A Day of a Medical Transcriptionist...

Been thinking about entering the health care industry? Or maybe, start off a career as a Medical Transcriptionist? If so, then you must be thinking what a typical day in the life of a Medical Transcriptionist will be like?

In a way, it can be said that Medical Transcriptionists are a very important part and play an essential role in the health care industry. You take the audio files of doctors, medical experts or healthcare specialists and transcribe them into written documents. This needs to be done so that the medical personnel that is diagnosing or taking care of the patients are having all the necessary information about their patients.

You will rarely interact with patients however; the role you play is going to be crucial. You may be employed in a doctor’s office, MT service providing companies or choose to simply work from home. In a typical day, you take the recordings of doctors and feed them into the computer database. Also, expand the abbreviated versions and shorthands of doctors into language form which can be understood by the audience at large. Like a good medical transcriptionist, you need to be acquainted with all the medical terminology along with how to use speech recognition software.

So hold on tight & give it a try…it might be the career for you & of course, won't be something you will regret about!!!

Common homophones bloopers made by Medical Transcriptionist

“Homophones bloopers? What is that?” This is our reaction when we speak of these two terms. To make things easier, let us break them one by one. Homophones are words that are pronounced the same, however, their meanings are different. These words may also differ in their spelling as well. On the other hand, blooper means a funny amusing mistake made by any person or an embarrassing error. In medical transcription often the doctors come across hilarious bloopers from a medical transcriptionist. Transcription errors creep in because the dictations are not clear or too many medical terms are stuffed in the audio files.

Due to these reasons, many misunderstandings happen at the medical transcriptionist’s end. A medical transcriptionist will vary in his skill and experience and may not be so well acquainted with medical terms when compared to another one. Here we have compiled a list of common and homophones bloopers made by a medical transcriptionist that are downright funny!

Ø  ‘History of sick as hell disease’ – sickle cell

Ø  ‘She was a bitch and grinned’ –a bit chagrined

Ø  ‘Patient was discharged with Homo Two’ –Home O2, which means oxygen

Ø  ‘The psycho team was consulted’ – psych OT, means occupational therapy

Ø  ‘Abnormal lover function was indicated in the lab test’ – Liver function

Ø  ‘The eye & nose are within normal limits’ – I & O

Ø  ‘The patient took their meds for beaver’ – forever

Ø  ‘Old occasional male of 49-year-old' – Caucasian male

Ø  ‘Respectablepancreatic cancer’ – Resectable

Ø  ‘Patient is alert, sedated on Propofol’ – alert & oriented, as well as sedated?

Often doctors use the Latin term ‘in extremis’ to indicate ‘at the point of death’. Due to the fact this term does not fall under the conventional medical terminology, a medical transcriptionist might not be aware of the same. If you are a medical transcriptionist make sure you are not transcribing ‘when brought to the ICU, the patient was found to be in extremis’ as ‘ when brought to the ICU, the patient was found to be an extremist.’

Transcriptionists often end up making numeric mistakes as well and they turn out to be deadly. While transcribing make sure these are typed correctly. A study once said that a woman died because of 30 time’s higher dose of medicine that made her blood thinner. Not funny at all!

You need to be careful with similar-sounding words, for example, hypotension and hypertension, dysphagia and dysphasia and many more. Moreover, you need to be equally cautious not to mix up homophones i.e. same words with different spelling and meaning. Examples of these words include ileum & ilium, pleural & plural, etc. Not only are these mistakes silly but errors like these will be completely changing the meaning of the report and will be affecting patient diagnosis. Yes, we do agree that the heavily accented doctors will be making your transcription job difficult, but if you are having any doubts it’s advised to consult the doctors about the same or leave the fields as blank.

Why are medical transcribers far better than Digital Transcribing software?

When it comes to transcribing audio files of doctors into text format, your medical practice can have a few options. You can choose digital transcribing software or hire medical transcribers who can do the work. However, whether you are interested in speedy transcription or accuracy, there are services best suited for your practice's needs.

The main difference between medical transcribers and digital transcribing software is mainly the mode of transcription. Digital transcribing software uses computer technology to convert audio into text format. It does not require any person to transcribe information. For this reason, many companies consider digital transcribing software to be an easiest and most cost-effective solution. However, some factors have proven this to be wrong. Digital transcribing software requires training for the dictator and the software to get started. Moreover, these can also suffer from gargled voice recordings or corrupted audio files.

Another disadvantage of using digital transcribing software is the lack of accuracy. The faults with these are that they suffer from a higher rate of spelling and grammar mistakes. This can be a disaster for many doctors or healthcare professionals in need of medical transcription services because they require data that are accurate and error-free. So when compared to digital transcribing software, medical transcribers are a better option.

Medical Transcription services involve medical transcribers who manually transcribe audio files of doctors to written format. Since there are persons who are involved in handling the data conversion, the amount of errors committed is far lesser than those of digital transcribing software. Moreover, medical transcribers are capable of doing corrections and add punctuations to the context. In a nutshell, the texts will be readily available without a need for any human review. Medical practitioners end up saving a lot of money and time by hiring medical transcribers, rather than using digital transcribing software for their work.

Hiring medical transcribers will seem to be a more expensive option at the initial stage; however, in context to the long-term, these are more cost-effective. There are fewer requirements for quality control, editing, and software issues. Moreover, you don't need to train medical transcribers because they will automatically be providing you with realistic transcription results.

Often we tend to ask, "Will medical transcribers take more time to transcribe information manually?"

In reality, the answer is no, because professional medical transcribers are adept to their jobs and they can readily transcribe, edit or review reports within a minimal time without the help of an extra person to check those reports for accuracy. So, in case you need to reduce the time it takes to transcribe, go for medical transcribers rather than taking the time consuming and costly digital transcribing software into consideration.

The use of digital transcribing software can often be the cause of quality control problems. These can lead to many problems in text files and can negatively impact in the following cases:

·     If a person is speaking too softly or loudly

·     If the speaker has an accent

·     If the speaker mumble

·     If the software picks up noises within the system or any background noises

All these can be misinterpreted by the digital transcribing software and disrupt the flow of information.

So if you are keen on saving money & time on medical transcription, your best option will be to go for professional medical transcribers rather than digital transcribing software. With medical transcribers, your medical practice will win with accurate transcription results in minimal time as compared to any software.

Hence we can conclude saying that even today medical transcribers are far better than digital transcribing software.