The U.S. medical transcription industry alone is put at about $20 billion, of which only $3 billion is outsourced to U.S. based companies and hardly $80 million is outsourced to India. The Indian market is put at about $80 million with about 10,000 trained medical transcriptionists working and appears all set to grow.

According to US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were a total of 97,810 medical transcriptionists working in the US in May 2003, the latest period for which data was available. Surprising though it may sound, almost every seven out of ten MTs in the US were employed by the hospitals or offices of physicians. Less than 15 percent were employed by professional outsourcing service providers.

There is now a critical shortage of qualified MTs in the U.S., which is expected increase drastically as demand grows at double-digit rates. The shortage is expected to be to the tune of 100000 by 2005 end, and India is obviously the destination to fill this void.