Medical Transcription, simply putting it is typing out a recorded voice message of a doctor. These medical records are necessary for communication between health care professionals, to aid and advance the science of medicine and to comply with laws and serve in support of an insurance claim.
• Doctors in the US speak into a voice recorder, dictating their patient’s medical report.
• His voice goes to a central computer.
• The voice is converted into digital signals, which are beamed up to a communication satellite.
• Data received from the satellite is transcribed into written form in India.
• Transcribed reports are bounced back to US as digital signals via satellite.
• After being processed by the central computer again the data reaches the doctors’ table the next morning as a printed report.India is among the prime countries into medical transcription, mainly because—The time difference between US and India, (around 12 hours) which enables doctors in US to get reports by the time they get back to work next day.
Labour is economically viable & efficiency is high.
Bangalore in India is rated as the city as far as IT related projects are concerned. Little wonder why, so many medical transcription companies have mushroomed in Bangalore over the last two years.
Based on a study the employment generated by Medical transcription in the years 1997-98 was around 2,500. The revenue generated by medical transcription was Rs. 75 crores. By the years 2007-08 the employment created by medical transcription is projected to reach an astonishing 1,70,000 and the revenue generated by medical transcription would cross Rs. 9,000 crores! Medical transcription is likely to be the fourth highest foreign exchange earner for India after garments, diamonds and software.
The Medical Transcription industry has opened floodgates for job seekers. As this profession does not demand specialised IT or software developmental skills, though it is basically an IT service, any graduate with good listening and English comprehension skills would fit the bill.
The candidates would also need to adapt to different accents and are trained to comprehend medical & pharmacological terms.
At present there is a dearth of experienced transcriptionists and according to reliable sources the present requirement of transcriptionists in Bangalore alone is over 10,000.
Transcriptionists today demand handsome salaries and this has attracted professionals like engineers and doctors to jump onto this bandwagon!
A beginner starts off with around Rs.5000 per month and as his speed and skill improves his take home gets bigger and bigger. There are transcriptionists today earning more than Rs. 25,000 per month.
As is in the west, women find this a great opportunity for employment. Bangalore has seen a lot of house-wives too joining up for courses and doing exceptionally well as transcriptionists.
This field has created an opening for part time job seekers as well, as there is a scope for off-loading jobs to trancriptionists who want to work at home on their PC’s
