Medical typing, transcription and virtual medical secretary services in Australia, honestly compared
Medical typing, transcription, AI letter tools and virtual medical secretary services for Australian specialist practices compared on price, location and terms.
We run one of the services on this list. DotVA places offshore VAs from 10 hours a week, and we are not a transcription service. If you want audio typed by Australian-based transcriptionists, or an AI tool that drafts letters, other rows in this table suit you better than ours. That is the most useful thing we can tell you, so it comes first.
The method is the same as our comparison of Australian VA agencies. Every claim about another provider comes from its own website, checked on 11 November 2026 and linked in the table, except Dragon Medical One’s price, which comes from an authorised reseller. Where a figure is not published we write “not stated publicly” rather than guess, and where a site does not say where its team is, we do not assume.
This guide is about letters, dictation, typing and secretary work. For phones and reception, see our comparison of virtual medical receptionist services.
The services at a glance
| Service | What it is | Published price | Where the team or data is | Software named | Terms |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DotVA medical specialist virtual assistant (that’s us) | Managed offshore medical secretary: one dedicated person, letters typed from your dictation plus theatre lists, billing admin and diary | $12-17/hr admin, $18-25/hr experienced medical secretary, AUD ex GST, from 10 hrs/week | Philippines, working Australian business hours | Genie, Gentu, Clinic to Cloud, Shexie | No lock-in contract; stop any time in the first 14 days, then 30 days’ notice; free replacement any time |
| AIR SECRETARY | Dedicated remote medical secretaries for specialists, including dictation and transcription | Not stated publicly; “significantly lower cost than local staff” | Dumaguete, Philippines office, working Australian business hours | Genie, Clinic to Cloud (text); Xestro and Gentu (logos); HealthLink, Argus, Medical-Objects; ECLIPSE | Full-time secretary working for one practice; contract terms not stated publicly |
| Central Medical Solutions | Medical transcription from dictation | Not stated publicly; “personalised quote" | "Experienced Australian medical transcriptionists”; says information is never outsourced overseas | ”Integrates with most Practice software”; none named | ”No lock-in contracts”; no setup fees; 12-hour turnaround |
| Pacific Transcription | Transcription for specialist practices | Rate sheet on request; terms say professional clients are priced per line or per audio minute by agreement | Typist location not stated; its privacy policy says information may pass between jurisdictions including the Philippines and India, and work can be kept to one jurisdiction on request; Milton QLD address; says it is ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certified and adheres to the Australian Privacy Principles | Types into your own templates; none named | Published terms: invoiced monthly, GST payable, turnarounds are guidelines, free trial of 10 minutes of audio at its discretion |
| Medical Transcription Professionals | Medical transcription | Not stated publicly; “flexible per-line or hourly rates" | "Australian-based medical transcriptionists” (two per client) | Not stated publicly | ”No sign-up fees or lock-in contracts”; 24-48 hours for patient correspondence, 24-72 hours medico-legal |
| Type Transcripts | Medico-legal reports and letters | Not stated publicly; per line, or a negotiated rate per audio minute | ”Transcribers are located in Australia”; says it does not send work to overseas typists; dictation uploaded via Sharefile | Not stated publicly | Not stated publicly |
| Dict8ion | AI dictation for specialist patient letters | Not stated publicly; 2-week free trial, no card | Homepage says patient data is stored in Australia; its privacy policy says it may store or process personal and health information in the EU | Not stated publicly; you copy letters in yourself | Terms published: cancel by email or account settings; no minimum term stated |
| i-scribe | AI scribe and dictation, generates referral and patient letters | Specialist $200 a month ($2,400 a year), AUD ex GST; includes a secretary login | Its privacy policy says platform data is processed and stored in Australia | Genie and Shexie (text); Gentu and Best Practice (logos) | 14-day free trial; billed as an annual policy |
| Lyrebird Health | AI scribe and dictation | Pro A$240 a month on monthly billing, or A$1,920 a year (A$160 a month) on annual billing, ex GST per Lyrebird’s own guide | Its own guide says core data is stored in Australia and de-identified information may be processed in the EU by Azure OpenAI | Best Practice, Genie, Gentu and others per its guide | Pro: 14 days free; monthly or annual billing |
| Dragon Medical One | Speech recognition software you dictate into yourself | Microsoft publishes no price; authorised reseller Voice Recognition Australia lists it from A$1,290 per user per year, GST inclusive | Not stated on Microsoft’s page | Not stated on Microsoft’s page | Not stated publicly |
| A local medical secretary you employ | Your own employee | Set by you and any award that applies; see the Fair Work award page | In your rooms | Whatever you run | Employment terms |
Checked on each provider’s own pages on 11 November 2026, except the Dragon Medical One price, which is the reseller’s. “Not stated publicly” means we could not find the figure on the provider’s public pages; it is an observation, not a criticism.
Our row in full is on pricing. If a 30-minute call beats ten tabs, book a discovery call, and if another row fits your rooms better we will tell you on the call.
Three products share one label
- A typing or transcription service (Central Medical Solutions, Pacific Transcription, Medical Transcription Professionals, Type Transcripts). You send audio, a typist returns a letter in your template. Prices are usually per line, per audio minute or per hour and are quoted rather than published, so get two quotes using the same sample dictation.
- An AI tool that drafts letters (Dict8ion, i-scribe, Lyrebird, and dictation software such as Dragon Medical One). Published prices for i-scribe and Lyrebird, free trials for Dict8ion, i-scribe and Lyrebird, and a person has to proof every letter. In our experience, the saving is largest on routine follow-up letters and smaller on complex or medico-legal ones, because the checking takes longer than the drafting saved.
- A virtual medical secretary (DotVA, AIR SECRETARY). One person working your hours who types from your dictation and also runs the referral log, theatre lists, informed financial consent paperwork, billing admin and diary. Both describe a team in the Philippines.
What it costs
These are our own sums from published rates, before GST, and the multiplication is ours, not the provider’s quote.
| Option | Published rate | Monthly cost (ours) |
|---|---|---|
| i-scribe Specialist | $200 a month, annual policy, ex GST | $200 |
| Lyrebird Pro | A$160 a month annually or A$240 monthly, ex GST per Lyrebird’s guide | $160-240 |
| DotVA admin VA, 10 hrs/week | $12-17/hr | $520-736 (10 hrs x 4.33 weeks x $12-17) |
| DotVA experienced medical secretary who runs your billing, 10 hrs/week | $18-25/hr | $779-1,083 (10 hrs x 4.33 weeks x $18-25) |
| Typing services and AIR SECRETARY | Quoted on enquiry | Not stated publicly |
In our experience, an AI tool is the cheapest line and does not remove the work: someone still proofs each letter and sends it, and Dict8ion itself says your team proofs every letter. A secretary costs more because the scope is larger. Compare them on the work you want off your desk, not on the monthly figure.
Privacy: ask this before price
Health information is sensitive information under the Privacy Act, so start here.
Where a provider says work stays in Australia, you are not sending anything offshore yourself. Central Medical Solutions says information is never outsourced overseas, Type Transcripts says it does not send work to overseas typists, and i-scribe’s privacy policy says platform data is processed and stored in Australia. Read the privacy policy as well as the homepage: Dict8ion’s homepage says patient data is stored in Australia, but its privacy policy says it may store or process health information in the EU, and Pacific Transcription’s says information may pass between jurisdictions including the Philippines and India, unless you ask it to keep work in one jurisdiction. Lyrebird’s own guide notes de-identified information may be processed in the EU, so ask each vendor where processing happens, not only storage. Where a provider does not say where its typists are, ask before sending audio.
Giving an offshore secretary, including ours, access to patient records is, in most cases, a cross-border disclosure under APP 8 of the Australian Privacy Principles, and, subject to limited exceptions, you remain accountable for how it is handled. Our guide to hiring an offshore VA legally covers the obligations. In practice access is scoped: Genie, Gentu and Clinic to Cloud run individual role-based logins, so a VA’s activity is recorded under their own account. We add a signed confidentiality agreement before day one and a data-handling addendum mirroring the APPs on request. The detail is on our data security page.
If carrying that obligation is not something you want, that is a fair reason to choose an Australian typing service, whatever the price.
Who should pick whom
- Dictation backlog and nothing else: Central Medical Solutions (Australian transcriptionists, 12-hour turnaround), Medical Transcription Professionals (Australian-based, 24-48 hours on patient correspondence) or Pacific Transcription (dictaphone, smartphone, PC and telephone dial-in, ISO certification; ask it to keep work in Australia if that matters). Ask for a quote on the same sample.
- Medico-legal reports: Type Transcripts says its transcribers are in Australia, prices per line or per audio minute and works to each doctor’s precedent.
- You want to keep dictating and have a staff member proof letters: Dict8ion, i-scribe (Specialist, with a secretary login) or Lyrebird, using the free trials first.
- A local secretary who sits in the rooms: an employee is the right choice when you need someone physically present for patients and the front desk. Check the Fair Work award page for whether an award applies and the classification.
- A full-time offshore secretary in a supervised office: AIR SECRETARY says its secretaries work from its Dumaguete office and full time for one practice.
- 10 to 25 hours a week from one dedicated person covering letters, theatre lists, informed financial consent paperwork, ECLIPSE and Medicare claim preparation and diary: that is the practice we built DotVA for. See what a virtual medical secretary does for specialists, or by software: Genie, Clinic to Cloud and Shexie.
Run your own numbers
Price your hours on the VA cost calculator and check our tiers on pricing. Under 10 hours a week we are not an option: we do not place below that, and a typing service or AI tool is the better fit. If one of the other names in the table is right for your rooms, we would rather you find that out now than in month two.