When medical transcription is chosen as a career, many want to work at home. They also want to learn to be a medical transcriptionist at home. Why go through more trouble to go to school than you would to go to work? Much better to do both at home when you can.

Studying at home doesn’t mean you can go easy on which training program you choose. The work is challenging, and your education should be good enough that you can handle it.

As a matter of fact, how well you cope with an online medical transcription course is one indicator for how well you will do working at home. If the self guided study and lack of supervision don’t work well for you, you probably won’t thrive working at home either.

Step 1: Evaluate your skills.

I don’t mean your transcription skills. You’ll learn those during your training program. But before you start that, you need excellent grammar, a great vocabulary and be able to type at least 40 wpm. You should also be very detail oriented.

Without these skills you will not thrive as a medical transcriptionist, and the training will take much longer than it should. If your skills aren’t up to par, work on them before you consider learning medical transcription.

Step 2: Choose a school.

I prefer online medical transcription schools personally. The most highly recommended ones are all online programs. If you want to work at home you’ll need the practice in that while you learn to be a transcriptionist.

Go for quality, not just price. Landing a job more easily can make up the difference between a cheap and low quality school versus a more expensive and higher quality one.

That doesn’t mean price is the one factor to consider. You want to learn from a school that employers respect. One whose graduates often find work within a reasonable time frame. One that prepares you for the real work of a medical transcriptionist. A partnership with certain employers is a good sign that those employers will consider you after graduation if they have any jobs available. No guarantees, of course.

Request information from your preferred schools. Check the AHDI Approved list of medical transcription training programs. Pick the one that is right for you.

Step 3: Enroll.

After reviewing all the schools you’re considering, pick the right one and get started. Don’t get lost in all the information. The sooner you enroll, the sooner you will finish your training and be able to look for work.

Step 4. Study hard.

Learning medical transcription is hard work. The vocabulary is extensive. If you don’t have a medical background already, there will be a lot of unfamiliar terminology. You will learn how to format medical reports and transcribe hours and hours of real doctor dictation. This is necessary to become a qualified medical transcriptionist.