From time to time, medical transcriptionists are suspicious about voice recognition software over taking their jobs. Even today we get tons of questions about this and so we thought it is better to address this issue.

What the heck is voice recognition?

For those of you who are not familiar with voice recognition technologies, let us give a brief introduction. In today’s medical transcription world, there are two kinds of transcribers – One who transcribes video to text and predominantly called as medical transcriber or medical transcriptionist. The other is the guy who edits it. It is the responsibility of the editor to quality check and make sure that it is good to be delivered to clients. Now there was a period when software burst happened and software came in the market stating that they will be able to provide good transcription. However most of them gave 40 to 60% accuracy. None of the software was able to produce 100% accurate result which may be impossible with the current technology framework.

Voice Recognition is there for a while:

You may wonder, but voice recognition technologies are there for a while right from 2006. Multiple companies have tried to provide the best transcription that can be used for medical transcription. But till today there is no one stops solution for this. There is no software that can provide 100% accuracy results when compared to human transcribers.

Will MT business slow down because of software domination?

Since its inception, there were multiple questions. Right now situations for MT are so clear and people are still outsourcing to humans to interpret their audio. But in future there may be slight slip in terms of relying humans for transcription. However the editing part of the transcription business will be always there as software reaching 100% accuracy is very much unlikely to happen.

Few disadvantages of voice recognition:

1. Well, it is not accurate. A well spoken audio file (which is difficult by itself), can be translated in the accuracy range of 40% to 60%.
2. This low quality transcription has to be proof read and changes have to be made.
3. Voice recognition does not recognize all slang of a doctor.
4. Voice recognition needs crystal clear audio.

With all this challenges we are sure that Medical transcription is still a blooming industry with tons of job offers with high quality pay. We still see people taken up MT course which is really a great sign for this industry.

As the old proverb say, ‘Intelligent always chooses the best tool’, it is imperative for a medical transcriber to choose the best transcription headphones. These transcribing headsets can be considered as partners or friends of a transcriber.

In this post we will review popular headsets that are precisely made for medical transcription, their pros and cons.  For our analysis we will trust and look into the reviews and ratings from Amazon.com.

Philips 2236 Stereo Headphones for Transcription

Philips has always made good products when it comes to consumer electronics. While 2236 stereo type transcriber headsets are new to the market and they have not attracted enough people to buy or become a fan off. The only customer who has reviewed the product says that it works perfectly and it is very much comfortable. However a transcriber will definitely need a lot more than comfort. This headset can be purchased from Amazon by following this link.

Olympus Headset, E-102 Extended Cord

One of the best manufacturers of medical transcription equipment is Olympus. This E-102 type of headsets looks to be famous with 9 reviews (Mostly positive).  Most of the product reviews are from transcribers which is a good news for us. Most of the folks say that this headset is very unique, simple and more importantly cheap. The cost is just $14.24 at the time of writing this article.

One of the user stated that this headsets creates a sore feeling over the ear. This is common for most of the headsets and can be ignored. One other user said that he is not able to adjust the length of the headset. There is no way to shrink or lengthen the overall length. This is an issue especially for people with long face. Olympus must consider including this in any of the upcoming releases. This headset can be purchases here 

Sony Headsets:

We also saw a Sony headset in Amazon. There is no customer reviews at this point. This headset is the costliest one that we have encountered in Amazon. The product cost is $39.99. Let’s see the features.

• Availability of Chinband.
• Claims to be of much clarity.
• Comfort ear cushion.
• Rubber cord

Which one is for me?

Medical billing and coding is often mis-represented for medical transcription. But honestly they both are different from each other. This article will give you a perspective of what is medical billing and coding.

It is a process of updating the patient’s record with the diagnosis that was done and transferring this information to the insurance company in the electronic format. Medical billing and coding also involves the follow-up process that are involved in getting the right money to be reimbursed for the treatment. It is a multi-step process involving various stakeholders. The typical time frame for this process can be any where between few weeks to months depending upon the amount of investigation that is needed. Here are the steps involved in this process.

Patient Medical Record and Audio Recording:

The doctor or the clinical staffs updates the patients medical record. The medical record has the entire history of the claimed disease. It starts with the incident details, patient name, diagnosis and sensitive details like patient contact number, social security ID, insurance policy number etc.,

Coding starts:

Now the real job of the coder starts here. The medical coder starts listening to the conversation audio of the interaction between doctor and patient, reads patient records and analyzes the situation. After understanding the situation and analyzing the problem, the coder converts this into the standardized ICD-9-CM format. These are numeric codes that are being standardized internationally.

Transfer to Payer:

The payer is typically the patient’s insurance company. Now here on the medical billers job starts. He or she transfers this ICD-9-CM format codes to the insurance company electronically. Now as per the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) rules the medical biller has to stick with multiple set off rules. One of the most important rules is to stick with electronic format when it comes to transfer of information.

Now the first form of interaction from the medical biller to the payer is called as ANSI 837. Here ANSI stands for American National Standards Institute. This has a large chunk of patient and incident details that are being coded by the medical coder.

A very good standard format of ANSI 837 is discussed here

X12-997 and X12-835 Transactions:

Subsequent to the receipt of the ANSI 837, the payer will issue X12-997 acknowledgement. It is just to inform the biller and the hospital that the claim has been received. Upon inspection and verification, the payer finally send X12-835 transaction which shows a detailed information on the claim.

In all this process of interaction and follow-up with the payer, medical biller is involved.

Now we hope you clearly understand the role of medical biller and coder and how it is different from medical transcription. Also do read our older post – what is medical transcription.

Are there any medical coders are billers here? Let us know what you think about this post.

Everyone would agree to the fact that undergoing typing speed test is critical for improving the quality of medical transcription. A transcriber is being paid not only by the quality of work, but also by the wpm limit. Here are some free online tools that can help you take up typing tests online.

1) Typeonline.co.uk

Cool tool that shows your wpm limit and points out the mistakes in bold.

2. Speed Test Fast Fingers:

Fast fingers allow you to type a passage and ranks you according to their global list. It displays total character per minute, correct words, wrong words and word per limit.

3. Typingtest.com

Interesting tool allows you to select the time you want to type and shows typing speed in results. It also has a quick 2 minute demo that can help you increase typing speed.

4. TypingSpeedTest.net

Another tool that you might want to consider. One disadvantage that we saw is that the last sentence of the line disappears as you type along.

5. Free Typing Game

It’s not a game as it sounds like. This tool has good features like getting typed under a line giving good visibility to the typing texts.

So, what typing speed test tool do you use? Let us know in comments.

When we started this website, our motto was to provide free information for people who are in search for credible information on medical transcription. While I will not accept that we have achieved our goal, we are so happy to have close to 100 subscribers, interactions over e-mail and a decent traffic to the website.

We did not pursue our goal:

I have to accept that we have not pursued our goal of providing valid and holistic information through this website. While we have some content called as Free medical transcription course and some good blog post we did not extend our self by providing regular content, free tools and other features as we initial planned.

This is going to change:

Starting from Monday 09/12/2011, you would see a number of change in this blog. You will see regular and credible content pumping our real fast and new features being added month on month. Following are our long term goals:

• Free MT course – Provide free information that will help any fresher to get started in MT.
• MT companies list – It is a pain to find a good MT company. We will do that painful job for you.
• Free Videos and training materials – We want to offer free world class training videos for you get trained in MT.
• Free Tools – MT is all about tools. We want to provide online tools that can help you practice your work seamlessly.
• Free job search – We want to have a holistic list of profiles and company list. We can make TMA as a hub for you to get in touch with companies.

And the list goes on….

And we are dreaming to take this to a great height.

The Catch:

All the above listed features are our long term dream to make this blog successful and most importantly useful to our users like you. The problem is MONEY. As you might know all above features can cost a huge level of investment which we can not afford. But, we will strive hard to provide this as soon as possible. So we are planning to roll out features one by one, slowly so that it doesn’t impact us in any manner.

We need your help now:

So, today we need your help in understanding YOU to serve you better. We want to hear from you. Here are some things that we like to hear from you.

• What do you like in our website?
• What sucks in our website?
• How can we make this website a better place for the MT community?
• What features you want in this website?

If you can think along this line and put across your thoughts in comment section of the website, it would be really great. I am looking forward to hear from you and please remember every word of yours really means a lot to us.

Have a great weekend!

Medical transcription reports are used to describe about the complaints and prescriptions given to the patient by the doctor. The job of a medical transcriptionist is to convert the dictated text to proper medical transcription report. The dictation will be done by doctors, physicians and medical experts like physical, occupational and respiratory therapists, nurses and hospital administrators.

The medical report will contain details such as patients name, name of physician, admission date, allergies, chief complaints, their history, reports about their physical examination etc.  CPT codes are the Current Procedural Terminology codes which are maintained by American Medical Association. The CPT codes usually describe about surgical, diagnostic and medical services which are designed for communication some good information about the medical procedures and services among the coders, physicians, accreditation organization, patients and for the purpose of analytics.

Sample medical transcription reports are the real cases of the basic clinical evaluation of the patients which are observed by the specialty physicians. Sample medical transcription reports will be checked for their accuracy and correctness as doctors usually expect 98 percent accuracy in the medical transcription reports.

Sample cardiology Medical Report:

Patient Name: #######

Attending Physician: YYYYYY

Admission date: 03/01/10

Medical Record: *****

HISTORY:

The patient is a forty eight year old female who has a long history of palpitations and typical chest pain. She underwent an echocardiogram in past, which showed mitral valve prolapsed. She explains her chest pain episodes as tingling and burning in nature. They are not related with exertion. They would last for 5 minutes and are not related with breathing shortness and it happens once every week. The patient says that her history of palpitations have improved on her verapamil and Tenormin.  The patient denies any history of MI.

Past Medical History:

A typical chest pain, Mitral valve prolapsed and palpitations.

Past Surgical History: Bladder suspension, Appendectomy, Hysterectomy.

Present Medications:

Verapamil 120 mg per day, Atenolol 50mg per day, Celexa 40 mg per day, one baby aspirin per day.

Social History:

Tobacco Abuse – Positive

Family history:

Coronary artery disease – Positive

Electrocardiogram:

Sinus rhythm devoid of clear abnormalities in ST segment.

System Review:

Patient denies night sweats, chest pain, fevers, diabetes mellitus and cough. 10 point system review is negative.

PHYSICAL EXAMINATION:

Heart :  Regular rhythm, S1, S2 diminished. Systolic murmur in right sterna border.

Lymphatics: Post Amputation, Negative

Abdomen: Non-distended, Non-tender and Soft. There is no rebound, masses, guarding, ascites, hepatosplenomegaly, ascites, hernias.

Genitalia: Normal

Rectal : Positive stool

Chest : No rales, wheezes, rhonchi and Percussion dullness.

She is not suffering from acute distress. Respiratory exams are clear for auscultation and neck veins aren’t distended. Cardiac exam reveals regular with systolic murmur and S1 and S2 are diminished. Soft and non-tender abdomen with palpation.  GU exam does not reveal costovertebral tenderness and neurological examination is not-focal.

Impression:

Chest pain with irregular features and is not related with exertion and radiation is present all over her body and there is no strong explanation for this. Though it represents arrhythmia, non-cardiac or cardiac problems will be clear.

Mitral Valve prolapse:

There is no clear evidence and it has been previously documented. There was’nt any murmur with this examination.

Recommendations:

The patient has symptoms related to palpitations, preserved exercise tolerance and irregular chest pain and there is no clear explanation for chest pain. Apart from that, basic metabolic reaction like lipid, C-reactive proteins and BMP has been checked. I have asked her to follow up after 6 weeks. The patient will require gastro copy and colonoscopy for viewing his cardiopulmonary and amputation status. He will require twenty four hour admit on careful observation and IV fluids.

Searching for a medical transcription employment online could be a daunting task for beginners. If you are an experienced medical transcriptionist with good skill sets, then definitely you can some hope in securing a medical transcription job online. The health care industry is continuously booming. Medical transcriptionist work is a perfect choice for all kinds of people who wish to work from home ranging from house wives to students and elderly people who cannot go for a full-time job in office.

What makes the job of an At-home medical transcriptionist so powerful? Since we are at home and we can work at our own timing, we will find that medical transcription job is a good choice for us. When we work from home, we can spend more time with our family and at same time earn money by working for two to five hours every day.

Where could we find medical transcription jobs?

The best place to start with is the internet. We shall continue to get familiar with famous job portal websites like Monster.com, craiglist.org and careerbuilder.com. We should search for websites in specific basis since new updates in medical transcriptionist job are frequently posted and they could be grabbed easily. While we keep with up daily job portal postings, we should register with websites for recruiting medical transcription jobs. The recruiting jobs shall be able to help us lot in terms of finding medical transcriptionist jobs online. We should remember for maintaining contact with them since transcriptionist work could go fast. We should first draft a resume for us which we must give to office of local doctors in our area. Many doctors allow medical transcriptionists to work their home and mail the reports to them daily. The point here is we should edit our own work and charge the rates based on that. The negative aspect relating to this is that we should have our own health insurance.  Apart from that, we need to have the necessary equipments for carrying out the transcription process including a Desktop or laptop computer with good operating system, good headphones and mp3 playback software to listen to the recordings given by the doctor.

Qualification Required:

It could be great if we take a certification or diploma in medical transcription before searching for a job. Having such qualification can boost our employability and we can land in a job soon. We should search in job form websites like workathomemommy.com, wahm.com and workathomecooperative.com on daily basis since the online medical transcription jobs will be posted in these sites frequently. Something which we might not be aware of is that when searching through the blogs of other people about the jobs which they might have posted. Many people blog nowadays about medical transcription jobs and we shall find all the information required about it in these sites.

If we stay persistent for long time, however exhausting and tedious the job might seem, we shall find our dream job and we would no long be a slave to the demands of an employer. Medical transcription jobs provide the freedom to work from home and we can make money online at the comfort of our home. It is important that when we are involved in medical transcription business, we should find the right client who can give us consistent work.

Transcription training is necessary if we are searching for medical transcription employment. We should have a certification or degree from reputed medical transcription school which has got accreditation from AHDI in order to get the faith of our employers.

Good Resume is Essential:

We should create a good resume which shows all our skills and potential related to medical transcription. If you are an experienced candidate, you should include all your previous experience and the clients you worked. We should mention the typing speed and accuracy and how much work we could deliver in a particular time span. We should create a resume which lists our strengths so as to make good impression among the employers. There are many resume services which we can use for creating a professional resume. After creating our resume, we can submit it in order to get the results. If we are determined to become transcriptionists, we should remember that we should not quit in searching for a job online. If we cannot find online job, we can go to transcription firms and doctors offices in our locality and give our resume and explain about our situation. We can get clients in our region and start our own medical transcription business, if we have experience in transcription process.

Pharmacology is nothing but the study about nature, origin, actions and properties of drugs and their impacts on living organisms. There are many terms used in pharmacology and here is a list of few terms which are used more commonly and their definitions. This list of pharmacology terms and definitions can be very helpful for medical transcriptionists and medical experts.

Cross-Tolerance:

Tolerance towards a drug which could be generalized to drugs which are chemically related to which create similar effects. Patient who is tolerant for the drug heroine will definitely exhibit cross-tolerance for morphine drug.

Dependence:

A corporal state developing after the chronic administration of certain drugs, which are characterized by requirement to pursue drug administration for avoiding the dangerous symptoms. These withdrawal symptoms when occurring could be relieved by administration of drugs upon which we are dependent.

Adverse Effect:

Non-therapeutic and unpredictable response for drug action. Adverse effects shall occur at doses that are therapeutically used for diagnosis or prophylaxis. They would definitely result from idiosyncrasies, drug toxicity and hypersensitivity reactions that are caused by drugs or other ingredients which are added during the manufacture of dyes, preservatives and vehicles.

Drug Abuse:

Misuse of drugs under certain conditions which are considered to be destructive for the individual and society. The usage of drugs primarily affects the CNS (Central Nervous system) and is dangerous to the patient’s health. It could lead to addiction towards the particular drug, chronic toxic effects and other diseases.

Dose:

The amount of drug which is given to subject at particular time, for instance, the general dose of aspirin for pain relief in adults is 300-600 mgs.

Hypersensitivity:

The physiological state which is necessary for the patient’s manifesting an allergic reaction. It is dependant for administration of allergen or hapten and development of immune mechanisms and antibodies which are activated by the administration of haptene. It could exist but could not be manifested till 2^nd administration of haptene is done. Excessive and abnormal sensitivity exhibited by patient to administered agent manifested by wheezing, redness, edema and anaphylaxis.

After load

Resistance which ventricles must exhibit against for ejecting blood to the aorta during a systole.

Enzyme induction

Stimulation of microsomal enzymes by drugs which result in increased metabolism and decreased activity. If there are reactive intermediates, drug mediated toxicity shall be exacerbated.

Cardio toxicity

Impairment of cardiac functions manifested by arrhymthmias, hypotension, dyspnea, cardiac dilation, electrocardiogram, congestive failure and precordial pain.

hyperglycemia

Increased glucose level in blood manifested by dry skin, flushed, elevated pulse and low blood pressure, polyuria, polyphagia, polydipsia, drowsiness and lethargy.

Placebo:

A medicine which has no inherent pharmacologic activity which is effective just by virtue of factor of suggestion attendant upon the administration.

Potency:

An expression of drug activity related to concentration terms or amount required producing the defined effect.

Prodrug:

A drug which has no pharmacologic activity which undergoes change in body into active material. It could be reason of biotransformation or could occur spontaneously in presence of appropriate pH, water etc.

Toxic Effects:

Responses to the drug which are harmful for life or health of an individual. Toxic effects are the side effects when prevention, diagnosis or disease treatment is the intention of drug administration. Toxic effects are not the side effects in warfare agents and pesticides. Toxic effects are allergic in nature and could be pharmacologic side effects or an extension of therapeutic effects caused by over dosage of a drug.

Super sensitivity:

An Extreme sensitivity towards a particular medicine or drug. It is a high level of sensitivity caused by certain specific procedures like administration of another drug, denervation etc.

The last time, when you went to a doctor and had an appointment related to your disease, the doctor and nurse recorded your entire visit particulars in a medical chart. After sometime, the doctor would have dictated all the instructions he gave in some digital recorder which he would have later uploaded to some official server. After that, the staff would have mailed the data about the patient in audio format to the patient through mail, who would have later downloaded it their home computer. Here, comes the job of medical transcriptionist who plays the transcription file, types it and then uploads it to the official server. For security and privacy, medical transcriptionist, will delete all the records after uploading them. The record of our visit will be added to the patient file later by the staff in doctor’s office. There is huge quantity of work required to be done by medical transcriptionists and there is very high demand for this job.

The same scenario which is mentioned above will be repeated for many patients in hospitals and medical office each day in all countries. There are hundreds of medical records which are transcribed by medical transcriptionists every day form home.  According to the labor statistics by US Bureau, the requirement of medical transcriptionists will grow at a rate of ten percent every year.

Training Requirements for Medical Transcriptionist

In order to become a medical transcriptionist, computer literacy is mandatory prerequisite. Most of medical transcriptionists complete a diploma program of 1 year. Many 1 year medical transcription programs are available in vocational schools. We can also opt for online training and online transcription certifications and diplomas at the comfort of our home. The Healthcare Documentation association offers certifications for medical transcription based on exams in 2 credential levels, Certified Medical Transcriptionist (CMT) or Registered Medical Transcriptionist (RMT). CMT is certification given for people with 2 or more years of experience as medical transcriptionist, whereas RMT is certification for beginners willing to become a medical transcriptionist.

Apart from excellent skills in typing, medical transcriptionist should have also skills as editors. Doctors dictate in a typical fashion and they need to interpret it correctly. Spoken communication has a benefit of tone of voice for assisting listeners to interpret what is conveyed exactly, and this tone of voice is missed in written word. It is important that medical transcriptionists have strong communication skills to interpret the doctor’s voice clearly and they should clarify the transcriptions is correct, by ensuring the paragraphs and sentences are consistent in terms of verbal tense and view point of the doctor.

How are Medical Transcriptionist Paid?

Medical transcriptions who work from home will be usually paid per line. The payment depends on quality and quantity of work. If they type more quickly and accurately, they get paid more. The typing should be fast, accurate and they should see that the quality is good and avoid errors in transcription.

According to Labor Statistics Bureau, medical transcriptionists get an average pay of 28,000 to 30,000 USD per year. An experienced transcriptionist who works on part time basis could earn around 15 to 18 US for an hour on averages.

What are Equipments Required to become an At-Home Medical Transcription?

A medical transcriptionist will require high speed broad band internet for downloading very high volume voice files. Also, they would need a high quality desktop computer and quality keyboard.  It is also helpful to have a monitor with large screen. Quality headphones will be required for hearing the dictation clearly. Also, pedal attachments to stop/rewind/pause/start voice files is also needed and also printers and fax machine. Reference books like medical spell checkers, medical dictionary and a reference guide for pharmaceutical terms will be required.

Working as a medical transcription from home is a very good job and will remain viable in coming decades. Becoming a home based medical transcriptionist can be good for housewives and people who cannot go for a full time job. The hours of working are flexible and we can find our own clients. It is important that we meet deadlines correctly and deliver the work with good quality.

If you are interested in becoming a medical transcriptionist and starting our own mt business, then you should know that there are various routes which you could take. Medical transcription business provides many growth opportunities and is a very profitable home based business. It is definitely not good for someone who does not have any goals in life. In order to start your own medical transcription business, you should work hard to succeed.

Benefit of Home based Medical Transcription Business:

One of the best options available regarding transcription work is to start our own medical transcription business. If you do not have enough knowledge about starting your own business, don’t get scared since it is not much different from starting your own business. We could type medical reports at the comfort of our home and send the document online to our clients. If we start our own business, we can charge our own rates, file our taxes, edit our reports, get medical insurance on our own and get contracts with different doctors. Though our responsibility is high, we could make more money by starting our own medical transcription business. The steps for starting our own medical transcription business are as below,

1. Getting Trained:

If you do not have undergone any formal training, then it’s better to join a medical transcription training degree or course. You can take either a certification or diploma in medical transcription from a reputed institution. You could finish it in 6 months if you prefer. Some courses provide on the job training and it would be better if we join in such a course. Ahdionline.org provides all information related to accredited online medical transcription courses.

2. Finding Work:

It is definitely an important part in the process. If you need to start you own medical transcription business, first you should create a perfect resume and give it to doctor’s offices in your locality. If you are interested, you can also take it to distant places from your locality if you could travel easily. You should go and explain your strengths and skills and also state them about medical transcription equipments available with you to start the business.

3. Creating a Website:

This is a good move for people who find it hard to get clients. You could create a nice website for advertising your services to the people. You can post links to the website in your social networking forums and also post advertisements in local newspapers stating your available services. If more people come to know about your services, then it’s easy to get a contract quickly. It could take 2 more time but it is a very good method and works very well.

4. Set Up Your own Office:

If you need to get a good reputation, you should have an office of you own. As long as stay with positive attitude, you will get everything in hands. You should ensure that you have a good work area, where you would be able to focus on the job at hand and listen to the voice recordings clearly. You should have all the medical transcription equipment including a good desktop or laptop computer with all necessary software, headphones and other digital equipments required for transcription in your office.

5. Know you Process Speed:

If you are waiting for more than 2 months, then there is something wrong with your searching approach. You should give ads in local newspapers and also in nearby areas advertising about your transcription services. You should go to doctor’s offices and give your resume stating your skills and services you offer. You can also promote your services through your website online. You can search for work online in the meantime before starting your own business. You could create business cards which you can give to people you meet. You can also go to a bigger transcription company and ask for subcontract with them.

If you follow all above steps, you will definitely get lot of offers and you could soon start your own medical transcription business.