Medical Transcription

The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) was formed in the year 1978 and was formerly known as the American Association for Medical Transcription (AAMT). The AHDI was established with the main goal of ensuring more accuracy in medical records and more safety of patients. The medical transcriptionists join the AHDI for protection and validation. The AHDI also offers resources based on the latest and the most updated technology to the MT industry to meet their everyday medical transcription requirements. The primary services offered by the association include networking, giving advice and providing job opportunities.

The AHDI firmly believes that the electronic and transcribed documents are a necessary and vital component of any healthcare record. It is, therefore, necessary to monitor transcription accuracy regularly so that the quality of the medical documentation is ensured and the medical transcriptionists can receive consistent feedbacks. This attention to quality reflects that even minor discrepancies in a medical record can be potentially risky for the health of the patient and diminish the perceived competence and credibility of that healthcare provider.

The AHDI keeps those medical transcriptionists who are updated with the latest challenges and trends influencing medical transcription. Right from a medical transcriptionist trainee to an experienced, professional medical transcriptionist, the information in the AHDI is necessary for all those pursuing excellence in
this field.

Medical transcriptionists have to constantly add new books and resources to their personal and professional libraries. A common list of the medical transcription resources is given below:

The basic home library of a medical transcriptionist necessarily includes the following:

A drug reference book (preferably the American Drug Index by Facts and Comparisons or Stedman’s Quick Look Drug Book)

1. A standard English language dictionary (Webster)
2. A common medical word book (Sloane’s Medical Word Book)
3. A medical abbreviations book (Neil. M. Davis’s Medical Abbreviations: 30000 Conveniencies at the Expense of Communication and Safety )
4. An inclusive medical dictionary (Stedman’s Medical Dictionary or Dorland’s Quick Look Drug Book)
5. A good grammar and style guide (The Chicago Book of Style or the Book of Style from AHDI)

Some of the most popular Medical Word Books from Stedman’s library include:

1. Alternative as well as Complementary Medicine Words
2. Cardiovascular & Pulmonary Words
3. Dermatology & Immunology Words
4. Emergency Medicine Words
5. Endocrinology Words
6. GI & GU Words
7. Internal Medicine Words
8. Medical & Surgical Equipment Words
9. Neurology & Neurosurgery Words, 4th Edition
10. OB-GYN & Pediatric Words, 5th Edition
11. Oncology Words
12. Ophthalmology Words
13. Organisms and Infectious Diseases Words
14. Orthopedic and Rehab Words
15. Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Words
16. Plastic Surgery, ENT, & Dentistry Words, 5th Edition
17. Psychiatric Words
18. Radiology Words
19. Surgery Words

Individuals planning to take up medical transcription as a professional career need to first train themselves with the medical terminology. The medical terminology is the starting point of all medical careers.

Medical terminology can be defined as the specific vocabulary used by the medical industry to give exact descriptions to different human body conditions, diagnoses, and procedures. The medical terminology becomes essential, especially in the field of medical transcription. This is because in medical transcription, the deciphering process is of utmost significance in understanding or including any medical limit.

Before taking up a medical transcription job, it becomes crucial to take up a course or training from one’s own side, in order to identify with the exact forms of the various medical limits. A medical limit can be clearly understood by breaking it up into its elements that would include the word itself, its prefix, and its root suffix. A person would need to evaluate and learn the significance of each of these individually and then go for the full comprehension of the word.

A medical career cannot begin without the complete knowledge of its fundamental basis of medical terminology. Without understanding the complete arrangement, it would not be possible for a person to employ or use the medical terminology in the medical transcription career. Even medical professionals keep handy a medical dictionary that acts as reference for various medical limits. They also keep themselves updated with the latest addition of new terms to the medical dictionary. The proper comprehension of the words, their suffixes, and prefixes will play a major role in ensuring the success in the medical transcription career.

Medical transcription, regularly referred as MT, is an allied health care profession that incorporates the translation of audio dictations by Physicians to a typed record.  The transcription process comprises of approved and routine word formats and is exceptionally dependent on trained transcriptionists.  The basic understanding for medical transcription includes outstanding written English, therapeutic terminology, pharmacology and fundamental computer skills. Transcriptionist also needs to hold a good listening comprehension.

The modern types of techniques practiced in transcription involve digital audio files recorded to regular, mini, micro tapes, or to computerized digital devices. The basic phenomenon of medical transcription usually uses customary word processing package and speech recognition software.  The healthcare transcription is an initial process through which the medical professionals, physicians and hospitals communicate the information of patients with insurance organizations or other medical practitioners.

The MT profession makes an extensively specialized job that needs a great level of training in medical terms, English grammar, abbreviations, capitalization rules and great degree of dedication.  The transcriptionists acquire benefit from on-job experience through handling medical records from different healthcare specialties.  Even though, the transcriptionists are paid on per-line basis, they can even earn a big deal of cash and may enjoy the comfort of home-based working.  The onset of Internet and FTP had made the transcription process easier through speedy transferring of voice as well as data files.

The future of Medical transcription is indeed bright as well as secure as there is greater demand for good quality medical transcribers. In present days, medical transcription has taken the top spot in health care jobs that are outsourced. Medical transcription helps in documenting the records of patients’ health. Moreover, it reduces time as well cost of formulating the reports.

Worldwide, especially in the U.S, health care sector is directly associated with insurance sector. Hence, physicians need to process out the details of patients quickly and accurately so that these both sectors can function smoothly. Most healthcare institutes in the U.S outsource medical transcription services to countries in Asia. This has in fact become an essential part of their every day functioning.

Moreover, several new entrants in health care sectors such as research laboratories, private practitioners, hospitals, institutes are aware of advantages of effective services offered by medical transcription. Hence, they are keener on outsourcing the work. Apart from regular medical transcription services, health care institutes are also outsourcing medical billing as well as coding jobs to companies that provide transcription services.

Asian countries in particular are becoming the hub of medical transcription, so the future of individuals who are taking courses on the same is bright. Moreover, availability of quality and devoted candidates, who are computer literate, have knowledge of medical terms is higher in these countries. In addition, record shows that medical transcribers from these countries submit the work within 24 hours of assigning the job. These all factors assure that the future of medical transcription is long and secure.

Apart from mastering medical terminology, editing job, using playback controls on a transcriber, and the ability to listen as well as type simultaneously, a medical transcriptionist definitely needs to master their skill of using a foot pedal. Proficient use of the foot pedal can be of great help in playing and adjusting the dictations, thereby allowing the medical transcriptionist to maintain a superior rhythm of execution.

A foot pedal in medical transcription becomes of utmost significance, since it is this transcription supply that enables a medical transcriptionist to start and stop the playbacks of voice files. Most of the professional medical transcriptionists prefer a special type of recorder that is equipped with a foot pedal and a headset. Because of the foot pedal playing and stopping the tape, a medical transcriptionist can simply listen to the tape and record all the data they are hearing in a word processing document.

Thus, the foot pedal enables the medical transcriptionist to manage the dictations. A basic foot pedal can allow playing, stopping, rewinding, and fast forwarding the dictation. Learning to operate a foot pedal is not a daunting task and is surely far better than controlling the dictation on fingertips. The foot pedal makes it possible for medical transcriptionists to employ their fingers only in the typing process and thereby, increases their typing speed.

In order to make the transcript perfect, medical transciptionists need to do loads of search, reference work, and research. Although most of the medical transcriptions keep a medical book handy for easy reference, they rely more on the Internet that is a vast source of reliable and updated information.  In order to make it easier for medical transcriptionists, several reference sites on the Internet have clustered their information in one single place. Some of the common medical transcription reference sites are given below:

Search Engines: The search engines that can be used while searching for relevant websites for medical transcription reference include Google, Yahoo, googleMT, Mahalo, Info Referral, Ask, MSN, Best of the Web, Go2, Mego Go, Switch Board, Snap, Cuil, Vivismo, Surf Fast, Big Book, Alexa, Infobel, Find What, Ref Desk, Powerset, Search, Quick Search, and Switch Board.

Dictionaries: Some of the popular dictionaries that can help medical transcriptionists look for specific medical terms include the Merriam-Webster, Dictionary Reference, Online Medical Dictionary, and Free Dictionary.

Medical Search: The websites that can be referred for medical information are the Rare Disease, Web MD, Monthly Prescribing Reference, Rx List, Health Answers, E-medicine, Drug Store, Center Watch, Medications Online, Drugs, Medi-Lexicon, Web Health, Medications Net, and The Little Blue Book.

Medical transcription accuracy is an important point of concern while making a typed medical record.  A medical transcriptionist needs to transcribe the voice recordings to documents at greater pace with high accuracy level.  A transcribed medical file needs to produce perfect and accurate transcription in the correct format of the dictation.  The medical transcription remuneration depends purely on the accuracy level of the transcriptionists and the line count met daily.

A skilled experienced medical transcriptionist is expected to produce an accuracy level above 99%.  The medical accounts are rejected completely if the accuracy level drops to a prescribed level.  To increase the accuracy level transcription companies and transcriptionists utilizes technically advanced software such as the speech recognition software, the transcription software and other useful software reference dictionaries.

An excellent awareness on medical terminologies and sufficient practices on similar dictations helps the transcriptionists to increase the transcribing accuracy level to the most perfect.  The doctors while dictating makes mistakes and it is the responsibility of the transcriptionists to correct such errors.

Transcriptionists also need to be specific with English grammar and punctuations to enhance good accuracy level. Some times, they need to follow the guidelines offered by the dictator.  In absence of such guidelines, they are free to follow generic grammar and punctuation rules.

With proper awareness, alertness and carefulness, a transcriptionist may achieve hundred-percentage accuracy and may earn a handful of money for the highly dedicated work.

Medical transcription drug reference business involves transcribing dictations made by physicians or professional doctors who want to prescribe drugs to patients. Transcription work is normally given to a third party who in most cases is a medical transcription company.  The field of Medical transcription can be very challenging if the transcribers do not have the necessary references in case the medical terms are not clearly understood.

The need for pharmacological reference books is very important for a medical transcriptionist. A physician’s desk reference ought to be top on this list. The American drug index contains information on both new and old drugs. Whenever a transcriptionist comes across new drugs, he must have the right sources of information that will enable him become familiar with the usage of the drug.

Wrong spellings of medical terms can lead to confusion, which should never occur in the field of medicine. The sanctity of human life ought to come first. Becoming familiar with indications and dosages of various drugs is part of a medical transcriptionist’s work. It is important for the medical transcriber to understand the changes that are sometimes done to brand names of generic drugs in order to make them more distinct.

Medical transcription drug reference should be the best option when different drugs with similar names have to be transcribed. The transcriptionist ought to know where to get confirmation in each case. These references ought to be viewed within the wider perspective of health information management strategies. Care ought to be taken when choosing medical transcription drug reference outsourcing companies.

Medical transcription refers to the conversion of the voice-recorded reports of doctors, physicians and other healthcare providers into text formats that are then saved electronically, on computers mostly. A medical transcriptionist is the person who does the actual transcribing of the voice-recorded report into a text report.

To be a transcriptionist, one has to be good at typing and spelling, and have the ability to type and listen to the diction at the same time. In addition to this, they also have to have good knowledge and spelling of a number of medical terms. This means that memory is very important when it comes to the job of medical transcription.

There are a number of sites that contain medical transcription dictionaries. The sites can be accessed for free. There is also a lot of free transcription software that takes as little as a day to learn, and it greatly reduces the need for the transcriptionists to memorize the details they get from the voice recorders.

There are numerous medical transcription dictionaries online. It is important to find one that consistently updates its database, to keep up with the latest additions to medical terminology. The terminology might either be the classically used words, or it might also be the more recent and versatile contemporary nomenclature used by doctors.

Most of the online medical transcription dictionaries give descriptions of terms, definitions, spell checkers and a host of other resources that transcriptionists use in their work.