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If you’re a mom and prefer to stay at home, learning how to be a medical transcriptionist will give you the advantage of taking care of your kids while earning a decent amount of money on the side.

What is medical transcription

Every hospital follows a standard operational procedure, one of which involves a lot of paperwork. Patient data must be properly documented, in hard copies and ’soft’ form. Patient data includes charts as tabbed by nurses, physicians and therapists and voice recordings of the group of medical professionals who cared for and treat the patient.

These voice recordings must be transcribed or be ‘put in paper’ to form part of the patient’s data.

In a hospital setting, medical transcription is not part of the job of a nurse nor a nurse’s aid. However, eventhough this job involves mostly paperwork, it is not also part of the job of office clerks in the hospital administration. Medical transcription needs a person specifically trained to do just as that: medical transcription.

Why the need for Medical Transcriptionist

Provisions and regulation in medical insurance are getting more complex, year after year. Aside from these, laws in health care settings are getting stricter with each medical malpractice case being filed before courts. Add to all these the backlog of patient data and you get a Human Resources Officer posting an ad for hundreds of certified medical transcriptionist.

It is not only hospitals that have demands for medical transcriptionist. Consulting physicians who run a clinic of their own are in need of medical transcriptionists, too. Imagine the number of doctor’s offices that are in need of medical transcriptionists, not to mention rehabilitation centers, nursing homes, and pyschiatric centers in all 50 States. There’s a lot of job for even hundreds of thousands of medical transcriptionists.

And since medical transcription needs certain skills before it can be done — has the ear for medical terms, types fast and writes well — only a few try to dip their toes into this lucrative side job.

How much can you earn

The average earnings of a medical transcriptionist ranges from $25,000 to $40,000 and even more for just a few hours of work.

Bringing your work at home

Although you can go to an office to be an in-house medical transcriptionist and enjoy the benefits of a regular employee, you can also apply as a freelance medical transcriptionist for a telecommuting job. Your employer will send you the materials online, which you can transcribe at home using your computer, internet, transcription software and other gadgets, and send back the completed transcription via online, too.