Texas Medical Transcription Institute Attracts Students With Online Training

As demand for medical transcriptionists keeps rising across the country, the Texas Medical Transcription Institute is rolling out an online education program to train even more medical transcriptionists -- one of the country's fastest-growing home-based careers.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts employment of medical transcriptionists, compared with other occupations, will rise between 18 percent and 26 percent through 2014.

For seven years, what is now known as the Texas Medical Transcription Institute has operated an on-site school for training medical transcriptionists, with 20 students in each 10-month class. Once the online program kicks off in 2008, the institute will be able to accommodate as many as 60 students a year. The institute plans to accept five students a month starting January 1, 2008. Students will finish the online training at their own pace.

While some medical transcriptionists do work in traditional office settings, many of them telecommute from home-based offices as employees or subcontractors for hospitals and transcription services or as self-employed, independent contractors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The training program at the Texas Medical Transcription Institute costs $2,000, compared with $3,000 to $5,000 for similar programs, Tunnicliffe says. Each student's tuition includes books, practice CDs, software, a foot pedal and a headset, as well as the RMT credentialing exam. Software required for the post-graduate internship will be provided once a student graduates.