All The Info You Need About The Intriguing History of Medical Transcription: The Background Story

As someone who is looking into medical transcription jobs, you might like to know a little bit more about how it all got started, and how far the history of medical transcription actually dates back. Obviously, as you may already know, medical transcription is the process of typing out a patient’s medical record. The record consists of all details, large and small, of a patient’s visit to the doctor’s office: their symptoms, medications, height, weight, etc. Basically, anything that can be of use for future reference in any case whatsoever, whether it be for a referral, a possible medical procedure, or simply a record for the doctor to refer back to when making a diagnosis.

Medical transcription has been around for hundreds of years, since the beginning of medical treatment. In those days, doctors were the ones who kept record of all of the details. The earliest recordings were found on wooden and metal tablets, on the walls of caves, hieroglyphs, parchment, temple walls, and then finally – paper. The more that time progressed, things got even more modern.

Suffice it to say that back then, there was no such thing as medical transcriptionist salary because the doctor was doing all of the work. Transcription jobs were eventually turned over to medical stenographers in the early’00s . It was their job to write out the medical record. There were no computers at that time in transcription history, so things were still a bit rough. It’s very likely that record files weren’t as precise and lacked in a lot of important detail. In any event, the process was coming right along, and the records were finally being stored in filing cabinets in doctors’ offices.

It wasn’t long after the handwritten record that typewriters came along. The invention of typewriters led the way for electronic typewriters. From there, word processors and computers came into the picture. Tape recorders were introduced into the profession around the mid-1900s, making things even more clear and accurate than ever before.

In no time, the possibility of becoming a certified medical transcriptionist became a reality, especially with the innovation of the internet back in’92, creating a need for even more transcription jobs. Starting out, transcriptionist pay was obviously not what it is today. If you would like a better idea of how much the pay has gone up over the last few decades, take a look at the minimum wage increase. Today, transcriptionist salary ranges from .6 cents per line to .14 cents per line in most areas, and hourly rates range from $9.00 to $17.00.

As you can see, things have changed dramatically over the last few centuries. What was once just an old wooden tablet has turned into an up-to-date electronic medical record. Now, there is speech recognition software, but it still cannot take the place of medical transcription, nor will it ever. The future of transcription jobs is just going to improve. In the upcoming years, more and more jobs are expected to become available, making it one of the world’s number one leading job industries.

Author Susan B. Eliot is an excellent resource in this field and is an expert when it comes to transcription jobs. She owns and manages her own transcription service and knows first hand all the details about medical transcriptionist salary.