Has anyone ever tried to be a medical transcriptionist or legal transcriptionist from one of those “train at home, work at home” programs? If so, which one did you use? Did it work out for you at all? Even if you know someone who did an was successful at it, let me know.
I’m about halfway through one through the Professional Career Development Institute. It’s around $600 for the whole course (and that includes everything, books, etc.) The first half of the course is pretty tough, learning all sorts of medical terms & lingo: body parts, diseases, pre and suffixes, etc. Then you learn the different types of reports and how they all get laid out. That’s the point I’m at now. I did one report and decided I hated it, so I haven’t been doing any more. I believe it’s supposed to take around 18 months to 2 years to complete the whole course, and if I recall correctly they help you with placement. I did like the whole thing with being able to fit it into your schedule whenever and not being locked into a specific class or time. I’m just a crummy student in general.
I’m a medical transcriptionist. I didn’t go through one of those programs, and I don’t work at home; however, I do frequent a message board with many at-home MTs, and it’s not an easy job. You can work as an independent contractor and solicit your own accounts, which can be hard for a newbie, or work for a national service, in which case it’s hard to get hired without at least five years experience, or you can try and find an at-home job with a specific clinic, but usually they require you to work in-house for a period of time before they let you go home. There are also smaller transcription companies that serve several clinics. Some of them will take a chance on a newbie, some won’t.
Some national companies do hire newbies, but the pay can suck. It’s not hourly, you get paid by the line, typically somewhere between 6 cents and 12 cents per 65 character line. Also, you have to ask yourself if you can handle typing for hours and hours all day. Burnout is pretty common.
A good site to check out for a plethora of information is http://www.mtdaily.com, there’s a forum where they discuss specific companies, a forum where they discuss training programs, discussions of the industry in general, one where MTSOs (medical transcription service operators) post jobs that are available, and I’d recommend having a look around there to get a good feel for what it’s like. Be prepared for getting little respect, lots of people think of us as nothing more than typists, but we’re a lot more than that. Our job requires a good grasp of medical terminology, anatomy, physiology, drugs, and diseases, and excellent grammar. You have to be able to figure out from context whether the doctor is saying vesicular or fascicular, Xanax or Zantac, perilymph fistula or purulent fistula, and the doctor isn’t helping any because he’s dictating while jogging, or eating popcorn, or in a crowded room, or talking insanely fast, or talking with a thick accent. So, we’re a hell of a lot more than mere typists. (Sorry, went off on a rant…heh.)
My recommendation is, if you decide to go into that field, work in-house and gain some experience and get the hang of transcription before looking for an at-home position. I can’t imagine just starting out in this job and not having anyone around to listen to a word I can’t make out, or ask if they’ve ever heard of this obscure term that I can’t find in my medical dictionary or various word books. MT Daily is a good resource for the at-home MT, there are boards where you can post what the word sounds like and people will try and help you, but that really doesn’t replace having someone right there to actually listen and give their opinion.
If you have any questions about what the job entails, feel free to email me. My job isn’t too bad, I don’t want to do it for the rest of my life, however I get decent hourly wage, a pretty easy quota to make, great benefits, and lots of time off. Reading that message board, I get the feeling that I’m an exception to the rule.
At the MT Daily website, there is a forum for legal transcriptionists, so you may be able to get some info about that area as well.