Comparison of Office and Hospital Transcription

By Mary Morken
My first impression of transcription was that there were two major types of dictation: office and clinic visits, and hospital inpatient records. In three years online, I've never seen this discussed. Hope you will add to my list.

Hospital: The basic four: H&P's (or admission notes), consultation reports, operative reports and discharge summaries. Some tests, few letters. Few addresses needed.

Office: Often MT provides printing, sometimes paper, sometimes delivery. Includes printing of envelopes.

Hospital typing: Usually printed in the hospital, usually on digital system with no delivery.

Office: Pays more, easier faster typing but stricter proofreading, but paper and delivery are costs. Usually more personal relating to doctors, at least by written notes.

Hospital: Pays less, harder typing but more errors tolerated, but no paper or delivery required, more straight transcription. More impersonal, may never meet doctors or even be able to write notes.

Office: Daily visits of the same kinds of problems. Can be peaceful but after hospital typing can seem trivial and boring.

Hospital: Acute care, very sick and dying patients. Variety and sense of importance of care, but depressing.

Mary, I have to disagree with one thing, at least the hospital I work at. Our standards for quality are quite strict, only one typo per page and no medical errors. My supervisor randomly selects four reports every pay period from each of the MTs to do a quality check on.

Also, at our hospital, besides the basic four, we type all the diagnostics: EEG, EMG, polysomnogram, pulmonary function tests, stress tests, echocardiograms, cardiac catheterizations, pathology, radiology. I think the only thing we don't handle is the lab results and administration! Oh, we also type emergency notes, autopsies (not too many of those, thank God!), labor and delivery notes and dialysis notes.

I think our pay is pretty decent, and I also get a nice shift differential for working second shift ($1.75 an hour) and weekends ($1.25 an hour). We have an incentive program for producing a certain amount of work, and since I happen to transcribe fast, I make money with that, too. I enjoy working with the other women who share the same love and fascination for words in general and medical words in particular. The only drawback for me is that I would like to be home with my five children more, but I have to work 30 hours a week at the hospital to get full benefits, so there I am!