Medical transcription: The continued role in healthcare

The role played by healthcare in improving the quality of life is undeniable. Healthcare has always strived to provide quality healthcare to meet the changing needs of patients while striving to maintain a healthy bottom line. The healthcare sector draws inputs from various sources to be able to meet the constant demands made on it, by patients, by insurance providers and also fulfilling the demands of statutory norms.  One input that constantly supports healthcare is information from patient records.

Complete and comprehensive documentation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter helps healthcare facilities in all aspects. Information from patient records is essential for providing quality healthcare to patients. Patient records also provide information for coding and billing which than can be used to claim payments from Insurance companies. Maintaining patient records also fulfills statutory requirement of having to keep patient information for a certain period of time.

Medical transcription is the process of creating records of the patient- healthcare professional encounter. In recent times due to the advent of technology like speech recognition and point  & click entry in EMR system by the healthcare professional at the point of care, the need for medical transcription services have been challenged.  To judge whether medical transcription services would continue to be a part of the emerging scenario it is important to consider the factors given below:

• Volume: One of the factors that make medical transcription an essential part of the healthcare process is the sheer volume of patient records that need to be created. Dealing with such huge volume of work requires the expertise of a medical transcription service provider who can deal with these volumes while still maintaining accuracy and turnaround time standards

• Preferred method: Dictation to transcription remains the preferred method of healthcare professionals for patient record creation as most medical transcription service providers allow healthcare professionals to dictate using their preferred modes of dictation. This enables them to optimize the limited time available to them, instead of having to use point & click method of data entry, which could distract them from patient interaction, or speech recognition, which requires them to train the software and make major changes in the style of dictation.

• Comprehensive: The process of narration of the patient encounter, which is then transcribed by the medical transcription service provider, allows the healthcare professional to capture comprehensive information. Comprehensive information regarding the patient can help improve the diagnostic process.

• Helps enhance healthcare professional productivity: The process of dictation to transcription enables the healthcare professional to maximize his/her productivity, as opposed to other methods.

• Specialist services: Creating patient records through the process of converting audio to text by the process of transcription is efficient and cost effective because medical transcriptionists are specialists in this skill. They have the requisite language, medical knowledge, keyboarding and research skills to produce quality transcripts that meet accuracy, turnaround time and security standards.

• Risk management: Recording all the nuances of the patient encounter and detailing the treatment/ diagnostic process provides support in case of litigation.

• Creating error free records: The process of creating patient records through the medical transcription process minimizes errors as the transcripts are put through a rigorous quality check process involving experienced proof readers, editors and quality control teams who minimize errors.

• Editing/ proof reading for speech recognition: Medical transcription services have also adapted themselves to provide proof reading and editing services for transcripts created by speech recognition software.

• Integrate with EHR/EMR: Outsourced medical transcription service providers also have the capacity to input data into the EMR using HL7 interface.

It can be seen that medical transcription services are an integral part of the healthcare process, having adapted themselves to changes in technology and statutory requirements. As medical transcription is a specialized skill requiring the right blend of technology, process and a qualified team, outsourcing medical transcription is the best option to ensure accurate, speedy, secure and cost effective services.

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.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Helps improve cashflow

Medical transcription plays an important role in the healthcare process by transforming dictated audio files into patient records that provide complete healthcare documentation. Patient records are an amazing resource for healthcare professionals to draw information from, for various purposes. Patient records are basically the chronicle of events of the patient's medical history, including the demographics, the initial complaint, examination, the diagnosis, result of tests/procedures,the medication/ treatment prescribed, the progress made by the patient and the record of healthcare instructions given to the patient for continued care.

All these information are skillfully captured by the process of medical transcription accurately, made available within short turnaround times, transmitted through secure channels using different modes of document delivery as desired by the healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities. The medical transcription process is the culmination of the right people, the right processes and the right technology. As medical transcription is not a part of the core business of the healthcare facility, the easy fix to ensure speedy, accurate and secure creation of patient records is to outsource the entire process to a outsourced medical transcription service provider.

Outsourcing medical transcription also helps improve the cashflow of the healthcare facility.

How does outsourcing medical transcription improve the cashflow of the healthcare facility?

Outsourced medical transcription services help improve the cashflow of healthcare facilities in the following ways:

• Bringing down the cost of transcription: One of the main benefit of outsourcing medical transcription is that of bringing down the direct and indirect cost of medical transcription significantly. Outsourcing medical transcription brings down the cost per line of transcription by about 40%. Overheads that would have been incurred due to in-house medical transcription would be redirected to the core business, thus improving productivity and profits.

• Increasing the productivity of healthcare professionals and support staff: Outsourcing medical transcription essentially provides support to healthcare professionals and support staff by providing services with numerous added benefits.

1. Benefits like allowing healthcare professionals to use flexible and familiar modes of dictation enables them to optimize their time to concentrate more on providing care to patients which results in increased productivity.
2. Software and tools to enable automatic upload of audio files helps improve the productivity of information technology staff.
3. Multiple modes of document delivery improves the efficiency of healthcare professionals performance.
4. Archive facilities helps improve the efficiency of support staff.
5. HL7 interface helps in protecting investment in EMR systems

The increased productivity resulting from outsourcing medical transcription helps save on time, efforts and results in better revenues due to increase and improvement in services

• Providing the basis for reimbursements: Accurate and timely documentation aids in the reimbursement process. Accurate information regarding the diagnostic process is important to justify the treatment and this helps in claiming payments. Creation of patient records on a timely basis ensures that the coding and billing can take place on time and this accelerates the reimbursement process, thus improving cashflow.

• Protecting against litigation: Patient records not only play a valuable role in the treatment and reimbursement process, they are also an important component of risk management. Litigation is a complex and costly process and patient records provide valuable support in this process.

Outsourcing medical transcription to a service provider with a combination of the right team, the right processes and the right technology can provide numerous benefits to healthcare facilities one of the main being improved cashflow.

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.

Medical transcription services: Why is it important?

Medical transcription has been a part of the healthcare process creating patient records by converting the dictation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter into text format. Medical transcription services have adapted themselves to the changing needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities adopting newer processes and technology. The role of medical transcription has expanded from that of merely being a typing service to being an important part of health information management.

In recent times there have been many doubts about the need for medical transcription services due to the advent of technology like speech recognition and EMR. In spite of these developments the importance of the role played by medical transcription is undeniable.

Given below are some of the reasons that highlight the importance of medical transcription services:

• The basis of the healthcare process is the sanctity of the patient- healthcare professional relationship. Medical transcription helps preserve this by letting the healthcare professional concentrate on the treatment process:  allowing him to dictate his/her notes using flexible modes of dictation, instead of capturing the information at the point of care by entering the data themselves.

• Quality healthcare requires a quality patient record capturing the narrative of the patient complaint along with all the details. Medical transcription helps in this by capturing all the details of the patient complaint, along with the background information provided by the patient as accurately as possible

• Detailed patient records improve the communication between healthcare professionals. This is very useful when the patient has to be referred to a specialist for further treatment/ tests/ procedures.

• Medical transcription ensures that all the details of the patient encounter including treatment history are captured accurately. This acts as a valuable evidence in case of litigation

• Medical transcription encourages dictation as a means of capturing the entire patient- healthcare professional encounter. The process of narrating the encounter helps in the diagnostic process.

• Medical transcription creates patient records with maximum details ensuring that the healthcare professional has a reference for future patient visits.

• The medical transcription process creates transcripts capturing maximum details with accuracy and speed. Speedy medical transcription speeds up the reimbursement process and accurately capturing the details supports the claim for payment.

Medical transcription has an important role to play in the healthcare process whether it is by creating patient records from the dictation provided by healthcare professionals, or by providing editing facilities for speech recognition transcribed transcripts or adopting EMR through HL7 interface.

Outsourcing medical transcription has been found to be the most effective, efficient and economical fix to ensure accurate, speedy, secure and cost effective creation of patient records.

The expertise of the medical transcription service provider needs to be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Team: Quality medical transcription requires the right team to ensure accuracy and turnaround time. The expertise of the medical transcription service provider can be evaluated on the basis of their recruiting and training processes. This would ensure that the service provider has a pool of manpower to draw from as per the transcription requirements

• Process: The expertise of the medical transcription service provider can be judged by the processes in place to ensure accuracy, turnaround time and security. A service provider with the right expertise would ensure that none of the criteria for quality medical transcription are compromised by having the correct process in place.

• Technology: The expertise of the medical transcription service provider can be evaluated based on the technology used by them to ensure speedy and secure medical transcription services. The technology used by the service provider would ensure maximum benefits with ease of use.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has the relevant experience and expertise to provide immaculate medical transcription services. 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: The importance of turnaround time

Medical transcription has been a part of the healthcare process providing valuable support to healthcare professionals and support staff by creating quality patient records.   Apart from the accuracy of the data captured in a patient record one of the other most important factor that defines the quality of medical transcription is turnaround time. Turnaround time is the period of time between the completion of dictation to the delivery of transcripts to the healthcare professionals/ healthcare facilities.

 Turnaround time has an impact on the following:

• Clinical decision making and the quality of patient care
• Completing the documentation process as part of risk management
• Starting the reimbursement process

 The factors that affect turnaround time are:

1. The volume of work
2. Staff
3. Changes in transcription needs
4. Implementing new technology/ method of working
5. Varied turnaround time expectations

To meet the turnaround time requirements of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities needs, a dedicated team, equipment and process are required. And more over it is not possible to predict the volume of transcription required at any given time as the transcription requirements depend on the patient inflow, which is impossible to predict.

Given that it is not possible to predict the medical transcription requirements at any given time and the fact that medical transcription is not part of the core business of the healthcare facility, the best option available to healthcare facilities is to outsource medical transcription. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the patient records are made available to healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals within the specified turnaround times.

How do outsourced medical transcription services ensure prompt turnaround time?

Medical transcription is the core business of the service provider and the medical transcription service provider ensures prompt turnaround time by addressing all the issues that affect turnaround time like:

• Well-trained staff: The medical transcription service provider would have a process in place by which they would recruit and train the best talent ensuring that there is adequate manpower to cope with varied volumes of transcription work while still maintaining accuracy.

• Technology: Technology used by the medical transcription service provider would have an impact on the turnaround time. Some of the software and tools that positively impact the turnaround time are:

1.     Portable dictation devices: This enables the healthcare professionals to narrate the patient- healthcare professional encounter on the move ensuring that audio files are available for transcription promptly

2.     Automatic upload of audio files: Medical transcription service providers would have options in the dictation system to check for dictation files at preset intervals for automatic and prompt upload of audio files to the server at the service provider's end for prompt transcription.

3.     Multiples modes of document delivery: The medical transcription service provider would use the right technology to ensure that transcripts are delivered speedily and securely to healthcare professionals in the modes specified by them.

4.     Easy access to audio and text files: Technology used by the service provider enables easy access to audio files for medical transcriptionists and support staff and text files to healthcare professionals and support staff.

• Process: Outsourced medical transcription service providers would have a process for medical transcription typically involving transcription, proof reading and editing that transcripts are accurate and prompt.

Prompt delivery of transcripts is vital as they impact both the operational as well as commercial aspects of healthcare facilities and outsourcing medical transcription provides the right solution for meeting the turnaround time requirements of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry, has used their extensive background in information technology to develop software and tools for medical transcription that save on time, efforts and money.

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 prompt and speedy medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Helps in improvement and expansion of services

The healthcare business is a complex process requiring the healthcare facilities to juggle various tasks like providing quality healthcare to patients, managing paperwork and dealing with complex administrative tasks. Healthcare facilities not only have to provide quality healthcare to patients but also have to deal with payers and regulatory authorities to be successful and profitable. Considering the complexities of successfully running a healthcare facility, it is important that the healthcare facility focus their time and resources on the core business and outsource the rest.

Outsourcing non-core tasks would help the healthcare facilities improve their services and save on resources. Medical transcription is one such activity that is not part of the core business of healthcare in spite of being an important contributor to the process of providing quality healthcare and quickening the reimbursement process. Outsourcing medical transcription can help healthcare facilities in improvement and expansion of services.

How does outsourcing medical transcription help in improvement and expansion of services?

Medical transcription is the process of creating patient records by converting the dictation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter into text format. Patient records form the basis of further care decisions, reimbursements and are a component of risk management. Outsourcing medical transcription helps in improvement and expansion of services by providing the following:

·        Simple solutions: The solutions provided by outsourced medical transcription service providers are simple in the sense that it simplifies the way the healthcare professionals and support staff work, by letting them gain maximum benefits from the technology used by the service provider, while still remaining easy to use. The healthcare professionals can continue to use their preferred modes of capturing the details of the patient- healthcare professional encounter. The uploading of audio files and modes of document delivery would be programmed to minimize the efforts of the support staff.

·        Lowering costs: Outsourcing medical transcription helps the healthcare facility to save on cost of transcription. Outsourcing brings a direct saving of 40% to 50% on the cost per line of transcription. Outsourcing medical transcription also has indirect savings on overheads, infrastructure, and cost of supervision and management of medical transcription in-house, resulting in better utilization of resources.

·        Maximize resources: By outsourcing medical transcription the space, the equipment, the furniture, the information technology resources used for the medical transcription process can be put to good use for developing the core business of the healthcare facility.

·        Streamlining the flow of information: Outsourcing medical transcription helps streamline the flow of information by making sure that transcripts are prompt and delivered to the healthcare professionals via the modes specified by them. Options like delivery of transcripts to more than one person, remote faxing/ printing, delivery to specified folders ensures that the flow of information is streamlined.

·        Accelerating revenue flow: Patient records are the basis on which the coding and billing process takes place, leading to reimbursements. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that patient records are created on time thus quickening the reimbursement process and accelerating the revenue flow.

·        Better time management: By outsourcing medical transcription, the healthcare facility is essentially outsourcing the recruitment of medical transcriptionists, training, work allocation, monitoring accuracy levels, collection & distribution of transcripts, the information technology requirements, providing for HIPAA/ HITECH compliance during transcription to the medical transcription service provider. This enables the administrative and management staff of the healthcare facility to manage their time better.

·        Easy transition to EMR: Outsourcing medical transcription also eases the process of transition to EMR by providing HL7 interface. This has the benefit of adopting EMR without making many changes in the way the healthcare professional captures information of the patient encounter. Dictation has been found to be the preferred choice of capturing information, as it allows the healthcare professional to provide maximum details.

Outsourcing to the right medical transcription service provider can help the healthcare facilities improve and expand on their services.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has been serving the needs of some of the leading healthcare facilities for over a decade. TransDyne has used their background in information technology to develop software and tools for medical transcription that save on efforts and money.

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 flexibility of choice

In the current scenario healthcare facilities are faced with numerous challenges like increasing operational costs, declining reimbursements and patient bad debts. Healthcare facilities need to walk a thin line in order to keep providing quality healthcare services, coping with all the changes and challenges thrown at them and still maintaining a healthy bottom line

In a challenging scenario like this it is the need of the hour is for healthcare facilities to focus completely on their core business- that of providing quality healthcare and outsource all other activities. One such activity that can be outsourced is medical transcription, which plays a major role in the healthcare process but is not part of the core competence of the healthcare facility.

Outsourcing medical transcription has a lot of advantages, one of the main being flexibility of choice. Healthcare facilities get to choose medical transcription services that can be tailored to their specific needs making it cost effective and easy to use.

How does outsourcing medical transcription provide flexibility of choice?

Outsourcing medical transcription essentially reduces the burden of the healthcare facilities towards anything connected with the medical transcription process including the team, the equipment, the technology, infrastructure, process, responsibility of HIPAA/ HITECH during transcription, modes of document delivery, management and administration etc. By doing this outsourced medical transcription service providers essentially provide flexibility of choice in the following:

·        Volume of transcription:  Healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities have the flexibility of choice to avail accurate and timely medical transcription services irrelevant of the volume of transcription. Outsourcing medical transcription essentially ensures that the service provider has a qualified and trained team of medical transcriptionists to cope with the varying volume of medical transcription.

·        Formats/ templates: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the reports required by healthcare professionals are delivered to them in the format/ template even font specified by the healthcare professional.

·        Modes of dictation: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that healthcare professionals have the flexibility of choice of using flexible and familiar dictation modes. This further gives them the flexibility of using the time available to them optimally

·        Modes of document delivery: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities have the choice of specifying the mode of document delivery required by them. Options like delivering transcripts to specific folders, delivering transcripts to multiple users, options for remote printing and faxing etc can be specified to the outsourced medical transcription service provider.

·        Turnaround time: Outsourcing medical transcription also avails the healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities the option to specify specific turnaround time depending on the urgency of the situation.

·        Editing and proof reading services for speech recognition: Some healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities may have invested in speech recognition software. However the accuracy of transcripts produced by this software may be below acceptable levels. Outsourced medical transcription service providers even offer the option of editing and proofreading services for such transcripts

·        Adopting EMR: Outsourcing medical transcription also offers healthcare professionals the option of retaining the traditional dictation- medical transcription method of capturing data while still offering option of integrating with EMR through HL7 interface.

·        Methods of billing: There are numerous options for billing methodology in medical transcription. Outsourced medical transcription service providers offer the healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals the choice of picking the billing methodology they are most comfortable with.

·        Converting fixed costs: One of the most significant benefits of outsourcing medical transcription is that of choice of converting fixed costs incurred for medical transcription into variable costs. The expenses incurred for medical transcription is limited to the usage.

Outsourcing medical transcription provides healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals with the flexibility of choosing the parameters of medical transcription services as suited to their requirements.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has been providing medical transcription services for over a decade, customizing solutions suited to the specific needs of the healthcare facility. 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 flexible medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Helps save on efforts

Medical transcription has always played an important role in the process leading to quality healthcare, by creating medical records of patients  that are  accurate, timely and secure. To meet these criteria of being accurate, timely and secure, the transcription process needs to have inputs like the right team, the right process and the right technology. 

Though medical transcription plays an important role in the healthcare process, it is not part of the core business of the healthcare facility. Focusing on medical transcription would dilute the focus of the healthcare facility not only in terms of resources, but also in terms of time and efforts of the administrative, management, information technology and support staff. Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider not only ensures speedy, accurate, secure and cost effective creation of patient records, but also saving on efforts.

How does outsourcing medical transcription help healthcare facilities save on efforts?

• Saving on effort for sourcing and training medical transcriptionists: The quality of medical transcription is largely dependent on the caliber of the transcriptionists. Recruiting and training the right talent is a continuous process. Outsourcing saves on the effort having to source and train the right team.

• Saving on effort of sourcing and maintaining equipment for medical transcription: Medical transcription requires equipment like computers, earphones, foot pedals, furniture etc. Outsourcing medical transcription saves on the effort of sourcing and maintaining the equipment required the transcription process.

• Saving on effort of collecting and uploading audio files for transcription: Outsourced medical transcription service providers would have a process by which the dictation of healthcare professionals would automatically be transmitted to the service provider for the transcription process. This not only saves on the efforts of the support staff, it also ensures that speedy turnaround time.

• Saving on efforts for creating a system for medical transcription: Medical transcription needs to follow a certain process to ensure automatic creation of medical records, which would require a system for uploading dictation and downloading transcripts. Outsourcing ensures saving on the efforts of creating systems required for medical transcription

• Saving on efforts for following up for medical transcription work status: The outsourced medical transcription service provider would automatically provide job summaries of the audio files uploaded, the work in progress and finished transcripts, saving the efforts of the support staff.

• Saving on effort for ensuring accuracy and turnaround time: The efforts needed to ensure the highest level of accuracy and tight turnaround times would be saved by outsourcing medical transcription.

• Saving on efforts for document delivery: Different healthcare professionals require different modes of document delivery depending on the situation. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that transcripts are delivered as per the modes specified by the healthcare professionals.

• Saving on efforts for ensuring HIPAA/ HITECH compliance during the medical transcription process: Medical transcription is a process where confidential data is transmitted back and forth, outsourcing would ensure that the service provider would have secure technology, secure processes, secure infrastructure and enlightened team to ensure HIPAA / HITECH compliance.

• Saving on efforts for managing the medical transcription process: The entire medical transcription process requires constant efforts to ensure quality standards are met with, to which end it is important to manage all the aspects that contribute to the process. Outsourcing ensures that the effort of managing entire transcription process professionally is the onus of the service provider.

• Saving on efforts for continuously upgrading systems: The software and tools required for medical transcription need constant upgrades to be secure and efficient. When the transcription process is outsourced the service provider upgrades the system on a regular basis keeping it up to date.

One can see that outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider saves the efforts of the healthcare facility staff in numerous ways.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has been providing medical transcription services for over a decade. TransDyne has used their extensive background in information technology to create systems that provide maximum benefits and save on efforts.

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.