Medical transcription is the process of turning the spoken words of medical professionals into text for documents and reports. The process can be difficult and many of the individuals that transcribe these voice recordings, called medical transcriptionists, must undergo a training program to be able to perform this job effectively. Much of the information transcribed is patient information, so the transcriptionist has to be not only accurate, but discreet and professional as well. After the individual has completed the medical transcription program, there are many places that they can turn to for employment.

One of the places that employ large number of medical transcriptionists is local and regional hospitals. Hospitals typically see a huge volume of patients on a daily basis and need to retain information on each of these patients. In order to cut down on the amount of time that the physician needs to see each patient, the physician typically dictates the information about the patient and any treatment methods used into a voice recorder to later be transcribed by the medical transcriptionists and converted into an electronic text file. This is necessary so that if the patient ever needs to return to the hospital, their information can be found quickly and easily by the next attending physician.

Another place that typically employs medical transcriptionists is doctor's offices that have more than a couple doctors in residence. These doctor's offices find that it is more cost effective and timely to hire a medical transcriptionist than to contract the service out to a company. This is not limited only to doctors though. Dentists, therapists, and laboratories all may choose to hire a medical transcriptionist for the office instead of contracting to have their voice recordings transcribed by an independent contractor or company. This reduces the time needed to receive their written transcriptions and any confusion or issues can be taken care of immediately.

There are several companies that hire medical transcriptionists to do medical transcription on a contracted basis. These companies typically serve smaller doctor, dentist, and therapist offices. These individuals typically do not have a high volume of medical transcription work to be done so they choose to contract the work out rather than hire someone of their own. This keeps the costs for the transcription work that they do need completed lower than if they hired someone to perform the job in their office. There are many different employment opportunities for a trained qualified medical transcriptionist and a good transcriptionist can choose where they would like to be employed.