Getting hired into a medical transcription job after completing training can take a little time; as it does with any career. Many new MTs that recently finished their training are now working as an MT successfully from their home. The average time it takes to get into your first medical transcription job is around one to three months. Yes, there are some new MTs that get into a job sooner and some that it might take longer.

There are some medical transcription schools that will promise their students that they will get a job within a few weeks of completing their course. While this can happen, it is not the average time frame. We would rather give you an accurate time frame of one to three months and then if you get into a job sooner, that is great!

Keep in mind that every experienced medical transcriptionist started out as a new MT!

The fact is that transcription services have to hire new medical transcriptionist regardless of if they want to or not. The demand for medical transcription is growing at such a high rate that there are not enough experienced medical transcriptionist available to service current and future accounts. In order to service all of these accounts, services will need to hire new MTs as well.

As baby boomers age and the demands increase in our healthcare services this situation will continue to intensify over the next few decades. Transcription services that refuse to hire new transcriptionist will be faced with two choices: they can turn down accounts, or they can pay a premium in the compensation and benefits as an effort to attract experienced MTs from their current employers.

The first step is to receive proper medical transcription training.

To be a successful medical transcriptionist you will need to have a high accuracy and productivity percentage, and must be familiar with the professional tools that are used by MTs. Some of these tools include Microsoft Word, a medical text expander, and software that will play the audio dictation files. You will use a digital foot pedal to rewind, fast forward and play the audio files. The foot pedal software will allow you to load the audio dictations and play them while also communicating with the digital foot pedal. The software and foot pedal work together.

You will need to know how to do research on the Internet and how to use reference materials such as a medical dictionary, AHDI Book of Style and other useful MT reference tools.

If you have passed your medical transcription course, know how to use the digital transcription equipment and can transcribe the Basic 4 at 200 to 250 lines per hour with 98% accuracy, then you should have no trouble finding a transcription service or doctor that will give you a chance as a new MT.

Furthermore, there is a difference between lines per hour (LPH) and words per minute (WPM). If you cannot type 65+ words per minute (WPM), you can use programs such as medical text expanders or create macros in Microsoft Word to help increase your productivity.

So why do so many medical transcription job ads ask for experience only?

One of the reasons that you will see job ads online that ask for one, two or even three years of experience is because when doctor's post ads for new MTs with no prior experience they receive a lot of unqualified resumes from people that want to "work at home."

Many of these people have never heard of what medical transcription is and have not had training. Therefore, when they see the words no experience, they will send in their resume or e-mail the company.

This can amount to hundreds and even thousands of people that will apply to any job ad that says, “no experience” and they do not bother to look at the job description.

In other words, they will send in their resume thinking the job is for data entry or word processing instead of realizing that the job is actually for new MTs that have had proper training.

When this many people apply to the MT job ad that says no experience it can overwhelm the staff at the doctor’s office, hospitals, and medical transcription service companies.

They do not have the staff available to go through thousands of non-qualified resumes and letters to try and find the new MTs that do have proper training.

It is easier for the doctors, hospitals and transcription service companies to go directly through the medical transcription schools and colleges and let them know of any new job positions that have opened up.

This way, the school can forward resumes of their students for consideration. This saves the doctors from being overwhelmed with non-qualified resumes of people who have never had medical transcription training.

Most of the doctors, hospitals and medical transcription service companies will expect that the new MT should already be well trained. They will give the potential employee a transcription test to make sure they do know what is required for the job position.

It is important to know that while the medical transcription schools and or colleges may offer job assistance and refer resumes to new MT job positions, they cannot guarantee you a job, unless they are hiring you to work for them directly!

There are too many variables involved in the hiring process. The school cannot read the minds of the staff that does the hiring as to which MTs they decide to hire.

If any school tells you that they can guarantee you a job, you really need to be concerned about the honesty of that company.

Job assistance is when your resume is referred over to doctors, hospitals, medical transcription service companies or any other open positions for new MTs. Your resume may also be placed into a resume database depending on the school.

While new MTs with no previous medical work history do get into MT jobs, those that do have prior knowledge or work experience such as registered nurses (RNs) will usually be able to get into an MT position a little faster after receiving proper training.

Don’t walk; run, from any training school or course that tells you 35 wpm are adequate, or that they can place you in a job within a week after taking your course.

You will not have much luck getting into a job typing only 35 words per minute. You really need to be able to type a minimum of 65+ words per minute and some employers expect 70+ words per minute.

However, as we’ve mentioned before, accuracy is even more important than how fast you type. There are also typing tutor programs out there that can help you improve your skills while taking an MT course.

Some of these typing tutors can be bought for as little as $20.00 or less. Furthermore, if you’re typing speed is only a little less than 65 wpm, then you can also use medical text expander software to help increase your productivity.

Just remember that in every career, everyone starts from the bottom and works their way up. There are jobs out there for new MTs. Doctors and hospitals desperately need well-trained MTs to transcribe their medical reports or edit the reports that were created by the SRT system. (SRT - Speech Recognition Technology) SRT Systems cannot transcribe like MTs can. Doctors who use SRT systems require the extra set of eyes that MTs can give to make sure that each medical report is accurate.