Medical transcription is the process of converting or changing dictated audio medical reports from audio recorders of medical and healthcare professionals which pertains to the patient’s medical history, diagnosis, prognosis, clinical procedures, laboratory exam results, psychiatric evaluations, and others into printed text files or stored data text formats by a medical transcription company or a medical transcriptionist , in order to record and update the patient’s medical status as well as a reference for assisting patients in claiming most of their healthcare benefits from their employers or organization.
Because of Medical Transcription, information is accurately conveyed more over the poor hand writing of doctors. Through the use of audio recordings rather than relying on hand written notes, fewer mistakes and misunderstandings will likely occur.
Medical transcription saves time for overworked medical care professionals. Doctors can now quickly move on to another patient who needs medical attention while giving the best quality medical care possible.
For the audio dictations to be legible and accurate, medical and health care professionals record specific information using digital or analog recording systems. This recorded information is then handed over to a medical transcription company or a medical transcriptionist as voice/audio or in video file format via the use of the internet. The medical transcriptionist then listens to the dictated audio information and converts them into text format through keyboard typing and the use of a word processor. Once done, the transcribed file then becomes part of the patient’s permanent medical record.
In Medical Transcription, the transcribed medical documents must be accurate and precise. A medical transcriptionist requires good hearing acuity, good memory, indepth knowledge about medical terminologies, minimal to none typographical and grammatical errors, above to average typing speed and excellent proof reading skills.
Any of these factors lacking may negatively affect the document’s information, thus causing problems to both the health care professional and patient.
However, transcribing audio files can be difficult to handle. Many a times due to regional dialects, some dictations of physicians can be difficult to understand thus takes a longer time to transcribe and gives medical transcriptionists a big ache in the head. Nevertheless, recording the patient’s medical status is still enforced.
Today, Medical transcription has become one of the fastest growing elements in the industry of medical health care. It has been a world-wide phenomenon. According to the Department of Labor, medical transcription employment is projected to grow 14% between 2006 and 2016. This is faster than the average for all occupations. And although medical transcription jobs are now getting more and more treated as a home-based job, there are still a lot of medical transcription services that are positioned in clinics, hospitals, and doctor’s offices.
All in all, medical transcription is a lucrative source of income as well as a great and unique profession if you have interest and determination to do this kind of work, provided that you go through the training ( if you’re still new in medical transcription).