Let us find out the duty of a Medical transcriptionist by looking at professional associations. We also look forward to see towards how medical transcriptionists view their professions, scope and future.
Risk factor in traditional transcription.
The first risk in this section is speech recognition technology which is about 48%. A survey was taken on Medical transcription and it was found out that risk was 31% on electronic health record , 32.5% on the use of scribes to develop the health care documentation and 27% on others. According to others, the other category also includes acceptance of low quality of documentation and use of speech recognition files as the final documentation. Some people's view is that offshore transcription carries maximum risk with some thinking that it creates low waged for medical transcriptionists. Again some thinks that MT's lack recognition of their work. Yet another view is that some MT's leave the profession since the depth of knowledge required in the jobs are too highest as compared to the low wages they receive.
A very interesting fact is that about 50% thinks , it is a great risk as far as speech recognition is concerned in transcription while another 50% of the respondents do not prefer to use this technology. It is a threat to the fact that may be loss of income if one uses this technology. Some thinks the electronic record and the scribe as one and the same issue. It is not since a lot of practices enter into a cheque box system that does not use scribe although they are closely connected.
Some even consider MT's leaving the profession being in capable to provide training to fresh graduates, but let us try to find out why this happens?
Can one thing of an alternative career as a way out?
While others may have such an idea about 54% say that they do not seek for an alternative way out. 47% just does that and 12 to 13% see that they are seeking for a career option outside the health Care industry. What they seek for are like coding, healthcare informatics, information technology etc. The seeking's outside of healthcare industry are like dance instruction, accounting psychology and herbal consulting. From the survey, it was found that some doubt it that their chances are getting reduced regarding ability to work from house in the forth coming days.
It is a correlation of the above facts. Since a high percentage searches for other options apart from medical transcription and with 12 to 13% seeking for options outside the health Care industry, it clearly the depicts how secure one feels about medical transcription. Again if we have a look on the other side, a maximum number of people do not look out for anything else. But some people really opt out for things if not medical transcription. For eg. taking dance classes throughout the day might be enjoying for some. Some people may love to work in Excel while others may find it a boarding task to do accounting throughout the day. To some people, psychology may be a fascination while others may find it difficult to listen to each others problems throughout the day and be a counselor. Some may even like to do herbal consulting. The fact is that all those people may love to take up any of those as a career option yet they find it engrossing to watch out what MT' s are actually eager to do.
The actual scenario
A lot of things were covered throughout the survey and here is a summary of the different topics.
Since around 50% people have a 4 years of experience or more in this profession, not a good number of people would enter into this profession freshly.
The main working area of MT's are not clinic or hospitals but rather the work for medical transcription services to be provided from specific work areas. The actual function of medical transcriptionist are to work on speech recognition editing as reported by 30%. MT' s have other tasks too such as quality assurance, recruiting and management.
Nowadays, speech recognition has gained importance although around 51.5% of MT's do not use this technology.
MT's work on different jobs throughout the week or spend at least 40 hours on the same job. It is really of a concern for maintaining good health or a balance in life.
About the credentials, around 65% of medical transcriptionists have no credentials. In spite of this fact about 49% or working in situations where they cannot enjoy the benefits. Again, it has been found out that around 16% are working on good pay rates having a credential.
For most of the people, as the survey shows, the income range has remained stagnant (. (28.5%) or for some it has deteriorated (39%) in the last few years.
The maximum people do not belong to any professional organization ( about 57.5%) . According to the survey respondents, they may work for AHDI (around 41%) which is not at all a number that translates to majority MT's.
Most MT's are attached to organizations to obtain a net worth and continue their education apart from working to strengthen their profession as well.
Thus, it has been found out that according to the different options in the professional areas of MT's , there are several reasons as why one stage with the organization or leaves. In such scenario, some felt that staying with organizations has not been any advantage to the MT's while others think that MT needs are not looked after at all.
So, what the group of individual urges for, from a professional organisation is quite natural. An advocate with employers where one maybe able to continue further studies their by increasing scope and trying for new options with low wages, information and technology trainings with networking scopes. They will also like to work with technology vendors since it is vital as technology gets on changing in this field often.
Some areas of concern in this profession are nothing but speech recognition and scribe based electronic record keeping.
Thus many of the MT's searching and opting out for a different career scope.
What is the way out?
One must take a decision wisely. Medical transcriptionists possess great wisdom to find out alternatives. So, it is for us to hear from them what they are really thinking forward to since the technology is changing very fast.
