Evolution of the Medical Transcription Industry
The Medical Transcription Industry has evolved significantly over the past several decades.  Much has changed since the early days when virtually 100% of medical transcription production was performed in hospitals and clinics and new employees received medical transcription training and mentoring on the job.  There are several notable trends that have contributed to this abrupt medical transcription industry transformation including:

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  1. Medical transcription is increasingly being outsourced to third party medical transcription service providers.  In fact, most credible estimates now suggest that the majority of medical transcription is outsourced to third party vendors and that economic forces and efficiency requirements are driving more and more healthcare providers to adopt an outsourced MT production model.  This means that a shrinking portion of the overall medical transcription production pool is being accomplished by hospital and healthcare staff.

  2. The volume of healthcare documentation has increased by an order of magnitude as a consequence of the aging population and other demographic and legal factors.  The sheer volume of daily reports has increased so much that the old production model was simply not adequate to meet the exponentially increasing demand.  Healthcare administrators have been literally forced to find alternative solutions, including digitizing voice and electronic records and outsourcing volume to third parties. Recent years have seen a relatively successful push to outsource medical transcription production to overseas organizations in an attempt to keep the industry from imploding under the weight of a burgeoning demand.

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  1. There has been a colossal increase in demand for immediate turnaround - or what the medical transcription industry refers to as “stat” medical transcription reports. Overall, MT turnaround and quality expectations have increased dramatically over the past several decades. This has required the creation and deployment of a very efficient medical transcription production machine operated with an increasingly sophisticated technology engine and fueled by a diverse army of medical transcription practitioners.  Medical transcription companies are staffed 24 hours per day and 7 days per week to meet the seemingly insatiable demands of the healthcare community.

  2. Evolving digital and internet technology has enabled the widespread remote production of medical transcription and allowed medical transcriptionists to work from their own homes – transcribing healthcare documents remotely.  Virtually 100% of the outsourced medical transcription industry relies on home based medical transcriptionists.  The few medical transcriptionists that do not work from home are generally employed in hospital settings or by small to mid-sized medical clinics.

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  1. Medical transcriptionists are now almost exclusively paid on production – almost never by the hour.  The success of the work at home model relies on a pay-for-production wage structure.  It is not reasonable to expect MT’s to be self motivated working from home on an hourly wage arrangement.  Medical transcription service providers have created a perfectly efficient production model which rewards each transcriptionist in exact proportion to their level of contribution – and without the need for costly management oversight.  Basically, MT’s, particularly those working from home, are paid by the line of transcribed production.  Quality control is all centralized and MT’s are rewarded or penalized by level of quality.  It is a self policing and self leveling system that has added an incalculable degree of efficiency to the medical transcription industry.

The medical transcription industry continues to evolve.  The trends outlined above have had a major impact on the medical transcription industry and the various industry employees and stakeholders.  Medical Transcription practitioners, supervisors, quality control specialists, physicians, and patients alike have all benefited and have all been forced to adapt to these trends in the medical transcription industry.

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