What are skills required of medical transcription?

Before starting a career, it is important to have an understanding of what skills are needed to effectively perform tasks. This knowledge can help you determine what job or specific career field is right for you. Finding the right fit for your skills is beneficial not only for the employer but also to ensure you enjoy the position.

There are many different types of jobs and choosing a career field can feel overwhelming. Understanding what skills are needed to be a good candidate for different jobs certainly helps narrow down the pool of choices.

Are you looking for a career in the Allied Health field? Is the career you’re interested in growing at a steady rate? Health care positions are typically in demand. They have continued to rise as a result of COVID, and having individuals who are knowledgeable in this field are certainly needed.

Here are five exceptional qualities that every medical transcriptionist should have for their career and why they are important assets.

Medical Transcriptionist Skills

1. Accuracy: Being accurate with information is imperative. Especially when dealing with patients and doctors. Taking the information that the doctor notes and then translating it into the proper documentation for the patient is important to make sure no miscommunication occurs. Developing accuracy means that typing up the information must be correct every time.
2. Fast Typing: It is also necessary for a medical transcriptionist to be quick with their typing skills and be able to obtain a high speed. When needing to input information for one patient and then move on to the next, fluency with your fingers is necessary to make sure you do not have work pile up or keep doctors or patients waiting.
3. English: Having a working knowledge of the English language and a strong grasp on grammar is also important to make sure information is delivered and written down in a way that is easily understood.
4. Listening: There is a difference between hearing and listening, and making sure that you, as the medical transcriptionist take note of everything that is being said is vital. The key to listening is comprehension and understanding the information being conveyed. If you are unsure about something, it is essential to clarify or even provide a summary of the information you heard to guarantee that it was interpreted correctly.
5. Medical Terminology: Working in a doctor’s office, you will need to know the terminology that is discussed frequently among the doctors, nurses, and staff. Understanding the verbiage is necessary for being able to transcribe everything correctly so that there are no misdiagnosis codes or misinformation put in someone’s chart, which could be detrimental to a patient getting the proper care.

Ready to Become a Medical Transcriptionist?

Blackstone Career Institute provides an online medical transcriptionist course that will prepare you for entering the career force and ensuring that your skill sets are ready to meet the demands of this job. With your course, you will receive a foot pedal and will have opportunities to practice typing to improve your accuracy and speed with the keyboard. Master medical transcription practice using modern transcription equipment. Gain a working knowledge of medical terminology, medical diagnoses, and laboratory procedures. Receive online access to BenchMark KB, Quick Look Drug Book, and medical abbreviations.

Certification as a Medical Transcriptionist

Graduates of Blackstone‘s Medical Transcription training program are qualified to sit for the Registered Healthcare Documentation Specialist (RHDS) exam, administered by the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) and after gaining work experience the Certified Healthcare Documentation Specialist (CHDS) exam offered by the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI).

Becoming a professional medical transcriptionist is today worth considering as a career especially because it is predicted that the MT profession will be in high demand for some time to come. This is chiefly because the rise in the total number of the aging population will cause the entire health care sector to experience a boom for the next ten years at least as predicted by the US Department of Labor. So as the years go by, one can expect that there will be more and more hospitals /doctors/ nurses and other health care technicians including Medical transcriptionists.

What are the basic requirements to become a good medical transcription professional? They include,

• High school level education
• Good communication skill
• Above average in spelling
• Should be good at sorting, checking verifying numerical data
• Ability to follow written instruction
• Records maintenance ability
• Good typing speed/skill
• Skill in use of computer/automation
• Good eye / hand / foot coordination

A good medical transcriptionist has to learn and have a good knowledge of basic to advanced medical terminology. The proper application of grammar and the ability to use correct punctuation are also essential to be successful as a transcriptionist.

Among the various duties of a medical transcription are,

• Transcribing patient information like Social security number/Medical record
• Maintaining references for medical terminology/ procedures
• Maintaining a transcription log book
• Collecting dictation tapes
• Distributing finished transcripts/ reports

Medical Transcription Supervisors are seniors who do all the follow ups on the physicians, take care of all the missing and /or late dictations and are responsible for the timely delivery of reports. Other duties include doing quality assurance checking, maintaining backups, ordering supplies, reports generation and reporting of problems in the infrastructure/ machinery etc.

Outsource Strategies International (OSI) is a US based medical transcription company that offers services in medical billing, medical coding and medical transcription from both domestic as well as offshore work groups.

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