Does The Medical Transcriptionist Have A Future In Today's Job Market?

I'll be the first to admit that 10 and even 5 years ago, I laughed when people said medical transcriptionists would be out of a job due to speech recognition software. I had seen it in action and it was laughable to think that, first, the garbled mess that popped up on the screen could in any way be put into a patient's legal medical record and, second, no physician or other health professional I knew would sit down and take the time necessary -- at that time literally hours upon hours -- to train the software to recognize their voice patterns.

Now, however, as with just about every other aspect of computers and technology, we are making progress in leaps and bounds. I think that's wonderful. I have worked on the recent versions of speech recognition software and, while it's not perfect by a long shot, it really is getting better and better by what seems like the day.

The U.S. Department of Labor weighs in on this as well: "Speech-recognition technology allows physicians and other health professionals to dictate medical reports to a computer that immediately creates an electronic document. In spite of the advances in this technology, the software has been slow to grasp and analyze the human voice and the English language, and the medical vernacular with all its diversity. As a result, there will continue to be a need for skilled medical transcriptionists to identify and appropriately edit the inevitable errors created by speech recognition systems, and to create a final document."

The current versions are still not something you would see on a science fiction show. The software does not create a letter-perfect document that is chart ready. However, it can, on occasion and when the stars aline just so, create a template that an experienced medical transcriptionist can then edit. For those of us who have been a medical transcriptionist since the dawn of the dinosaur, it does take a little getting used to, but I have gotten to where I really prefer it to "the old way." I think it is definitely where medical transcription is heading and I plan to follow right along.

It seems that many people, especially some of the old timers, are certain that outsourcing is ruining this country and in particular the potential career of the medical transcriptionist. I will definitely put myself in the old-timer category, but that is where I draw the line. I can't speak for industries outside of medical transcription, but my firm opinion is that the attempt to completely outsource the position of the medical transcriptionist to offshore companies has been a miserable failure.

Does outsourcing medical transcription to companies that hire offshore workers happen? Absolutely. Will it continue to happen? Again, absolutely yes. However, the majority of that work is transcribed by the medical transcriptionist who has English as a second language and that transcribed work then usually needs to be extensively edited not once but often twice and even a third time. This isn't because the non-native English speaker can't properly transcribe the medical terms. That will happen at times, of course, just as it does for the newbie native English speaker. The real problem comes in the transcription of the proper sentence structures, syntax and other intricacies of the written and spoken English language. Most experts agree that English is among the hardest, if not the most difficult, language for the non-native speaker to learn. Anyone who has had a high school Spanish or French class has noticed how much less complex the sentence structure is for many other languages.

The U.S. Department of Labor agrees, saying, "Contracting out transcription work overseas and advancements in speech recognition technology are not expected to significantly reduce the need for well-trained medical transcriptionists. Outsourcing transcription work abroad has grown more popular as transmitting confidential health information over the Internet has become more secure; however, the demand for overseas transcription services is expected only to supplement the demand for well-trained domestic medical transcriptionists. In addition, reports transcribed by overseas medical transcription services usually require editing for accuracy by domestic medical transcriptionists before they meet U.S. quality standards."

Will editing work transcribed by other medical transcriptionists pay the same as when one types the work? No, but you don't spend as much time on each document with editing as you do when transcribing the original document. I've done both medical transcription and editing extensively and, for me at least, it all evened out to about the same rate of pay in the end. (For more information on how and how much a medical transcriptionist can expect to get paid, see my lens entitled "Medical Transcription Salaries." There's a link at the end of this page.) In my opinion there is plenty of work to go around for anyone willing to work hard and do a good job whether it be working as a medical transcription editor or as a medical transcriptionist or, my personal favorite, a combination of the two.

In my opinion, it will be quite a while before medical transcriptionists need to start looking for another line of work.

Even as speech recognition or other programs that seem designed to eliminate medical transcriptionists become better and better, there will always be a need for medical transcription editors. Few if any physicians or other health care providers I have worked with are going to have the time or the inclination to sit and edit their dictation, or for that matter make sure it is in a format appropriate to become a legal document in a medical record.

Now is a great time to consider training as a medical transcriptionist. I personally don't think there will ever come a time when a career in medical transcription will be obsolete. The work that defines us as medical transcriptionists may change as technology changes, but I firmly believe there will always be plenty of work and a fair salary paid to anyone with a good work ethic, a positive attitude and who is willing to make the effort to do an excellent job.