If you are considering working at home in the medical transcription career field; you might be on the right track!

The US Department of labor says that this career is going to continue to grow over the next several years. Medical transcription is one of the hottest careers to choose from.

Times are tough for a lot of people right now with the economic time we are all living in. Every career field has been hit by the economic downfall. However, the healthcare seems to be hit a lot less than the average retail stores or those involved in sales positions. This is because every-day people still go to the doctor with illness, having babies, getting tests, etc.

This means each patient that goes to see their doctor will need a medical report transcribed and put into their file with notes about the visit. Medications prescribed or tests ordered.

It is very difficult to start up a business that revolves around sales right now; however, even with the tough economic times it is much easier to start your own medical transcription business.

Once you have the proper training you can start marketing for clients (doctors) to sign up with your transcription business. You would receive dictations from them and then transcribe the reports and return them to the doctor. Of course, you would always check for accuracy before returning any reports.

Some of you may not want to have your own business and may want to work directly for the doctor or medical transcription service. This is okay too!

It does take a little time to get your foot in the door; but once you do. You should stay as busy as you would like to. Be aware of places that tell you that you can be in a job within a week of finishing their medical transcription course.

New MTs find that it takes an average of one to three months after finishing their medical transcription training to start having clients or getting their first job with a doctor, hospital or MT service company.

This is because it takes time to get your resume together and submit your resume to all the open positions out there. Then it will take time for the staff at the doctor’s office to review all the resumes they get in, and decide as to who they want to consider hiring. Once they decide, they have to contact you and give you an online transcription test to make sure you can do the work. They may also want to have a phone interview with you.

Doctors will usually only take on a few new MTs at a time because it takes time to proof the work and make sure the reports are accurate. Once the trust has been developed between the doctor and new MT they will be able to let you work more independently.

It is important to know that even though most doctors and companies will only take on a few new MTs at a time; there are thousands of doctors and MT service companies all over the United States. This opens up many opportunities for you to get your foot in the door and start your new career.

You will market your medical transcription services differently when you run your own business instead of working directly for a doctor.

You will want to have business cards; brochures, and a business contract ready for if they do decide to sign on with your MT service. You will also want to know a ballpark figure of what you will want to be paid per character line and how often. Some MTs invoice their doctors every 30 days while others may invoice at the end of each week. That will be a decision you would have to make.

While you will not have medical benefits when working for yourself; you can get self-employment health insurance. There are many health insurance companies that have brought their rates way down because of the number of people that are now working for themselves at home. Just do some comparison shopping. You also would benefit from different tax breaks when you are self-employed. (You need to talk to your accountant as to specifics.)

The investment in a medical transcription business is not huge.

The first thing and probably your largest investment would be your medical transcription training. Medical transcription schools can run between $1500 to $3,500 on average depending on the school and training. Of course, you may see some that cost a little less and others a little more. Just research the school, make sure they do not have a lot of complaints with the BBB, and that they have been around for a while. If they only offer one book with their course, I would be a little concerned.

Make sure that the medical transcription school you choose goes by the AHDI Book of Style standards. Not all schools include the AHDI book; and you need to make sure that you learn these standards! You need to know the standards for grammar, punctuation, abbreviations, etc.

Most doctors will want you to know the AHDI standards. This is very important. You also want to make sure they teach you with authentic digital doctor dictations (not tapes). You want to experience real-life situations so you are better prepared. Some doctors will talk fast. Others will mumble, and believe it or not some will actually be eating while dictating. You need to learn how to listen to these types of dictations and output an accurate medical transcription report.

Medical transcription training should take about six months on average. However, if you have a busy schedule or work full time, then it could take a year or longer to complete the course. To finish in around six months you really need to be able to devote at least four to five hours per day to studying if not more.

Other expenses would be that you have an updated computer no older than a few years old. You will also need a printer, fax machine, earphones, and a digital foot pedal. Every MT should have Microsoft Word (standard or professional version – not (home & student) this is because the home and student version will not offer the security functions that are needed when dealing with personal patient information in the reports. You should also have a prescription-drug word book (drug dictionary) and a medical spell checker. Stedman’s carries a lot of helpful software programs.

You will also want to know how to upload and download files via FTP software. You can get secure FTP software pretty inexpensive now days.  

To increase your productivity you might want to consider investing in a medical text expander.

The one that we recommend is Speed Type. It is around $100 and works very well. Medical text expanders will allow you to type in abbreviations that you create, and it will type out the word, phrase or even a template of a report. You will find that you will get a lot more reports done in less time with the use of an expander. This will help increase your average pay.

Marketing your medical transcription at home business-

Like many businesses that are successful, there is one thing in common... That is marketing! While different types of business require marketing, you will find that with medical transcription, it is a little different.

The goal is to build a strong client base. If you can get two to four good clients to transcribe for you will find that your business will start to grow just by word of mouth. Of course, this is if you are professional and output accurate work in a timely manner. No one is going to refer you or recommend you if your work is sloppy!

So how do you market yourself to find new clients?

The first thing is to get some business cards and brochures made. You can do them on your own computer at home, or you can use an outside service. Vista Print seems to be very inexpensive and does great work.

Once you have your business cards and brochures you will want to start contacting doctors and medical transcription companies. Have a template letter that is professional and completely written out. All you should have to do is change the name whom the letter is going to, their address, or any other information pertaining to that doctor or company. This will save a lot of time on your part. These letters can be copied and pasted into an e-mail or printed and mailed directly to the doctor’s office.

Start getting a list of doctors.

Use the Internet to research for doctors. You can start locally, but remember that with digital medical transcription, you can work for doctors who are thousands of miles away. So start local and then branch out to other cities and states. You can start with major cities and then work into the smaller ones.

Make at least 10 or more phone calls a day. Try to send out at least 15 emails and /or brochures a day. All of this should take about one to two hours to do. Think of your marketing as a “job”! You would spend more than just a few minutes on a job you were working right? Well, when you are marketing to get your business up and running you will want to put in as much time per day as you can.

Keep notes! If someone says they are not hiring or signing up with any new MT services at the moment but might be in the market for it in a month, then write it down on your calendar. Put the notes of what they said, the contact name and phone number. Then follow up with them on that day.

For those that might contact you back but are not hiring at the moment; send “Thank You” cards for their consideration, and that you hope to hear from them soon if their hiring situation changes. People take notice to those that go out of their way to say a kind word!

This is like any other job – you have to hear the word no to get to the Yes! It takes time and patience. If you expect to put just a week or two into looking for a new job or taking on new clients and then give up, you will not go far!

When you do get that call for consideration of a new job or adding them as a client remember some do’s and don'ts!  

DO –

·  Speak professional

·  Point out how you can BENEFIT their doctor’s office or MT Service company. (This can be your excellent detail to organization and grammar skills, very self-disciplined, etc.)

·  Ask what their dead-line is for reports and let them know HONESTLY if you would be able to meet those deadlines.

·  Point out how you understand the importance of patient privacy and know the HIPAA laws. Make sure to let them know that you have a secure work area and that your computer is used just by you and no one else and is password protected.

·  You will also want to make sure you have a good virus protection and spy ware program on your computer and point this out.

·  Make sure that whatever you tell them you can do or software you say you have available is always the truth! You do not want to say you have virus protection, and then you really do not.

DO NOT –

·  Talk about your personal life! Many people blow job opportunities by talking about how they want to work at home to be with their children or how they have a medical problem that has caused them to need to work at home. While these are legitimate reasons for working at home, it can scare a potential employer or client off really fast. They may start to assume that the work would not be done in a timely manner. Even if that is not the case they will sometimes make assumptions.

·  Do not use silly email addresses! Make sure your email address is professional. If you have not come up with a catchy email address, then simply use your first initial or name and last name. You can even put a dot or hyphen between the names.

Just keep in mind that a home-based medical transcription business that has grown to several clients usually will not run out of business and is very unlikely run into losses if you are efficient and are meeting the dead-lines of when they want the reports turned into them. If you have a high-accuracy %, get work done on time, and are professional you should do fine.

Most money made in the medical transcription business is dependent on how many lines per hour you can transcribe (type). This is because the client is charged on the number of lines, you transcribe for them. In most cases, 65 characters per line are how it is figured, and a good rate should be around 12 to 14 cents per line. However, new medical transcriptionist may find that they might start out a little lower per character line. Some new MTs have started out at 9 to 10 cents per character line.

This is because they are new, and it takes time to build up trust between the new MT and the doctor because their work is usually proofed over for any inaccuracies. Most of the transcriptionist that use medical text expanders can easily manage 800 to 1000 lines a day and with that productivity, you should easily earn around 70 to 100 dollars per day.

The higher number of lines you transcribe, the more you will be paid. On average, a home-based transcriptionist can earn around $30,000 to $60,000 dollars a year depending on the rates per line and their productivity. Some of them even earn higher to the tune of $100,000 with proper business tactics and by employing others to work under them. With all this said a new MT usually averages around $25,000 to $40,000 in the first year and then will see it go up from there.

You can start a medical transcription business from your home with a small investment in training. If you manage your time wisely you can still take care of your personal life like spending time with the kids, getting them to and from school and also take care of your home business. Some MTs will work at night; while others transcribe when the kids are at school. Most doctors are flexible as to when you do the work as long as it is turned in on time. However, there are a few MT Service companies that require the MT to log in at a certain time and log out when done.

You have to have good time management skills!

Every MT has to know how to plan out their day and stay organized. Medical transcription is based on dead-lines being met and accuracy. The reports should reach the doctors on time. If you turn in reports late you could lose your job or that client. Time frames can be different per doctor, and it is important to find these out right away. Some doctors expect the MT to get the report back to them within a 24-hour time frame. Others may give as much as a 48-hour time frame. Reports should be finished, checked for accuracy and sent back to the doctor within or before the time frame allowed! Doctors do not tolerate delays from the medical transcriptionist. As long as you are efficient and manage your time well, do not turn in error filled reports then you should be fine.

Conclusion

 Running a medical transcription business at home can be very rewarding!

It may take a little time to get it started, but the reward will be that you can work from your home office and still be there for your family. You do not have to spend money on expensive office clothes or spend money on gas back and forth to an office. There are many benefits to working at home. The main thing to keep in mind is to learn how to balance work with your personal life. You do not want to get too caught up into work that things get out of balance.