Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The ABCs (and 123s) Of Discovering How Much Your Medical Transcriptionist Salary Might Be: A How-To Guide

By Susan Eliot

When people think about medical transcription, they usually think about the money involved. As with any job, you are probably wondering what your pay is going to be. Unfortunately, there are not many people who choose to do something simply because it makes them feel good about themselves. The good thing about medical transcription is that most people decide to do it because they hear it pays well and as a bonus, end up enjoying the job.

There are several different ways to go about calculating what your medical transcriptionist salary might be. The whole process can be kind of tricky because your salary is going to depend on several different things. One of the first things that will determine how much you will make is whether or not you are certified. Some companies will hire medical transcriptionists without any training at all. However, there are very few. Those that do will only pay around 3 to 5 cents per line or Cpl. This doesn't really add up to much unless you type exceptionally fast.

On average, medical transcriptionists will ordinarily type about 500 to 600 lines per day working part time, and 1000 to 1800 lines per day working full time. You will need to determine whether or not the company you are going to be working for pays for every 65 character line or for every 75 character line. Knowing this piece of information can make a huge difference in compensation. You will also need to know if your company counts spaces as part of the 65 or 75 character line count. Not counting spaces can result in a big decrease in pay. Unfortunately, there will inevitably be people getting paid way less than they should, but this can be changed quite quickly by applying to different companies or starting your own accounts.

Individuals who get certified and choose to work for a company will typically end up with a starting pay of 6 to 8 cents per line. Ordinarily, a company counts spaces and pays per every 65 character line. If you are only working part time and getting paid around 6 cents per line, this means you are only typing about 500 lines per day. So basically, you will make about $30.00 per day. Take the same amount of lines and increase the pay from 6 cpl to 8 cpl and you are going to be making $40.00 per day. If you schedule yourself to work five days per week, then you are looking at about an easy $200.00 per week. Not bad for a beginner working part time.

After about a year or so with a little bit of time, patience, experience, and increased speed, you are likely to get a raise. Most experienced medical transcriptionists make about 10 cpl. Someone working full time typing about 1500 lines per day will profit $150.00 per day. That comes up to $750.00 per week. Again, not bad for someone with a little bit of experience. Needless to say, the pay just continues to go up from there. Simply put, the more experience you have, the better the pay. Sky is the limit for medical transcription.

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