Are you a medical transcriptionist who goes through the trauma of trying to fill in blanks in medical transcription? There are many ways to overcome this hurdle and it happens to even experienced transcriptionists. With some of dictation being inaudible, medical transcriptionists go through dictations that are marred by noise in the background, doctors who mumble bad audio, new words, difficult medical terms and different types of accents. As a result, the transcriptionists will not be able to grasp what the doctor is saying and there will be blanks in the transcript. You can reduce the blanks with some tried and true techniques.
One of the rules is never to type in exactly what you heard. Listen to the dictation again till you are sure that it is right word. Guess work does not help and leaving a blank is better as you can rehear the same sentence or paragraph later while editing. Listen to the entire sentence and you will be able to fill in all the blanks while getting your transcript at least 95% correct. If you feel that the blank refers to a drug, then run through the complaints and symptoms that coincide or correlate with that particular word. If the term or word sounds like it is to do with anatomy, go through reference or think of their action, structures and names. Or if you think that word can be an abbreviation, look up all the terms that could possibly fit in sensibly in the blank.
Explore Your Grasping Abilities
You could also search the internet for possible references to patient names, doctors’ names and hospital names to fit in the blank or if it’s a new drug, you can always refer to websites that showcase the latest in medicines. You can check with your colleagues if they have any previous transcripts dictated by the same doctor or reports that you might have transcribed earlier. Most of these are stereo type reports by the same doctor and it will be easier to trace. Try to check with similar types of reports dictated by the doctor whose report you are transcribing. For instance, if it’s to do with a particular operation or a lumbar spine MRI, the dictation will be the same no matter who the doctor is.
It is necessary to practice in your free time and become familiar with tough dictations. These voice files can be heard over and over again till you are familiar with difficult dictations and do not need to have a hard time later trying to decipher inaudible medical terms or words. Get your friends to listen to the blanks as they may hear it differently and will be able to come up with the right word so that you can complete your transcript on time. As these medical records are a very critical matter, it is best if you get the right word that is in context and exactly what the doctor has dictated. It is better to be safe than sorry and though it’s a hard task to fill in blanks, its better if you leave a blank than try to fill it in with an unrelated word which will not be accepted by the doctor. You can always ask the doctor if you do have access to him/her and try to rectify the matter.
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