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Today is the third and final section in the medical transcription survey. We looked at the role of a medical transcriptionist, and we looked at how we view professional associations. The last section asked questions about the future of medical transcription and how medical transcriptionists view the future of the profession.
What is the Biggest Risk to Traditional Transcription?
In this section, the respondents felt the biggest risk was speech recognition technology at 47.9%. Among the answers, 31% indicated they feel it is the electronic health record, 32.4% said the use of scribes to create healthcare documentation, and 26.8% selected other. In the things listed in the "other" category, many were the same. Some said acceptance of poor quality documentation and the use of speech recognized files as the final document. Some said they felt offshore transcription is the biggest threat (with one person adding they believe this is what creates lower wages for all Mts). Some said a lack of recognition for what the medical transcriptionist does and the knowledge we bring to the table. Another comment I found interesting was that MTs will drop out of the profession because the level of knowledge required is too high for the low compensation we are paid.
One thing I found interesting here is that almost 50% picked speech recognition as the greatest threat to the role of traditional transcription, and yet another section showed that 50% of the respondents aren't using this technology at all. I wonder if that doesn't correlate to the fear of a loss of income with technology that we know is coming? I almost see the electronic record and the scribes issue as one in the same. Not completely, because there are a lot of practices going to a check box system and not using a scribe. They are definitely connected, though. One thing that struck me was the comment about MTs leaving the field. We do see that below and when someone said in this section that MTs will leave, I was reminded of a comment on an earlier post that talked about the inability to train new graduates. What does that mean happens? All things to think about!
Is an Alternative Career Path the Answer?
It appears many think so. While 53.5% say they are not exploring an alternative career, 46.5% responded that they are doing just that, with 12.7% of those saying they are looking outside of the healthcare industry. When asked what they are exploring, there were several responses about coding and healthcare informatics, information technology. The responses outside of the healthcare industry included dance instruction, accounting, psychology, and herbal consulting. There were also some who shared their concern that the opportunities are becoming less and less and they had concerns about their ability to work from home in the future.
This again correlates to what we see above. With such a high percentage exploring alternatives other than medical transcription, and with 12.7% of those even looking outside the healthcare industry all together, I think it paints a picture of how secure (or insecure) we feel about our profession. On the other hand, it is still a majority of those who responded who said they are not exploring anything else. I'm also always fascinated by the things people say they want to do if it's not medical transcription. Imagine teaching dance all day long, now I happen to think that might be a really fun job. While I do love to mess with things in Excel, I personally couldn't do accounting all day long. Psychology has always fascinated me, but I'm not sure I could listen to someone else's problems all day long in a counselor role. Herbal consulting, gosh, my husband would love that. No matter what it is, I'm thankful that someone wants to do all of those roles and always find it interesting to hear what MTs are interested in.
What Do We See Really?
Quite a few topics were covered in this survey. Here's a wrap up of what I think we learned:
- More than 50% have at least 10 years or more of experience in this profession, which tends to support that we don't have a lot of new folks coming into the profession.
- Primary work setting has definitely shifted to where the majority of MTs work for medical transcription services and not in hospitals and clinics.
- The role of "medical transcriptionist" is still the biggest use of our time, with only about 30% reporting that they are working with speech recognition editing. MTs still have opportunities in additional roles in things like quality assurance, recruiting, and management.
- Speech recognition is catching on more and more, however, there were still 51.4% who said they don't work in this technology at all.
- Medical transcriptionists continue to either work more than one job or work more than 40 hours a week, in almost 30% of the respondents. This one concerns me for both health reasons and the ability to have some balance in life.
- The credentials for medical transcriptionists haven't yet caught on, with 64.9% saying they have no credential at all.
- A good majority of us are working in situations where we do not have benefits, at 48.6%. In that same note, it was good to see some are actually getting higher pay rates if they have a credential, at 16.2%.
- For the majority of folks, income has either stayed the same (28.4%) or decreased (39.2%) in the last three years.
- When it comes to belonging to a professional organization, the majority just don't do that, at 57.7%.. And while our survey respondents did say they do belong to AHDI at 40.8%, that doesn't seem to be a number that translates to all MTs.
- MTs join organizations to network and get continuing education, as well as to be a part of something that makes a difference in their profession.
- We seem to be a pretty disenchanted group with the current options in professional associations, based on the responses about why we don't belong or why we leave. In that question, we learned that many don't feel it has made a difference or held a benefit for them, while others felt the needs of the individual MT are no longer addressed.
- What we want from a professional organization is really pretty simple: An advocate with employers (not a union, but advocacy, which is something very different), continuing education opportunities, exploring options related to low wages, information and education on technology and networking opportunities. We also want to be able to work with technology vendors as the technology changes our profession.
- Speech recognition and the electronic record (with the use of scribes) are seen as major threats to our traditional roles.
- Many of us are exploring alternative career paths.
Solutions?
Okay now it's up to you. I believe medical transcriptionists have some great ideas and it's time to hear what you see as solutions to all of these things. What's the answer? If you had any option in the world (okay, knowing that technology isn't going away), what things would you suggest to improve the lives of MTs? I look forward to some great dialogue here.
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