subject: How Much Does A Medical Transcriptionist Earn? [print this page] Making a career choice is perhaps amongst the most difficult calls one has to take in their lifetime. Some are driven by passion and pay little heed to practicality, while others are more pragmatic in their approach and take carefully calculated decisions when it comes to choosing a career.
But what's that one thing that's central to everyone's decision, the one thing that binds the realists and romantics of the world in their pursuit of the perfect job?
You guessed it right money!!!
Whoever says money is not a factor when choosing a career is probably either deluding himself or a monk. How important money is may vary from individual to individual, but important it is and thats without a doubt.
How much money you're going to bring back at the end of every week/month plays a chief role in the whole" finding your dream career" saga.
Show me the monies!
The reason we have established this nice little background is not to start yet another debate on money vs. passion, but to introduce you to this career called medical transcription and help you understand where you stand financially should you choose this profession.
But before you choose a profession, you need to know what it entails. So here's a brief about medical transcription career!
The job of a medical transcriptionist involves listening to recorded dictations by doctors and other healthcare practitioners and transcribe them into ready to use text format. The transcribed material could be medical or administrative reports, correspondence, etc.
The need for these professionals arose due to the mess created by abbreviated hand-written notes that were used as patient records in earlier times. In order to bring some order to the chaos, typed patient files started being maintained.
These physical files have now given way to digital records, but at the heart of these reports lays the hard work that medical transcriptionists put into turning illegible pieces of information into logical and readable material.
Medical Transcriptionists' Salary
The salary and wages of a medical transcription vary a great deal depending on a series of factors. Not just that, the payment arrangements may also differ for MTs. Some are paid on hourly basis, while others are compensated for the number of lines they transcribe. Many MTs get an hourly base pay and receive an incentive or bonus for the extra work they produce.
An important factor that influences the paycheck of a medical transcriptionist includes the years of experience he/she has in the profession. Needless to say, the more work you've done as an MT, the more money you can expect to bring back home.
Your location and employer type also impact your paycheck. Medical transcriptionists usually find employment with hospitals, medical and diagnostic labs, offices of physicians, and transcription services. According to the data available with the Department of Labor, MTs employed with medical and diagnostic labs were paid the highest until a few years ago.
Your working arrangement is yet another factor that decides the amount of money you make doing transcription work. It's usually seen that independent contractors make more than employees, but they lose out on things like perks and benefits that salaried staff typically enjoy.
As for the numbers, medical transcriptionists make an average of $9.97 - $19.14 per hour, according to the latest payscale.com data. If cash earnings in the form of overtime, bonuses, tips, commissions, profit-sharing, etc. are added to these hourly wages, medical transcriptionists can take home an average of $19,599 - $41,902 per annumin total pay. 1
Closing the gap
Clearly, the gap between the highest and lowest earners is pretty wide. But there is a way to fill this gap and make the transition from the lowest percentile to the highest and that's education.
There is reason to believe that employers prefer to hire candidates who have completed some sort of post-secondary medical transcriptionist training. Naturally, qualified people are also compensated accordingly.
In addition to completing a medical transcriptionist training course, you can also increase your earning potential by getting professional certification. The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) offers two voluntary certifications Medical Transcriptionist (RMT) and Certified Medical Transcriptionist (CMT) to MTs who fulfill the required criteria.
