Medical Transcription and the Homeschooling Mom

Before my first child was even born, I set a path to become a medical transcriptionist working from home, and I have successfully worked from home transcribing medical reports for the past 19 years. One of the moms on the 4RealLearning Board asked me to write about my experiences a little bit. 

Medical transcription entails taking a recorded medium (digital or tape) and taking the spoken word and putting it in a visual format, either as a paper copy, or sending it electronically (sort of like an e-mail).  It requires super fast and accurate keyboarding (typing) skills, a good command of English and grammar, a knowledge of anatomy and physiology, medical terminology, laboratory tests and drugs.  It helps if you enjoy researching words and terms.  

If you are working from home you have to have a good computer with the appropriate software and a high speed internet connection.  You also need some good reference books and medical dictionaries (although these aren’t as important as they once were because the internet is so much more current!)

I first started getting clients and working from home back in the dark ages, before digital equipment was available. All transcription was done on tapes and those tapes had to be picked up, transcribed, reports printed out, and then the paper reports and the tapes brought back to the doctor. My biggest problem then was doing all of that with a baby!

I can remember sitting down to transcribe for my first client in my living room office, with my little 4-month old baby son at my side, prepared to put in a good two or three hours before lunch, only to discover that my baby was going to have none of it!  I quickly learned that I could care for him, or I could work, but that I wasn’t going to be able to do both simultaneously.  And that began years of early morning, naptime and evening working hours. I still pretty much stick to those basic times of day.

For pickup and deliveries I had to take the baby with me and that was always interesting. I remember a couple of incidents from those years. I remember pushing Calvin in his stroller through high winds and deep snow to get from the parking deck to the hospital to deliver reports. I remember how much of a fuss the ladies in medical records always made over him and how they even had a big party for him on his first birthday! I also remember showing up at a doctor’s office for a scheduled pickup and having to wait, and wait and wait…because the doctor wasn’t done dictating. Sometimes that was miserable depending on how Calvin was.

I once dropped a client specifically because he was never ready when I showed up. One time he promised me that he would have a tape to pick up the day after Thanksgiving. We deliberately stayed home that holiday just to get that stupid tape, only to discover that Friday that he wouldn’t be ready until Monday. That was maddening.

Eventually I had the right clients and worked out a good schedule and even a decent road route. I eventually had three children, all in car seats or booster seats, that I drove around for a few hours making pick ups and deliveries. Some days it was great. Some days it was horrible. I did that for many years.

In 2005 one of my oldest clients (and also the one furthest out) cut her transcription from $500 to $600 a month down to around $100 and below. There was no warning and as I was pregnant at the time, I was very worried about getting enough work to do while pregnant or with a newborn. It was a bad time.

However, through some connections and friends that I had made over the years, I landed a job as a contractor with a small transcription company and started transcribing reports digitally over the internet. Although the pay wasn’t as much as I had made before with my own client, I figured it was probably close to even as I did not have to drive any where or use my printer. That opened up a lot of possibilities. I an currently working for two such companies as well as one of my own clients who still uses tapes but has a very close office.

As my children have grown I have had to work my transcription hours around homeschooling. That has not been too difficult although it does require me to get up and type very early in the morning, an hour or so in the afternoon and perhaps in the evening. I lose mostly family time when I type in the evening, but I like it better because usually Mr. Pete is home to be the parental presence for the kids while I’m typing. I also usually do a lot of work on the weekends to lighten my load during the week.

Homeschooling goes much better if we are organized and the house is in good order. If any of that is out of whack then everything suffers – except the transcription. Transcription gets done come hell or high water because that is a significant part of our income. And that is tough sometimes. If I have a lot of work to do with the kids, and am not getting a lot of help with the housework, then I’m a little more stressed.

People ask me all the time if they should get into the medical transcription business.

I don’t know.  A lot of medical transcription jobs are now being shipped to India.  The Indian people are anxious for the work, and they can transcribe during our night time hours here in the states and get work back seemingly faster.  There is a lot of controversy and debate about our medical reports going over seas and I can see the pros and the cons.  But the bottom line is that with a big Medical Transcription Industry over in India, wages for transcriptionists in this country are not growing. Some stats show that pay has gone down since the 1980s.  If you are fortunate enough to find good clients or work for a great company where you can learn an account and really become proficient at it, you can make some money!  But there is always a learning curve.

So do I think this is a good career for homeschooling moms?  I think it can be.  If you have the skills and the equipment or willing to do what it takes to get them you can be successful.  But remember, as a homeschooling mother, your first priority has to be the education of your children and that is a tightrope act a lot of the time.  If you have a good temperament for that kind of stress, medical transcription might be an at-home job to consider.

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