Paper Chase
Is working from home as a medical transcriptionist still a profitable business? Our experts weigh in.
Question: I'm a nurse who wants to leave the stress
and strain of nursing. I believe I could do medical transcription
from home, but I've heard a lot of medical-transcription work
is being offshored, which keeps American workers' pay rates
down. Is this still a good business?
Answer: Medical transcription, like most tasks that can
be done on a computer, is being offshored, particularly to India,
Pakistan and the Philippines. However, the demand for medical
transcription work in the United States remains strong, and
legislation is pending in some states to prevent the sharing or
disclosing of personal health and financial data outside the U.S.
In fact, California passed such a law last year, but it was vetoed
by the governor. The pressure for protective legislation has been
fed by cases in which Indian and Pakistani transcriptionists
threatened to make the medical records they had worked on public on
the internet because they had not been paid.
Another reason medical transcriptionists remain in demand in the
U.S. is because of the amount of training it takes someone without
a health-care background to learn how to do it. You must know
medical terminology and be able to make sense out of doctor and
other health-care provider notes and dictation. So opportunity
remains for Americans who want to enter this field-particularly
workers like yourself, who enter from a career in nursing and plan
to work for perhaps another 10 years or so.
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Competition from abroad, however, is impacting what
transcriptionists are paid. The average rate medical
transcriptionists charge-10 to 14 cents a line-has hardly changed
since 1991, when we researched the industry for the first edition
of The Best Home Businesses. And since this work is done in
India for about half that rate, you can expect pay in this industry
to be static at best.
As an independent medical transcriptionist, expect your work to
come from local clinics and group medical practices. Although any
medical health provider or facility that sees patients has
transcription needs, the smaller organizations are less likely to
outsource. Still, since overnight work is one of the selling points
for overseas transcription services, you may need to offer
extraordinary customer service to be competitive, such as pickup
and delivery to those doctors who still use tapes, seven-day-a-week
service or phone-in dictation.