You will be required as a medical transcriptionist to use transcribing machines with headset and foot pedal to listen to recordings by physicians and other healthcare professionals dictating a variety of medical reports, such as emergency room visits, diagnostic imaging studies, operations, chart reviews, and final summaries.

Other duties include you transcribing dictating reports and translating medical jargon and abbreviations into their expanded forms. Edit as necessary and return reports in either printed or electronic form to the dictator for review and signature, or correction.

As you may be aware that as a medical transcriptionist you will need to facilitate the number of patients to be seen and to move quickly in your profession, patient care providers record medical notes, observations and patient histories into a tape recorder to be transcribed into a hard copy at a later time.

So this is where you as a medical transcriptionists are to perform this work., by using digital or analog tape playback equipment, medical transcriptionists enter the vocal recording into a computer using word processing software. It may be required that you have a foot pedal that controls the speed of playback and can pause or rewind the recording.

As a medial transcriptionist you will edit for clarity and grammar and produce such documents as patient history, examination reports, discharge summaries, autopsy reports and referral letters to specialists or other facilities. It is necessary for you to have knowledge of medical terminology, anatomy, physiology, assessments.

Average salary range is $34,000 annually

Transcriptionist Medical $41,000   Digital Medical Transcription $27,000   Medical Secretary Anatomic Pathology $39,000   Medical Secretary Cardiovascular $39,000   Medical Transcriptionist $30,000   Medical Secretary Transcriptionist $28,000   Medical Billing $30,000   Transcriptionist $35,000   Legal Transcriptionist $42,000   Medical Secretary Psych $38,000   Become a Medical Transcriptionist $56,000   Transcriber $26,000  

Other similar job titles include:

Medical Transcriber Certified Medical Coder (CMC) Certified Coding Specialist (CCS) Medical Coding Technician Certified Professional Coder (CPC)

As you will find out employers prefer to hire transcriptionists who have completed postsecondary training in medical transcription offered by many vocational schools, community colleges, and distance-learning programs so check in your local area.

Other requirements include completion of a 2-year associate degree or 1-year certificate program with coursework in:

• Anatomy
• Medical terminology
• Legal issues relating to health care documentation
• English grammar and punctuation

You will want to make sure the program you pick includes supervised on-the-job training experience. If you are already familiar with medical terminology from previous experience as a nurse or medical secretary, it may be easy to just take refresher courses and training.

The medical transcription industry will continue to undergo metamorphosis based on many contributing factors like advancement in technology, practice workflow, regulations etc. The evolution toward the electronic patient record demonstrates that, over time, documentation habits will change either through standards and regulations or through personal preferences.

Until recently, there were few standards and regulations that medical transcriptionist had to meet. Many providers are concerned that the majority of the transcription industry will not be able to meet several specific requirements: namely, access controls, policies and procedures, and audits of access to the patient information.

The fact is that the employers will demand HIPAA compliance There will also be demands to enhance patient safety, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. It is mandatory for service providers and healthcare practices to migrate to a HIPAA compliant environment.

As stated by the Health Informatics Forum

The electronic record has completely customizable templates. The doctor can specify the layout of the template, which helps him to adjust the template as per his practice & procedure.

• Provide consistent, complete and accurate data. The chances of medical errors are reduced since the data is documented in customised forms.
• Store / organize data for subsequent retrieval.
• Each click adds data elements to the database. Point-and-click systems create data that can be used to generate clinically useful reports, such as health maintenance reminders, disease management etc.
• One of the major advantages of template based charting is the time needed to make the document available as a medical record. Since notes are created within the EMR, they are available immediately upon completion.

The medical transcriptionist corresponds intuitively to the physician's usual method of working.

• Dictation remains the most intuitive and least time-consuming means of data entry.
• Physicians can dictate anytime, anywhere using PDA, Dictaphone or telephone at their convenience.
• Providers need not change the way they practice just to accommodate an EMR.
• EMR can interact with transcription service so that transcriptions can be attached directly into the patient's electronic medical record, if such a facility is provided by the EMR vendor.
• Provides expressive power to describe patient's condition and other health related events