As the old proverb say, ‘Intelligent always chooses the best tool’, it is imperative for a medical transcriber to choose the best transcription headphones. These transcribing headsets can be considered as partners or friends of a transcriber.

In this post we will review popular headsets that are precisely made for medical transcription, their pros and cons.  For our analysis we will trust and look into the reviews and ratings from Amazon.com.

Philips 2236 Stereo Headphones for Transcription

Philips has always made good products when it comes to consumer electronics. While 2236 stereo type transcriber headsets are new to the market and they have not attracted enough people to buy or become a fan off. The only customer who has reviewed the product says that it works perfectly and it is very much comfortable. However a transcriber will definitely need a lot more than comfort. This headset can be purchased from Amazon by following this link.

Olympus Headset, E-102 Extended Cord

One of the best manufacturers of medical transcription equipment is Olympus. This E-102 type of headsets looks to be famous with 9 reviews (Mostly positive).  Most of the product reviews are from transcribers which is a good news for us. Most of the folks say that this headset is very unique, simple and more importantly cheap. The cost is just $14.24 at the time of writing this article.

One of the user stated that this headsets creates a sore feeling over the ear. This is common for most of the headsets and can be ignored. One other user said that he is not able to adjust the length of the headset. There is no way to shrink or lengthen the overall length. This is an issue especially for people with long face. Olympus must consider including this in any of the upcoming releases. This headset can be purchases here 

Sony Headsets:

We also saw a Sony headset in Amazon. There is no customer reviews at this point. This headset is the costliest one that we have encountered in Amazon. The product cost is $39.99. Let’s see the features.

• Availability of Chinband.
• Claims to be of much clarity.
• Comfort ear cushion.
• Rubber cord

Which one is for me?

Medical billing and coding is often mis-represented for medical transcription. But honestly they both are different from each other. This article will give you a perspective of what is medical billing and coding.

It is a process of updating the patient’s record with the diagnosis that was done and transferring this information to the insurance company in the electronic format. Medical billing and coding also involves the follow-up process that are involved in getting the right money to be reimbursed for the treatment. It is a multi-step process involving various stakeholders. The typical time frame for this process can be any where between few weeks to months depending upon the amount of investigation that is needed. Here are the steps involved in this process.

Patient Medical Record and Audio Recording:

The doctor or the clinical staffs updates the patients medical record. The medical record has the entire history of the claimed disease. It starts with the incident details, patient name, diagnosis and sensitive details like patient contact number, social security ID, insurance policy number etc.,

Coding starts:

Now the real job of the coder starts here. The medical coder starts listening to the conversation audio of the interaction between doctor and patient, reads patient records and analyzes the situation. After understanding the situation and analyzing the problem, the coder converts this into the standardized ICD-9-CM format. These are numeric codes that are being standardized internationally.

Transfer to Payer:

The payer is typically the patient’s insurance company. Now here on the medical billers job starts. He or she transfers this ICD-9-CM format codes to the insurance company electronically. Now as per the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) rules the medical biller has to stick with multiple set off rules. One of the most important rules is to stick with electronic format when it comes to transfer of information.

Now the first form of interaction from the medical biller to the payer is called as ANSI 837. Here ANSI stands for American National Standards Institute. This has a large chunk of patient and incident details that are being coded by the medical coder.

A very good standard format of ANSI 837 is discussed here

X12-997 and X12-835 Transactions:

Subsequent to the receipt of the ANSI 837, the payer will issue X12-997 acknowledgement. It is just to inform the biller and the hospital that the claim has been received. Upon inspection and verification, the payer finally send X12-835 transaction which shows a detailed information on the claim.

In all this process of interaction and follow-up with the payer, medical biller is involved.

Now we hope you clearly understand the role of medical biller and coder and how it is different from medical transcription. Also do read our older post – what is medical transcription.

Are there any medical coders are billers here? Let us know what you think about this post.

Searching for a medical transcription employment online could be a daunting task for beginners. If you are an experienced medical transcriptionist with good skill sets, then definitely you can some hope in securing a medical transcription job online. The health care industry is continuously booming. Medical transcriptionist work is a perfect choice for all kinds of people who wish to work from home ranging from house wives to students and elderly people who cannot go for a full-time job in office.

What makes the job of an At-home medical transcriptionist so powerful? Since we are at home and we can work at our own timing, we will find that medical transcription job is a good choice for us. When we work from home, we can spend more time with our family and at same time earn money by working for two to five hours every day.

Where could we find medical transcription jobs?

The best place to start with is the internet. We shall continue to get familiar with famous job portal websites like Monster.com, craiglist.org and careerbuilder.com. We should search for websites in specific basis since new updates in medical transcriptionist job are frequently posted and they could be grabbed easily. While we keep with up daily job portal postings, we should register with websites for recruiting medical transcription jobs. The recruiting jobs shall be able to help us lot in terms of finding medical transcriptionist jobs online. We should remember for maintaining contact with them since transcriptionist work could go fast. We should first draft a resume for us which we must give to office of local doctors in our area. Many doctors allow medical transcriptionists to work their home and mail the reports to them daily. The point here is we should edit our own work and charge the rates based on that. The negative aspect relating to this is that we should have our own health insurance.  Apart from that, we need to have the necessary equipments for carrying out the transcription process including a Desktop or laptop computer with good operating system, good headphones and mp3 playback software to listen to the recordings given by the doctor.

Qualification Required:

It could be great if we take a certification or diploma in medical transcription before searching for a job. Having such qualification can boost our employability and we can land in a job soon. We should search in job form websites like workathomemommy.com, wahm.com and workathomecooperative.com on daily basis since the online medical transcription jobs will be posted in these sites frequently. Something which we might not be aware of is that when searching through the blogs of other people about the jobs which they might have posted. Many people blog nowadays about medical transcription jobs and we shall find all the information required about it in these sites.

If we stay persistent for long time, however exhausting and tedious the job might seem, we shall find our dream job and we would no long be a slave to the demands of an employer. Medical transcription jobs provide the freedom to work from home and we can make money online at the comfort of our home. It is important that when we are involved in medical transcription business, we should find the right client who can give us consistent work.

Transcription training is necessary if we are searching for medical transcription employment. We should have a certification or degree from reputed medical transcription school which has got accreditation from AHDI in order to get the faith of our employers.

Good Resume is Essential:

We should create a good resume which shows all our skills and potential related to medical transcription. If you are an experienced candidate, you should include all your previous experience and the clients you worked. We should mention the typing speed and accuracy and how much work we could deliver in a particular time span. We should create a resume which lists our strengths so as to make good impression among the employers. There are many resume services which we can use for creating a professional resume. After creating our resume, we can submit it in order to get the results. If we are determined to become transcriptionists, we should remember that we should not quit in searching for a job online. If we cannot find online job, we can go to transcription firms and doctors offices in our locality and give our resume and explain about our situation. We can get clients in our region and start our own medical transcription business, if we have experience in transcription process.

CPT codes are nothing but numbers that are given to each and every service and job a medical practitioner shall offer to patients including surgical, diagnostic and medical services. These CPT codes will be later utilized by insurers for determining the reimbursement amount which shall be received by the practitioner. Since all are using the same code for meaning same item, they can assure uniformity.

CPT codes refer to the Current Procedural Terminology code set which is maintained by American Medical Association with the help of CPT Editorial panel. The CPT code set describes the surgical, diagnostic, medical services given by the doctors and has been designed to communicate the information uniformly about the medical procedures and services among the patients, doctors, and to payers for financial, analytical and administrative purpose.

Categories of CPT codes:

The CPT codes are of 3 types namely,

Category I CPT codes

Category II CPT codes which is used for Performance Measurement

Category III CPT codes which is used to indicate Emerging technologies.

Income for AMA through CPT codes:

The CPT codes are used uniformly by all the medical practitioners to notify the type of service but the amount of reimbursement that each and every medical practitioner get shall not be the same. For instance, Doctor A could perform some physical checkup (22326) and get a reimbursement of 100 USD from our insurance company. But another Doctor B, who does the same checkup with code 22326, might get a reimbursement of only 90 USD. This is different in case of Medicare patients since they make use of HSPCS codes. There are also another different set of codes which are used by physicians under the name ICD codes. CPT codes are maintained, developed and copyrighted using the AMA association. As practice in health care changes continuously, there are many new codes developed for different services and the current codes could be revises and they shall discard the old and unused codes. There are 1000s of CPT codes which are used and they get updated every year. The maintenance and development of the codes is done by AMA’s editorial boards and the publications of the manuals, books and software required by the medical practitioners who use them generates revenue of more than 70 million USD every year to the American Medical Association (AMA).

Since these CPT codes indicate much income for AMA, it is hard to find that lists of these codes which can be accessed by the public. In fact, many groups which have tried to make the CPT codes public have got into many fines and violations by the American medical association and they have been removed from internet forcefully by the members of AMA. There are different groups which get license for these CPT codes and they publish them in books and also in internet. They also charge some fee since they have to pay for getting the license to use the CPT codes.

CPT code Examples:

Some sample CPT codes are as shown below,

12002 is a CPT code used for stitching up an inch cut in the arms of a patient.

90658 is a CPT code used to indicate flu shot

99214 is a CPT code used to indicate physical problems

90716 is a CPT code used to indicate varicella (chicken pox vaccine)

When using Medicare, we   can find that the CPT codes will be used somewhat differently since they have their own code called “Health care common procedure coding system” (HSPCS codes).

It was hard to find what these CPT codes meant and people had to contact the doctor or the insurance company to know about it. But now, we can use the feature of CPT code lookup available in the AMA website to know about these CPT codes.

Why Typing Speed is necessary?
The most important requirement of a medical transcriptionist is good keyboarding speed and accuracy. The most effective method for keyboarding is called as “touch” typing. With touch typing, hands will be placed on the keyboard with fingers in particular formation. The position of every key on keyboard is typed and memorized which occurs fluidly without a necessity to look at keyboard continuously.

Standardizing keyboards:
Typing keyboards used by medical transcriptionists should be standardized in order to organize the keys for getting maximum efficiency. Since there are schools of thought which insist that there are many way to organize a keyboard. The schools of thought of have not existed and the present keyboard arrangement which is seen in many keyboards is one variation and another has become a common standard at present. The QWERTY keyboards are used most commonly in American and Asian countries.

Standardization took place for a major reason. We should think about wide amount of information which is present in libraries, books and internet. All the information should be typed by medical transcriptionists with excellent keyboard skills and accuracy. Standard computer keyboards have provided a mechanization of the process of typing which has resulted in incredible increase in keyboarding speed and accuracy.

Touch Typing Method:
The old method used for keyboarding which is used widely is the “hunt and peck” method of keyboarding. It is a very tedious and ineffective typing method. People using this typing style are either not capable or not willing to spend time for memorizing the keys position on keyboarding for adopting the standard the finger position techniques. Unless we are a person who interacts with the keyboard rarely, we will definitely benefit from efficiency which is generated through memorization of keyboard and touch typing methods.

Checklist for Speed Typing
In addition to learning touch typing; most of the people are able to increase the keyboarding speed and efficiency through a mix of:

1. Maintaining the right typing speed which means sitting erect with the elbows to our sides and the finger should neither press down nor hover, but it should rest gently on the right keys in the standard position.
2. Ensuring that keyboard is placed at proper height. Many keyboard and desks will set in standard height. We must be aware that if we are taller or shorter than the average, we would require adjusting our chair for establishing proper positioning.
3. Typing with the finesse which means typing fluidly when fingers rest on keyboard gently.
4. Refrain ourselves from overworking. We should take periodic rests from our typing routine and relax our fingers for some time. Gluing ourselves to a keyboard for a long time of uninterrupted keyboarding shall lead us to problems related to fatigue and reduce our productivity in long run.
5. Monitoring our typing speed and the accuracy through frequent returning to the free typing tests which are available online could motivate us for higher speed levels and accuracy as we find the results.

Typing speed and accuracy is the most important which we do not care about at early point of time. But when seeing other typing on keyboard fast, we might feel that “I wish I were that kind of person”. The average speed of typing for a normal person will range from 30 to 35 words per minute which is quite acceptable. But when we want to become a medical transcriptionist, we would require a minimum typing speed of at least 60 words per minute and 100 percent accuracy for which we would need to improve our keyboarding skills.

The commonly used keyboard layout is the QWERTY keyboard layout and we should first start practicing to type without looking at the keys present in the keyboard. It will be quite hard at beginning but we could catch up after some time. We should maintain the posture properly when typing and we should have a good arm rest so that both our hands are parallel to ground when we type in keyboard. The fingers must be raised slightly when we type. We can use ergonomic keyboard which is good for our hands. They keys will be arranged to help us type faster and we can avoid the carpal tunnel syndrome. We can take online typing tests and check our improvement. Though we make mistakes initially, we can increase the keyboarding speed and accuracy by practicing continuously.

Medical transcription courses are best learnt at reputed medical transcription schools. A professional MT school teaches the students not only about anatomy and physiology, but also about flawless written English skills and exceptional listening skills. Not all medical transcription school follows same certification or degree pattern. While some MT schools focus on providing MT certifications, few professional MT training schools provide medical transcription degrees to students.
Online MT School

Online medical transcription schools are much popular among the science graduates who aspire to pursue their career in medical transcription. Online MT school and training institutes are comparatively cheaper than other regular MT schools. Students, house wives, life time learners can earn from home by learning medical transcription through online courses.
Trusted MT Schools

Regular Campus Medical Transcription courses can be best learnt at the following institutes which are most reliable and provide quality professional MT training.

1. National College
2. Mountain State College
3. Tech Skills
4. Empire College
5. Antonelli College

Here are few online medical transcription schools that offer medical transcription certifications as well as degrees.

1. Allied Schools
2. Ashworth College
3. U.S Career Institute
4. Rasmussen College
5. Kaplan University

How to find the right medical transcription school for you?

1. Do a detailed research online about the various MT schools.
2. Inquire about the fee structure.
3. Compare the fee structure of the reputed MT schools.
4. Select which mode of education would be suitable for you (online or campus).
5. Get insights about a particular MT institute from the students who have already undergone MT training over there.
6. Inquire about the study materials provided, standard of faculty, audio lab facility and infrastructure along with fee structure.

If you manage to get into a reputed Medical transcription school that offers professional MT training, the chances of getting a fat pay check is not far away.

What is medical transcription certification?
Medical transcription is a subsidiary of healthcare profession. It deals with listening to physician dictation and converting the audio into electronic text document. Anyone who gets trained in medical transcription would not be considered as a professional medical transcriptionist.

Medical transcription service providers and MT companies demand certain skills from a professional medical transcriber. As a part of their hiring policy a qualified MT should possess a diploma in medical transcription from a reputed institute or Medical transcription certification (CMT) from AAMT. Science graduation, excellent listening and written English skills, good knowledge and understanding of medical terminologies are added advantage.

Do you need Certification on Medical transcription?
There is only a slight difference between a medical transcriptionist (MT) and certified medical transcriptionist (CMT). Anyone who did a medical transcription course through either online or local programs can join in a MT company to gain much knowledge and experience in medical transcription field. But to be a certified medical transcriptionist, you should possess at least 2 years of MT work experience in order to take up the Medical transcription certification exam conducted by American association of medical transcription (AAMT).

Getting the CMT certification is completely a personal choice. It depends on your commitment, time and financial status. If you are eager to get certification on medical transcription it would certainly be a professional achievement. The words CMT will distinguish yourself from other transcriber and gives you a badge of professional medical transcriptionist who is always a much preferred choice among MT employers.

How to become certified?
CMT examination is conducted by American Association of Medical Transcription (AAMT). The eligibility criterion to get enrolled for this exam is you should have at least 2 years of experience as a medical transcriber. This test is conducted throughout the year but you can appear only twice a year. After enrolling you can take up this test in any of the specified examination center.

Exam Preparation
There are numerous self-assessment products available in internet for free. You can get the help of many online resources to vigorously prepare for CMT examination.

Examination – Part I: First module of exam is multiple choices. This section contains 120 questions. This will basically test your knowledge in medical terms, English skill, medical transcription grammar, anatomy and physiology. The time allowed would be 3 hours and the fee would be $150.

Examination – Part II: The second part of this exam is a competency based exam it tests a transcriber’s ability to accurately document the 15 minutes physician dictation within 2 hours. Physician dictation might be on any specialty, so time-proven skills and experience on transcription is necessary to qualify in test. The examination fee is $150 for US citizens and $250 for people outside US.

CMT – What is it worth for?
• Certification on medical transcription boosts up your employment eligibility among the chunk of transcriptionist who does not possess this designation.
• You can demonstrate your skills by accurately transcribing physician dictations and proofreading the transcribed patient health record documents.
• CMT is essential for the ones who are aspiring to scale up their career to management and supervisory level.

What is AAMT?

AAMT (American association for medical transcription) is an association for medical transcription professionals. It is a non-profit organization that aids the medical transcription professionals in their career advancement. AAMT keeps the medical transcriptionist up-to-date on the current market trend and challenges affecting MT profession.

American association for medical transcription provides valid information to students and experienced medical transcriptionist who aims to achieve in the field of medical transcription. This association is dedicated for the advancement of medical transcription through constant improvement and development in the educational qualification and skill sets of medical transcriptionist. Apart from this, AAMT offers excellent chance for professional networking among MT employees.

Why to join AAMT?

• AAMT promotes medical transcription profession through education, practice, and empowerment.
• By becoming a member of AAMT you get access to numerous resources on new medical terminologies, advancements in clinical methodologies and trends of the current industry.
• It facilitates acquiring vast information on technology, personal & professional development, online networking.
• A member of AAMT receives many benefits like product discounts, publishing, reduction in insurance programs, vendor affiliate discounts, networking opportunities, professional recognition and much more.
• Apart from getting certified through series of exams (exam fee at a discounted rate) you will get excellent opportunities of enjoying various tangible benefits.

How much does it cost to become a registered member?

For individual professionals who involve in medical transcription or medical record documentation process, the membership fee per annum is $135. For students who are pursuing medical transcription course and do not have any work experience as a medical transcriptionist, the fee is $55 per annum. For medical transcription process trainers the fee structure scales up to $200 per annum. For individual professionals who has more than 2 years of experience and is not currently pursuing MT career, the membership fee cost is around $65. The membership fee for corporate companies, healthcare providers who employ medical transcriptionist is $400 per annum.

How to become AAMT member?

It is easier to get registered through online. You can be a registered member of AAMT in no time. You can fill-in the online application form, pay your fee online to instantly become a member of American association of medical transcription. Download application form at the official site and apply via email or fax. It is easy as well.

Medical transcription is a process of converting physician dictations into text formats. Medical transcriptionist is the ones who transcribe these audio files into word documents. Many medical transcription companies operate at United States but outsourcing to offshore countries are preferred option because of a greater variation in medical transcriptionist pay.

Medical transcription services are used by individual practitioners, clinics, facility centers and hospitals in United States. The administrative personnel or a nurse is responsible for transcription of patient health records. But transcribing medical records is a time consuming process. Instead of spending their valuable time on paperwork, they can focus more time on patient care which increases patient visit and business.

US in-house transcriptionist are very costly, the doctors are forced to spend more of their hard earned income and time on a transcriber. For a transcriber who works as an employee the average salary range is from $2000 to $3000. If he is highly skilled in medical transcription grammar and more experienced, the medical transcriptionist pay will go above $4000. Doctors have no other way than to compensate on their income to pay for medical transcriptionist. So they opt for offshore medical transcription services.

Offshore medical transcription service providers are cost effective. They can avail exceptional quality medical transcription through highly skilled professional transcribers who can work at a lower wages. The offshore medical transcriptionist pay ranges from $200 to $400. The pay scale is nearly 60% to 80% lesser than in-house transcriber.

Many offshore companies will have a pay structure based on line count. If a patient medical record contains 50 – 60 minutes of audio file, the maximum number of lines of the text document will be 500 to 600 lines. For each line of transcript a particular amount is charged for good quality documentation. Currently the offshore companies like India, Philippines, Kenya and Pakistan charges 8 – 10 cents per line of transcription. If you go for US based medical transcription companies or in-house transcriptionist, the pay for medical transcriptionist would be around 20 – 30 cents per line.

Since the medical transcriptionist pay is way too meager, you can finish off your medical transcription deal within $250 to $500 from an offshore service provider. Though various medical transcription companies offer cost effective transcription services, it is better to select the best one who offer excellent quality transcript and a faster turn around time.

What is medical transcription – An overview:
Medical transcription is the process of converting audio files of patient’s medical records into electronic document format. The audio files to be converted into text are dictations of physicians. These dictations include patient health records, operation reports, assessments, clinical or lab procedures, diagnosis, prognosis, office notes and clinic notes.

Who is a professional medical transcriber?
Anyone with certification or diploma on medical transcription will not qualify as a professional medical transcriber. The medical transcriptionist should possess few skills that are mandatory in the field of documentation of patient health records.

A proficient medical transcriptionist should hold graduation from a reputed college, graduation on science studies is preferred. They should have flawless knowledge on written English communication. The most essential skill of a medical transcriptionist is the great listening skills and having keen eye on details. Only then he can produce quality medical transcription

What is online medical transcription program?
Many institutes offer online medical transcription course with certifications and diploma. These online medical transcription programs can be conducted and learned from anywhere in the world. It is a virtual teaching program where the student can enroll themselves in the online medical transcription program and proceed with the learning part on their convenient hours of the day. These courses are much helpful for college going graduates and housewives.

Online medical transcription program can promise that they can teach you the entire medical transcription process and coaching within 4 to 6 weeks. You have to be aware of these types of institutes since these might be scams and they are out there just for grabbing quick money.

A good online medical transcription program should give you exposure on live files of doctor’s dictations and it should teach you the medical terminologies of various specialties. You can be a proficient medical transcriptionist only with exposure and experience on the live job you take up at clinics, hospitals or with individual practitioners.

If you want to enroll in any of the online medical transcription programs, you have to make sure to discuss with the students who has already enrolled in the program or completed the online medical transcription program offered by that particular institution.

You have to thoroughly go through the course contents, study materials and other reference books offered by the institutions that offer online medical transcription program. These security measures have to be taken in order to avoid locking up ourselves at a wrong place and wasting our valuable time, money and efforts.