Getting started in a new career is a big decision. It's going to impact your earning potential for years to come. A lot of factors come into play in determining if a particular career is right for you.
Medical transcription is one of the great choices if you want a career that will give you the option to work at home. You don't have to work at home as a medical transcriptionist, but you can, and that is a wonderful thing. That bit of flexibility has a lot of advantages.
But there are more reasons to choose a career in medical transcription.
1. A Bright Future
Medical transcription is expected to grow faster than the average for career options through at least 2016, according to the Department of Labor. This is due to the aging population.
Some people disagree with this assessment due to the possibility of voice recognition software getting good enough to really take off with doctors. What many don't mention is that even then transcriptionists will be needed to check over the work done by the software. It's too easy for software to get it wrong.
2. Interesting and Challenging Work
It's amazing the things you can learn as a medical transcriptionist. You'll learn about a variety of medical conditions, depending on the specialties you transcribe. Some will be commonplace while others will be more unusual. Sometimes the knowledge is handy when talking to friends or family if they need to see a doctor on something you know about. You can help them figure out the questions to ask, while making sure to leave the diagnosis to the doctor.
The work is challenging for a few reasons. New medications is one. Pharmaceutical companies are always coming up with new drugs, and you'll need to keep up with them, both in the name brand and generic versions. That's not always easy. Fortunately there are plenty of online resources to help.
The doctors themselves provide the other main challenge. They'll dictate anytime, anywhere in many cases. They'll also want to get their dictation done and over with, and not worry so much about if you can understand what they're saying. It can take a few tries plus familiarity with a particular doctor to understand them at times.
3. You Can Have a Home Business or Work for Someone Else
Many transcriptionists enjoy starting their own business rather than being an employee of someone else. The money is better, but the challenges are greater. Finding your own clients, handling billing, being responsible for all the work getting done on time and so forth is not the easiest thing, and not for everyone.
But there are also plenty of services that very much so need employees to transcribe. You may work in an office or from home. Home based transcriptionists still have highly flexible hours in most cases. The pay is still quite good once you're up to speed.
Medical transcription isn't for everyone, or even for most people. If you can't spell or have poor grammar, you probably aren't ready to even consider an education in this field. But if you have those skills and love learning new information, can type fast and pay great attention to detail, you might just love it.
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