Career in Medical Transcription

What: Medical Transcription is the process which medical records – such as patient history, consultation notes, lab reports, and pathology reports – dictated by doctors and other medical professionals are recorded from audio to text format. Medical Transcription is one of the fastest growing fields in health profession.

Medical Transcriptionists are in demand in Western countries especially in America where the entire healthcare industry is based on insurance and detailed medical records are needed for processing insurance claims. India provides an ideal location for conducting medical transcription with the large population of educated English speaking people and the comparative low cost which encourages companies abroad to outsource their work to the Indian Medical Transcription field.

A trained medical transcriptionist could earn up to Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 a month and with experience it could only go higher.

How: India provides an ideal location for conducting medical transcription with the large population of educated English speaking people and the comparative low cost which encourages companies abroad to outsource their work to the Indian Medical Transcription field. An ideal qualification for a medical transcriptionist is a graduation, with English comprehension skill. If the person has a course in medical transcription it is an added advantage.

Further, the candidate should be a good listener, able to adjust quickly to the different accents and diction, with specialized knowledge of medical terminologies, medical procedures and ability to spell medical words correctly. The person should also be able to detect medical inconsistencies in dictation and fix poor grammar and syntax.

A medical transcriptionist must also have a reasonable amount of patience, as the work may get monotonous and repetitive. A medical transcriptionist should have basic knowledge of computers and good typing speed would be added advantage.

Medical Transcriptionists are most eligible when they have completed post-secondary training through vocational schools, community colleges, and distance-learning programs. It is highly recommended for medical transcriptionists to complete a 1-year certificate program or 2-year associate degree that encompasses work in anatomy, medical terminology, legality in healthcare documentation, and grammar and punctuation in English. Several of these programs provide on-the-job experience under supervision. On-the-job training may be adequate for some, especially those who have come from another medical field, such as nursing or medical administration.

Where: Medical transcription follows prescribed and established document formats and is highly dependent upon trained professional Medical Transcriptionists. India has the potential to become one of the largest Medical Transcription (MT) centers in the world due to the large number of people with health care knowledge in the country and industry maturity.

Institutions: (see below)