Meditec, a Utah based medical billing, coding and transcription company, celebrates being in business for 40 years this year. As the company continues to grow the questions remain the same. People are often very inquisitive about just exactly what medical transcription is. How can they do it from home?
So, what do MTs actually do and is it you?
Medical transcriptionists take the audio dictation from a doctor and transcribe it to create the legal patient medical record. They must have a detailed understanding of medical terminology across a wide variety of medical specialties as well as a good understanding of anatomy, disease processes, laboratory medicine, and pharmacology. Why does an MT need to understand all these things? It is because medical transcriptionists must translate what they hear into correct words and coherent sentences that make sense. There are many words that sound alike and if an MT doesn’t have a good working knowledge of medicine, then it would be easy to type the wrong word and not know if something wasn’t heard correctly. Additionally, sometimes even doctors make mistakes like starting out talking about the metacarpal injury and ending with the metatarsal injury. An astute medical transcriptionist can pick out these inconsistencies and fix them so that the patient medical record is correct.
The medical transcriptionist’s job is very important because errors could cost a patient their life. For example, there is a huge difference between 0.5 mg and 50 mg. A typo such as this combined with a doctor in a very business practice not catching it could mean an incorrect dosage of medication being prescribed to the patient. Additionally, MTs have an important role in healthcare documentation because the medical record is a legal document and must be accurate. If a doctor is called into court to testify about a treatment, protocol, or any number of things, having an accurate transcription of the patient’s record is imperative.
We asked Dawn Moreno, at home medical coding professional, what she thinks about working from home. She comments, "When people hear that I work at home in the medical transcription field, I’m frequently asked ‘how can I work at home and type too!’ They are both enthusiastic and under the delusion that ‘anyone’ can be an MT – after all, it’s just a typing job. Thinking like this usually makes the seasoned MT cringe. However, we can’t expect people outside of our profession to fully understand what it is we do, the skill set needed, and the importance and significance of our job. Medical transcriptionists do much more than just ‘type.’"
Is medical coding or transcription right for you? Medical transcriptionists sit at their computer for long periods of time, and it is a highly detail oriented job. It is a production based job so both speed and accuracy are very important. MTs must reference what they don’t know. If they come upon a particular word, procedure, instrument, lab value, etc that they are unfamiliar with, they will need to use medical reference resources like books, Internet, and other available references to find what they need. MTs after about a year of experience do make very good money of $18-$20 an hour with some MTs making much more than that. MTs must have impeccable English grammar and spelling skills. Usually MTs have a flexible schedule and have the option of getting their own accounts or working for an MT service. MTs usually work at home but some do work in a doctor’s office or hospital transcription department. The work at home aspect of this career choice is very appealing to young mothers who wish to stay home with their children. Over 80% of transcription nationally is now done from home offices. If these job specific requirements sound enjoyable to you, then possibly MT is a career choice worth pursuing.
For more information and free educational materials, feel free to visit http://www.meditec.com or call 1-877-335-4072.
