Medical Transcriptionist job description
54 verified openings in Health IT & Informatics
Physicians dictate; someone types the result, expands the abbreviations into full form, fixes what is wrong, and returns the report for signature. Medical transcriptionists do that across office visits, emergency room visits, diagnostic imaging studies, operations, chart reviews, and final summaries. The national workforce is small: SOC 31-9094 held 41,550 jobs in the May 2025 estimates. Half of them paid above $40,410 and half below. The tenth percentile stops at $28,250; the ninetieth reaches $55,950.
Core Duties and Responsibilities
Reports go back to the physician in print or on screen for review, signature, and correction, then join the patient's record. Everything before that is accuracy work. Catching a mistake and going back to the doctor for the right information belongs here too, and checking the text for spelling, grammar, consistency, and correct medical terminology (4.73) comes above transcribing the dictation itself (4.65). Telling homonyms apart against a drug reference or an anatomy text, and judging what belongs in a report at all, round out the list. Between the reports come the medical files, the databases, the insurance claims, and the phone.
Common Skills and Technologies
Nothing here matters more than listening well, with reading comprehension and writing behind it. The tools are eClinicalWorks EHR and the ordinary Microsoft desktop around it. O*NET's wider technology list also carries voice recognition software and spell checkers, and the reported titles include medical scribe and documentation specialist.
Education, Training, and Career Path
No degree is expected at the door. Entry runs through a certificate program, an associate degree, or related work experience, with on-the-job learning beside experienced hands after that (Job Zone 3). The two biggest groups are certificate holders (39 percent) and people with some college (34 percent); associate degrees and high school alone make up the rest. Experience here carries into medical records specialist and health information technologist work, both built on the same terminology and the same record systems.
Sources: O*NET 30.0, 31-9094.00 Medical Transcriptionists, https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/31-9094.00. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, 31-9094, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes319094.htm.