The Ultimate Guide to Telecommuting

For almost a dozen years I worked as a medical transcriptionist at least part of the time, and except for purposes of delivering medical records or letters or picking up tapes never once worked in a medical office. Perhaps the most interesting of the various jobs I did was typing the medical reports for a cancer center based in the Bay Area, for a company based in Virginia, while we (my ex-wife and I) were based in the Seattle, Washington area. All of this was made possible by the use of WAV files that revolutionized medical transcription and, unfortunately for American transcriptionists allowed transcriptionists in India (many of whom were also doctors) to substantially undercut the rates that American transcriptionists charged and put many (including myself) out of business. Although we could argue that the Indian transcriptionists were not entirely fluent in American English and thus made many more grammatical and typographical errors than American transcriptionists, American hospitals, clinics and doctor's offices would always point to the very low rates that the Indians were charging and give American transcriptionists an ultimatum to either work for less or give up their accounts.

Although in my case I eventually decided not to compete, I was eventually able to see the entrance of the Indians into the U.S. marketplace as a success rather than a failure for the idea of telecommuting and indeed websites that attempt to measure telecommuting opportunities estimate that overall telecommuting is increasing at a rate of about 12% per year, although that number is still well short of the potential for telecommuting overall.