Medical transcription outsourcing: Paving the way for clinical documentation improvement

Time and again it has been proven that services like healthcare cannot function effectively without proper documentation. Given the enormous strides that information technology has taken, healthcare documentation draws a lot of support from IT to improve accessibility and convenience. The process of documenting the patient encounter/s in its entirety has been defined as clinical documentation. The ultimate goal of clinical documentation is the expression of the health status of a human being.

It essentially includes the process of arriving at the conclusions regarding the health status of the patient including:

• Evaluation of current symptoms
• The relationship of the patient’s current status to the previous health history, which includes:

1. Family history
2. Social history
3. Surgical diseases
4. Review of the patient’s body systems
5. Risk factors that affect the patient.

The clinical documentation process is not just restricted to the healthcare professional directly involved in the care process but also includes other participants like the nutritionists, physical therapists, psychologists and other healthcare specialties. Clinical documentation improvement helps in improving accuracy, convenience and accessibility to patient medical records.

This is achieved combining human intelligence and available technology to create, aggregate and transmit precise clinical data. Medical transcription plays an important role in this process by helping healthcare professionals document the care process in an accurate, timely, secure and cost effective manner. Given that medical transcription is a specialized skill that requires personnel with the right skills, advanced technological support and the use of stringent processes to achieve optimum results, outsourcing medical transcription has been found to be an effective solution.

How do outsourced medical transcription service providers pave the way for clinical documentation improvement?

The goals of clinical documentation improvement include:

• Allowing healthcare professionals to focus on their primary goal of providing quality care: Documenting the care process using medical transcription enables healthcare professionals to concentrate totally on their patients rather than the process of documenting. Not only this patient medical records created by medical transcription service providers reflect the narrative portion of the patient encounter, which provides healthcare professionals access to the complete patient history improving the diagnostic process.

• Ensuring that patients can rely of secure and accurate health records: The process of healthcare requires a delicate balance of trust between the care provider and the patient. Patients expect their medical histories to reflect accurate details and that this information would be kept confidential. Medical transcription aids in both these aspects.

• Ensuring the healthcare facilities can

1. Optimize care: Outsourcing medical transcription helps healthcare facilities curb direct and indirect costs of medical transcription helping them focus primarily on providing quality healthcare helping them optimize care

2. Lower risks: Complete documentation details the care process, which provides a valuable tool for risk management. Documenting the care process using medical transcription process ensures that the care process is documented accurately and on a timely basis, mitigating risks

3. Accelerate reimbursements: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that proper documentation of the care process is done on a timely basis. Timely and proper documentation of the care process aids in quicker and better reimbursement.

Outsourcing medical transcription ensures quality documentation in an economic way, with minimal disruption of the healthcare facility workflow, which helps pave the way for clinical documentation improvement.

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

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: Strengthening healthcare

The healthcare process functions among a great deal of stress to deliver quality services. Moreover there is a constant pressure on healthcare to satisfy the often contradictory demands of the numerous stakeholders involved in the process. To achieve this the healthcare sector draws quality inputs from various support services. Medical transcription is one such support function that helps strengthen the healthcare process by creating accurate, timely, secure and cost effective patient medical records using the right combination of skills, technology and processes.

With the changes in the healthcare documentation scenario the role of medical transcription has evolved from that of being merely a secretarial service to that of a sophisticated service that strengthens the healthcare process. This process of evolution has also resulted in medical transcription becoming a function that delivers better results when outsourced to a technologically savvy medical transcription service provider.

Given below are some of the means through which outsourced medical transcription services strengthen the healthcare process:

• By providing secure services: One of the concerns of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals during the course of the healthcare process is that of maintaining the confidentiality of the information. This information becomes especially vulnerable during the medical transcription process. Outsourcing to a professional medical transcription service provider would ensure the confidentiality and security of the information throughout the entire process of transcription.

• By providing support round the clock: Outsourced medical transcription services provide transcription support to healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities around the clock, giving them options like flexible turnaround time options, STAT options etc. Medical transcription support for weekend and holidays is also provided as part of the package.

• Increasing accessibility: Outsourcing medical transcription enables healthcare professionals to have access to these services with minimum interruption to their work life, while ensuring quality services within specified turnaround time. Healthcare professionals and support staff also have the additional benefit of delivery of transcripts through the modes specified by them. Outsourced medical transcription service providers also provide easy access to older transcripts by providing archives of these files on a regular basis

• By being affordable: One of the major benefits of outsourcing medical transcription is that of substantial reduction on costs – both direct and indirect. Outsourcing medical transcription also helps enhance the productivity of healthcare professionals by allowing them to concentrate on the patient rather on the documentation process, enhancing their productivity and thus indirectly contributing to revenue generation.

• By providing versatile support: The medical transcription needs of healthcare facilities vary based on the volume of patients, which is impossible to predict. Outsourced medical transcription service providers provide versatile support to the changing needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities

• Easy to manage: One of the best features of medical transcription services is the ease of using these services. Outsourced medical transcription service providers provide easy to manage services by providing flexible options for most factors including modes of dictation, modes of document delivery, turnaround time options and even formats/ templates of reports

Teaming with the right medical transcription service provider would strengthen the operations of the healthcare facility by providing unlimited access to the right team, advanced technology and sophisticated processes for efficient medical transcription while controlling costs substantially.

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

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 and secure medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Supporting patient centric healthcare

The focus of every business needs to be on the end user or the consumer. That is true in the case of services like healthcare too. Though there are numerous participants or stakeholders in the healthcare process, the patient should be the main focus of these services.  Every participant in the process of delivering quality healthcare needs to keep this in mind to ensure success and profitability.

Medical transcription has become an important component in the healthcare delivery chain by helping document every step of the process in a clear and easy-to-access manner.

The process of medical transcription helps create patient medical records that fulfill all the purposes of documentation while supporting patient centric healthcare.  Outsourcing medical transcription further supports patient centric healthcare by providing additional advantages.

Support provided by outsourced medical transcription services for patient centric healthcare:

·       Total focus on the patient: One of the main advantages of medical transcription services is how these services conform naturally to the working style of healthcare professionals allowing them to focus on the patients rather than documenting the care process. Medical transcription encourages dictation either on familiar modes or back end speech recognition software to record the details of the patient encounter.  This ensures that the healthcare professional spends minimum time on documentation and focuses totally on the patient.

·       Clear and individualistic documentation: Using medical transcription as the method of documentation encourages recording the narrative portion of the patient encounter. This helps the diagnostic process by helping identify the unique medical history of the patient resulting in better clinical decision-making. This is an important tool for patients undergoing long-term treatment or those availing experimental treatments or in case of patients requiring the services of a specialist/s.

·       Reducing costs: Outsourcing medical transcription also ensures that healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals save on costs.  Though this does not directly have an effect on the patient centric healthcare, it does help healthcare facilities focus all their resources towards healthcare rather than medical transcription.

·       Timely delivery of patient medical records: Outsourced medical transcription services ensure that quality patient medical records are delivered on time helping in the clinical decision making process.  Outsourced medical transcription service providers also ensure that transcripts are delivered to multiple healthcare professionals if needed helping quicken the care process.

·       HIPAA and HITECH compliance: Another major concern of patients during the care process is maintaining the security of confidential information provided by them. Outsourced medical transcription service providers ensure HIPAA and HITECH compliance throughout the medical transcription process by using the appropriate measures to secure people, processes, infrastructure and technology.

Medical transcription services partner with healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities to provide services that help support patient centric care.

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

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: Providing strategic support

Like any other business it is essential for the healthcare sector to strategize their efforts and resources to provide the best quality services while maximizing revenues and minimizing risks. To this end it becomes essential for healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals to not only pick the most cost-effective options available to them, but also focus on those support services that provide ease of use. There are numerous parts of the healthcare process that need to be retained in-house. However there are a few activities like medical transcription that benefit from being outsourced.

Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records by converting the dictation of the patient –healthcare professional encounter into text format. This ensures that complete, accurate, legible and easy to understand patient medical records that are available on time. Though medical transcription contributes indirectly to the revenue stream, it is basically an expense head requiring focused investment in terms of time, money and other resources.  One of the best solutions available to ensure accurate, secure, timely and cost-effective creation of patient medical records is to outsource the entire process to a professional and technologically savvy medical transcription service provider

Outsourcing medical transcription provides strategic support to healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals by providing services that are:

• Doable: Outsourcing medical transcription is one of the simplest solutions available to healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities for their varying and unpredictable medical transcription needs. Given the amount of information available online, sourcing the right service provider is simple. The process of outsourcing can be made viable and safe by establishing a procedure, which evaluates the medical transcription service provider thoroughly on numerous criteria. This could include factors like:

1. Cost (components of cost and billing method)
2. Quality process
3. HIPAA and HITECH compliance
4. Turnaround time
5. Technology
6. Years of relevant experience
7. References
8. Free trial

• Understandable: Medical transcription is the simplest and easiest to understand method of documenting the patient encounter. It entails dictation of the patient encounter using familiar modes of dictation.  The rest of the process like uploading dictation files for transcription, the actual transcription process and delivery of transcripts is taken care of by the software and tools provided by the medical transcription service provider. Medical transcription is the method of documentation that intuitively aligns with the work life of healthcare professionals.

• Manageable: Once the right medical transcription service provider has been sourced and the actual process of medical transcription begins, medical transcription is an easy activity to manage. Outsourcing medical transcription to the right service provider entails negligible management efforts from the healthcare facility, as the service provider would provide the right team, establish the correct process to ensure turnaround time, accuracy & security and provide the technological support for the entire medical transcription process.

• Beneficial: Outsourcing medical transcription has a lot of benefits including substantial reduction in costs, access to skilled teams of medical transcriptionists, better utilization of resources, renewed focus on core business, provision for future needs, flexible services, support for developments like speech recognition software, adoption of EMR/EHR etc.

It can be seen that outsourcing medical transcription to the right medical transcription service provider provides strategic support to the healthcare facility and healthcare professionals in terms of current and future medical transcription requirements.

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

TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time and 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 and reliable medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Services that help create excellent health information

Information in healthcare has a vital role to play by supporting communication, documentation and reimbursement. Therefore it becomes important to ensure that information regarding the patient- healthcare professional encounter is collected and transformed into patient medical records that are cohesive and easy to understand. However the creation of patient medical records is not a simple process and requires a thorough understanding of the expectations of each participant from this information. These diverse and often contradictory expectations need to be analyzed and accommodated in the documentation process to ensure that the needs of all participants are met with, in a satisfactory manner.

Medical transcription is one of the options available to healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals for the creation of patient medical records, which also meets the expectations of all the participants in the healthcare process. As medical transcription is a labor-intensive process requiring dedicated resources to be able to produce the desired results, outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider has been found to be an excellent solution. Outsourced medical transcription services aid in the creation of excellent health information.

How do outsourced medical transcription services aid in meeting the expectations of the various participants in the healthcare process?

Some of the main participants in the healthcare process are:

·       Patients

·       Healthcare professionals

·       Health information management

·       Healthcare executives

·       Information technology

Outsourced medical transcription services helps meet the expectations of these participants in the following manner:

Patients: The patients’ expectation from the healthcare documentation aspect is   timely availability of accurate information and maintaining the confidentiality & privacy of this information.  Medical transcription service providers ensure this using a combination of skilled medical transcriptionists, stringent quality assurance processes and secure & advanced technology.

Healthcare professionals: The healthcare professionals’ expectations from the documentation aspect are that of usability. This includes:

1. Flexible modes of dictation ensuring better time management and minimizing loss of productivity
2. Transcripts created with maximum accuracy
3. Customized templates/ formats etc
4. Flexible turnaround time options
5. Quality services for varying volumes
6. Secure and customized document delivery modes
7. Adoption of EMR/EHR
8. Editing and proofreading services for speech recognition software 

Apart from the right team, right processes and the right technology, outsourced medical transcription service providers ensure that all the expectations of the healthcare professionals are met with using their experience of having served the healthcare sector to customize solutions to maximize the efficiency of healthcare professionals and minimize hindrance to their working life

Health information management: The main expectation of health information management personnel from medical transcription is that of compliance and security. Outsourced medical transcription service providers ensure compliant documentation and security by using the right personnel and the right security measures to secure all aspects of transcription.

Healthcare executives: The main expectations of healthcare executives in this regard are reduction of costs and quickening the reimbursement process. Outsourced medical transcription service providers help in saving as much as 40% on cost of transcription by passing on the benefits of economies of scale to the healthcare facility, eliminating the need for overheads for transcription from the healthcare professional and converting fixed cost to variable cost, which is based on the actual usage. Prompt creation of patient medical records helps in accelerating the reimbursement process.

Information technology: The main expectation of this group is that of minimizing of additional infrastructure for medical transcription and smooth implementation. Outsourced medical transcription service providers use advanced technology that provides maximum benefits while still being easy to use.  This helps in curbing additional infrastructure and helps promote easy implementation.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has used their extensive background in information technology and their experience in serving the needs of the healthcare sector to provide affordable and integrated medical transcription solutions. This ensures that the expectations of all the participants in the healthcare process are met with.

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: Creating documentation that follows a logical sequence

Much has been said about the need for documenting the healthcare process in a manner that is legible, complete, clear, consistent, precise, reliable and timely. The purpose of this document is primarily to throw light on the process of care, including the demographics, the findings of the physical examination, the diagnoses, treatments, tests (if any), procedures (if any), and the drugs/therapy prescribed etc.  The other equally important purposes of the patient medical record include coding & billing and providing evidential support in case of litigation. Therefore it becomes very important to evaluate the method of documentation based on these criteria. 

With the nationwide move towards an electronic healthcare system, there increasingly have been a lot of changes in the approach to healthcare documentation.  Options like point and click entry by the healthcare professional at the point of care, using front-end speech recognition software etc have been touted as options for creating patient medical records. Not only do they have disadvantages like inability to capture the narrative portion of the patient medical record, having an adverse effect on the productivity of healthcare professionals, failing to create individualistic patient medical records, curbing the diagnostic process, not meeting acceptable accuracy levels (in case of speech recognition software) but these methods also do not meet the purpose of documentation.

Medical transcription, the process of converting the dictation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter into text format, not only produces accurate, timely, secure and cost-effective patient medical records but also creates documentation that follows logical sequence, helping fulfill the purpose of healthcare documentation. As medical transcription is a process that requires intense focus in terms of the right team, the right process and the right technology, outsourcing medical transcription to a professional medical transcription service provider has been found to be an effective, efficient and economical solution.

Some of the salient features of services provided by outsourced medical transcription services are:

• Enhancing workflow of healthcare professionals and support staff: Outsourced medical transcription service providers have an innate understanding of the functioning of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals. This enables them to provide services that enhance the workflow of healthcare professionals and other staff. Options like providing dictation as an option to capture the details of the patient encounter, option to retain familiar modes of dictation, automatic upload of dictation for transcription, document delivery customized to suit the healthcare professionals’ needs help in enhancing the workflow of healthcare professionals and other support staff.

• Improve productivity: Outsourced medical transcription services help improve productivity of healthcare professionals by essentially allowing them to focus on the patients rather than on the process of creating patient medical records. Outsourced medical transcription services also help improve productivity of healthcare professionals by providing editing and proofreading services of speech recognition software created transcripts.

• Savings on resources: Outsourcing medical transcription helps healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities save on costs and resources substantially. Not only does outsourcing medical transcription save on the actual cost of transcription, but also helps in saving various resources.

It can be concluded that teaming with a technologically savvy and professional medical transcription service provider not only ensures creating documentation with a logical sequence but can also help in adopting EMR/ EHR using HL7 interface.

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

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: Providing services with numerous advantages

Medical transcription has been a part of healthcare, helping in the creation of patient medical records from the dictation of the healthcare professional regarding the patient encounter. Medical transcription services have evolved with the advances in technology and the advent of the Internet. This has in effect eliminated the need for the physical presence of the medical transcriptionist in the healthcare facility, giving rise to specialized, outsourced medical transcription services. Outsourcing medical transcription has numerous advantages, some of which are given below:

• Value addition: By outsourcing medical transcription, healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities gain in terms of an unlimited access to trained and skilled medical transcriptionists. This adds value to the healthcare process by ensuring quality documentation. Proper documentation results in better clinical decision making, receivables management and risk management.

• Be an integral part of the organizational process: Outsourced medical transcription services though essentially removed from the physical premises of the healthcare facility have become an integral part of the organization process by easing the process of collection of audio files, creation of transcripts and the delivery of transcripts

• Be part of decision-making: The process of clinical decision-making is incomplete without proper information regarding the patient encounter. Outsourced medical transcription services ensure that accurate information is available in a timely manner.

• Explicitly address uncertainty: Medical transcriptionists address any uncertainty in the dictation by the healthcare professional explicitly. Efforts are made to transcribe the dictation as completely as possible, doubts are clarified by conducting extensive research, putting each transcript through a stringent quality assurance process and leaving the space blank if the information is unidentifiable through any of these methods, for the healthcare professional to fill in

• Systematic and structured: Not only do outsourced medical transcription service providers have a systematic and structured process for providing quality medical transcription services, but they also provide a systematic structure for medical transcription to healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities. Factors like uploading dictation, keeping track of work in progress and document delivery are all provided for by the software and tools used by the medical transcription service provider

• Tailored: Instead of offering generic services, outsourced medical transcription service providers strive to provide services that are customized to meet the specific needs of the healthcare facility and healthcare professionals. Factors like turnaround time options, modes of dictation, document delivery modes, templates/ formats etc are tailored to meet the specific needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities

• Take into account human factors: Outsourced medical transcription service providers provide services that take into consideration human factors, that is why they provide options like outsourcing the overflow work, transcription for unpredictable volumes, holiday and weekend transcription etc.

• Transparent and inclusive: Outsourced medical transcription service providers strive to have a transparent system to fulfill both quality and HIPAA/ HITECH requirements.

• Dynamic and responsive to change: Outsourced medical transcription service providers are constantly striving to improve their services to be in tune with the changing healthcare documentation needs. That is why medical transcription service providers have included editing and proofreading services for speech recognition software and adoption of EMR/EHR using HL7 interface as part of their services.

Partnering with the right medical transcription service provider not only ensures accurate, timely, secure and cost-effective creation of patient medical records but also provides the right technology support, which results in overall improvement of services.

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

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 and reliable medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.