Paper Chase

Question: I'm a nurse who wants to leave the stressand strain of nursing. I believe I could do medical transcriptionfrom home, but I've heard a lot of medical-transcription workis being offshored, which keeps American workers' pay ratesdown. Is this still a good business?

Answer: Medical transcription, like most tasks that canbe done on a computer, is being offshored, particularly to India,Pakistan and the Philippines. However, the demand for medicaltranscription work in the United States remains strong, andlegislation is pending in some states to prevent the sharing ordisclosing of personal health and financial data outside the U.S.In fact, California passed such a law last year, but it was vetoedby the governor. The pressure for protective legislation has beenfed by cases in which Indian and Pakistani transcriptioniststhreatened to make the medical records they had worked on public onthe internet because they had not been paid.