About the Accuracy Required for Medical Transcription
Administrative personnel are a crucial part of any medical office and those positions are expected to grow faster than average through at least 2016. One of those jobs in high demand is a medical transcriptionist. Most medical transcriptionists work in hospitals or private doctor's offices. Training for the job generally takes between one and two years and is intense due to the fact that medical transcriptionists are held accountable for maintaining complete accuracy in patient's files.
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About Medical Transcription Jobs
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Medical transcriptionists are skilled medical office professionals whose primary responsibility is to turn the physician's dictation into accurate reports. Most medical transcriptionists receive dictation through machines or the Internet. Some offices are now using a new state of the art system called speech recognition that translates voice sounds into formatted copy. After the dictations are translated, medical transcriptionists must edit carefully.
Accuracy is Required
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Accuracy or quality assurance is the most crucial part of a medical transcriptionist's duties. They may not often work face to face with patients, but medical transcriptionists do play an important part in the patient's health. Because medical transcriptionists are trained to spot errors in information on a patient's chart, their job can help to ensure that patients receive the correct care. Even a small, innocent error in the transcription process can lead to a serious health risk for a patient. The American Association for Medical Transcription strongly promotes regular monitoring in all medical offices and facilities, as well as regular feedback to medical transcriptionists.
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Accurate Reports Serve as Insurance for Doctors
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In addition to providing accuracy to assure the optimum in patient care, accurate medical transcription in patient records is also often used as a vital resource of documentation for physicians and medical facilities in the unfortunate event of a malpractice lawsuit or other litigation matters. Defendants in these cases must rely on the conciseness of the patient's medical records and expect the utmost accuracy from their medical transcriptionist.
Suggested Requirements
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With so much riding on the accuracy of the reports produced by medical transcriptionists, the American Association of Medical Transcription recommends those working in the profession have a good knowledge of medical terminology, medications, anatomy and physiology, disease signs and symptoms, and laboratory procedures. In addition, candidates should have a good proficiency of the English language, both in reading and writing, as well as good punctuation and grammar skills.
Salary
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The median starting salary for a medical transcriptionist is $11.17 per hour or $23,233 a year for full-time work. After one year, you can expect to earn about $12.05 an hour or $25,064 each year. Those with five years of experience can earn $14.16 per hour or $29,452 yearly. Qualified medical transcriptionists with 10 years of job experience, can earn around $14.91 an hour or at least $31,012 a year. Those who have at least 20 years of experience are earning around $16.22 an hour, or making nearly $34,000 a year.
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