Medical Assistants Recognition Day 2024 is on Tuesday, October 22, 2024: What is the typical work day like for someone in the medical transcription field?

Tuesday, October 22, 2024 is Medical Assistants Recognition Day 2024. Medical Assistants Recognition Day Medical Assistants Recognition

Medical transcriptionists listen to dictated recordings made by physicians and other health care professionals and transcribe them into medical reports, correspondence, and other administrative material. They generally listen to recordings on a headset, using a foot pedal to pause the recording when necessary, and key the text into a personal computer or word processor, editing as necessary for grammar and clarity. The documents they produce include discharge summaries, history and physical examination reports, operative reports, consultation reports, autopsy reports, diagnostic imaging studies, progress notes, and referral letters. Medical transcriptionists return transcribed documents to the physicians or other health care professionals who dictated them for review and signature, or correction. These documents eventually become part of patients' permanent files.

To understand and accurately transcribe dictated reports into a format that is clear and comprehensible for the reader, medical transcriptionists must understand medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, diagnostic procedures, pharmacology, and treatment assessments. They also must be able to translate medical jargon and abbreviations into their expanded forms. To help identify terms appropriately, transcriptionists refer to standard medical reference materials—both printed and electronic; some of these are available over the Internet. Medical transcriptionists must comply with specific standards that apply to the style of medical records, in addition to the legal and ethical requirements involved with keeping patient information confidential.

Experienced transcriptionists spot mistakes or inconsistencies in a medical report and check to correct the information. Their ability to understand and correctly transcribe patient assessments and treatments reduces the chance of patients receiving ineffective or even harmful treatments and ensures high-quality patient care.

Currently, most health care providers transmit dictation to medical transcriptionists using either digital or analog dictating equipment. The Internet has grown to be a popular mode for transmitting documentation. Many transcriptionists receive dictation over the Internet and are able to quickly return transcribed documents to clients for approval. Another increasingly popular method utilizes speech recognition technology, which electronically translates sound into text and creates drafts of reports. Reports are then formatted; edited for mistakes in translation, punctuation, or grammar; and checked for consistency and any possible medical errors. Transcriptionists working in areas with standardized terminology, such as radiology or pathology, are more likely to encounter speech recognition technology. However, use of speech recognition technology will become more widespread as the technology becomes more sophisticated.

Medical transcriptionists who work in physicians' offices may have other office duties, such as receiving patients, scheduling appointments, answering the telephone, and handling incoming and outgoing mail. Medical secretaries, discussed in the statement on secretaries and administrative assistants elsewhere in the Handbook, also may transcribe as part of their jobs. Court reporters, also discussed elsewhere in the Handbook, have similar duties, but with a different focus. They take verbatim reports of speeches, conversations, legal proceedings, meetings, and other events when written accounts of spoken words are necessary for correspondence, records, or legal proof.

For more information on a career as a medical transcriptionist, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: American Association for Medical Transcription, 100 Sycamore Ave., Modesto, CA 95354-0550. Internet:

Are virtual assistants and medical transcriptions making any money these days?

@ Common sense: I'm a currently employed medical transcriptionist for a major hospital...as I have been for 24 years. I make $22/hour PLUS incentive pay for any lines typed over my daily requirement...which in my case, because I type 102 wpm...usually comes out to an extra 500-700$ a month....your information is what's obsolete. Voice recognition software is only good for small practices...it's useless in a large (1200 bed) teaching institution like the one I work for, where many of the doctors are ESL (English as a second language) Not to mention, the physicians do NOT have the time or desire to self-edit their dictations...which is an aboslute requirement with voice recognition.

Do you think marijuana will be legal in the USA some day? If so when?

.Hard to say, I mean how do you police the people that police the people. Marijuana is a schedule I drug, meaning that it has no accepted medical use and is only available for research under the most restrictive conditions provided by federal regulations. Recognition of marijuana’s accepted medical use by 15 states would enable the DEA to place marijuana in a less restrictive schedule, enabling increased research, patient access, and establishing a federal regulatory context for state medical marijuana programs. In order to be classified a schedule I drug the drug has to 1. have a high potential for addition 2. No accepted medical use in the united states 3. lack of safety. However, We know marijuana has no business being a schedule 1 drug because A. anything that feels good has a potential for addiction. B. Marijuana is medically legal in 15 states. C. It's impossible to overdose on it. In 1970, Congress placed cannabis into Schedule I on the advice of Assistant Secretary of Health Roger O. Egeberg. His letter to Harley O. Staggers, Chairman of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, indicates that the classification was intended to be provisional. In 1972, the commission on marijuana and drug abuse released a report favoring decriminalization of cannabis. The Nixon administration took no action to implement the recommendation, however. A protracted struggle ensued in which cannabis reform activists began working through all three branches of government to reschedule the drug.

The United States Code, under Section 811 of Title 21, sets out a process by which cannabis could be administratively transferred to a less-restrictive category or removed from Controlled Substances Act regulation altogether. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) evaluates petitions to reschedule cannabis. However, the Controlled Substances Act gives the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as successor agency of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, great power over rescheduling decisions.

After the DEA accepts the filing of a petition, the agency must request from the HHS Secretary "a scientific and medical evaluation, and his recommendations, as to whether such drug or other substance should be so controlled or removed as a controlled substance." The Secretary's findings on scientific and medical issues are binding on the DEA. The HHS Secretary can even unilaterally legalize cannabis: "If the Secretary recommends that a drug or other substance not be controlled, the Attorney General shall not control the drug or other substance." 21 U.S.C. § 811b.

Cannabis could be rescheduled either legislatively, through Congress, or through the executive branch. The Congress has so far rejected all bills to reschedule cannabis. However, it is not unheard of for the Congress to intervene in the drug scheduling process; in February 2000, for instance, the 105th Congress, in its second official session, passed Public Law 106-172, also known as the Hillory J. Farias and Samantha Reed Date-Rape Drug Prohibition Act of 2000, adding GHB to Schedule I.

The Controlled Substances Act also provides for a rulemaking process by which the United States Attorney General can reschedule cannabis administratively. These proceedings represent the only means of legalizing medical cannabis without an act of any Congress. Rescheduling supporters have often cited the lengthy petition review process as a reason why cannabis is still illegal. The first petition took 22 years to review, and the second took 7 years. In 2002, the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis filed a third petition. A final decision on the rescheduling petition is supposed to be made by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). As acting DEA Administrator, Michele Leonhart has had the rescheduling petition on her desk for three years but has so far failed to respond. “It’s time to end the delay,” says Coalition spokesman Jon Gettman, adding, “The government has had eight years to consider this petition, during which the evidence for marijuana’s medical efficacy has only grown.” Michele Leonhart has consistently turned down research into the therapeutic and medicinal benefits of marijuana, and has a track record of undermining state law with regard to legal medical marijuana. Recently several pro-legalisation agencies have called on President Obama to withdraw his support of Leonhart, including SSDP, MPP, NORML, LEAP, and DPA. Many people point to Leonhart's claim that marijuana caused her cousin's death as root of her opposition. “I’m a big fan of the DEA,” said Sessions, before asking Leonhart point blank if she would fight medical marijuana legalization. “I have seen what marijuana use has done to young people, I have seen the abuse, I have seen what it’s done to families. It’s bad,” Leonhart said. “If confirmed as administrator, we would continue to enforce the federal drug laws.”