Boomer
Retirement Impact on Medical Transcription and the Health Care
Industry
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Medical transcription has been under siege by off-shoring
and technology advances for the last several decades. However,
there is a perfect storm brewing — and it is just now beginning
to arrive at our shores. Just when the pundits were ready
to give up on the medical transcription industry, the tidal
wave of baby boom retirees is officially upon us.
The baby boom generation has typically been defined as individuals
born in the United States between 1946 and 1964. In the years
following World War II, the United States experienced a sharp
increase in births. This high birth rate trend continued relatively
unabated for almost two decades. After 1964, there was a precipitous
drop off in the birth rate. The following 20 years brought
about a baby bust with relatively few babies born by comparison.
This sharp generational contrast in birth rates has much
to do with the hype surrounding the baby boom generation.
There are a lot of reasons that the baby boom generation matters.
Demographically, boomers make up a significant and influential
portion of the population. Perhaps most importantly, the earliest
baby boomers are now reaching retirement age. In 2011, those
born in 1946 will turn 65 and begin to usher in a new era
of social and economic upheaval that will sweep over the country
like a tsunami.
No where will the impact of the retiring boomer generation
be felt more acutely than in the health care arena. Health
care and medicare resources, currently operating at full capacity,
will feel the additional strain and burden of increasingly
large waves of elderly retirees over the next two decades.
Shortages of trained nurses, physicians, allied health professionals,
medical transcriptionists and medical coders, will create
both problems and opportunities.
Problems will arise as the population competes for increasingly
scarce health care resources. Opportunities will present themselves
for individuals willing to get the training needed to enter
the exploding health care field. Both the problems and the
opportunities will be magnified by the fact that many individuals
who are currently practicing in the health professions are
themselves part of the boomer retiring generation! As these
seasoned health practitioners exit the health care industry
en masse, wages will rise and the expenses of caring for the
aging population will increase exponentially.
Get ready!
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