If you want to be any kind of medical transcriber you should understand what a clinical assessment is and how to transcribe one. Once someone is admitted to a hospital or outpatient mental health facility, and also upon discharge, a complete clinical examination is conducted.
A clinical assessment in the form of a review report or discharge summary is likely to be part of your work as a psychological medical transcriber. Medical transcription is challenging and fascinating.
In order to work as a medical transcriber, you will need a great deal of medical knowledge and great attention to detail. To learn more about how to start this career, continue reading below.
What Is A Medical Transcriber?
Mental health transcription services are given to patients by physicians, psychologists, and other mental health providers. Still, their needs vary significantly from most medical careers.
Since they deal with the context and state of a patient’s mental well-being, their clinical reports are much more complicated than most professions. Usually, they contain longer descriptions rather than traditional medical words or sentences.
Their reports also contain American slang or phrases that may not be understood by non-native English speakers.
It is then essential for mental health practitioners to wisely select a company that offers mental health transcription services to prevent low-quality or inaccurate patient notes. For example, choosing an American transcription company is our suggestion, as opposed to an off-shore or “BPO” service.
Since providers may use slang terms or phrases that are not as popular or well-known in other countries, mistakes occur with foreign organizations, particularly in mental health transcription. That makes it difficult for the international transcription company to get the correct transcription for mental health evaluations.
How To Get Started
Employers typically prefer to hire transcription workers who have completed a medical transcription associate degree or certificate program.
Such programs provide students with an introduction and basic understanding of medical terminology, body structures, healthcare documentation and transcription, and methods of transcription in different healthcare settings such as urology, orthopedics, neurology, or gynecology.
Usually, such programs are delivered at vocational or career schools, and several colleges provide these programs online.
You need to gain experience, too. Many medical transcription education programs include on-the-job supervised experience in which students gain additional knowledge about medical terminology, report formatting, transcription style, professional issues, and other essential facets of the industry.
Students in programs that do not provide real-world experience can also pursue internships in medical transcription or apprenticeship positions at local transcription firms or healthcare facilities.
Moreover, you also need to acquire different certifications. A medical transcriptionist certification is voluntary. However, earning such certifications helps transcriptionists improve their career opportunities because employers know applicants are trained transcription experts.
Two essential industry certifications are available from the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI). They are the Registered Healthcare Documentation Specialist (RHDS) and Certified Healthcare Documentation Specialist (CHDS) certifications.
Conclusion
The RHDS credential is for new graduates of education programs or transcriptionists who have fewer than two years of work experience working in a single healthcare field such as radiology or as a private practitioner.
More than 57,400 medical transcriptionists were employed in the USA in 2016. Hospitals used 28 percent of all transcriptionists, with the same number of transcriptionists working in administrative roles and support.
Just under one-fifth of all transcriptionists work in the offices of the physicians. Click here to learn more jobs related to science.
Also read – How to Become a Successful Medical Technologist
Also read – How to Become a Virtual Medical Transcriptionist