are there any true work from home plans that work???

would like to know

but the rule of thumb is: if they require you to pay a "start up fee" or some such, its probably not worth it.

Put myself through college doing it and a thousand years later it is still my livelihood. I work in my jammies and drink too much coffee which works out great since I'm paid on productivity. Plus it allows me to pursue other endeavors I'd rather be doing.

I don't want to give up my day job, I want to pay down some massive student loans

Don't go to a Medical Transcription school. You will learn crap you will NEVER use. Instead, enroll in your local community college and take classes such as Anatomy and Physiology and Medical Terminology in which you will learn the etymology of words and the Greek and Latin combining forms that will serve you well.

The best expedience is hospital Medical Records experience that will give you a good overview of all specialties, but that's a job you can't do at home without experience. Focus on a specialty and study.

References are key. I used to have to replace my specialty and drug reference books every year or so until god created Google.

It's all digital now done over phone lines, but I would imagine you would probably start at home with tape dictation where you would have to pick up and deliver work locally.

I transcribe surgeries and specialty consultations but that's the kind of work that is a Catch-22, kind of like getting credit. You can't get the work if you don't have the experience and you can't get experience if you can't get the work.

Another perhaps easier route would be medical billing. There are courses at community colleges in ICD-9 and CPT coding.

Best of luck.

but I don't know about "plans." For example: my neighbor to my left is a claims processor for an auto insurance company; she drives around and takes pictures of auto damage and does the processing online. She works from home. My neighbor across the street is a photographer, my neighbor to the right is a graphic designer, and I'm a software designer, and we ALL work from home. But these aren't "work from home plans" per se....

The first is a call center located in your home. At the time I checked, none of the companies needed anyone in my state. I recently found out from my daughter that a former co-worker of hers is now working from her home accepting phone calls for a company..but she didn't know which company.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/RaiseKids/4realJobsYouCanDoFromHome.aspx