Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Medical transcription outsourcing: Creating valuable documentation

Almost all activities that are part of the healthcare process need to be documented to ensure proper reimbursement, record keeping and information sharing. Documenting the healthcare process is not only essential in terms of the actual healthcare process and operations of the healthcare facility it is also mandated by law. With the recent mandate towards a connected healthcare system; documenting the healthcare process in a manner that saves costs, improves sharing & access, improves safety and curbs cost has become the need of the hour.

With this mandate in mind healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities are in the process of adopting EMR/ EHR using various methods. As a result of this the healthcare documentation sector has come into focus. Medical transcription services and medical transcription service providers have been a part of the healthcare documentation scenario providing vital support by helping create valuable documentation while still enabling adoption of EMR/ EHR for a long time.

Valuable documentation can be described as documentation that includes:

Contains all the vital information for taking the right decisions regarding the provision of care: Medical transcription meets these criteria by ensuring that complete information regarding the patient encounter is reflected in the patient medical record, including the narrative portion. Medical transcription companies ensure that not only is the information complete but also as accurate as possible using qualified and experienced medical transcriptionists who put each transcript through multiple quality checks.

Easy to use and access: Medical transcription services are very easy to use due to the technology used by the medical transcription companies. Medical transcription companies ensure that the technology used, while providing all the required benefits still remains easy to use. Access to patient medical records created is also made easy by providing multiple options for document delivery and also providing access to older records by archiving them and enabling searches using various criteria.

Flexible to the needs of healthcare professionals: Medical transcription services have a deep understanding of the needs of healthcare professionals and have therefore customized their services accordingly.  Medical transcription companies provide services that include discrete reportable transcription, structured transcription, editing & proofreading services for speech recognition software and HL7 interface which offers healthcare professionals a multitude of choices. Medical transcription companies even offer multiple options for dictation modes, formats/ templates, document delivery modes etc to healthcare professionals as per their preference.

Facilitates proper coding and billing for reimbursement: Proper and complete documentation is the basis for coding and billing. Medical transcription services enable this by ensuring that the audio data provided by healthcare professionals is converted into textual information that meets all the criteria like being legible, complete, precise, accurate, reliable, clear and created on time.

HIPAA and HITECH compliant: Maintaining the security of confidential patient information is one of the main concerns of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities, especially during the transcription process when the data is transmitted back and forth. Medical transcription companies mitigate this concern by securing people, processes, technology and infrastructure.

Curbs cost: Outsourcing medical transcription is perhaps one of the most cost effective methods of creating quality patient medical records. Though other methods like point and click entry by the healthcare professional or front end speech recognition software may seem like cheaper options, these methods tend to curb the productivity of healthcare professionals, thereby increasing costs. The process of medical transcription when outsourced, reduces current cost of transcription by over 40% and also ensures that the productivity of healthcare professionals is not hindered.

Falls in line with the operations and work life of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals: Medical transcription services when outsourced to the right service provider, can be one of the most effective and unobtrusive methods of documenting the care process as medical transcription service providers possess a deep understanding of the needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities and provide services accordingly.

Considering the value addition that medical transcription companies bring to the healthcare documentation process one can definitely conclude that medical transcription services are indispensable for complete and convenient healthcare documentation.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has used their extensive background in information technology and their experience in serving the needs of the healthcare sector to provide affordable and integrated medical transcription solutions.

Among the software and tools offered by TransDyne for transcription, the smart delivery system has a large role to play in easing the path to EMR/EHR adoption The Smart Delivery system, which has features like User defined folder paths to enable easy imports to EMR systems is the suggested mode of document delivery where pre-defined file saving would help import documents to EMR systems.  Apart from this TransDyne also offers discounted rates for those healthcare facilities that provide demographic data entered in the EMR rather than through other modes.

Along with medical transcription services involving multiple level quality checks to ensure accuracy, the use of the right technology for ease of use, turnaround time and security, at reasonable rates, TransDyne also provides discrete reportable transcription and editing & proofreading services for adoption of EMR/ EHR. 

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


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