Is Medical Transcription For You?
You can usually find these ads in huge billboards along EDSA and the classified ads section of your favorite broadsheet almost every Sunday, the promise of earning BIG amount of money working at home as an MT. But is it true? Are people making P50,000 to P70,000 a month in medical transcription? The truth of the matter is, YES, there are some people who are indeed making good money in medical transcription from home. But what the ads fail to inform us is that before they became home-based MTs, they were previously employed in a corporate setting and earned the quality and productivity one needs to be able to work from home. Quality is by far the foremost requirement in any MT company, but what they also fail to divulge is that you should be able to do a certain number of lines before you can confidently say that you can earn as much as these home-based MTs. For example, if you are only able to do around 350 to 400 lines and would want to work at home, you think that these lines are enough for you to earn let’s say P50,000? Think again! Your lines per day may not even be enough to pay for your DSL connection, computer maintenance, electricity, and other daily expenses. You need at least 1000 lines a day, six days a week before you can confidently claim to earn what an experienced MT is earning in a home-based setting.
Another factor to consider is how often you are able to work as a home-based MT. We must always put in mind that working at home is STILL WORK. You still have to turn in an equitable amount of time to be able to earn. Cooking, laundry and taking care of the baby amongst other chores at home is not part of your working time and should be planned well so as not to affect your turn around time and productivity. In a corporate setting, if you do not feel well and would have to absent yourself from work, you just have to inform your office and file a sick leave (if you still have leave credits) and still get paid. But in a home-based setting, if you get sick and unable to work, you don’t get paid and what’s more, if you are a habitual procrastinator your account might not last long with you and leave you with no work at all, what then? Also, MT work is seasonal in that it varies in terms of health-care utilization whatever the weather. What if your account has a high utilization only during their summer season, what of the other times? Where does that leave you?
All things considered, at the end of the day, what is important is you got into this career because you liked it (I loved it!) and not because of its false promises of earning big.
After all these brouhaha about earning big and being trained for just four months or so . . . what now? Do you now know how it feels to work as an MT? Are you having a difficult time with MT work because you have to listen to this mumbling and fumbling dictators day in and day out, eight-hours a day, six days a week? Do you feel very tired at the end of an 8-hour shift just sitting down and transcribing away on the computer? Were you able to achieve your quota for the day? What about your quality? You think you could do this work at home now? On your own?
Me? I know I can, that is why MT is for ME. What about you?
