subject: Where Can You Find Medical Transcription Training With A Stipend? [print this page] When you're looking into how to learn medical transcription, you're usually wanting to keep the costs down. Some think about paid training for medical transcription or finding a company willing to pay a stipend as they train. You should know, however, that the odds are much against you.
It may not be impossible to have a current employer pay you while you train, but companies that hire medical transcriptionists aren't paying you to learn the job. It's very complex, and just as with many other jobs, you need to know several important skills before you can get a job.
In other words, odds are very much against getting a stipend to learn medical transcription.
If you have a job already where you could work as a medical transcriptionist, you can check with Human Resources to see if they have any sort of financial aid for your education, but otherwise you're on your own.
A good quality medical transcription training program costs money. You don't want too cheap a program. You don't have to go for the most expensive one either. You want to balance cost and quality.
Your most important consideration in choosing a program is how likely you are to find work after graduation. Too many training programs do not give you the knowledge you need to work as a medical transcriptionist, and employers know it. You say you graduated from one of those programs, you aren't going to get hired with most employers. Finding that first job in the industry is hard enough with a good education. You don't want to complicate it with a poor one.
What Makes a Medical Transcription Training Program Good?
The quickest way to find a good training program is to check with AHDI. They have a list of programs which have met their qualifications. This bit of recognition gives you a good list of programs to contact.
AHDI Approval means that their program meets their quality guidelines. These guidelines check the quality of the educational material and that the program has at least one experience medical transcriptionist involved.
From there, find out their job placement rates. Find out what kind of job placement assistance they have. Make sure there's a forum for students and graduates - this kind of networking is valuable when you're looking for a job later.
While most medical transcription schools don't qualify for federal financial aid programs, they often offer payment programs to make it a little easier to handle the expense. Make sure you take advantage of these.
