized pedal with free software for digital transcription.
Business transcription provides legitimate typing and data entry work. It's one of the best profit centers for secretarial services.

What is transcription? Transcribing is just a fancy term that means typing from dictation. The transcriptionist or typists listens to the dictated recording and transcribes or types the dictation and turns them into printed documents or electronic files.

The internet made it easy to receive digital transcription, making it possible to provide transcription work from home from any location.

Here's how it works. The employer dictates. Specialized equipment changes the voice file into an MP3. The employer sends the MP3 file over the internet to the transcriptionist. The transcriptionists opens up the file to hear the dictation and uses a specialized foot pedal to start and stop the dictation. After typing the dictated information, the transcriptionist sends the typed text file back to the employer.

Many people still record dictation on tape and mail it to transcriptionists.

Who needs transcription services? Transcription is not only used by medical professionals. Many professionals dictate documents that need to be transcribed. A wide range of individuals and organizations outsource transcription services. Transcription clients may include universities, financial institutions, consultants, and focus groups. Public speakers and workshop/seminar leaders often transcribe their seminars and talks. Authors dictate materials for their books. Television stations and independent television producers need transcription. Insurance companies farm out transcription work but often require some knowledge of medical terminology.

If you have specialized training such as nursing, massage therapy or physical therapy, then you may have some basic knowledge of medical terminology and can provide medical transcription in those areas you are knowledgeable about.

An easy way to break into medical transcription without extensive knowledge of medical terminology is to target psychologists. Several of my friends got transcription work that way.

Don't overlook business transcription as an alternative to data entry work. Looking for legitimate typing work at home? Get a free report on how to avoid home typing and data entry scams at http://www.typing-and-data-entry-scams.com

Source : https://www.amazines.com/

4 Reasons to Study Medical Transcription

It's not for everyone, but if you have what it takes and the interest and the basic skills to start with, medical transcription can be a wonderful career choice.

1. Learning medical terminology can be a great mental workout.
   
   There's a lot of medical transcription terminology to pick up as you study. If you don't already have a pretty good everyday vocabulary, training to become a medical transcriptionist is going to be pretty challenging.
   
   Remember learning about prefixes and suffixes in school? You'll be doing more work in this area to get familiar with ones you haven't used before. And you'll need it for when the doctor comes up with an obscure term.
   
   
2. Despite rumors to the contrary, the industry still looks healthy.
   
   Yes, there are always rumors about voice recognition software and/or outsourcing ruining opportunities for medical transcriptionists. They tend to be greatly exaggerated.
   
   Certainly there are doctors who are using voice recognition software. There are doctors outsourcing medical transcription to other countries.
   
   Quality matters tremendously, however, as does privacy. Voice recognition still has trouble with medical terminology, and it is expected that the worst this will do will be to make it necessary for doctors to employ transcriptionists as editors, so that mistakes do not persist in their records. We're talking about people's health, after all.
   
   Outsourcing similarly has problems with accuracy if the foreign transcriptionists are not well enough trained. It also suffers from privacy considerations, as United States law does not apply to people in other countries.
   
   
3. The work is interesting if you enjoy medical topics.
   
   Some reports may make you glad that you're just typing them up, not seeing them as they happen. Others will just be fascinating as you hear about the medical conditions people are dealing with.
   
   One of my favorite parts of being a transcriptionist was learning about the different conditions. Once in a while it would even come in handy in my own life for a family member. Then again, it was hugely frustrating when my son had a condition I'd never heard of because I didn't specialize in pediatric transcription.
   
   
4. You can decide where to work and whether you want a job or a business.
   
   Many medical transcriptionists work at home, but others do work onsite. There are advantages to each, and you can decide which suits you best. Search for the jobs with the working conditions you desire.
   
   But if you want to earn more, there are also great possibilities for running your own transcription business. You can be just a single person running a business with as many clients as you feel comfortable handling, or you can hire your own employees.
   

The biggest challenge with running a transcription business is getting time off. Even if you go the solo route, I strongly recommend getting to know some subcontractors. You will want a vacation someday, won't you?

You can also set your own hours, within the limits of the turnaround time you need to achieve. If you're running your own business, this will be vital to your success. If you're employed by someone else but work at home, you can still probably set your own hours, so long as you notify your employer. Probably the only time you have no control over your schedule is when you work onsite.

Overall, medical transcription is an exciting and challenging field to study. If you have the determination and interest, you can earn a good living while enjoying your work.

Source : Stephanie Foster runs http://www.medicaltranscriptionbasics.com/ for people interested in getting into medical transcription. Learn more about getting your medical transcription education at her site.

Source : http://www.content4reprint.com/

Medical Transcription - Tips on Finding the Best Training

If you're considering a career in medical transcription, you may be wondering where you can find training. The fact is that you'll find plenty of training options, from hands-on schools with required classes to attend to online or correspondence courses. The problem is not in finding training options, but in finding the best training.

Start by looking at the school's reputation with former students. Having one or two posted statements by former students probably isn't sufficient. After all, you can't even be certain those students actually graduated from that training or that their statements are accurate. Anyone can post a glowing review on a website. Ask to talk to some graduates of the program. Remember that the people you call will have been screened by the training program and will have pledged to give good reviews, but you can still ask some pertinent questions that will help you make your decisions.

You should also take a close look at the amount of automated material you'll be handling and whether any of your time will be spent with real people who can offer personal training, feedback and advice. Its fine to take some automated tests and there's no doubt that computerized activities are an excellent source of practice and training. But when you finish an automated test with a score of 70, you may be upset that you didn't do better. When you're talking to those real people, you may find that most people have trouble with that particular exercise or given some real advice that will help you do better on future exams. Computerized work has its place, but shouldn't be 100 percent of your training.

Help in finding work after you've completed the medical transcription course is also a big incentive to choose a particular training option. In some cases, the training may include access to a website, newsletter or job positing forum that unites medical transcriptionists with potential employers. Whether you're looking for a full-time job in a health care facility or planning to use your knowledge to start a home-based business, your training will be useless without clients or an employer. Look for training opportunities that can help you past handing you a certificate of completion.

Convenience may very well be the deciding factor for some people. If you're already working a full time (or even part time) job, juggling demands of family and still trying to make some time for yourself, you probably already know that having time for school is going to be difficult. If this is the case, consider online training. You can study at your own rate. Don't have time during the week? Spend some of your weekend hours on your training materials. Just remember that the training won't finish itself and you have to make the commitment to complete the work if you want to start this exciting new career.

There are plenty of options when it comes to training for a medical transcription career. All you need to do is find the one that's perfect for you.

Medical Transcriptionist

Making your Business Conference Calling Effective and Useful

For a business to reach out to their client base, form connections with their satellite operations, and maintain communication levels exceeding that of emails and memos, they must reach those in their professional network by phone. Business conference calling can be done through a number of services, offering low rates, discounted toll free numbers to call in order to connect with everyone else on the call, and a myriad of added services that bolster the effectiveness of business conference calling.

If you are working for a medium to large size business, then you understand the complexities of managing time, resources, and money. The employees may work several hours from your office and need constant support and contact with your department. A business conference calling plan tailored to your specific needs can help you to stay in constant contact with those you are overseeing. For effective conference calls to become a reality, a business must first find the plan that works for them. There are several questions you must answer to find a suitable plan.

1. Do you know how many minutes/hours you will need for conference calls per month?
2. Looking at those numbers, does it make sense to purchase a monthly subscription plan, reducing your per minute charge for your business conference calling?
3. For effective conference calls, have you considered recording the sessions for transcription later?
4. Do you require a toll free number or will a toll number be sufficient?
   

Once you have the answers to these questions related to your business conference calling requirements, you can begin searching to find the perfect match for your business. The internet offers a wide array of business conference calling plans to match your company's usage and requirements. Once you have chosen the package right for your business, it is only a matter of holding effective conference calls.

Effective conference calls are achieved by strong leadership, focused discussions, and by having an agenda. A conference call can go awry when those leading the discussion lose focus, talk incessantly about one particular to the topic, or crowd the microphone time, eliminating others from the conversation. Effective conference calls should utilize the resources (people and money) to their advantage, bringing everyone together to brainstorm, listen and become informed on a topic, or just to talk about the business needs for them can be an effective conference calls.

By finding the right business conference calling plan, hosts can utilize the tools at their disposal to make it as easy to join and participate on the call as possible. Effective conference calls happen when those conducting the calls can do so without interference of dropped calls or other annoyances. The right service can promote effective conference calls, as much as the right leadership and personnel.

Author Resource:- Huzaili Aris is the webmaster of http://www.conferencecall101.com Starting a conference call is not as complex as some people think. It is the easiest way to save you time and money for your business. Find out the 11 things to remember when choosing a conference call service by visiting our website.

A Buyers Guide to Dictaphones and Digital Voice Recorders

Dictaphones or Digital Voice Recorders (DVRs) are ideal for recording voice memos, interviews, conferences, meetings and phone conversations. The term Dictaphone is a brand name that refers to the version that uses cassette tapes to record, as opposed to the newer Digital Voice Recorders (DVR) that the save the audio to memory.

Digital Voice Recorder (DVR)

• Use your USB port to save typing time by directly transferring audio files from your DVR to your computer
• With the DVR there is no need to rewind; when you finish recording you simply press the play button to playback immediately
• Each audio file you record to your DVR is automatically saved under a number with a time-and-date stamp
• The DVR usually has between 2 to 5 folders to separate audio for better organization
• Some DVR's allow you to move messages between folders and split or delete messages
• You won't cause a distraction during meetings or conferences changing tapes and you won't miss anything important whilst doing so
• Some DVR's come with software that automatically converts the voice file to text for easy transcription
• Newer DVR's have expandable memory and come with external memory cards. Look out for this as it gives you more flexibility with recording time and makes it easier to download audio to your computer
• The DVR is normally powered by 1 or 2 AAA alkaline or rechargeable batteries
  

Cassette Tape/Dictaphone

• Choose between Mini, Micro or Standard; Mini cassettes (15min per side) hold half of the content of Standard and Micro (30mins per side)
• Cassette Tape Dictaphones can be played on any player that takes the respective size
• With digital you only have a limited amount of space to store recordings (if you have no external memory card) - whereas with a cassette tape Dictaphone you can simply exchange tapes if you run out of room
• Battery life is longer in a Dictaphone than a Digital Voice Recorder
• A Dictaphone is a cheaper alternative
• There is no digital storage on a Dictaphone cassette tape
• Reuse the cassettes - you can buy a machine that automatically erases micro and mini cassettes
• Many come with equipment specifically for recording phone conversations
  

Desktop or Portable Voice Recorder?

Desktop DVR's or Dictaphones are generally cheaper and are ideal for recording phone conversations or are used in conjunction with transcription software. There are numerous models of portable Dictaphones varying in size and ability, but are all ideal if you are on the road or need a Dictaphone or DVR for times of inspiration.

Push Button or Thumb Slide Recorders?

Push Button Cassette Recorders usually have the ability to insert dictation but it can be very difficult to find the point you want. With the Thumb slide switch it is much easier to review and control with rewind review capability, rewind, insert, play and stop.

Which Mode?

There are three levels of recording quality and differing recording times. The longer the recording time the lower the quality.

High Quality (HQ) - 43 mins approx.
Short Play (SP) - 65 mins approx.
Long Play (LP) - 121 mins approx.

Advertisers usually display the longest recording time, so keep in mind that the Dictaphone or DVR will record at less than half of that on high quality. This is particularly important for DVR's, as the higher quality mode uses much more memory and you don't want to be halfway through a meeting or interview and find you are out of memory.

There are usually two levels of sensitivity available on a Dictaphone or DVR. LOW is the best for dictation, as the microphone tends to be uni-directional in this mode and will focus on your voice. HIGH sensitivity picks up sound in all directions along with unwanted background noise.

Dictaphones and Digital Voice Recorders: Other Features to Consider

• Voice Activate System (VAS) - Dictaphones or DVR's with VAS will automatically record when they hear your voice (or other sound) without having to push any buttons. Great for when your hands are tied up.
• Alarm - to remind you when to record or a timer that you can set to automatically record between two times
• Tie clip microphone - for hands free recording
• Earphones - for play back when you do not want to disturb others
• Rechargeable batteries and a battery level indicator
• Microphones can either be built in or detachable. If you want your Dictaphone or DVR for a higher quality of recording such as music, then look for one with a microphone jack
• Speakers - most are built in but some models have detachable speakers that can be used for presentations.
• Digital storage - some come with more than others
• Hands free or foot control - keep your hands free for typing or playing an instrument
• Automatic backspace - automatically reverse the desired number of seconds for input or playback
  

Transcribers and Docking Stations

All digital transcription systems require you to use a foot pedal connected to your computer. This enables you to transcribe files from your Dictaphone or DVR from audio to text by listening and typing a few seconds at a time.

Docking stations make it very easy to download the files you have recorded to your computer. Some docking stations also recharge the batteries on your recorder, which is ideal if your Dictaphone is in high use.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/

Medical transcription industry to take a hit from US recession

The Philippine medical transcription industry will not be spared from the effects of the global economic slowdown although its share in the global market is small, an executive of a transcription company said Tuesday.

Speaking in one of the sessions at the BPO Summit Philippines 2008, Fred Kumetz, chief executive officer of medical and transcription firm eData Services said that the medical transcription (MT) sector is not immune to the effects of the slowdown in the economy of the United States, where most MT clients are based,

“The belief that medical transcription is recession proof is a fallacy,” said Kumetz.

Kumetz, however, said that the effect of the slowdown in the global MT industry will be “totally insignificant” because the Philippine MT industry is too small to be affected by the financial crisis.

The transcription sector is one of the non-voice sectors of the BPO in the Philippines. In 2007, the sector generated US$197 million and it has grown by an average of 24 percent during the past three years.

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