Employment of medical transcriptionists is expected to grow 6 percent from 2010 to 2020, slower than the average for all occupations. The volume of healthcare services is expected to continue to increase, resulting in a growing number of medical tests and procedures, all of which will require transcription.
At the same time, technological advances in recent years have changed the way medical transcription is done. In the past, medical transcriptionists would listen to an entire dictation to produce a transcribed report. Today, many medical documents are prepared with the use of back-end speech recognition technology, in which specialized software automatically prepares an initial draft of a report. The transcriptionist then reviews the draft for accuracy, listening to the original recording as needed. Such technological advances are expected to continue, making the individual transcriptionist far more productive and limiting employment growth overall.
As healthcare providers seek to cut costs, some have hired transcription services in other countries. However, concerns about patient confidentiality and data security suggest a continued need for transcriptionists within the United States.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012-13 Edition