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Future of no more medical transcription - li

Posted: Mar 22, 2011

Are you thinking of going into medical transcription for a career? Don't do it! The field is growing smaller every day, and soon will be gone completely. In Alaska, all the major hospitals have gone to voice recognition, and work is scarcer all the time. Look into medical coding maybe, or working in a doctor's office as an assistant or receptionist. DON'T GO INTO MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION! Liza

Is this a news flash? - under a rock

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I have heard this same statement for about 12 years now.

I've heard it for 20 years. I win. - nm

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nm

Yes, welcome to the world, Liza. But please don't recommend - people become office

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assistants. The pay's a fraction of what a good MT makes. Now, coding IS a viable option. It's not surprisingly harder to get into than office work but worth the effort. Only problem is, a lot of those jobs are being displaced too...

Cool down ... - sm

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The day computers will be strong enough to take over medical transcriptionist job, I think coders, assistants and receptionists and many others will be going back home as well.

I have heard this same statement for about 10 years now.

I think we're seeing a culling out, which is healthy in any job field occasionally - Not everyone should be working as an MT

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We've got thousands of MTs working who never should have been in this business. We all have horror stories of looking at our own medical records and seeing all sorts of errors, typos, etc. I've seen some of those that I know personally losing work.

You might think of it like this, how is the quality of your work? If a machine can do it better than you can, you are at risk. Work on your skills.

Some have good enough skills overall, but their attitudes and work habits are really bad. They are also at greater risk of not being hired or kept these days. Others are doing fine. There are some hiccups here and there with adjustments being made for changing technology, but things are looking up for those who have the right skills, attitudes, work habits, and are in the right place.

I want some of what you are smoking! - R U kidding me???

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"...things are looking up for those who have the right skills, attitudes, work habits, and are in the right place."

RIGHT! ;-)

I think it's true, although nothing is great these days in any business - No big surprise there

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I was just listening to the news. Statistic after statistic was, "the worst since records began being kept", the worst numbers for housing in (can't remember the number but it was high) number of years", "consumer confidence levels are..."

Nothing is good and the health care field is supposed to be an exception, but it isn't. We're hurting just like everyone else.

It is an exception, though. Jobs have been more stable - here, relatively, than in many fields. SM

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Of my last 2 fields, #s of insurance clerical jobs contracted tremendously and permanently due to technology. I don't know if I'd still have a job in that field, but do know there have been a lot of layoffs due to the bad economy. Like this field, some still have decent jobs, even if some had to take a pay cut, others have no job at all.

Real estate appraisal? Hah! Technology has displaced many skilled appraisers, replaced by low-paid people in sloppy clothes who go around and measure and take pictures for people in offices. Some appraisers are still doing well at the traditional job--or were until the market crashed. A few are actually in boom times specializing in foreclosures, but that's no comfort to the many with no job at all.

My job in healthcare has been far more stable than either of those, and I am glad to have during these times.

Whatever comes for the current survivors, there are many in this field who should not be. Shaking out by allowing people to succeed or fail over a long period is cruel and could be done much better, but it's happening anyway.

My own strategy is to hold on until the economy improves - if it ever does

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I don't know if the economy ever will improve. This may be as good as it gets. If so, I'm happy to have a job at all.

Same here! I actually chose my current company - for (hopefully) stability. NM

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x

I suppose there is a lot that can be said for denial. - down and out in the south

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I used to think it would never happen, until it happened to me....twice.....The acute care hospital I worked for outsourced their med rec to a service that uses VR....and then I was put on radiology only to be told three months later they were going with PowerScribe and I could actually be let got his time.....this after 12 years of employment. You cannot convince me this career field isn't dying.

It IS a dying field and those of us with experience know it! - Those who deny it...welll...

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It just hasn't happened to them...yet!

The only people who don't want you to know that this field is shriveling up are the MTSO owners and AHDI.

It's changing, but "experience" is not the whole story - It is not that simple

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Of course things are changing. They always have changed and always will. What I've been seeing personally is that there is a big difference in those with experience. Some have really excellent experience and expertise. Others have just been doing a lousy job for a long time and getting away with it.

I have several friends that I like very much. They have done exceptionally well for years. As much as I like them as people, their work stinks. I've always wondered how they kept a job. Not only that, but they hold themselves up as experts on message forums. Experience is not always a good thing, if it's years of poor experience where the MT is unwilling to update skills and/or do the work as required by that particular account. You wouldn't believe how many "experienced" MTs refuse to go by account specifics because, "I've never done it that way and my work has always been good enough for my employers in the past and I'm not just about to change it now." That's what I'm seeing.

VERY true, NotThatSimple. Question for others: - What if this work DOES evolve? Will

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you be among those who evolve with it or fall out along the way?

What if doom-sayers and those determined to see themselves as losers, this work experience already worthless, are doing themselves a terrible, terminal disservice? I'm not saying be a Pollyanna, but those refusing to consider possibilities ARE doomed to miss out on any that come along.

That said, again, I do also believe a culling process is going on. Those who will not become good at today's work (ever or once again) need to cut their losses and move on to something else. Big, gross clue where you fall right now: If income has fallen 1/4 or more in the past few years, or if income has never been enough to support yourself and save for a trip to Europe, you're not making the cut. So far.

Radiology is the first to suffer because it is the easiest - From what I have seen

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Radiology and Pathology are the first to go because they are easily automated. They use the same terms over and over. Those are not the sub-specialties to choose if you want to stay around for very long.

Transcription going away- doubt it - Ladonna

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I don't know where the rest of you live, but transcription is not going anywhere soon here, at least not as long as we have dictators who yawn or chew food while they dictate or act like they are in a race, not to count all the foreign dictators who still cannot speak Emglish. If I can't understand them, no machine can, either.

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