Medical transcription outsourcing: Helping the requirements of healthcare documentation

Medical transcription has provided valuable support to healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals by helping in the healthcare documentation process. Medical transcription is the process of converting the audio records of the patient- healthcare professional encounter into text format. As medical transcription is a specialized process requiring the right blend of people skills, the right technology and an efficient process to meet the quality standards of being accurate, timely, secure and cost effective, the easy solution for healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities is to outsource the entire medical transcription requirements to a professional medical transcription service provider

Moreover this method of dictation being transcribed into text format to form a part of the permanent patient record has been the method preferred by most healthcare professionals, as this method provides many advantages, some of which are given below:

• Usability: The convenience of using outsourced medical transcription services to create patient medical records is undeniable. Outsourced medical transcription not only benefit healthcare professionals but they also provide numerous benefits to other members of the healthcare facility by providing a system for medical transcription which uses technology to provide maximum benefits while still being easy to use.

• Healthcare professional acceptance: The expectation of healthcare professionals from medical transcription services apart from accurate, timely, secure and cost effective record creation is that of allowing them to maximize their limited time resources. Outsourced medical transcription services aid in this by allowing them to retain the familiar method of dictation and make it even more convenient to capture the narration of the patient- healthcare professional encounter by allowing them to retain familiar modes of dictation. Outsourced medical transcription services also provide convenient modes of document delivery as per the preference of healthcare professionals and healthcare facility.

• Meeting expectations: Outsourced medical transcription services meet the expectation of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities from these services. They do so by providing the following benefits:

1.     Specialty trained medical transcriptionists

2.     Seamless transcription services including holiday and weekend requirements

3.     Transmitting information into EMR/EHR using HL7 interface

4.     Securing information by having HIPAA/ HITECH compliant measures in place

• Interoperability: The process of medical transcription creates patient records, which are legible and easily readable. This makes this information accessible and comprehensible to healthcare professionals and other support staff at every level. HL7 interface enables easy exchange of data with other systems without changing the essential meaning of the information.

• Data integrity: Outsourced medical transcription services help preserve the integrity of the data by ensuring that the audio files of the patient- healthcare professional encounter is captured in totality, in an accurate, complete, clear, consistent, precise and reliable.

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, 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 outsourcing: Evaluating quality services

Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records from the audio of the patient- healthcare professional encounter. Patient medical records are an important component of the healthcare process as the information from these records aid the healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities in several aspects including:

◦      Patient treatment

◦      Permanent Patient records

◦      Referrals to other doctors

◦      Evidence in case of malpractice suits

◦      Coding, billing and insurance claims

◦      Satisfaction of regulatory norms.

Considering the value of information from patient records to both the operational and commercial aspects of healthcare it is important to ensure that these records are created on a timely basis and reflect accurate information.

The process of medical transcription requires a combination of the right team, the right technology and the right process to ensure quality. As medical transcription is not part of the core business of the healthcare facility and requires considerable resources to produce quality transcripts, the easy fix to ensure quality services is to outsource the entire medical transcription process to a professional service provider. Outsourcing medical transcription not only ensures accurate, secure and timely creation of transcripts it also provides the healthcare facility with the additional benefit of reduced cost and a robust technological infrastructure for medical transcription.

However while outsourcing one of the main concerns is to evaluate the medical transcription service provider's ability to deliver on quality as promised. The healthcare facility/ healthcare professional needs to assess the medical transcription service provider thoroughly to ensure that the service provider can deliver quality services as promised.

What are the criteria for evaluating quality medical transcription services?

Quality in medical transcription can be evaluated by focusing on the following aspects

• Training methods: The quality of medical transcription work is dependent to a large extent on the skill level of the medical transcriptionists. To ensure that the medical transcription service provider has skilled people working on the transcription it is important to evaluate the training methods used by the service provider. A medical transcription service provider that believes in recruiting the best talent and further trains them to become domain experts in one or two specialties would be in a position to deliver accurate and timely services. The training provided by the service provider will also have an impact on the HIPAA and HITECH compliance; as well educated medical transcriptionists would understand the importance of maintaining confidentiality and maintain compliance.
• No subcontractors: While outsourcing medical transcription it is important to ascertain that the medical transcription service provider executes the transcription work in-house rather than further outsourcing the work to subcontractors. This ensures that the transcription quality is not diluted, turnaround time commitments are met with and the security risks are minimized. The medical transcription service provider will be in a position to provide customized solutions as per the preference of the healthcare professionals.
• Number of quality checks: While outsourcing medical transcription work it is important to understand the method used by the service provider to ensure accuracy.  It is important to assess whether the dictation and transcription are subjected to more than one set of “eyes and ears”. This will ensure that errors and gaps in transcription are minimized. There also needs to be a methodology that ensures that repetitive mistakes are caught and the causes are identified so as to ensure that these errors do not recur.
• Technology: While outsourcing medical transcription it is important to assess the technology used by the medical transcription service provider. Technology has a significant role to play in easing the working life of healthcare professionals and support staff, ensuring turnaround time and security by providing software and tools for transcription which are easy to use while enabling features like flexible modes of dictation, automatic upload of dictation for transcription, customized modes of document delivery, HL7 interface, archiving etc.

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: Getting started on the right note!

It has been proven that outsourcing medical transcription has numerous benefits that aid the healthcare facility in reducing costs and increasing focus on the core business of providing quality healthcare. As medical transcription services are a continuous requirement, it is important to source a medical transcription service provider who can consistently provide quality services. While outsourcing medical transcription it is important to consider a medical transcription service provider who can be more of a partner than a vendor.

Once the medical transcription service provider has been sourced and evaluated it is important to formalize the expected service levels in writing. This will clearly establish the expected levels of quality, enabling the medical transcription service provider to gear their resources to deliver quality services consistently. As the needs of each healthcare facility are different it is important to define the parameters of service expected. The expected parameters can be categorized into:

Quality: The parameters for quality medical transcription services would include:

1. Accuracy: Accuracy is perhaps the most important quality criteria as the information in the patient record is used by healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities for several purposes like imparting healthcare, as evidence in case of litigation, coding and billing etc. It is important to communicate the minimum expected levels of accuracy and also the guidelines for quality.

2. Turnaround time: As information in the transcripts is vital for the both the operational and commercial aspects of healthcare it is important that patient records be made available on time. The turnaround time requirements may differ according to various factors like the criticality of the situation, emergency, specialty etc. These need to be defined.

3. Format/ template: Formats/ templates of reports could vary based on the type of report, the specialty or even the based on the preference of the healthcare professional, these need to be clearly specified.

Administrative: These would include:

1. Options to retain familiar modes of dictation: The medical transcription service provider should be in a position to allow healthcare professionals to retain their familiar modes of dictation allowing them to maximize the time available to them. And the dictation system needs to be configured to accept audio from varied sources.

2. Upload of audio files: The medical transcription service provider has to configure a utility, which enables automatic transfer of audio to the medical transcription service provider, by checking at frequent pre-defined intervals.

3. Modes of document delivery: Once the transcripts are ready it is vital for the medical transcription service provider to have modes of document delivery that enables the healthcare professionals to have access of transcripts through their preferred mode. There could be variations like delivery of transcripts to specific folders, delivery to multiple users, remote printing and faxing options etc

4. Archives: It is important that the medical transcription service provider provides an archiving system which enables the healthcare professionals and support staff to retrieve old records using various search criteria

5. Job summary: It is important for the support staff at the healthcare facility to keep track of number of dictations uploaded, work in progress and transcripts delivered. To enable this the medical transcription service provider needs to provide a comprehensive job summary with all these details.

6. Billing method: Reduced cost is perhaps one of the main benefit one hopes to gain from the outsourcing process. To ensure actual cost savings, it is important that the medical transcription service provider clearly defines the billing method used along with all the parameters used for calculating cost.

Technological: This would include:

1. Getting started with outsourced medical transcription services: Getting started on outsourced medical transcription services could include configuring healthcare facility system with the service provider's system, building VPN tunnels, installing software, ADT feeds etc.

2. HIPAA / HITECH compliance: Protection of patient data during the medical transcription process can be ensured 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 etc.

3. HL7 interface: To configure the interfaces and deliver reports to EMR/EHR as HL7 messages at no additional costs.

4. Upgrading software: Software to be upgraded automatically.

Customer service channels: This step of the outsourcing process is simply establishing that the medical transcription service provider has channels of communication so that any issues that may arise during transition can be solved at once. Having open channels of communication with the service provider ensures that the healthcare professional/ healthcare facility is in a position to seek instant relief for any doubts/ problems that is faced by them during the course of transition to outsourced medical transcription services or during any subsequent stage

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has been providing medical transcription services for over a decade. TransDyne provides outsourced medical transcription services that include all the service parameters described above.  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 trustworthy outsourced medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Fulfilling the purpose of clinical documentation

The process of healthcare is based on the premise of drawing meaningful and significant inputs from various sources, including the experience, education and expertise of healthcare professionals & support staff, inputs from other sources like pharmaceuticals, laboratories and numerous other sources. Information regarding every step of the healthcare process in a patient medical record is one factor that has always been a common factor helping bring together all sources to provide quality healthcare profitably.

Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records from the dictation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter. Accurate, timely and secure medical transcription is the result of the culmination of resources like the right team, the right processes and the right technology. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that patient medical records meet all the quality criteria without diluting the focus of healthcare facilities on their core business of providing quality care. Outsourcing medical transcription also ensures enormous cost saving benefits.

Outsourced medical transcription service providers help the healthcare facility fulfill the purpose of clinical documentation.

How do outsourced medical transcription services help fulfill the purpose of clinical documentation?

The purpose of documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter can be defined as:

• To provide a point of reference: Patient medical records basically provide a chronicle of the patient's health history. This information is invaluable as a diagnostic tool for planning present and future care
• For the purpose of communication: The process of healthcare requires that a primary healthcare professional may refer to specialists for inputs regarding the treatment provided to the patient. Patient medical records are essential for communication in such cases.
• To establish accountability: Patient medical records act as evidence of the appropriateness of care provided. These inputs are invaluable in case of litigation where the healthcare professional has to justify the diagnosis and the treatment provided.
• Fulfill legislative requirements: Maintaining patient medical records for a certain period of time is mandated by law.
• Quality improvement: Documenting the healthcare process helps healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities improve the quality of healthcare services provided.
• Research: Patient medical records provide valuable inputs for research and also help healthcare facilities provide preventive care
• To ensure reimbursements: Patient medical records are the basis on which coding and billing is done leading to reimbursements.

Outsourced medical transcription services help in all the mentioned aspects of documentation by providing services with the following benefits:

Accurate: Outsourced medical transcription service providers ensure that the transcripts are created with maximum accuracy using specialty trained medical transcriptionists and stringent quality check methods

Timely: Outsourced medical transcription service providers ensure that transcripts are made available to healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals using a combination of the right team and the right technology

Secure: Outsourced medical transcription service providers ensure that the confidential patient data is secure throughout the medical transcription process by securing technology, teams and infrastructure

Cost effective: Outsourced medical transcription service providers are able to help healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals save on cost of transcription substantially by helping them convert fixed cost of transcription to variable costs, bring down the cost of medical transcription by passing on the benefits of economies of scale achieved by them and eliminating indirect costs.

Technology: Outsourced medical transcription service providers have used technology to provide medical transcription services with the following benefits, while still being easy to use:

• Retaining familiar modes of dictation
• Different modes of document delivery
• Archives
• EMR/EHR adoption

It can be seen that outsourced medical transcription service providers understand the need for clinical documentation and help fulfill the purpose of documentation.

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: The continued role in documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter

With the release of the meaningful use criteria, there have been many doubts as to the role of medical transcription services in documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter. Medical transcription has been an integral part of the healthcare process by diligently creating patient medical records maintaining quality standards of being accurate, timely, secure and cost effective. Medical transcription has also evolved from merely being a typing service to that of being a service that has effectively used technology to provide services that ease the working life of healthcare professionals.

To fully comprehend the continued role of medical transcription it is important to study the efficacy of alternate methods of capturing information.

Method 1: Capturing data at the point of care using a point and click template. Under this method the healthcare professional would have to capture data using customized templates during his/her interaction with the patient. Though this method promises instant report creation and cutting down of transcription costs, this method has some inherent shortcomings:

·        Substantial investment in EMR: The healthcare facilities would have to make a substantial initial investment in the EMR System and spend a lot of time, money and efforts to customize the system to the specific requirements of the healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals.

• Loss of information that comes from the free form narration: It has been seen that healthcare professionals are comfortable with the free form narration allowed under the traditional dictation- transcription method of document creation. Point and click method would restrain the way healthcare professionals collect information from the patients and this would result in inadequate collection of information.

• Poor quality of documentation: The point and click templates would not reflect all the nuances and minute details of a patient- healthcare professional encounter and would not tell the whole “story” which is such an integral part of the diagnostic process.

• Cost of lost productivity: Though this method of data capture eliminates the cost of medical transcription it would result in significant loss of the productive time of the healthcare professionals, eroding the bottom line to a substantial extent.

• Taking the focus away from providing quality care to the patient: Having to capture information in a structured manner would dilute the focus of the healthcare professional on the process of providing care to the patient hindering the process and resulting in patient dissatisfaction.

• Risk management issues: A detailed record of the process of care including the symptoms, the diagnosis, the treatment process, the progress made by the patient is invaluable as evidence in case of malpractice litigation. Point and click templates may not provide the required amount of details

• Inaccurate or inadequate coding leading to inadequate reimbursement: Medicine is a vast field having many variables a point and click template may not cover all the aspects and this could result in improper capture of information. This could further result in poor coding leading to inadequate reimbursements.

Method 2: Using front end speech recognition software. Under this method the dictation of the healthcare professional is automatically converted into text format. Though this method also promises real time report creation, this method of capturing information regarding the patient- healthcare professional encounter, it has some shortcomings:

• Cost of the software: Under this method though the costs associated with medical transcription are eliminated, a substantial investment in this software and subsequent customization to suit the needs of healthcare professionals could be required.

• Time spent training the software: Speech recognition or voice recognition software would require training from the healthcare professional with regards to the style, accent, and the enunciation of the healthcare professional to be able to produce documents of even 60%- 80% accuracy.

• Change in style of dictation: Using this software requires the healthcare professional to change his/her style of dictation causing loss of time and productivity

• Loss of productivity because of need for editing by the healthcare professional: To be of reasonably acceptable quality the healthcare professional has to spend a substantial amount of time editing and proofreading the document produced by this software. This would constrain the healthcare professional's productivity

• Could result in poor documentation quality: Due to obvious constraints like lack of time, lack of expertise of the healthcare professional in creating patient medical records and the inherent shortcomings of speech recognition software the documentation quality could be below par.

It can be seen that the role of specialist medical transcription services in the process of documenting the patient – healthcare professional encounter continues to be significant, though the mode of providing these services could have changed.

Outsourced medical transcription service providers have adapted to the changing requirements by providing editing and proof reading services to back end speech recognition. This enables conserve on the productivity of healthcare professionals.

For adopting the EMR/EHR system, one needs to look for a medical transcription company that has the capabilities to import patient information to the EMR/EHR system while at the same time able to maintain accuracy, turnaround time and offer reasonable rates. This could help overcome issues like loss of productivity leading to erosion of bottom line, personal care for patients etc.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has used their extensive background in information technology and experience in serving the needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities for over a decade to come up with medical transcription systems that help save on money, time and efforts. TransDyne has a smart delivery system, which has features like User defined folder paths to enable easy imports to EMR/EHR systems. The Smart Delivery system is the suggested mode of document delivery where pre-defined file saving would help import documents to EMR/EHR systems.

Not only that 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: What to expect

Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional medical transcription service provider has proven to be a prudent solution for healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities seeking to create accurate, timely, secure and cost effective patient medical records. Outsourced medical transcription services provide several benefits to healthcare facilities, some of which are given below:

• Customized turnaround time: One of the major advantages of outsourcing medical transcription is delivery of transcripts within the turnaround time specified by the healthcare professional/ healthcare facility.

• Streamlined process for medical transcription: Medical transcription requires a system for collection of dictation, upload of audio files for transcription and document delivery modes to ensure timely delivery as specified by the healthcare professional. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the medical transcription service provider would have a transcription system in place, which would enable all these features.

• Archives to enable easy retrieval of transcripts: A lot of time of the healthcare professionals and the support staff at the healthcare facility is spent in retrieving old patient transcripts. The outsourced medical transcription service provider would provide a facility for archiving records, which will enable easy searching options. The healthcare professionals and support staff can save on time as these archives allow for searches using several criteria.

• Mitigating concerns of security compliance: One of the major concerns of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities is protecting confidential patient information. This data becomes even more vulnerable during the transcription process. Outsourcing to a vigilant HIPAA / HITECH compliant medical transcription service provider would ensure that this data is secure throughout the medical transcription process

• Accurate transcription: Using medical transcriptionists trained in specialties and multiple quality checks, the outsourced medical transcription service provider can ensure that the quality of transcription reflects accuracy and integrity without compromising on the turnaround time requirements

• Complete medical transcription solutions: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the healthcare facilities have complete transcription solutions encompassing all their needs. Factors like varied modes of dictation, transcription for different specialties, transition to EMR, speech recognition transcription, different modes of document delivery etc can be specified and included while customizing the medical transcription solutions.

• Easy to use technology: Transition to outsourced medical transcription services can be made easy for time-starved healthcare professionals by ensuring that the software and tools used to medical transcription system are easy to use requiring little change in the way healthcare professionals manage their working lives

• Transparent pricing: Reduced costs of transcription is perhaps one of the main drivers of the outsourcing decision. However pricing in medical transcription can lead to a lot of confusion. This concern can be mitigated when the billing method used by the medical transcription service provider is verifiable, definable, measurable, consistent, fair and honest.  The billing process can be made easier when the service provider explains the components of cost in detail.

• Fast response to queries: Transition to outsourced medical transcription services can lead to a lot of queries and concerns, especially in the initial stages. A proactive customer service department can ease the process by providing instant response to queries and solving problems in the initial stages itself.

Outsourcing medical transcription needs to a leader in the medical transcription industry like TransDyne offers a comprehensive and easy solution for the medical transcription needs of a healthcare facility. TransDyne has used their extensive background in information technology and their experience in having served the needs of leaders in the healthcare sector to come up with medical transcription solutions that help save on time, money and 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 complete outsourced medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Provides access to the right team

It has been acknowledged that the healthcare process draws inputs from various sources to provide quality services. One of the inputs that aid the healthcare process is information from patient records. Patient records document the details of the ailment, the symptoms, the tests/procedures administered, the diagnosis, the treatment provided and the progress made by the patient. Patient medical records provide historical content regarding the health history of the patient and context regarding the patient. Having proper documentation takes away the need for guesswork and prevents wastage of resources.

Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records from the dictation provided of the patient- healthcare professional encounter. However medical transcription is a specialized skill requiring the right combination of a trained team, technology and a streamlined process to produce the desired result of accurate, timely, secure and cost effective records.

Of all the ingredients that contribute to quality medical transcription, the right team of skilled and trained medical transcriptionists is vital. However the process of recruiting and training the right talent can be a time consuming process, which would dilute the focus of the healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals on the core business of providing quality healthcare.

Outsourcing medical transcription provides healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities access to the right team. The outsourced medical transcription service provider would have a process for sourcing, recruiting and training medical transcriptionists to become specialists.

What are the advantageous of having access to a team of trained medical transcriptionists?

• Accuracy: Accuracy of information captured in the patient medical records is one of the most important factors as this information forms the basis of continued care, reflects the appropriateness of care and helps in filing proper claims. Skilled medical transcriptionists who are well versed in the language of the specialty they are transcribing for would ensure that they capture all the details with maximum accuracy. Skilled medical transcriptionists would also ensure that they apply context where applicable to correct minor discrepancies using their knowledge of the specialty and the healthcare professional they are transcribing for

• Speed: Along with accuracy the other most important factor that affects quality care and the reimbursement process is the availability of timely information. Well-trained medical transcriptionists would ensure that not only are the transcripts accurate, but also available on time.

• Customization: The level of service required by healthcare professionals would vary according to their specialty, the treatment situation and various other factors. Well trained medical transcriptionists would help in the process of customizing services according to the specific needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities.

TransDyne, a leading provider of outsourced medical transcription services recruits the best talent and has devised a rigorous training process which ensures that medical transcriptionists are well versed with the specialty they are transcribing for. Care is taken to update the medical transcriptionists on the latest developments in their specialty ensuring that they meet all the quality standards.

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.