Medical Transcriptionist Jobs

Medical Transcriptionist Job Overview

Medical transcriptionist jobs involve listening to what doctors and other healthcare professionals say in voice recordings and then either typing those words into patients’ medical records or editing the transcription work done by speech-recognition software.

Along with medical histories, medical transcriptionists prepare discharge summaries, test results, reports about operations, referral letters and other medical documents.

To succeed in a medical transcriptionist career, you need to know grammar; recognize medical words and abbreviations; and understand anatomy, physiology, diagnostic tests, prescription medicines and medical assessments.

Medical transcriptionists, who are also called MTs or medical language specialists, work in hospitals or outpatient centers and for insurance companies or private dictation services. Some medical transcriptionists work in doctors’ offices where they also do other customer service tasks like answering phones, checking in patients and taking payments.

Medical Transcriptionist Education

Community colleges, trade schools and online colleges offer medical transcriptionist training. Community colleges offer an associate’s degree, which takes four semesters to complete, or a certificate, which takes two to three semesters.

Medical Transcriptionist Certifications

The entry-level medical transcriptionist certification is the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity’s Registered Medical Transcriptionist certification. With two years’ experience in an acute-care or multispecialty setting, you can take the association’s Certified Medical Transcriptionist exam.

Medical Transcriptionist Job Market

Medical transcriptionist employment will grow only 6 percent between 2010 and 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), much slower than most occupations. While aging Baby Boomers will increase the demand for healthcare services, improving speech-recognition technology is reducing the need for traditional medical transcriptionists whose work involves listening to recordings.

Some healthcare facilities offshore medical transcription work, but concerns about patient confidentiality limit this practice.

Medical Transcriptionist Salary

The median medical transcriptionist salary was $33,480 in 2011, the BLS says.