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Medical transcription is one of the hot work at home jobs out there. Many people do medical transcription for a company, but you can do it on a freelance basis too. The advantage to this is that you have the potential to earn more money.
We’ll assume for the moment that you have your medical transcription training. If not, head on over to the medical transcription resources at Home with the Kids for a quick overview of the training you will need. This is not something you can just jump into or expect an employer to train you. These are people’s medical records you’ll be dealing with, so great training, a professional attitude and exceptional accuracy are required.
Finding your first freelance medical transcription job can be a challenge. You need to create a letter you can send to doctors in your area telling them about your training and any experience you may have. You need to sell them on your abilities.
An alternative is to check freelance sites such as Freelance Work Exchange. Yes, they do cost money, but it’s a great way to get in contact with people who are actually in the process of looking for freelancers.
Make sure you know what rates to charge. These will depend on things like your experience and what is expected of you. Are you printing reports out or delivering them by disk or a secure internet connection? What turnaround time will you agree to?
You will also need some equipment. More and more companies are going to internet connections, but there are still those that prefer Dictaphones and/or tapes. If you’re going the freelance route you’ll need to know what equipment you’ll use and how you’ll get the dictation and return the reports.
If you need to learn more about running your own medical transcription business, I recommend buying The Step by Step Guide to Medical Transcription at Home. It goes into more detail than I can go into here on the process, and was written by a medical transcriptionist with a great deal of experience in running her own medical transcription business.