How I Became A Home Based Medical Transcriptionist

As you probably know, there are many home based businesses out there and I wanted to work at home. I wanted a job, a real job that I could do at home. For years I worked in banking as a teller on up to Operations Officer. After 10 years of fighting Houston traffic, putting on makeup while half asleep, and putting on pantyhose (ugh!) every day, I finally decided I had had enough of the rat race. I wanted a job where I could work in my bathrobe if I wanted to (and no pantyhose allowed) every day and still make a living. So I started exploring possibilities and finally found something that interested me, medical transcription. It sounded too good to be true to get to work at home doing important professional work. I was a little skeptical but I decided to give it a try and took the plunge by taking a medical transcription course. This was a correspondence course that I could do at home at my own pace.

It took me about six months and I finally finished the course and was ready to try to actually do medical transcription from home. Then it hit me! Would I really be capable, even after taking a course, of transcribing real dictations on real patients? What if I couldn't get all of those drugs right? The "take 1 po bid or prn or t.i.d. or q.h.s." I was really petrified to start. Luckily I had taken a good MT course and was prepared to try it.

The first place I decided to look for an MT job was in the newspaper and I lucked out by seeing an ad in my neighborhood for a medical transcriptionist. I set up an interview and took a transcription test. I did leave some blanks in the transcription but I got the job.

I started working in a clinic for 5 doctors and eventually the medical transcription business that hired me decided to work in another capacity for the clinic and I took over all of the transcription and started my own business.

I eventually added another clinic to my business and hired medical transcriptionists to work for me in typing for both of those clinics.

Medical transcription is not the easiest job in the world as it requires a lot of time at the keyboard and it does require medical transcription training, but it has been very fulfilling for me. It definitely is a real job and I get a real paycheck every two weeks.

If you decide you might want to become a medical transcriptionist, visit Career Step and you can have an information packet sent to you describing the courses and training you can receive through their medical transcription and medical billing school. The course can also be done online which makes it convenient for a lot of people.

If you have any questions about medical transcription you can email me at maryjanetx@aol.com and I will try to help you.

Marilyn Roberts
Medical Transcriptionist