Medical transcription outsourcing : What makes good services exceptional?

Outsourcing medical transcription can be a mind-boggling exercise. It not only involves extensive analysis of the healthcare facility, but once this is done it also entails careful and detailed examination of the options available. On the face of it this could seem like fairly simple and straightforward exercise.

The process of analyzing the options available becomes complicated due to the following reasons:

• Varying needs of a healthcare facility could comprise of the following:

1. Different specialties requiring different report formats, turnaround time etc
2. Unpredictable inflow of patients, causing medical transcription needs to vary.
3. Weekend and holiday medical transcription requirements
4. Flexible options required for expansion plans
5. Integration with existing systems.
6. Healthcare professionals wanting to retain their current dictation modes.
7. EMR adoption

• A medical transcription service provider needs to be evaluated on the following:

1. Quality/Accuracy: The quality of the transcribed document refers to the percentage of accuracy in the transcribed document viz. a viz. the audio files.

2. Turnaround time: Turnaround time is the duration between uploading dictation to the server and when the final transcribed document is made available to the healthcare facility

3. Price: Pricing refers to the price per line of transcription

4. Security: Security refers to the means by which the medical transcription company protects confidential patient data during transmission and during the transcription process.

However these are just the basic criteria for evaluating a medical transcription company, a healthcare facility needs to look for qualities that make a medical transcription company exceptional.

The qualities that make a good medical transcription service exceptional are as follows:

• Billing method used: Billing methods used by the medical transcription service provider have a direct effect on the bottom line of the healthcare facility. Billing methods vary from charging for a page, a gross line a report or that of a character line. The billing method used by the medical transcription company needs to verifiable, measurable, definable, consistent and fair & honest.

TransDyne uses the 65-character line method of billing, which is approved by the AHDI. Care is taken to explain the billing methodology at the beginning so that there is no ambiguity.

• Quality assessment methods used: The quality of the transcribed document is measured by the percentage of accuracy of information transcribed. Minimum or zero error means that the records of patients reflect the correct information. This is critical for the ability to give quality care. A medical transcription company needs to be assessed by the methods used for achieving accuracy to assess its’ ability to achieve promised accuracy levels

TransDyne offers transcription with accuracy of 99% or above. TransDyne ensures quality by adopting a four level quality check of medical transcriptionist, language proofreader, unit in charge and finally by Quality Assurance team which tries to minimize errors before returning the finished reports.

• Training methods used: Training methods used by the medical transcription company has an effect on both the accuracy and the turnaround time.

TransDyne believes that it takes a specialist to take care of special needs. That is why medical transcriptionists here are trained on one or two areas of specialty. This makes them domain experts. This reduces the learning curve and enables them to meet stringent accuracy standards from the very beginning, and they are also able to meet the turnaround time guarantees.

• Technology used: Technology used by the medical transcription company has its impact on ease of use as well as the security of data. Because medical transcription involves the transmission of data, care has to be taken to make that appropriate security measures are in place. Technology can save a lot of time for healthcare professional by including features like flexible modes of dictation, easy upload and download of finished transcripts.

TransDyne ensures security by incorporating security measures like 128-bit data encryption, multi-tiered application architecture, design level security, safeguards, firewall protected networks, sterilized e-mail servers, denial of access procedure and multi modal alerts.

TransDyne’s system has features like Smart Upload, Smart Delivery and allows for flexible modes of dictation. TransDyne also offers a web delivery system, which offers archiving facilities. TransDyne has HL7 interface for easy integration with EMR

• Flexibility in services: Considering that the needs of healthcare facilities can vary due to various factors, it is important that the medical transcription service provider is flexible and adapts itself to suit varying needs.

TransDyne has experience serving all types of healthcare facilities by offering services that are tailor made to suit their unique needs

• Free trial without obligatory sign up: This is very important to assess the services of a medical transcription company before signing up with them.

TransDyne offers the opportunity to have the benefit of their services for a limited period by offering a free trial. This enables the healthcare facility to understand the advantages of partnering with TransDyne for their medical transcription needs

To avail exceptional medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.