Medical transcription: Code of ethics

Healthcare is an essential service along with the other basic necessities like air, water, food, clothing and housing. Therefore the practice of healthcare requires that healthcare professionals and other entities associated with healthcare come under a strict code of ethics.

Medical transcription is a profession closely associated with the healthcare industry in both the commercial and operational aspects by documenting the patient-healthcare professional encounter.

The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) has come up with the guidelines for code of conduct for healthcare documentation professionals.  The code of ethics for medical transcription professionals are as follows:

1. Maintain confidentiality of all patient information including but not limited to peer reviews, quality improvement and risk management protocols with special effort to maintain data security in electronic communications.

2. Implement and maintain standards of professional transcription practice. Respect the rights and dignity of all individuals.

3. Continue professional growth enhancing knowledge and skills, including continuing education, networking with colleagues, professional reading and certification.

4. Strive to provide accurate and timely information

5. Exercise integrity in professional practices including work or professional experience, credentials, affiliations, productivity reporting, billing charges and payment practices.

6. Comply with all laws, regulations and standards governing the practice of patient documentation.

7. Foster environments of emplyment that facilitate integrity, professionalism and protection of patient information.

8. Strive to advance the goals and purposes of the Association and work for the advancement and good of the profession.  

These are code of ethics laid by the AHDI for the members of the association as guidelines. But these code of ethics can be used as guidelines by all entities who are in the business of medical transcription.

TransDyne a leading name in the medical transcription has based the process of transcription based on the code of ethics, which covers all aspects.

• Maintaining confidentiality of patient information: TransDyne believes in maintaining the confidentiality of patient information at all levels. The confidentiality of the data is maintained at all the stages, during transmission, during usage and during storage using the following means: 

a)    The use of 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 safeguards data when it is at rest and when data is in motion.

b)    Use of processes like company owned & managed facilities, not engaging any sub-contractors, employing manned security at the entry/exit points, round-the-clock video surveillance and the lack of removable storage media protect the data in use. The other measures taken for ensuring security of data in use are limiting the access to the application by User ID and an encrypted password.

c)     Educating people on the importance and procedures for HIPAA compliance gives them a professional outlook. Having them give a commitment in writing further ensures HIPAA compliance. This protects the data in all stages.

• Implementing and maintaining professional standards of transcription: TransDyne maintains and implements professional standards of transcription by training the medical transcriptionists rigorously in one or two specialities enabling them to meet standards of accuracy and turnaround time .

• Continuously enhancing the skills of  medical transcriptionists through education: TransDyne educates all its’ team of medical transcriptionists constantly updating their knowledge base on the latest developments in the field of medicine.

• Provide timely information: Timely information is provided by TransDyne whenever required.

• Exercising integrity in billing practices: TransDyne uses the character method of billing which fulfills all the billing method principles of being verifiable, measurable, definable, consistent and fair & honest.

• Complying with the laws of patient documentation: TransDyne complies with all the laws that apply to patient documentation.

• Foster the right atmosphere for professionalism and ethics: TransDyne creates a atmosphere which enables an atmosphere of professionalism. 

TransDyne offers medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert 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 medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription: Role played in healthcare

Medical transcription is a very important part of the healthcare cycle and plays an important role in both the operational and commercial aspects of healthcare.

• Role of medical transcription in the operational aspect of healthcare: When a patient visits a healthcare professional, it could be for various reasons like an emergency, sudden illness, regular visit or continuation of an ongoing treatment plan. These visits need to be documented as part of the patient’s records.  

Not only does this information form a permanent part of the patient’s health record, it forms a foundation for future encounters. Factors like demographics, lifestyle of the patient, past medical history, past treatment/procedures availed, past medications, allergies etc., have an effect on the future treatment plan.

In case the patient is availing a new mode of treatment, which is in the experimental stages, this information needs to be captured for record and research purposes. In case of any findings from the tests conducted require further treatment, the record forms the basis of referral to a specialist. Medical transcription enables the healthcare professional to take informed decisions instead of relying on memory or guesswork by creating accurate and timely records.

• Role of medical transcription in the commercial aspect of healthcare: The secondary, but equally important role played by medical transcription is the commercial aspect. Medical transcription forms the basis of claiming payment from the insurance company. The information from the record created by the medical transcription process is used as the basis of coding, billing and insurance claims. Any delays in the medical transcription process could adversely affect the receivables cycle. 

Medical records also provide evidence in case of any litigation issues and it is also a statutory requirement to maintain patient records for a certain period of time. Medical transcription plays an important part in record creation by capturing all the information of the patient-healthcare professional encounter.

• Where does medical transcription process begin?

The process of medical transcription begins when the patient enters the healthcare facility for availing treatment. The front office collects details like date of birth, gender, Social security no., employer details and details of the policy name and number etc. The patient meets the healthcare professional for consultation and treatment. This total encounter is dictated into a recording device by the healthcare professional. The audio recordings are then transmitted to the medical transcription service provider for transcription.

• What are the various stages of the medical transcription process?

The audio records are downloaded at the medical transcription service provider’s site and distributed for transcribing among the medical transcriptionists based on their expertise. Once the transcription process is over, the proofreader goes through the record to ensure accuracy and fill any gaps, which are left blank. Then the files are passed on the Unit in charge who goes through the record once more to ensure accuracy. Before finally transmitting to the client the quality assurance does random checks to ensure total quality and the final corrections are made if required.

• What are the attributes that define quality medical transcription?

The attributes that define the quality of medical transcription are:

a.     Accuracy: Needs to be above 99%

b.     Turnaround time: Needs to be within 24 hours

c.     Price: Needs to be reasonable and fair

d.     Security: Has to cover all aspects that is, technology, infrastructure, people and processes.

e.     Technology: Needs to be easy to use and provide maximum benefits.

It is important to have medical transcription support for both the operational and commercial aspects of healthcare. At the same time one needs to have the right provider to have benefits like accuracy, turnaround time, price, security and the right technology for ease of use.

TransDyne offers medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert 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.

Medical transcription: The myths and truths

In recent times there have been many myths and misconceptions regarding medical transcription, giving it a bad press. Given below are a few myths about medical transcription:

• Medical transcription is easy and anybody can be a medical transcriptionist: This is a common myth about medical transcription, given that entry into this profession is relatively easy. No formal qualifications are required except for an aptitude for the English language, good keyboard skills and a keen ear. In spite of the easy entry to qualify as a medical transcriptionist, a person has to go through extensive training in medical terminology, procedures and drugs. This profession also requires a person to constantly educate themselves on the latest developments in the medical field. 

Over and above all a medical transcriptionist trained in a particular specialty of medicine adds value to the work done by being a domain specialist increasing accuracy and turnaround time.

• Medical transcription is just a data entry service: Medical transcription is a service, which requires attributes like good listening, applying context when in doubt and an extensive knowledge base to draw from unlike data entry. Moreover medical transcription goes beyond just a data entry service by having additional benefits like effective report distribution, archiving and adding value to the healthcare facility in terms of reducing staff burden, reducing capital investment in medical transcription, and freeing up resources like utilities and real estate.

• Medical transcription can be replaced with voice recognition software: Voice recognition software is software that automatically converts the dictation of the healthcare professional into a typed text. On the face of this, it sounds like the answer to the medical transcription needs of a healthcare facility.  

But this software is not easy to use due to the following reasons:

1. The software has to be “taught” to recognize the voice of the user and terminology used
2. A healthcare professional has to dramatically slow down his usual way of dictation and speak in a structured way, including punctuation etc., resulting in loss of productivity of the healthcare professional.
3. In spite of all these preparations the accuracy of the voice recognition software has been found to be only 60%-80%. 

Because of such low accuracy levels the need for medical transcriptionists arises to proof read the reports and edit them to bring them up to the desired level of accuracy.

• Outsourcing medical transcription is time consuming: Outsourcing medical transcription can be made easy and quick by analyzing the specific needs of the healthcare facility and evaluating a prospective service provider by these attributes. A quick way to assess the medical transcription company is through: 

1. Methods of quality assessment
2. Billing method used
3. Technology used
4. Measures for ensuring HIPAA compliance
5. Training methods used
6. Assessing if all the work in done in-house or through the use of sub-contractors.
7. Testimonials
8. Free trial

All these information can be accessed through the service provider’s website

• Outsourcing medical transcription affects the turnaround time negatively: Outsourcing medical transcription actually fine tunes the turnaround time and regularizes any overflow needs due to rise in patient visits. Outsourcing also takes care of weekend and holiday transcription needs, thus lessening the turnaround time.

• Outsourcing medical transcription will adversely affect the quality of reports: Outsourcing actually improves the accuracy level of the reports transcribed, when done right. The healthcare facility needs to look a service provider who has a thorough method for attaining accuracy; specialty based training methods and executes all medical transcription work in-house.

• Outsourcing medical transcription has hidden costs that will increase the cost per line: The cost per line of medical transcription is largely determined by the billing method used. Picking a medical transcription service provider that uses a fair and simple method of billing will ensure that there are no hidden costs, and help keep costs down.

• Outsourcing medical transcription is not safe: This is one of the main myths perpetuated due to a few unfortunate incidents in the past. The security measures used by the medical transcription service provider need to be assessed in detail to ensure security breaches are prevented. The service provider needs to be assessed for security on the basis of: 

1. Technology
2. Facilities and infrastructure
3. People and processes 

• Outsourcing medical transcription would require an entirely new Information Technology (IT) infrastructure: Outsourcing to the right service provider would ensure this does not happen. Care needs to be taken to choose a service provider who understands the special needs of the healthcare professionals and ensures that the technology takes care of all the needs and at the same time is very simple to use. Features like a flexible mode of dictation, easy uploads & downloads and archiving facilities need to be considered in the assessment process. 

TransDyne is a medical transcription service provider that busts all these myths and provides 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.

Medical transcription outsourcing; Getting started with TransDyne

Once the process of evaluating and selecting a medical transcription service provider is over, the next step is the transition from the current mode of transcription to that of using the services of the service provider. Getting started on a new mode of transcription can be complicated and time consuming unless the service provider has a simple process for integration.

TransDyne has made transition to outsourced services an easy and stress-free process allowing the healthcare facility to start using their services without having to make any major adjustments. The process of transition to TransDyne medical transcription services would involve:

• Identifying the right solution: TransDyne believes that the needs of each and every customer are different. That is why TransDyne does not offer a “vanilla” product. Rather, TransDyne believes in having discussions with the healthcare facilities on the various aspects of the service needed and customizing their products to suit that of their clients. This ensures that the healthcare facility and TransDyne are on the same page from the very beginning. 

Identifying the right solution for medical transcription needs of the healthcare facility would be done taking into consideration the following factors:

1. Number of doctors at the facility: This would have an impact on the volume, the formats required and the turnaround time of the reports

2. The specialties of the doctors: TransDyne believes in catering to the needs of doctors based on their specialization. Specially trained medical transcriptionists would be assigned according to the specialties

3. The volume of transcription: This would help plan the kind of system integration required and planning for holidays and weekend requirements

4. The types of reports: The type of reports required would help configure the systems.

5. Turnaround time required: Turnaround time would vary according to the type of report and these needs to be considered while customizing solutions for the client.

6. Dictation modes: The dictation modes used by the healthcare professionals need to be configured into the system

7. EMR integration required: Incase of integration with EMR is required then HL7 integration needs to be provided.

8. Additional features like remote printing and faxing: These features need to be incorporated on the basis of the needs.

9. Electronic signature: This feature also needs to be integrated into the system.

10. Archiving requirements: Each client has specific archiving requirements, which need to be customized accordingly.

11. Preferred billing method: There are different billing methods based on minute of transcription, gross line, page, report, and character line method of billing. The method of billing needs to be agreed upon to commence services.

12. Access levels to different users: The healthcare facility may want to give different levels of access to reports on the system this needs to be ascertained beforehand.

13. Expansion plans of the healthcare facility: This will determine what could be the future medical transcription requirements. 

• Agreement: This stage involves formalizing the solutions that have been identified into the agreement. TransDyne has a standard business agreement, which is provided to the client for scrutiny by their legal team. Efforts are made to incorporate any changes required by the clients on this.

• Gathering the right information: At this stage details like formats, macros and templates will be gathered for inclusion in the reports produced. The individual needs of the healthcare professionals are taken into consideration.

• Shipping hardware and software: This next stage involves shipping the necessary software and hardware required for starting the transcription process. It could be as minimal as digital recorders considering that TransDyne believes in using simple and effective technology

• Technical integration: The integration of the systems with that of the healthcare facilities’ system is done at this stage. Any other requirements by the clients in this regard are also taken care at this stage.

• Training: The teams at the healthcare facility are provided orientation to work with the system to enable easy usage.

• Using the service: At this stage the healthcare facility can start using the services by uploading dictation files on the TransDyne systems. The transcribed reports will be made available to the healthcare facility as per the turnaround time guaranteed. 

To get started on superior medical transcription services by TransDyne, please click here

Medical transcription: Availing outsourced services

Medical transcription is a service; thereby the usual criteria of evaluation for making a purchase are not sufficient. Usually a purchase decision would involve evaluating criteria like Product/service, price, channels of availability and the promotional offers available along with purchase. Let us evaluate how they apply to availing medical transcription services:

• Service: In case of services like medical transcription the dimensions of the service would be defined by: 

1. Flexibility of service: TransDyne offers medical transcription solutions that are tailor made to suit the need of every healthcare facility, be it a single doctor practice or a huge hospital offering numerous specialties.

2. Security of the service: TransDyne realizes that the security of confidential patient information is an important aspect of medical transcription services. Measures are taken to ensure that processes, people and infrastructure are HIPAA compliant.

3. Turnaround time of the service: TransDyne understands that medical transcription is a critical service both for providing quality care as well as speeding up the receivables cycle, that is why TransDyne offers a guaranteed turnaround time of 24 hours, with an option of 4-12 hours for STAT reports. 

• Price: Defining the price of services is a really tricky issue and would involve defining the measurement parameters of service. In case of medical transcription it the measurement parameters for the service could be defined in terms of  

1. Minute
2. Page
3. Report
4. Gross lines
5. Character line
6. Visible black character

TransDyne uses the character line method of billing, which ensures that the healthcare facility gets a fair and reasonable price for the services rendered.

• Channels of availability: In case of a service like medical transcription this would mean sources providing transcription like in-house employees, independent contractors, or a medical transcription service provider. 

TransDyne is professional medical transcription service provider that specializes in providing medical transcription services.

• Promotion: Promotional offers that add to medical transcription services like free recorders etc. also affect the purchase decision. 

TransDyne offers promotional offers from time to time, which are extremely attractive and add value to the service provided.

The above criteria are generally considered adequate for the purchase decision involving a physical product. However while evaluating a service like medical transcription further assessment is needed based on the following criteria:

• Process: The quality of medical transcription service also needs to be assessed on the basis of the process used for providing the service. In case of medical transcription it could involve assessing the process on the basis of: 

1. Quality process: TransDyne ensures quality by adopting a four level quality check of Medical Transcriptionist, language proofreader, unit in charge and finally by our Quality Assurance (QA) team which tries to minimize errors before returning the finished reports.

2. Security measures taken to ensure HIPAA compliance: 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. 

• People: In any service, and particularly a service as crucial as medical transcription, the quality of the people providing the service play a very important part in the quality of service. Evaluating the people involved in the service of medical transcription can be done by evaluating: 

1. Training methods: TransDyne goes through a rigorous process of selection to recruit the best talent. Then the medical transcriptionists are trained on one or two areas of specialty ensuring that they are domain experts. This ensures the quality and turnaround time are maintained at the highest levels.
2. Whether transcription is done in-house or through other means: TransDyne believes in executing all the medical transcription work in-house. 

• Physical evidence: There is no better method of assessing a service than by experiencing a sample of the service before signing the contract. 

TransDyne offers a free trial of their services for a limited time period.

In order to make the right decision regarding medical transcription services and to know more about TransDyne advantages click here

Medical transcription: Outsourcing can reduce the information technology burden of the healthcare facility

The success of any organization lies in being able to concentrate on the core business and outsource all other activities that are not part of the core business. The core business of a healthcare facility is that of providing quality healthcare. All other activities are support functions. They play an important role in achieving the core objective, but may not be part of the core competency of the healthcare facility.

One such activity is medical transcription. Medical transcription is the process of documenting the patient-healthcare professional encounter.

What is the importance of medical transcription in the healthcare process?

Medical transcription plays an important part in the following:

• Patient treatment
• Permanent Patient records
• Referrals to other doctors
• Evidence in case of malpractice suits
• Coding, billing and insurance claims
• Satisfaction of regulatory norms 

One can see that medical transcription plays a very important role in major areas of healthcare like quality of care, diagnosis and in the receivables cycle.

What role does Information Technology (IT) play in Medical transcription?

With the evolution of medical transcription from the manual to the virtual world, Information Technology plays a very important role at every stage of medical transcription like:

• Collections of patient-healthcare professional encounter data.
• Transmission of data to the medical transcriptionists
• The transcription process
• Transmission of transcribed files to the healthcare professionals
• Archiving of files for future reference
• Integration with EMR systems. 

The whole process of medical transcription needs Information technology at every stage to make the process quicker and secure. Executing medical transcription in-house would require that the healthcare facility have massive investment in Information technology to enable all these functions. It would involve investments in servers for uploading dictation, secure file transfer protocols to distribute work to and collect work from medical transcriptionists, distribution network for report distribution and powerful archiving to trace dictations, work-in-progress and finished transcripts.

The simple step of outsourcing medical transcription needs to a technology savvy medical transcription service provider can eliminate the total burden of investment in Information technology towards medical transcription. These valuable resources could then be put to better use.

TransDyne a leading name in medical transcription believes that technology needs to be advanced so that the service provided is of the best standard, but should be simple to enable ease of use for healthcare professionals.

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 are 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 from 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. 

By using the right technology TransDyne provides medical transcription with benefits like:

• Accuracy of above 99%
• Turnaround time of 24 hours with an option of 4-12 hours for STAT files.
• Secure channels for data transmission, ensuring HIPAA compliance.
• Fair and verifiable pricing. 

To avail comprehensive medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here

Medical transcription outsourcing: Helps make the organization structure leaner

Medical transcription is the process of creating records of the patient-healthcare professional encounter. It is a non-profit making but essential part of the healthcare process. It is considered to be one of the cost heads.

The aim of most healthcare facilities is to reduce the cost of medical transcription as much as possible. Outsourcing medical transcription helps reduce costs both directly and indirectly.

How does outsourcing medical transcription reduce direct costs?

Outsourcing medical transcription reduces direct costs by reducing the following cost heads:

• Reduce the cost of medical transcriptionist staff on the rolls: One of the main contributors to the cost of medical transcription in-house is the need to maintain the manpower to execute the work. Outsourcing medical transcription needs can bring down not only the salaries paid to the medical transcriptionist but also bring down other costs like taxes, benefits like insurance, down time when work is slow, overtime payments, the cost of weekend and holiday transcription etc.

• Bring down the cost per line of transcription: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the healthcare facility ends up paying very less per line of transcription due to benefits like economies of scale, lower cost of living at the outsourcing company location, and the benefits of best practices adopted by the service provider.

• Reduce the cost of medical transcription equipment: For medical transcription to be executed in-house the healthcare facility has to invest in medical transcription equipment like computers, servers, earphones, foot pedals etc. These expenses are eliminated with the outsourcing option. 

How does outsourcing medical transcription reduce indirect costs?

Outsourcing medical transcription reduces indirect costs by reducing the following cost heads:

• Reduce the cost of management resources: Managing medical transcription in-house would involve allocation of management staff for activities like recruitment, training, supervision of medical transcription work. By outsourcing medical transcription, management expenses towards managing medical transcription in-house would be dramatically reduced.

• Reduce the cost of utilities: Utilities like power, water, stationery, consumables etc. add to the cost of medical transcription in-house. Outsourcing medical transcription would eliminate all these costs.

• Reduce the cost of real estate: Executing medical transcription in-house would mean allocating space for this purpose. This cost of real estate would add to the cost of transcription. Outsourcing medical transcription would totally eliminate this cost head. 

Outsourcing medical transcription needs would make the organization structure leaner by eliminating the need to maintain a huge staff on the rolls, while at the same time bringing down the cost of transcription dramatically. It allows the healthcare facility to take advantage of opportunity costs which would have been lost by allocating essential resources to in-house transcription like investments in capital equipment, space allocation, management resources etc.

Outsourcing medical transcription to TransDyne helps not only eliminate direct and indirect costs of in-house transcription, it also offers advantages like:

·       Accuracy level of above 99%

·       Turnaround time of 24 hours, with an option of 4-12 hours turnaround time for STAT reports

·       Data transmission through secure, HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels.

·       Technology that enables easy uploads and downloads, and offers powerful archival facilities.

·       Familiar and flexible modes of dictation

·       HL7 integration, which allows for interface with EMR systems.

To avail advantages of outsourcing medical transcription to TransDyne, click here