Medical transcription outsourcing: Acting as a catalyst for change

Medical transcription is a vital component of the healthcare process; creating patient records which can be used as a point of reference as required. Patient records are invaluable as a decision making tool in planning care for patients, as the basis for coding and billing, as evidence in case of litigation. Documenting the healthcare service provided to patients also prevents duplication of efforts and helps saving on resources.

The process of medical transcription requires inputs in the form of personnel, infrastructure and technology to be able to create accurate and speedy patient records. Having an in-house medical transcription department can lead to dilution of focus of time, attention and other resources from the core business of providing quality healthcare.  Outsourcing medical transcription on a turnkey basis to a professional service provider helps the healthcare facility focus on the core business.

Availing professional transcription services from the outsourced medical transcription service provider can act as catalyst for change in focus and provides strategic advantages.

How does outsourcing medical transcription act as a catalyst for change?

Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider helps increase focus on core business, by providing services with the following benefits:

• Savings on cost of transcription: One of the main and obvious benefits of outsourcing medical transcription is that of savings on direct and indirect cost of transcription. Not only that quality medical transcription services also help speed up the reimbursement process.

• Renewed focus on improving services: Outsourcing medical transcription frees up a lot of resources including key personnel, information technology infrastructure, real estate etc. This helps the healthcare facility renew their focus on improving the quality of services in their core business utilizing these resources.

• Helps cope with expansion plans without diluting quality: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the quality of transcription, that is; accuracy, turnaround time and security are not compromised irrespective of the quantity of services required. Healthcare facilities can add on additional specialties and services without fear of dilution of quality in patient records

• Access to a talent pool and the right technology: Outsourcing medical transcription basically provides access to a trained pool of transcriptionists without adding on to the payroll of the healthcare facility. Another benefit of outsourced medical transcription services is that of access to technology used by the service provider for the transcription process. Technology is a major part of the medical transcription process requiring huge amount of investment, maintenance and up gradation costs.

            Outsourcing provides access to technology without any of these hassles. The benefits             of technology used by the medical transcription service provider helps in             improving       speed, security and ease of use by providing:

1.      A system that enables automatic upload of audio files for transcription at predetermined intervals

2.      Flexible modes of dictation

3.      Archives

4.      Different modes of document delivery like automatic printing, faxing, delivery to specified folders, access of transcripts to multiple users etc

5.      Facility for electronic signature

6.      Secure technology like data encryption, multi tiered application architecture, firewalls etc.

7.      HL7 interface for EMR adoption

8.      System for keeping track of dictation, transcripts etc

Outsourcing medical transcription to the right provider enables healthcare facilities to leverage on the experience, expertise, manpower and technology of the service provider. Outsourcing medical transcription to the right service provider can help act as a catalyst for positive change.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has utilized their extensive background in information technology and their experience in providing medical transcription services to come up with medical transcription solutions that help healthcare facilities save on time, money and effort. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use!   

To avail complete outsourced medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Helping the documentation process

The importance of maintaining patient medical records is undeniable in both the operational and commercial aspects of healthcare. Healthcare facilities have various options available to them to document the patient- healthcare professional encounter. The options available for documenting are:

• Dictation to transcription: The healthcare professional has the option of dictating notes of his/her encounter with the patient. These audio files can be converted into text reports using the following options:

1.     In-house transcriptionists

2.     Independent contractors

3.     Outsourcing to a professional medical transcription service provider

4.     A combination of any of these above sources

• Speech recognition software: This enables the dictation of the healthcare professional into text format using the recognition software instantly. In theory this sounds like the best solution. But this method has many shortcomings, some of which are:

1.     The software needs to be trained

2.     The healthcare professional has to change his method of dictation

3.     The document produced by speech recognition software is only 60%- 80% accurate, needing extensive editing and quality checking

• Direct entry into EMR/EHR: This enables the healthcare professional to capture data at the point of care using point and click templates. Though this method allows for instant documentation, this method has some shortcomings:

1.     Lack of narrative details

2.     Decreases the productivity of the healthcare professional

3.     Focuses the attention of the healthcare professional on the computer instead of the patient

Though there are many options available to healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities for creating patient medical records, all the methods need the support of experienced and skilled medical transcription services to meet all the criteria of healthcare documentation. Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider can help healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals meet all the criteria of healthcare documentation.

How can outsourced medical transcription services help meet the criteria for healthcare documentation?

Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider provides healthcare facilities access to all the resources required for healthcare documentation, namely:

• Trained and skilled medical transcriptionists to ensure accuracy and speed
• The right processes to ensure quality and security
• The right technology to ensure speed, security and ease of use.

What are the principles of healthcare documentation and how do outsourced medical transcription services help healthcare facilities adhere to these principles?

The principles of healthcare documentation are:

• Unique identification of the patient: The process of medical transcription ensures that the identity of the patient is captured in the manner narrated by the healthcare professional to ensure unique identification

• Accuracy: The process of medical transcription ensures that the information provided by the healthcare professional and the support staff in the audio record is captured with maximum accuracy possible

• Completeness: The medical transcription process ensures that the information provided by the healthcare professional is capture completely to the extent possible

• Timeliness: The process of medical transcription ensures that the patient medical records are created on a timely basis by using the right team, the right process and the right technology

• Interoperability: Interoperability of the data in the patient records can be ensured by the medical transcription service provider using HL7 interface. HL7 functions as a standard to ensure that critical healthcare information is made available to various sources without the meaning getting lost.

• Retrievability: Most outsourced medical transcription service providers keep the audio records and the transcribed documents on their systems for a period of time as specified by the healthcare facility, after which they are archived. The staff at the healthcare facility can retrieve this data by using various criteria like patient name, MRN no, the provider, the date of treatment or a combination of any of these criteria

• Authentication: Outsourced medical transcription service providers have the provision of the healthcare professionals being able to electronically sign off on transcribed reports to authenticate them

• Auditability: In case of any missing words or data, these would be highlighted by the medical transcriptionists so that the healthcare professionals can audit these records and correct the missing/ wrong entries

• Confidentiality and security: Outsourcing to the right medical transcription service provider ensures that the service provider would have HIPAA / HITECH compliant measures in place to secure confidential patient information covering technology, processes, infrastructure and teams.

TransDyne, leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has used their background in information technology to develop software and tools for medical transcription that save on efforts and money and adhere to the principles of healthcare documentation.

TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use!   

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

Medical transcription services: Gastroenterology

Medical transcription is the process by which audio records of a patient-healthcare professional encounter are converted into text format.  Medical transcription is a service closely associated with medicine. And medicine is a vast field having numerous branches and specialties. The needs of each specialty are entirely different. It is required that the medical transcriptionists providing this service are oriented with the terminology associated with the branch of medicine they are working on.

TransDyne understands that the needs of each specialty of medicine are unique. Therefore the medical transcription requirements of each specialty are different. Knowing this and the importance of creating accurate and timely records, TransDyne has created a unique training program for its medical transcriptionists. Under this program medical transcriptionists are trained to become expert transcriptionists in one or two specialties of medicine.

This means that they are taught the terminologies, drugs and procedures associated with the specialty. The specialty medical transcriptionist teams are also kept constantly updated on the latest developments in the field, as medicine is a dynamic field with new developments and discoveries.  Work is allotted to medical transcriptionists based on the specialty on which they are trained.

Gastroenterology is the branch of medicine focusing on the digestive system. Medical professionals specializing in the field of gastroenterology are called gastroenterologists and are trained to treat and mange patients with gastroenterological disorders.   

TransDyne has a team of specialist medical transcriptionists who are well trained for providing professional medical transcription services for healthcare professionals practicing gastroenterology.

How does specialist training in gastroenterology transcription affect accuracy levels?

Medical transcriptionists, proofreaders and editors are familiar with all the requisite terminology, procedures and the drugs used in gastroenterology due to the training program aimed at familiarizing the medical transcriptionists with this specialty. This ensures that the error rates in transcripts are drastically reduced and the accuracy levels are high. The team is able to produce high quality reports from the very beginning.

How does specialist training in gastroenterology transcription affect turnaround time?

Due to the training methods used the medical transcriptionists are very familiar with the specific terminology used and are able to produce transcripts with requisite accuracy in optimum time.

How does specialist training in gastroenterology transcription affect cost per line of transcription?

Due to the reduced error rate and reduced turnaround time the need for multi level quality checks is reduced and the productivity of the medical transcriptionist is enhanced this helps keep the cost of production under control and the benefits of this are passed on the healthcare facility.

TransDyne provides gastroenterology medical transcription that is cost efficient, speedy and accurate. Moreover gastroenterologists can benefit from the other features of medical transcription services by TransDyne like:

Data Security: TransDyne ensures data security of medical transcription 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 also ensures data security by ensuring that the data doesn’t leave their premises physically. To ensure secure medical transcription all the transcription is done in the company’s own premises and the premises are secured through appropriate security measures. TransDyne meets and exceeds all HIPAA/HITECH regulations that apply to electronic exchange of information.

Technology: Considering that time is one of the most precious commodities for healthcare professionals, TransDyne believes in using technology that provides multiple features with ease of use. Some of the features of the software and tools used by TransDyne are as follows:

• Smart upload: TransDyne offers doctors the choice of using modes of dictation they are already comfortable with. Then these files can be uploaded to the servers to be made available for transcription. Smart upload enables transfer of dictation files from the healthcare facility’s server to TransDyne’s server by checking for new dictations at pre-fixed intervals.

• Web Delivery: TransDyne’s web delivery system tackles all issues related with tracking dictations, receiving documents and finding old files form the archives.

• Smart Delivery: Smart delivery is an automated program that addresses the automatic downloads, saving files and printing needs of a healthcare facility.

• HL7 integration: TransDyne can configure and send healthcare information as HL7 messages to the client’s EMR with no additional costs.

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

Medical transcription outsourcing: Make an informed choice for desired results

Outsourcing medical transcription has been acknowledged to be a sensible option for healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals looking for accurate, speedy, secure and cost effective medical transcription services. However while outsourcing a vital component of the healthcare process like medical transcription it is important to make an informed choice so as to ensure a long-term partnership.

To achieve the desired objective of outsourcing medical transcription it is imperative that the healthcare facilities follow a clear-cut process of outsourcing, consisting of the following steps:

• Identify the objective of outsourcing: While outsourcing an important aspect of the healthcare delivery chain like medical transcription it is important to identify what exactly one hopes to gain from the outsourcing decision.

            It would seem obvious that the desired outcome of outsourcing medical transcription             would be to save on costs, but there could also be other objectives like expansion of             services, better time management, gaining access to a larger pool of talent &             technology etc. Identifying the desired outcome of the outsourcing decision can help in             the evaluation the medical transcription service provider based on their capability to             help achieve this objective. Focusing only on the cost saving aspect can lead to the       wrong choice.

• Identify the risks: Outsourcing medical transcription involves certain inherent risks and it is better to identify these risks; this will help in evaluating the medical transcription service provider on the basis of their capability to minimize these risks. The inherent risks involved in outsourcing medical transcription are:

a)     The inability of the medical transcription service provider to cope with volume

                 fluctuations.

b)     The risk  of pricing with hidden costs

c)      Security risk

d)     Technology mismatch risk

e)     Quality risk

• Evaluate the service provider: This step of the outsourcing process involves evaluating the medical transcription service provider to ensure that the potential risks that may arise out of outsourcing can be mitigated.

1.     Years of experience: The number of years the medical transcription service provider has been in existence is an indication of the robustness of the service provider

2.     Relevant experience: The experience of the medical transcription service provider in having served healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals of similar types is an important aspect to be evaluated as this indicates the capability of the service provider.

3.     References: Getting feedback of the existing customers of the medical transcription service provider establishes the service provider as being capable of delivering services as promised

4.     Pricing: While outsourcing medical transcription it is important to study the cost quoted by the service provider in detail. As cost saving is one of the main objectives of outsourcing it is important to evaluate the billing method used by the service provider to ensure that the components of pricing are understood by all concerned

5.     Accuracy: As patient medical records support the operational, legal and commercial aspects of the healthcare facility it is important to ensure that the information captured in the patient records is as accurate as possible. To evaluate the capability of the medical transcription service provider to deliver accurate transcription it is important to focus on the training methods and the quality check procedure

6.     Turnaround time: Timely transcription helps in clinical decision-making and in quickening the reimbursement process. The capability of the medical transcription service provider to meet the turnaround time requirements can be evaluated by assessing the availability of trained transcriptionists  and the technology used

7.     HIPAA and HITECH compliance: Protecting confidential information is not only the moral obligation of the healthcare facility, but it is also mandated by law. As the medical transcription process requires the transmission of this data to and from the healthcare facility it is important to evaluate the measures taken by the service provider for HIPAA / HITECH compliance

8.     Technical compatibility: The technology used by the medical transcription service provider ensures speed, security and convenience. It is important to assess this to ensure compatibility with the systems of the healthcare facility to ensure that no further investments are required

9.     After sales service: Outsourcing medical transcription requires a certain period of hand holding, having multiple channels of communication  can help resolve any issues as soon as they arise. It is important to establish that the service provider possesses adequate after sales service.

10. Scalability of services: It is important to evaluate the scalability of the medical transcription service provider's services to suit future service requirements like expansion of operations, adopting EMR, providing speech recognition software editing services etc.

• Getting started with outsourced services: Once all these factors have been evaluated the next step is to sign the contract and getting started on availing outsourced medical transcription services.

Following a systematic and scientific approach to outsourcing medical transcription can help the healthcare facility avail maximum benefits from  outsourcing option.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has been providing medical transcription services for over a decade. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use!               

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

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing quick and convenient solutions

It is acknowledged that healthcare is a complex process requiring total focus of time, attention and resources to have the desired outcome delivering quality healthcare profitably.  Healthcare draws inputs from various sources to be able to deliver quality services and be profitable. To this end it is essential for healthcare facilities to outsource specialized activities that are not part of the core business to ensure total focus on their core business.

Medical transcription is one such component of the healthcare process, which is not part of the core business of the healthcare facility. Medical transcription is the process of creating patient records converting the audio records of the patient- healthcare professional encounter into text format. Outsourcing medical transcription is a quick and convenient solution to the documentation needs of a healthcare facility.

How does outsourcing medical transcription provide a quick and convenient solution?

Medical transcription is a specialized skill, which requires the following inputs:

• Space: Having an in-house medical transcription department would require the healthcare facility to allocate space, which would incur real estate costs. Outsourcing ensures that the healthcare facility can use the space available to them for the purpose of their core business.

• Equipment: Medical transcription requires equipment like computers, headphones, servers, furniture etc. Outsourcing ensures that the healthcare facility is relieved of the task of sourcing, acquiring and maintaining equipment required for medical transcription.

• Personnel: The accuracy and turnaround time of medical transcription depends on the quality of people working on the transcription. In-house transcription would require the healthcare facility to source, recruit and train medical transcriptionists. Not only this, the healthcare facility would also have to allot management/supervisory staff to manage the medical transcription process. Outsourcing ensures that the key personnel of the healthcare facility can concentrate on the core business.

• Information technology: The medical transcription process requires information technology support throughout the whole process, starting from collection of audio files to the delivery of finished transcripts. Outsourcing ensures that information technology support for the medical transcription process would be provided by the service provider.

• Utilities and consumables: Having medical transcription in-house would require the expense of some consumables and utilities, which can be avoided by outsourcing medical transcription.

Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the healthcare facility/ healthcare professional need not go through the process of sourcing inputs required for medical transcription and supervising the process to ensure quality medical transcription.  Not only that outsourced medical transcription services also provide numerous benefits:

• Flexibility: By outsourcing medical transcription, one of the main benefits that healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals can enjoy is the flexibility. Outsourcing basically converts the fixed cost of medical transcription to variable cost, which is restricted to cost per line of transcription depending on the volumes.

• Holiday and weekend transcription: Outsourcing medical transcription provides a package deal to healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals, which also takes care of any weekend and holiday transcription requirements seamlessly.

• Accuracy: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the audio files are transcribed by specialist medical transcriptionists and put through a stringent quality check to ensure maximum accuracy.

• Turnaround time: When transcription needs are outsourced, turnaround time of the transcripts can be tailor made as per the requirements of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities. The outsourced service provider would meet turnaround time commitments by using the right team and the right technology.

• Reduced costs: Outsourcing medical transcription results in enormous cost savings to the healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals. Not only does outsourced services transform the fixed cost of medical transcription to variable costs, but also saves on cost per line by about 40% to 50%.

• Flexible modes of dictation: Outsourced medical transcription also enables the healthcare professionals to retain their familiar mode of dictation, necessitating no changes in the style of working.

• Multiple modes of document delivery: The software and tools used by the medical transcription service provider can provide healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities the benefits of secure, speedy and multiple options for document delivery.

• HIPAA and HITECH compliance: Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider ensures HIPAA and HITECH compliance throughout the medical transcription process.

Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider can provide a quick and convenient solution to healthcare facilities for their documentation needs.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has been providing medical transcription services for over a decade. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use!   

To avail quick and convenient medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Choosing the right partner

The process of healthcare has always depended on adequate documentation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter to draw inputs for providing quality healthcare and to use as the basis of billing for services.  The process of documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter has evolved from handwritten notes by the healthcare professional to exhaustive and informative reports transcribed by professional medical transcriptionists.

Medical transcription is a specialized skill requiring the right blend of people skills, processes and technology to produce accurate, speedy, secure and cost effective patient records. As medical transcription is not part of the core business of healthcare facilities the prudent option is to outsource medical transcription to a professional medical transcription service provider. The outsourcing decision is influenced by the accuracy, turnaround time, security measures and the price quoted by the service provider.  However while outsourcing, healthcare facilities have to make sure that the service provider can deliver services as promised.

A healthcare facility needs to look for factors beyond the tangible benefits offered by the medical transcription service provider to ensure that the service provider has the capacity to deliver services as promised.

What are the intangible factors that a healthcare facility needs to look for to be assured of immaculate medical transcription services?

• Accuracy: This means the percentage of accuracy of the completed transcripts vis-à-vis what was dictated. It is important for the information to be captured with maximum accuracy, as the information in the patient records is vital to the healthcare process. The ability of the service provider to deliver high quality transcripts can be ascertained by evaluating the following:
  
  

1.     Training methods: The accuracy in the transcripts is dependent on the skill of the medical transcriptionists. A medical transcription service provider that trains their medical transcriptionists to be domain experts in one or two specialties of medicine would be able to deliver on high levels of accuracy as promised.

2.     Quality check methods: The quality check method used by the medical transcription service provider is another indicator of their ability to deliver on accuracy as promised. Quality checks involving several levels would ensure quality transcripts with minimum errors.

3.     In-house transcription: It is important for the medical transcription service provider to have hands-on control over the transcription process to ensure accuracy. A service provider who believes in executing medical transcription work in-house instead of using sub contractors would be able to deliver quality transcripts.

4.     Quality Guidelines: Having quality guidelines in place would ensure that the quality of documents are unaffected by changes like shift change, employee turnover etc.

• 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/ healthcare professional. Along with the factors that influence service provider's ability to deliver accurate transcripts, given below are some additional factors that reflect the service provider's ability to meet turnaround time commitment:

1.      Technology: The technology used by the medical transcription service provider to capture and upload audio files and the document delivery modes influence their ability to meet committed turnaround time

2.      Experience: The experience of the medical transcription service provider in having served the needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities of varied types would also be an indicator of their ability to cope with varied turnaround time requirements.

• Security: Protecting confidential information is both the legal and moral obligation of healthcare facilities, healthcare professionals and all other entities dealing with this information. The ability of the medical transcription service provider to provide for HIPAA and HITECH compliance can be judged by the measures used by them to secure:

1.     People: Educating the team about HIPAA/ HITECH, medical transcription work done in own premises, restricting Email access, legal undertakings taken from employees and conducting periodic audits to ensure that all HIPAA and HITECH standards are met with.

2.     Processes: Physically securing the premises, restricting access of sensitive information to authorized personnel, disallowance of any removable storage devices etc.

3.     Technology: Technology to be secured by use of security features like 128-bit data encryption, multi-tiered application architecture, design level security safeguards, firewall protected networks, sterilized e-mail servers, denial of access procedures and multi-modal alerts.

• Low costs: The main benefit of outsourcing medical transcription is that of enormous cost savings. Apart from all the above factors, to ensure that the medical transcription service provider would be able to deliver quality services at low prices the following factors need to assessed:

1.      Billing method: The billing method used by the service provider has an impact on the cost factor. The billing method should be verifiable, definable, measurable, consistent, fair and honest. Care should be taken to understand the components of cost to ensure that there are no hidden costs.

2.      Professional experience: The experience of the medical transcription service provider for diverse healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals would reflect on their ability to deliver professional service and reasonable costs.

• Technology: Technology is an integral part of medical transcription services; it is important to assess the technological capabilities of the medical transcription service provider to ensure seamless outsourced services. The service provider can be assessed on the following:

1.      Flexibility: The technology used by the medical transcription service provider should be flexible to accommodate the needs of healthcare professionals like flexible modes of capturing dictation, varied modes of document delivery etc.

2.      Maximum benefits: The technology used by the medical transcription service provider should provide maximum benefits to the healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals like Hl7 interface, archives, automatic upgrades, ability to be configured for multiple users, provide for secure transmission etc.

3.      Easy to use: The technology used by the medical transcription service provider should provide maximum benefits while still being easy to use.

4.      No additional investments: Outsourced medical transcription should require minimal or no additional investment in technology.

Once a medical transcription service provider has been assessed on all these factors, the healthcare facility can avail maximum benefits from the outsourcing process

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has utilized their extensive background in information technology and their experience in providing medical transcription services to come up with medical transcription solutions that help healthcare facilities save on time, money and effort. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use!   

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