Nurse to Medical Transcriptionist...

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I attended a free seminar regarding working at home as a medical transcriptionist. The company is called At-homeprofessions. Everything sounded good, and the presenter even said that medical transcription is not phasing out.

The program takes anywhere from 5-6 months to complete and costs $599 per course for 5 courses. And if you already have medical education, such as med. terminology, etc. you could finish as early as 3-4 months. And if you don't find employment within 6 months, you get a full refund. Sounds almost too good.

I figure if I do this training, at least I'll have a chance at getting employment sooner than later if I spent the money on returning for BSN that could take another year plus to finish, and wow--I may STILL be trying to find employment as an RN WITH a BSN. That would be totally devastating!!

Has anyone gone from being a nurse to working as a medical transcriptionist? If so, how has the experience been for you?

Has anyone heard of the company At-homeprofessions, and if so, what do you have to share concerning them?

Thanks.

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

I went the other way around. Was a transcription it's for 19 yrs prior to graduating nursing school. The program cost you described is outrageous. You should be able to go to a local community college for far less.Before you embark on this there are a few things you should know.1. Getting a home transcription job is even harder than getting a new grad nursing job. Every person who ever hoped to work from home has considered it. This means huge competition for very few jobs. Most outside transcription is farmed out to India for about 3 cents per line.Voice recognition software is a growing industry. As that technology improves the demand for transcriptionists drops.If you do manage to get the home job, know that you will sacrifice a great deal of time with your family. Your work will have to be turned in the following morning no matter when the doctor gets around to dictating. If you don't make that deadline there are lines of people eager to take the account from you.Transcriptionists from home generally are independent contractors. No benefits. No PTO. No one paying FICA for you. Taxes will have to be paid in advance quarterly for yourself. Penalties for screwing this up are massive.I would never encourage anyone to go into transcription at this point. It is a dying profession.

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

call the transcription services in your area first, or the hospita's medical records dept. Find out what THEY want and if training is required ahead of time, and if so, whom do they recommend? You may find a) they don't need anyone or b) they prefer certain credentials. Good luck!!

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Have you researched outsourcing of medical transcription? The trend in the US, Canada and Britain is to outsource medical transcription to the Philippines, India and other developing countries. In my area, medical transcription used to be done by local home based transcriptioinists, but now it's outsourced to developing countries. The local transcriptionists have been looking for work for the past one to two years ... I doubt they are going to find it.

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

these at home type trainings and subsequent promises of employment are very often scams that prey on people desparate to work. Tread lightly and make sure you know what you are getting into

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I attended a free seminar regarding working at home as a medical transcriptionist. The company is called At-homeprofessions. Everything sounded good, and the presenter even said that medical transcription is not phasing out.

The program takes anywhere from 5-6 months to complete and costs $599 per course for 5 courses. And if you already have medical education, such as med. terminology, etc. you could finish as early as 3-4 months. And if you don't find employment within 6 months, you get a full refund. Sounds almost too good.

I figure if I do this training, at least I'll have a chance at getting employment sooner than later if I spent the money on returning for BSN that could take another year plus to finish, and wow--I may STILL be trying to find employment as an RN WITH a BSN. That would be totally devastating!!

Has anyone gone from being a nurse to working as a medical transcriptionist? If so, how has the experience been for you?

Has anyone heard of the company At-homeprofessions, and if so, what do you have to share concerning them?

Thanks.

You'll be wasting your money. With electronic medical records, transcription has gone the way of the dinosaur.

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I'm an at-home transcriptionist (not medical trans, though) heading to nursing school soon (hopefully!). Medical transcriptionists breaking into the profession are having a difficult time. The At-Home Professions course, as far as I can remember, is very basic and will not prepare you for the career. There are other online medical trans schools that are much, much more reputable than they are. Or you can go to your local community college and receive training.

It's not something I would recommend anyone to go into. My aunt was a transcriptionist for the same doctor's office for approx 25 years and they let her go when they converted to a company for their transcription and that company outsources overseas or pays peanuts even if you're American. People are successful in med trans, but they've usually got their own clients and have been doing it for a long time.

I highly recommend doing a lot more research before you go this route. There are numerous transcription related sites out there, such as Transcription Essentials. These places have tons of information and many personal stories, just like All Nurses does.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

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Thanks to everyone for all of the insight. I've definitely done some research in addition to taking account of what you guys have had to say. The program to me sounded too good to be true, and I've learned within the short time on this earth that if it acts, looks, and sounds like a duck, it's probably a duck! Thanks again you guys for your inputs. :-)

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Specializes in General Med/Surg.

Hello all nurses!

:idea::nurse:

Tags: ANSI-500, ICD-10, Institute for Health Technology Information

I'm very burned out on bedside care and have always had an interest in IT healthcare, and that future of course started long ago. I have GOT to find a job asap, am one of the nurses who have too much education and not enough recent experience. New nurses, nurses in school, take advantage of ANY health IT course work. Tack it on somehow to your loans, as this IS going to be a major plus for you.

I've started looking into alternatives to beside, hours and hours online doing research. Medical Transcribing -- I haven't started applying for any of the tech jobs -- but there are a bunch of those MT jobs that will take an RN without the specific MT courses. You can one or the other. We're overqualified to be a MT! with so many nurses looking for work I think it's def worth checking into. At home, in offices, contractor, yes.

This is just based on all day searches yesterday. all day. til my eyes are about to pop. Other big area, which is def there and you'll find it too by looking in the right places, is "health technology information".

Many of you already know about a lot of this stuff, but I didn't. Obama's healthcare overhaul included 2 important changes to healthcare, one is the change over to ICD-10 with a deadline of Oct 1 2013. Called "ANSI 5010" -- step before ICD-10 can happen?? -- and the medical system is very behind in getting it done. The system is still trying to convert to plain old EHR, struggling to pay for that. The VA is a great example. There is no money for that! The 5010 compliance know-how staffers are far and few between. I read it's going to cost the average medical practice $285,000 to be in compliance. Lost revenue for non compliance (it's going to affect reimbursement I think??) will be worse + federal fines!!!!

But, forecast shows short-term cost to be 5.5 bill - and 11 billion. But the long range benefits to the healthcare industry will be as high as 38.8 billion. I have a reference to provide for those numbers if anyone wants it. I found it under Aetnahealth's Whitepaper "ANSI 5010: What You Need to Know to Manage the Change.

This post is too long, but MY take-home message is (and I've read other RN's who are saying the same thing) get up to speed with healthcare tech and it's impact on our profession and the jobs that will be created for us.

One nurse who's doing IT health stated that anyone can become a technical know-how person with certifications, etc., but to become a clinician -- that's a degree, and lots of knowledge one can only achieve from the work we do, the hands-on. We're like the Wizard of Oz. We're the brains behind all the machines. We're the captains!!!

That's a lot to contemplate, but for us RNs having trouble finding work, this is a place to tap into. There are jobs posted where we DON"T have to have anymore education. But we have years of clinical experience and they need us.

:yeah:

--JC

PM me if you want on this.

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These replies are great and I'd agree that a career in medical transcription is very competitive. If you're a military spouse you can get help paying for the fees at http://www.careerstep.com/medical-transcription-editing because they work with military funding. Since you're already a nurse I don't know if this is a wise choice for you but find out if your area has a demand for medical transcription work first.

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I have been in healthcare for 25+yrs, 15 yrs as a CNA and RN-ADN for the last 10. Currently my license are suspended, therefore I am in search of a new career path (at least for the next 12 months). Does anyone have any suggestions?

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