Finding Affordable Transcription for Interviews, Focus Groups, Conferences and More

You may have been conducting research interviews, focus groups, market research, but whatever your reason for recording conversations you?ll be looking for an affordable transcription service. There are many transcription services available but sometimes an affordable transcription service can seem hard to find. Transcription is not cheap, because it is a lot more involved than copy typing, but that doesn?t mean you can?t find an affordable transcription service, and by providing good quality recordings you can make the transcription more affordable, as it will take less time to complete.

You may have planned to do the transcription yourself, but if you are not a fast touch-typist and do not have specialist transcription equipment then you have probably now realised that it?s going to take you a very long time. I have had clients come to me saying it was taking them 20 hours to produce a transcript of a 1-hour recording. That?s why they ended up using a transcription service!

The most important thing to remember is that it?s just not possible to type as fast as you speak. Even an experienced transcriptionist will be able to average four times as long for a good, clear one-to-one interview ? so an hour of recording will take an average of four hours to transcribe. A focus group may take six hours or more per hour of recording. (Industry standards obtained from the Industry Production Standards Guide (I998), published by OBC, Columbus, OH, USA) Transcriptionists also have to make sense of what?s being said, punctuate the speech correctly and use the right homophones (words like there/their/they?re that sound the same but are spelt differently.)

So how can you make sure that your transcript is clear, in order to get an affordable transcription price? Basically, the easier you make the transcription for the transcriptionist, the more likely they are to be able to give you an affordable transcription quote.

First of all, use the best recording equipment you can afford, and make sure it?s fit for purpose. This means that for interviews you should record with an external microphone rather than one built into the recorder, which is only designed to pick up one voice dictating. For focus groups you should have several microphones so that all participants are close to a mike.

If you?re conducting interviews then, if at all possible, conduct them in a quiet room, as background noise will dramatically increase the time taken to transcribe the recording, as the transcriptionist may have to listen to sections several times in order to capture the interview speech. It is helpful to spell out your interviewee?s name at the beginning of the tape, before starting the interview, and speak out any information you would like on the transcript header e.g. the date, the job title of your interviewee etc. You may also want to conduct a ?debrief? session at the end of the recording, when you are alone, in order to quickly record your impressions of the interview. For research interviews this is often part of the methodology.

Focus group transcription will cost more than a one-to-one interview transcript, but you can still get an affordable transcription service if you work to make your recording as clear as possible. Again make sure the recording is conducted in a private quiet room. Air conditioning can affect a recording, but so can opening a window, so if it?s a hot day it?s worth making a couple of test recordings before you start to see if there are problems! It?s really important to firmly chair a focus group too. Remind all the participants that all their views are valid, there are no rights and wrongs and, while you?re interested to see if they agree or disagree with each other, they should try not to talk (or shout!) over each other to make their point. Saying this at the beginning is important but it?s even more important, if you want affordable transcription, to remind participants each time things start getting a bit ?out of hand? that they need to speak separately for the sake of the recording. Finding the balance here between letting the talk flow and making sure you get a good recording is quite an art!

Conference recording is best left to the professionals if possible! Often these days a venue will provide recording facilities of good quality, included in the price. A microphone needs to be set up for the speaker and there should also be people in the audience with ?roving? microphones to take around to any audience members wanting to ask a question.

Digital recording systems provide the best quality and many transcriptionists only work with digital now, so if you want to give yourself the widest field then it?s certainly worth considering digital.

Any information you can provide to the transcriptionist about your recording will help, and may help toward an affordable transcription service. For example a list of key words will reduce the time spent ?Googleing?, searching the internet to find out how to spell technical terms, names of organisations etc. If you can provide this info it certainly saves time, and saving time saves you money, again reaching toward that goal of an affordable transcription service. Technical work will always be more expensive than non-technical, but providing a ?crib sheet? of key words should reduce the cost.

Most transcriptionists work in a standard format, whether that be tabular, tabbed, interviews shown as initials or full names etc. Again most are happy to work to your specifications, but the standard format might well be cheaper, so think carefully about whether you need something different or not. Find out what the standard format is in advance if it concerns you, and you may be able to adapt it to your needs. If, for instance, it?s essential that you have speakers in different fonts or different colours, this will add to the price. It might be more cost-effective for you to put this in when the basic transcript is returned to you!

Finally, give some serious thought to whether or not you need a verbatim transcription. Verbatim transcription includes every repeated word, every ?um? and ?erm?, all those ?filler? phrases like ?you know? and ?know what I mean? that may be repeated a hundred times in one interview, and can also include pauses, coughs, throat clearing etc. if required. Needless to say if this takes longer. If the transcriptionist can filter out all this stuff the transcript is quicker. In my company the cheapest level is what we call ?intelligent verbatim? which cuts out all these fillers but leaves the rest exactly as it?s spoken. Different transcriptionists work this differently though, so always check when you?re phoning for your quote. Here are some brief examples. Somewhat more expensive is edited, which corrects the grammar and any mispronounced words as well as knocking out all the fillers.

Verbatim

So, anyway, you know, I said ?er, ?Well, Susan, I really think you, you shouldn?t be um asking, er, me that.? And she, erm, er, she, she, well, she said, ?Look Mark, I dunno what you mean,? know what I mean?

Intelligent Verbatim

So anyway I said, ?Well, Susan, I really think you shouldn?t be asking me that.? And she said, ?Look Mark, I dunno what you mean.?

Edited

So I said, ?Well, Susan, I really think you shouldn?t be asking me that.? And she said, ?Look Mark, I don?t know what you mean.?

You can see that a whole extra line of typing is required for the verbatim work in just those two sentences.

There are occasions when verbatim is required ? depending on your topic it might be required for legal reasons, or you might be studying the language itself and the way it?s used. But if you really don?t need it, don?t end up paying for it!

There are many excellent reasons for interviewing groups of people, but don?t do this in order to try to reduce the transcription cost! As already stated, it takes much longer to transcribe a group of more than two or three people (including the moderator/interviewer) because of the time taken to distinguish the different voices and the fact that people will inevitably talk over each other, especially when they get excited, enthusiastic, impassioned or angry.

And finally, remember that the cheapest transcription quote might not be the most affordable one in the end. There is an oft-quoted phrase: if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. Will it really be cost-effective to send your hard-won interviews to the cheapest service if what comes back is gobbledygook and you have to go through the whole thing correcting every other word? How much time will you then waste that could have been spent more productively on your core business?

Penguin Transcription (http://www.penguin-transcription.co.uk), part of Penguin Office Services (http://www.penguinofficeservices.co.uk), offers an affordable transcription service by tailoring each quote to the exact requirements of the client. The more information the client can provide us with, and the better the quality of the recording for transcription, the more affordable the transcription service will be. Why not visit our site and fill in an enquiry form at http://www.penguin-transcription.co.uk/PTS_enquiry_form.html to receive a quote for your transcription requirements.

This article is copyright, Anne Hickley, 2007.

Healthcare Jobs in Medical Transcription

Do you have great attention to detail? Are you interested in medical jargon? Do you like to work with computers? Well, if you answered yes to these questions, a job in medical transcription could be for you. Training programs are relatively quick and put you in the work force quickly with a desirable career, as well as a great salary.

Training. Medical transcription training can be completed in as little as 6 months and up to 2 years. Programs can be taken at community colleges, vocational schools, and some medical facilities. There are some online and self-study formats that let you work from home at your own pace. Training programs consist of course work in medical terminology, laboratory terminology, pharmaceutical terminology, transcription formatting, and clerical duties. Training also educates students with important knowledge about legal issues surrounding patient care and health records. It is also important that transcriptionists have proper pronunciation and grammar, as well as practical hands on experience.

Certification. Upon completion of a training program, students are eligible to take a national certification examination. The exam is administered by the American Association for Medical Transcription, and successful completion offers the transcriptionist the title of Certified Medical Transcriptionist (CMT). Certification is highly recommended for employment, though currently not required in all states. Once certified, CMTs must fulfill continued education requirements in order to maintain certification.

Job Description. Medical transcriptionists can be employed in a number of healthcare settings including hospitals, physician's offices, nursing homes, clinics, home health or public health agencies. Some transcriptionists work in private transcription businesses or as independent contractors. In a given day, medical transcriptionists may record medical records and correspondence for a number of patients. In many cases transcriptionists listen to information on a head set and type it into the computer.

Salary. Medical transcriptionists have respectable wages of an average $25,000 annually. However, salary increases for those with more experience and managerial positions. The demand for medical transcriptionists is also very stable, as the need for managing medical documents is essential to a properly run medical facility.

Entering the field of medical transcription is a quick process. Training programs are widely available and affordable. It is a great career in healthcare and offers many opportunities for advancement.

Angela Oliver is a contributing author for Healthcare-TrainingCenter.com, offering free no-obligation information about healthcare careers. Please visit the site at http://www.healthcare-trainingcenter.com/programs-medical-transcription.asp to learn more about medical transcription.

Medical Transcription Business And Work At Home - Great Carrer!

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This is a great opportunity for Everyone that wants to earn extra money or wants to start a business at home.

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Is A Medical Transcription Career Right For You?

Many people think they can get into the medical transcription industry easily, make good money and live happily ever after. Surely you?ve seen this type of message before with people selling correspondence courses. Can you really make a good living with medical transcription? In this article, we?ll go into the good and the bad of the medical transcription industry and see if it?s for you or not.

Medical transcription is a challenging and rewarding career and the demand for it just keeps growing. there are more than enough jobs out there for anyone willing to make a career in medical transcription.

But many people come into this line of work and think they can make a career out of it just because the demand is high. Then they start going through the process and find that it's a lot harder than they anticipated.

They thought it would be an easy way to make good money . It is a way to make money, but with anything worth something, it?s not always easy.

One of the drawbacks of medical transcription is that it takes training and continuing education. This alone scares many would-be medical transcriptionists away from the field. It takes dedication and a willingness to learn and keep learning. At some point you have to ask yourself ?If the demand is high and the supply of medical transcriptionists are low, why isn?t everyone getting into this??.

This is the very reason. It?s not easy. It?s rewarding, but it?s not easy.

Usually, it takes six months to get a handle on the medical terminology and the different medical conditions, drugs, procedures, tests, and treatments that are required by the field.

Another hurdle is the fact that the medical industry is constantly advancing and constantly changing. Being able to adapt to new medical treatments, drugs and terminology is imperative to your success with medical transcription.

There are mail order medical transcription courses out there and many professionals indorse them, but it?s best to go the "hands on " route while learning medical transcription. On the job training or a college teaching it in your area would be the best way to learn. You can get the much needed hands on experience that you can?t get with a correspondence course.

While a mail order course may be helpful, it doesn't take the place of a live human being helping you learn the basics and beyond.

Medical transcription clearly isn?t for everybody. If you?re serious about earning a good living with a high income career, you should take a close look at it.
 

A Medical Transcriptionist Career Could Be What The Doctor Ordered

A Medical Transcriptionists career could pay off well for those seeking to update their career training. As thousands of jobs are being outsourced and sent overseas in every sector, for those fortunate enough to be within the employment ranks as medical transcriptionists, this sector is projected to grow faster than average for all jobs through 2013. Demand for medical transcription services will be fueled by a growing and aging population. Older age groups receive more medical tests, treatments, and procedures that require documentation. A high level of demand for transcription services also will be sustained by the continued need for electronic documentation that can easily be shared among providers, third-party payers, regulators, consumers, and health information systems.

Growing numbers of medical transcriptionists will be needed to and identify discrepancies in medical reports, amend patients' records, and edit documents from speech recognition systems . An increasing demand for standardized records should result in rapid employment growth in physicians' offices, especially in large group practices. Medical transcriptionists held strong employment representation with about 105,000 jobs in 2004. About 4 out of 10 worked in hospitals and another 3 out of 10 worked in offices of physicians. Others worked for business support services; medical and diagnostic laboratories; outpatient care centers; and offices of physical, occupational and speech therapists, and audiologists. Compensation methods for medical transcriptionists vary. Some are paid based on the number of hours they work or on the number of lines they transcribe. The higher earners can forseeably expect more than $20 an hour.

Work conditions that some would envy are what many Medical Transcriptionist encounter. Professional transcriptionist can look forward to working in comfortable settings such as hospitals, physicians' offices, transcription service offices, clinics, laboratories, medical libraries, government medical facilities, or their own homes. Many medical transcriptionists telecommute from home-based offices as employees or subcontractors for hospitals and transcription services or as self-employed, independent contractors.

Many medical transcriptionists work a standard 40-hour week. Self-employed medical transcriptionists are more likely to work irregular hours--including part time, evenings, weekends, or on call at any time.

The future of medical transcriptionist jobs appear to be healthy and bright and shows no sign up declining anytime in the foreseeable future.

Jennifer Thomas is a Career and Lifestyle Management writer providing cutting edge updates on some of today's hottest at home careers. Jumpstart your career training - Enroll in a Free 5 day online mini-course and Discover how to land the Medical Transcriptionist job of your dreams

A Career In Medical Transcription: Is It For You?

You've very likely heard of someone who is making a good living as a medical transcriptionist. He or she might even be working from the comfort of their home. And you've probably asked yourself if this might be a career option for you.

It may well be. Let's take a look at the facts.

What exactly is medical transcription? In the course of their work, doctors and other healthcare professionals make dictated recordings of various things including physical examination observations, patient history, operative reports, referral letters, discharge summaries, observations regarding imaging data and so on.

A medical transcriptionist listens to these recordings and transcribes them into medical reports, correspondence, etc. She listens to a segment of recording, pauses the playback and keys in what is said before moving on to the next segment. She may do some editing for better grammar and clarity.

The transcribed document is sent back to the health care provider who then reviews it for accuracy and gets it signed. These documents become part of the patient's medical history records and perhaps insurance records.

To be effective at this job, you should understand medical terminology well. That includes anatomy, pharmacology, diagnostic procedures, treatment assessments and more.

Many distance education programs, colleges and vocational schools offer post-secondary training in medical transcription. Having a degree is not essential. With a home-study course, you can usually pick up the necessary knowledge within a year, often in less than nine months.

You can find work in hospitals, laboratories, physician's offices, firms offering transcription services, government medical facilities and so on. Working from home is also a possibility and many employers offer work-at-home options for transcriptionists. Apart from that, many individuals work as independent contractors.

With experience, it is possible to move into supervisory positions, which include editing work, teaching, consulting, etc.

What equipment would you need, if you wanted to do medical transcription at home? Not very much -- a computer with a medical spellchecker, printer, a transcriber and reference books are about all you need. To help you save on the actual typing, a word expander utility might help. If you are on a tight budget, buy second hand equipment will do just as well.

Medical transcription work does call for certain skills and mindset. Apart from basic computer skills, you must be detail oriented. If detail work bores you to tears, this might not be the career for you.

You must know typing, although speed will come with practice. You should also have excellent listening skills and grammar skills.

If you're planning to work from home, it is essential to be comfortable with working alone and meeting deadlines. You must be a self-starter who can work consistently without being driven by a boss.

Given the growth in health practices and hospitals and the need for standardization of records, the demand for medical transcription services is likely to keep growing. You should carefully analyze the pros and cons of this field before venturing into it. Medical transcription provides a rewarding and fulfilling career for many people and it can do the same for you too.

John Travers is a business consultant who has written about medical transcription, other business transcription services and related topics