Hi 2manyhours,
Welcome! I will try to answer some of your questions. I was an MT for 19 years until my department was outsourced to a national company in October of 2010--just some background info about me.
That being said, I'll try to answer your questions.
1.Is working from home (working flexible hours)--is there such a thing?
Not if you work for a medical transcription service. They need people on at specific times to turn around the work at the rate that their contract indicates. For example, you might have some flexibility as far as maybe you can start between 7 and 9 and work your 8 hours, but most of them are pretty rigid.
If you work for yourself and get your own clients, you have more flexibility as far as when you can work, but you have to turn it around in a timely fashion and work until it is done.
2. Would clients rather have us work from home or be there?
The majority of transcription is done off site. Hospitals don't have office space for transcriptionists. I worked at home for a hospital before my job was outsourced.
3. I have seen where they want people to work "night shifts" versus "day shifts"? I do not understand...can anyone clarify?
Most companies are looking for 2nd shift (approximately 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.) and 3rd shift (approximately 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.) because the majority of people want to work days, so the people with the most seniority have first dibs at what schedule they want to work. Also, the hospitals want their work turned around in 12-24 hours so working at night accomplishes this.
Many companies outsource their transcription overseas where their days are our nights so the overseas MTs overwhelmingly work during their day. When I worked at the hospital I worked 3-11 which I liked, but if I had not wanted to work that shift I would not have been able to work day shift because about 75% of the MTs worked that shift and the others were short-handed. Those people had been there for a long time and had waited their turn to get that shift.
3.I thought you can request a certain amount of hours to work?
Most places don't give you a choice. Some don't even hire anything less than full time. There are some part-time positions available, but they are few and far between.
Also, it's hard to get speed up as a newbie working part time.
4.Because of being "a newbie" would it be better for me to not work from home? (for the experience)?
It would be as far as having someone to listen when you can't get something, but as I said, the majority of employers would have you working at home. At least you have internet access and you can leave the blanks for your employer to listen to. I started out in a hospital in 1992 and can't imagine not having someone there to listen when I got stuck. But, of course, as I said, there was no internet available at that time and no forums like this where you could ask questions.
I believe a lot of these transcription courses do paint a rosy picture (like the big money that can be made, the flexibility of the hours, etc.) when that is not what is not the reality of the profession, but their job is to sell their product so you can't blame them for putting a good spin on it. I've found that the really good programs don't have to do seminars--their reputation precedes them and word of mouth gets them plenty of students. Some of them even require an entrance exam to make sure you have the foundation of grammar, etc., required to succeed in this profession--in other words, it's not all about the money for them.
MTs are evolving into medical editors--I believe the statistic now is that only 20% of transcription is straight transcription--the rest is voice or speech recognition editing. I went to a presentation at a national convention 3 years ago and the speaker was from the transcription department at Vanderbilt Medical Center. At that time she said only 5% of their transcription was straight transcription--the rest was automated speech recognition (ASR [VR or SR). That is the way the profession is going, without a doubt. The software has gotten a lot better in the past 15 years so it is more cost-effective to go that route.
When hospitals want to cut costs, the first place they go is to transcription--it is not seen as a money-making department and is just a necessary evil. Some of them don't appear to even care about the quality of the transcription, as long as they can get it done as cheaply as possible.
One way MT companies cut their expenses is by increasing the required number of lines transcribed per hour. That way, if they offer an incentive if someone transcribes/edits over X amount, more people will be unable to meet the requirement to get the incentive. Production appears to be paramount in this business now, and quality is often sacrificed in the process.
The good news is that you newbies don't have any memory of days where one could actually make a decent wage doing MT, so perhaps you won't miss it. For those of us who do remember, it is discouraging that we are paid so little for what we are required to know to do this job. Example: I was offered 8 cents a line by the company that took over the MT department at the hospital where I worked. In 1996 I was making 7 cents a line. Think about how necessities like food and gas have gone up exponentially since then and you will see how the seasoned MTs see the field these days.
Hope this helped--not meaning to be a downer, just a realist. There ARE jobs out there for newbies, as you can see by reading some of the other posts. It takes a lot of perseverance and time to get one, but part of that is a result of the soft economy these days.
_________________________
kkb (Karyn), who considered herself a newbie after 18 years doing MT and even though she is no longer working in the field, still remembers what it was like to be a newbie!
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