M-TEC Military, Veterans and Spouses

Medical Transcription and the Military
From an active duty service member’s perspective

With my wife working from home as a medical transcriptionist, she is able to adjust her hours to meet mine. If you have ever been part of the military, you know how important that can be. Being in the military, sometimes I work long hours and sometimes I get off early. With her working from home, she is able to adjust by continuing to work if I need to work late or stopping whenever I get off early. When I have to stand 24-hour duty, it gives her the opportunity to work long hours and get caught up with her work so that she can take time off to spend with me.

When we moved back to the U.S. from overseas, she was able to continue her work while in transit. Moving half way around the world is a very stressful and time consuming event. What’s worse is having to move every three years. When we found a place to live, she was able to do most of the unpacking during her breaks. She never had to go out and look for a new job, and she never had to call off work in order to get settled. Now, she works the same hours as me, and we are able to go do whatever we want, whenever we want.

MSgt T.W. Kean
United States Marine Corps

MSgt T. W. Kean
United States Marine Corps

M-TEC supports our troops and welcomes all U.S. Military personnel, veterans, and spouses of current military personnel. This distance education program is designed to offer training in a career that is portable, self-paced, and offers possibilities for graduates on the move. Disabled U.S. veterans may be eligible to receive funding. Contact us to learn more. If we can help answer questions regarding the funding process, life as a military spouse studying at M-TEC, or working after graduation, please contact Debbie Kean at keandebbie@gmail.com.

Military Spouses are eligible to receive up to $6000 in CAA (Career Advancement Accounts) funding. For more information about this program, go to http://caa.milspouse.org/Eligibility/ and https://aiportal.acc.af.mil/mycaa/default.aspx or call 1-800-342-9647 and speak with a case manager.

Information on the Military Spouse Initiative can be found on your Military Spouse Career Center at http://www.military.com/spouse/cf/0,,cf_other_pop_health-medicaltranscriptionist3,00.htm.

The Military Spouse Initiative is an AHDI (Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity)-approved initiative that the government is investing in due to the shortage of medical transcriptionists and the proven excellence of AHDI-approved schools to graduate students with work-ready skills, capable of sitting successfully for the registered medical transcriptionist (RMT) credential.

United States Department of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook states, "Employment of medical transcriptionists is projected to grow 14 percent from 2006 to 2016, faster than the average for all occupations. Demand for medical transcription services will be spurred by a growing and aging population. Older age groups receive proportionately greater numbers of medical tests, treatments, and procedures that require documentation. A high level of demand for transcription services also will be sustained by the continued need for electronic documentation that can be shared easily among providers, third-party payers, regulators, consumers, and health information systems. Growing numbers of medical transcriptionists will be needed to amend patients' records, edit documents from speech recognition systems, and identify discrepancies in medical reports." To read more from the Department of Labor visit http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos271.htm.

What questions do military spouses have about the profession? A frequently asked list of questions can be found here. You will need to have Adobe Acrobat in order to read this file. AHDI (formerly American Association for Medical Transcription) has also created a site dedicated to the Military at http://www.ahdionline.org/MilitarySpouseInitiative/tabid/274/Default.aspx

You may find this article by M-TEC graduate Debbie Kean very interesting. It is entitled A Career Tailor-made for the Military Spouse? One Military Spouse's Personal Story.

We invite you to visit http://forum.mtecinc.com/Forum18-1.aspx and talk with other men/women in the military, as well as M-TEC students, staff and graduates. There is a message forum dedicated to military personnel and their spouses as well as general forums. We are happy to help answer any questions you might have regarding the profession of medical transcription or our program in general. We will be continuing to develop this page and adding more information for you soon.