The
Future of the Medical Transcription Industry and Medical Transcription
Jobs
Free Info on our recommended Medical Transcription Program leading to an exciting home based medical transcription career
There has been a lot of talk lately about the future of medical
transcription. As the trends of off-shoring and voice recognition
pick up steam and threaten to displace traditional jobs in the
US, what is to become of the profession? It is a logical question.
The reality is that MT jobs continue to enjoy high demand
in the marketplace. In fact, they are a critical component
of the most stable and rapidly growing segment of our economy.
Healthcare! As the global economic recession deepens, healthcare
may prove to be one of the only resilient segments of the
US economy over the next 4 or 5 years.
Every day it seems that there are new announcements of bankruptcies
and layoffs affecting tens of thousands of people. When was
the last time you heard about mass layoffs in the healthcare
industry? You don't and you never will - at least not for
the next several decades as the baby boom population blossoms
into full retirement and demands an extraordinary volume of
healthcare services. The interesting thing to note - and a
fact not readily discussed by many in the medical transcription
industry is that the average age of active practicing transcriptionists
is somewhere in the mid 40's. That is the average. This means
that a very large portion of the active MT population is poised
to retire and exit the industry in the next 5 - 10 years.
Guess what? Those jobs don't just go away. All of those positions
will need to be replaced. What is more, these seasoned practitioners
are among the most productive asset the industry has. They
produce an output of medical reports that is sometimes 2 to
4 times the average production for new graduates who are just
entering the career field. This means that the industry will
need not ONE, but possibly two or three new recent graduates
to fill EACH of these positions.This spells job opportunity
for prospective new students considering entering this fast
growing medical transcription career field.
Unfortunately, it could also spell disaster for the healthcare
industry if it doesn't begin to take steps now to attract
new talent into the industry. Some of this problem has already
begun to materialize and regardless of what your opinion is
on offshoring, the offshore production of some of the domestic
US transcription workload has saved the industry and bought
some precious time to find a more permanent solution to the
acute personnel deficit. However, it will not continue to
mitigate the deficit in the US market indefinitely. Vacant
jobs will have to be filled as older MT's retire and exit
the industry.
Voice recognition has also played a role in mitigating the
MT personnel deficit. And while voice recognition technology
is finding a place in the industry, it's role thus far has
been to augment the transcription process by giving transcriptionists
a new and more favorable starting point for production. It
has in no way delivered the silver bullet MT replacement that
some have been hailing for decades now. What we are seeing
and what we will continue to see as the adoption of the technology
accelerates, is that the role of a growing subset of the MT
community will be transformed. The work of transcripionists
in the future will increasingly be that of medical language
editor; beginning with a document that has been processed
through a speech recognition software engine.
But in the end, the anticipated surge of baby boom retirees
will simply be too large to ignore. It is a problem that requires
a serious and relatively immediate solution. What is more,
the aging population consumes an exponentially large portion
of available care services and resources. Which means, that
as the aging population swells over the next decade, every
facet of the healthcare industry will be strained. Medical
records jobs will increase in both volume and importance over
the next decade. Individuals who are adaptable and capable
of stepping into new roles as the industry continues to morph
will benefit substantially by training now for entry into
this fast growing and rapidly changing industry.
Free Info on our recommended Medical Transcription Program leading to an exciting home based medical transcription career
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