Getting Hired As a Medical Transcriptionist from Home

There is a huge need for qualified MTs.  It is very important that you have proper training and an interest in the medical field to be a successful medical transcriptionist.

Getting into a new medical transcription job can take a little time however many new MTs are now working successfully at home. You may have heard that it is impossible to get a job as a medical transcriptionist unless you have experience if this was true there would be no experience MTs. Every experience medical transcriptionist started out as a new MT. The fact is that medical transcription services have to hire new medical transcriptionist when they want to or not. The demand for medical transcription is growing at such a rate that there were not enough experienced medical transcriptionist available to service current and future accounts. This situation is going to intensify over the next few decades as baby boomers age and with the demand increasing in our healthcare services. Transcription services that refuse to hire new medical transcriptionist are faced with two choices: they can turn down accounts, or they can pay a premium in the compensation and benefits in an effort to attract experienced medical transcriptionist from their current employers.

So what does it take to get your foot in the door as a new medical transcriptionist?  

The first thing you will need is to have proper medical transcription training, a high accuracy and productivity percentage, and you must be familiar with professional tools that are used by MTs. Some of these tools are Microsoft Word, and software that will play your Dr. Dictations that can be controlled with your digital foot pedal such as Express Scribe.  You will need to know how to do research on the Internet and how to use your reference materials such as a medical dictionary, AHDI Book of Style and other useful reference tools.  In other words there is no secret to getting hired as a new medical transcriptionist. If you learn to transcribe the Basic 4 at 250 lines per hour with 98% accuracy and you know how to use your digital transcription equipment you should have no trouble in finding a transcription service or doctor that will give you a chance as a new MT. There is a difference in lines per hour (LPH) and words per minute (WPM). If you cannot type 65+ words per minute (WPM) you can use programs such as medical text expanders or create macros in Microsoft Word to help increase your productivity. When we say you should have no trouble getting someone to give you a chance as a new MT, please understand that it can take 1 to 3 months on average for a new MT to get into their first job position. This is a standard average; there have been new MTs that have gotten their first job sooner.

So why do so many job ads ask for experience only? 

One of the reasons that you will see job ads that ask for 1, 2, or even 3 years of experience is because when people that are wanting to work at home start searching for jobs they usually will search on the Internet. Many of these people had never heard of what medical transcription is and have not had training. Therefore when they see the words no experience they will send in their resume or e-mail the company. This can amount to hundreds and even thousands of people that will apply to any job ad that says no experience and they do not bother to look at the job description. In other words, they will send it the resume thinking the job is for data entry or word processing instead of realizing that the job is actually for new MTs that have had proper training.

When this many people are applying to the MT job ads that said no experience it would overwhelm the doctor’s offices, hospitals, and medical transcription service companies. They do not have the staff available to go through thousands of nonqualified resumes and letters to try to find the new MTs that do have proper training. It became easier for the doctors hospitals and medical transcription service companies to go directly through the medical transcription schools and colleges and let them know of any open job positions that they could refer the students to. This saves the doctors from being overwhelmed with resumes of people looking to work from home doing data entry, word processing, etc. and actually getting resumes from the schools of real MTs to choose from.

Most of the doctors, hospitals and medical transcription service companies will in fact expect that the new MT should been already trained in medical terminology and in how to use the professional tools, as well as the techniques of creating medical reports in the proper style and format.

It is important to know that while the medical transcription schools and or colleges may offer job assistance and refer your resume to the open job positions they cannot guarantee you a job unless they are hiring you to work for them, there are too many variables involved in the hiring process.  The school cannot read the minds of the staff that does the hiring as to which MTs they decide to hire. If any school tells you that they can guarantee you a job you really need to be concerned about the honesty of that company. Job assistance means that your resume is referred over to doctor’s offices, hospitals, medical transcription service companies or any other open positions for new MTs. Your resume may also be placed into a resume database depending on the school.

Those that have prior medical knowledge or medical work experience such as registered nurses (RNs) usually will be able to get into an MT position a little faster after proper medical transcription training.

Don’t walk - run - from any training school or course that tells you 35 wpm are adequate or that they can place you in a job within a week after taking your course. You will not have much luck getting into a job typing only 35 words per minute. You really need to have a minimum of 65+ words per minute and some employers expect 70+ words per minute.  However, as we’ve mentioned before accuracy is even more important than how fast you type.

Tips for new MTs on getting your first Medical Transcription job.

If you have finished a medical transcription course and they offer job assistance, there are still things that you can do from your end to help decrease the time it takes to get into a new position. One of the most important things in getting hired as a new MT is to network with other MTs. You can do this by going to medical transcription forums and chat rooms and introduce yourself and get to know each other. Visit medical transcription sites like MT Daily and interact by asking questions and even answering the ones you may know the answer to.  As you get to know other MTs you will find a lot of them are willing to share information and help out one other. Many new MTs have found out about a new job opportunity from the word-of-mouth of another MT.

You might want to consider joining AHDI as a student member. AHDI has meetings in different local areas that student members can attend. Not only will you be able to keep up with any upcoming changes to the medical transcription career field or new information you might need to know; you can also find out about great job opportunities through others that attend. 

Make yourself some business cards, hand them out to as many as you can. You never know if your son or daughter’s friend might have a parent in the medical field. Or maybe that parent might have a relative in the medical field looking to hire a new MT. even though the medical transcription work can be done from any state, you will want to hand out business cards and your resume to local doctors and hospitals as well.

Another way to get work as a new medical transcriptionist is to start your own medical transcription service as an independent contractor instead of working directly for a doctor or hospital. The MTs that have done this seem to make a little bit more money and get more job offerings from word-of-mouth of other doctors.  This is because you come across as a service or company instead of an individual employee. You can decide how large you want to make your MT business. You can have a few clients and do the transcriptions yourself, or you can take on many clients and then pay other MTs to help you do the work and of course you would take a certain percentage out for your company.

There is a great E-book out called “Getting your foot in the door as a New MT” and is sold by AHDI.  If you are an MT that has finished a medical transcription course and are currently starting to look for your 1^st job; we highly recommend getting this book.  There is also another e-book written by an MT that has worked out of her home for years.  She gives a lot of information about how to start working as a new MT, how to determine what to charge, creating resume and much more.  We have a link to her book under our Resources link on our website.

You will also find a lot of information on getting hired as a new MT and about creating your resume in our previous medical transcription newsletters. You can find these newsletters under the newsletter link at the top of our page or click here.

Just remember that in every career everyone starts from the bottom and works her way up. There are jobs out there for new MTs, doctors and hospitals desperately need well-trained MTs to transcribe their medical reports or edit the reports that were created by an SRT system. (SRT - Speech Recognition Technology) SRT Systems cannot transcribe like MTs can. Doctors that use SRT systems require the extra set of eyes that MTs can give to make sure that each medical report is accurate.