Med transcription fetches huge pay

Nurses, medical technicians and dentists, move over. After doctors, medical transcriptionists are now the highest paid workers in the health sector, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said yesterday.

Medical transcriptionists receive an average of P10,575 in monthly wages, TUCP spokesman Alex Aguilar said, citing data from the latest occupational wages survey of the Department of Labor and Employment’s Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics.

The rate is P1,462 or 16 percent higher than the P9,295 usually received by medical technologists. Nurses get P8,944 while dentists are usually paid P7,035. Doctors get some P18,134 a month.

The survey covered only those employed in medical, dental and other health jobs and not those earning professional fees.

Medical transcription is the process of transforming voice-recorded or/and written medical reports, such as dictation of physicians and hospital records, to text that may be stored as printed or electronic data.

Countries like the United States have started adopting such systems, resulting in a demand for medical transcriptionists.   

They are now “earning substantially higher compensation income compared to medical technologists, nurses and dentists,” Aguilar said.

“Employment growth in outsourced medical transcription services is expected to outpace considerably the 25-percent annual job expansion in the country’s booming contact centers,” Aguilar said.

The demand for medical transcriptionists is expected to increase at an annual rate of 90 percent until 2010.

“The growth of medical transcription services is assured, as long as we have enough supply of capable human resources,” he said.

Aguilar urged fresh graduates of nursing, pharmacy, medical technology, public health, physical therapy and other allied medical courses to consider transcription work while waiting for higher-paying employment opportunities here or abroad.

“Nursing graduates, for instance, can work part-time or full-time as transcriptionists while reviewing for the licensure examination or while waiting for an overseas job placement,” he said.

The medical transcription industry is expected to generate some $238 million in revenues this year; $476 million in 2008; $952 million in 2009; and $1.71 billion by 2010.