I am currently in the middle of a 6 class certification to be a Transcriptionist. I have had so many people in the medical field tell me that I need to think about doing something else because voice recognition is going to take over the transcription jobs soon. (Which my teacher says won't happen, but she is also getting paid to teach us how to transcribe, so why on earth would she say differently!?) Well I don't have ANY ideas on what to do now. I have a 15 month old and a 9 week old and I want to stay home with them so badly. My husband is serving in the ARNG and tried to go active duty Army when we were married but they aren't accepting any prior service. Basically we're broke! I can't sell cakes from my home, so this isn't an option. The only experience I have is in daycares, but the pay in a daycare is absolute crap, I would end up barely covering the cost of having the boys in daycare. Does anyone have any other solutions/advice about what I could do for work, I was only doing Transcription so I could still be a SAHM... Any advice? Thanks ladies!

First are their any job hirings for it in your area? If there are, I think I'd probably continue with the classes. Have you paid for all of them?

If anything it may be a job you can work at while you are looking for something else.

I am a new medical transcriptionist myself. I was actually lucky enough to find a gal in my town that had accounts with the local clinics. I would check in your local phone book under medical transcription and see if anyone has such a set up in your town. My problem was that the lady who hired me sold her business after 10 months. That was in January. I am starting this Friday back up with another local lady. There was also a temp agency that had a few medical accounts. Check around... I would stay local if possible, those big companies are hard to get into and I hear they are kind of a nightmare. With local, you pretty much get the same doctor each day, so it becomes really easy to understand and get to know what they are saying. Good luck!

The only problem with local here is they all want you to stay in house for at least 6 months some longer. And the other problem is my classes are expensive, I was looking at this as something I can do for the rest of my life! I'm only 23, my teacher even made a comment that "well, it might be going to voice recognition but that wont be until we're all retired" errr... everyone in my class was over 40, probably over 45 except me. I have a feeling she wasn't talking about my retirement. I have thought about keeping kids at my house, I wouldn't have to have a license or anything like that but then what do you do on days your kids have a doctor appt or are sick? My MIL did this when her kids were growing up and she had problems with people not paying too. Not sure this is a great idea... I thought about going and getting my certification in Phlebotomy but I'm not sure that is an open field either. I know that it's really hard to get a job at any of our HP around here right now.

As far as keeping kids in your home.........You would just pick a day of the week as your "Mommy day" (days that you run errands, take kids to docs, etc) and if people need you to have their kids that day, then you tell them what you do on that day and if they don't mind their kid being "in tow" then so be it! It's not like you're going to have a doc visit EVERY week right?

As far as payment goes....around here ALL the home daycare people require payment in advance........meaning you are paid by Sunday if you plan to bring your kid Monday morning! You don't pay, your kid doesn't come inside!

The hard part I THINK, would be sticking to it. The premise sounds reasonable though. That way you are guaranteed payment ahead of time, maybe make a hefty "late payment" if it runs a week late, and anything over that your kid doesn't come...something like that?

That's a very good idea KHalstead, I just have a hard time standing my ground but I would certainly have to stand my ground because I think once someone has realized they can pay late and not have a late payment fee they will keep doing it and I DONT want to be in that situation! :] Now I have to find kids to watch. lol

while voice recognition has improved tremendously, it's far from perfect.

even 1 word wrong could be disaster.

and is it really the best use of a doctor's time.

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here's a little slide show to ally your fears:
http://www.slideshare.net/Acroseas/linkedin-presentation-3

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even IF they do dictate it and the machine transcribes it, someone has to review and edit it.

Doug! Thank you I went through and read that slide show and some of the others. That has eased my fears a little although I'm still wondering if the SR technology is enough to cut down on work and salary! I have taken the basic classes but not the more specialized transcription classes, so I could switch to Medical Coding and Billing if I wanted to... I have no clue what it is really! Lol Decisions decisions!

why don't u run your own daycare? Head Start will pay you and provide u with kids if you ran your own through them, plus they provide stipends for food, toys, etc. I was looking into this but you have to be in the process of taking a few child development classes. I have a BA and really don't want to do more school!

I am currently in the fifth and final course of my home-study Medical Transcriptionist class. I am taking the same course as 4 other ladies (3 of them family members, the 4th a good friend) and we meet at my sister's house on Sundays to study together.

We found a local woman who took the same course that we are taking. She has meet with us a couple times to let us know how things were going with her business. She is working for a company that is out-of-state. One of the girls that is in our group recently completed her course and this lady has contacted her to let her know that the company she is working for is expanding their business and in need of more transcriptionist so she has contacted them for employment.

Even if voice dictation comes into play, we don't feel that ALL small clinics or doctor's offices would be able to afford the high expense of the software plus the person it would take to use it.

Medical transcription is a position that you can do for offices that are in different states. Local work is not necessary.

Don't give up on your classes.