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It is an established fact that atleast 20 to 30% of medical transcription work is outsourced to other countries that include India and Philippines, with maximum work going to India. Why did this happen?

Let's analyze the current situation of medical transcription in US. An average transcriptionist in USA earns around $35000 a year with most of them in their late 40s and above. Due to the unappealing nature of this profession, most of the workforce comprises of people working from home that are retired. Also medical transcription work is not easy as it is deemed to be. Sitting on the computer desk for 8 hours and listening and editing at the same time is a skillful and monotonous job, which further discourages Americans to venture into it. Also the turn-around-time referred to as TAT is a major negative factor that requires American transcriptionists to ideally work during the evenings or nights. This is certainly an unattractive working time for most of the aging workforce.

All this slowly led transcription companies to search for more options in other countries where medical transcription work can be done with an acceptable level of accuracy within the TAT. This resulted in outsourcing transcription work to those countries who have high English speaking population with a reliable and dedicated workforce; the best of them from India. It would not be wrong to state that majority of the work currently as of today is being outsourced to India. This is due to a variety of reasons:

• Indian workforce comprises a majority of young population who are in their mid 20s.
• They have a skilled workforce with the highest amount of English speaking population in the world, even greater than US.
• Indian government emphatically supports any Business Process Outsourcing venture making investment quick, easy and affordable.
• Cheap skillful workforce with salaries even less than a quarter to their American counterparts.
• Huge pool of trainable and responsible workers who are in most ways more dedicated and sincere than American counterparts.
• Last but not the least, the TAT is very much suitable to Indians as it is 12 hours ahead of US.

Because of all these reasons, much of the outsourcing is being done to India (and a few other countries) with US dollar to Indian rupee conversion rate adding fuel to this. Very recently, 1 US dollar was almost equal to 50 rupees though with dwindling US dollar and economic recession, the conversion is now just about 40 Rupees. This has resulted in a significant decrease in profits to the Indian counterparts but due to strong economy and cheap skilled workforce available, most of the big Indian companies who are in part owned by American giants have been able to overcome those losses and still maintain a profitable profile.

The recent drowning US dollar however has resulted in decreased outsourcing, as more and more Americans are getting jobless and underpaid. The down-sliding and downsizing economy has been a major concern to most of the average earning Americans who are looking for other opportunities to earn and at such moments, medical transcription knowledge comes in handy. Around 5-10 years back, an average rate per line for transcription was around 13 to 20 cents. However, as a result of dwindling economy and outsourcing adding fire to it, the average pay per line has come down to just around 4 to 9 cents, which has affected every transcriptionist's pay check.

Outsourcing, currently though is still high enough, partly because of lack of workers coupled with an aging workforce who hardly like to work in shifts. In a way it is benefitting most of American companies and healthcare industries. However, with global economy on the rise, it won't be long enough when option of outsourcing would not be a profitable venture and at that point, a huge demand for a strong and dedicated American workforce will be at an all time high.

All in all medical transcription in US is currently on the rise with more jobs available and more people partaking training to work even part-time as transcriptionists. Transcription offers easy money with just a few months of training within the comfort of your own home. Most of the transcriptionists in US are employed. There is no dearth of jobs and still an average MT earns around $35000 annually. So future of transcription remains good!