Average Salaries for Medical Transcription
General Guidelines

Curious as to what average salaries for medical transcription are and how you can earn more? Read this brief discussion on how much you can expect to earn.

But, more importantly, click on the links at the bottom of the page for excellent tips and techniques on how you can maximize that average salary by becoming more efficient.

One thing to note is that the average salaries for medical transcription that I quote are just that - the "average".

If you are fairly new and/or just starting out in medical transcription, this is approximately what you can expect to make. If you are an average typist and not a Super Speed Queen, this is approximately what you can expect to make.

When it comes to transcription pay,the longer you are in the business and the more familiar you become with the doctors you are typing for and their idiosyncracies and the more you add to your word expander program, the more you can expect these average salaries for medical transcription to increase.

Also, these average salaries for medical transcription are generally true if you are an employee with benefits versus being an independent contractor or having your own accounts. Unfortunately, the trend lately has been that, even though independent contractors get no benefits, companies are not paying much more than they do for employees.

First, let's look at the going rate for medical transcription wages. Almost all medical transcription jobs are paid by production. Keep in mind that this is from my observation and experience and will vary depending on your job experience, what part of the country you live in, whether you work in a hospital, an office, or at home, and the specialty you'll be working; however, I believe this is accurate enough, give or take 1 cent or 2 per line.

Sadly, average salaries for medical transcription have been stagnant or even decreasing for about the last 4 or 5 years. I attribute this to two things - offshoring to cheaper labor in third world countries and voice recognition. However, that will be discussion for another time!

Currently, in 2009, starting medical transcription pay rates are 7 to 8 cents per line for most types of accounts. Most companies require a daily minimum production of 1200 lines per day, 5 days a week, to maintain full-time status. This comes to $84 to $96 per day for average salaries for medical transcription in America.

There are more and more transcription companies advertising for jobs for 5 cents per line. Forgive me for shouting, but DO NOT EVEN BEGIN TO CONSIDER THESE JOBS!!! That is not a living wage here in the United States!

Or, on the other hand, go ahead and take the job for 5 cents a line and leave the better paying jobs for the professional medical transcriptionists who know their value and take pride in their profession. Keep in mind that 5 cents per line is about $60 per day, barely minimum wage, and you'd be much better off working at Walmart.

How quickly you achieve the 1200 lines per day production requirement depends partly on the company's definition of a line. The standard is 65 characters per line, but some pay for spaces and some do not not and some pay for headers and footers in the report and some do not. Although it is fairly common, I have never understood not paying for spaces and do not agree with the practice.

Whenyourthumbishittingthespacebar,itisalsoacharacterandanimportantpartofthesentence. Get my point?!!

Some radiology accounts pay by the job, and the radiology medical transcriptionist salary ranges from $1.10 to $1.25 per report. The minimum production requirement for pay by report is usually 120 reports per day. However, it is my experience that this is difficult to do unless you have a fairly easy account (an account is the hospital that you would be typing for).

To add a personal note here, I am a radiology transcriptionist, and I still work for a medium-sized transcription company and get paid per report. Barring major distractions (repairman is coming by, have to run to the bank, have to pick up children at school), I usually average 140 jobs per day on the particular account I'm on. I was barely able to get 120 reports per day until I made it a point to maximize my efficiency, and if you'd like to read how, click on the link below.

You cannot make decent medical transcription wages unless you use a word expander program, aggressively add to it, and use every shortcut and function key you can. These will increase your speed and efficiency (and thus your salary) in two ways. First, you'll type the report itself faster and, second, you'll increase the speed in which you move from one report to the next, thus typing more lines and/or reports per day.

For more information, check out this page about average salaries for medical transcription by the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Read more about the different factors that affect your productivity and thus your transcription pay rate

And here are more valuable tips and techniques for increasing your medical transcription salary.