Medical transcription outsourcing: Helping the clinical documentation process

In today's world healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals are increasingly faced with economic pressures, legal regulations while still providing quality healthcare services. The need of the hour is high quality, timely, patient-oriented documentation. This helps with all the concerns; economic, legal and quality healthcare. Clinical documentation is an important element of healthcare.

Clinical documentation is the process of recording and communicating a written record of the patient- healthcare professional encounter consisting of assessment, inputs from other experts if needed, the diagnosis, the treatment plan, treatment provided, the progress of the patient's response to treatment, discharge and discharge instructions. The criteria for high quality clinical documentation are legibility, completeness, clarity, consistency, precision, reliability and timeliness.  To meet all these criteria and to be efficient clinical documentation depends on narrative dictation, which then can be transcribed to be a part of the patient medical record. The process of converting the audio of the healthcare professionals' narration into text format is known as medical transcription.

Medical transcription is a specialized skill that requires the right combination of skilled medical transcriptionists, the right process and the right technology to ensure that it meets all the criteria of high quality clinical documentation. Outsourcing medical transcription has been found to be the most efficient, effective and economical means of documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter.

How does outsourced medical transcription services help meet the criteria of quality clinical documentation?

The principles of quality clinical documentation are:

1. Legibility: The process of medical transcription ensures that the audio of the patient- healthcare professional encounter is neatly typed in the appropriate report format/template. This makes the record legible and easy to refer when required.

2. Completeness: The process of medical transcription follows HPI Quality Guidelines that specify that errors of omission are grave errors; hence efforts are made by trained and qualified medical transcriptionists to ensure that maximum possible details are captured. Moreover outsourced medical transcription service providers have quality check processes in place that put transcripts through stringent quality checks to ensure complete data is captured to the extent possible

3. Clarity: Transforming audio files into text format ensures that the details in the patient medical record are clear and unambiguous removing possibility of garbled and vague details

4. Consistency: Well trained and skilled medical transcriptionists ensure that the details captured in the medical record are consistent by applying their knowledge, context when needed and even highlighting inconsistencies for healthcare professionals to correct as and when required

5. Precision: The process of converting dictation to transcripts ensures that all details are captured accurately and everything is strictly defined.

6. Reliability: The process of outsourced medical transcription ensures that not only is the data captured accurately but also ensures security of this data during the transcription process increasing the reliability of data.

7. Timeliness: Outsourced medical transcription services ensure that by using the right blend of skilled medical transcriptionists, stringent processes and advanced technology the turnaround time requirements of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities are met with and information is available on a timely basis.

Outsourcing medical transcription helps in the clinical documentation process, which is an essential component for efficient operations of the healthcare facility and for provision of quality healthcare.

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 : Providing high quality services

Medical transcription is an integral part of the healthcare process by creating patient records from the dictation provided by healthcare professionals of the patient- healthcare professional encounter. Patient records have a dual role to play in the smooth running of healthcare facilities supporting both the diagnostic as well as the reimbursement process. However medical transcription is not part of the core competencies of the healthcare facility; therefore outsourcing medical transcription has proven to be an efficient solution.

Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that healthcare facilities can benefit from high quality services.

How does outsourcing medical transcription provide high quality services?

Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional medical transcription service provider ensures high quality services as medical transcription is the core business of the service providers and they can provide services with the following attributes:

·        Service with expertise: Medical transcription is a service which requires expertise like the right combination of people skills and technology to render services that meet the accuracy and turnaround time standards. Outsourcing to the right service provider ensures that process of creating patient records is executed with expertise.

·        Service with experience: The medical transcription requirements of each healthcare facility is diverse. The experience of the service provider in serving the diverse needs of different healthcare facilities would benefit the healthcare facility by ensuring seamless transition to outsourced services.

·        Committed service: Medical transcription is the core business of the service provider and all the resources of the service provider would be committed to ensure accurate, speedy, secure and cost effective medical transcription services. The healthcare facility can benefit by the commitment of the service provider by enjoying immaculate services that meet their specific requirements.

·        Professional services: Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional medical transcription services ensures that professionally trained medical transcriptionists who are experts in the specialty they are transcribing in work on the dictation to produce high quality transcripts

·        Service with integrity: The information in patient records is vital for the treatment process; it is important that this information is captured accurately and  confidentiality of this information is ensured. Outsourcing to a professional medical transcription service provider ensures that the integrity of the information is preserved both in terms of  accuracy and security.

·        Thorough services: The patient medical record is the basis of further treatments, reference for future course of action, basis for referrals, as evidence in case of litigation and the foundation for the reimbursement process. It is important that all the details are captured thoroughly. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures this.

·        Reliable services: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the process of creating medical records is a continuous and reliable process regardless of variation in the volume of transcription or transcription for holiday and weekend medical transcription requirements.

·        Service based on technical expertise: The medical transcription process relies on technology to ensure speed and security. Moreover technology also adds to the productivity of healthcare professionals  and support staff by providing numerous easy to use  benefits like flexible modes of capturing dictation, varied modes of document delivery, archives, HL7 interface and various other features

·        Timely services: Outsourcing medical transcription  ensures that not only are transcripts created in an accurate manner but are also made available to healthcare professionals within the turnaround time required by them.

·        Cost effective services: Outsourcing medical transcription  ensures substantial cost savings to the healthcare facilities by reducing both the direct and indirect cost of transcription.

Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional medical transcription service provider provides healthcare facilities complete 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 high quality medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Aided by digital dictation

Medical transcription has been an integral part of healthcare, providing the essential service of documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter for a long time. The reason behind the success of medical transcription is the ability of this industry to adapt to change. The service of medical transcription has redefined and refined itself to suit the changing needs of healthcare sector. Today outsourced medical transcription services are specialized services that provide vital support to healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities.

The entire medical transcription process has evolved right from the capture of dictation to the modes of document delivery. The process of medical transcription begins with dictation. Digital dictation has played a vital role in simplifying the working life of healthcare professionals.

What are the advantages of digital dictation in the medical transcription process?

Given below are some of the advantages of digital dictation:

• Choice of equipment for dictation: Using digital dictation allows healthcare professionals to use dictation devices of their choice. This has the benefit of allowing healthcare professionals to use equipment that they are familiar with and also making maximum use of the time available to them

• Portability of recording device: Digital recording devices are normally portable allowing healthcare professionals the freedom to dictate notes on the move.

• Improved quality of audio: Using digital dictation modes improve the quality of audio. This ensures that comprehensive details of the patient- healthcare professional encounter are captured with maximum accuracy

• Enabling automatic upload for transcription: Healthcare professionals have the option to have the dictation files to be transmitted to the transcription server using suitable applications provided by the medical transcription service provider to enable automatic routing

• Easy allocation of audio files for transcription:  It is easier for digital recordings to be allocated to medical transcriptionists as per their area of specialization.

• Ability to keep track: It is easier for healthcare professionals and support staff of healthcare facilities to keep track of dictations and work in progress

Healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals can have access to the advantages of a smooth and efficient transcription system starting from capturing the audio digitally to secure and convenient modes of document delivery by outsourcing medical transcription to a professional and technologically savvy medical transcription service provider like TransDyne.

TransDyne is the new standard in digital medical transcription, having used their extensive background in information technology to provide medical transcription services that help save money and efforts.

TransDyne offers healthcare professionals flexible options for voice capture, including:

• Digital recorders or PDA
• Phone in system
• Alternate modes of dictation capture.

The smart upload feature provided by TransDyne automatically checks for audio files at predetermined intervals and transfers these files for the transcription process to begin.

TransDyne offers the following options for document delivery:

• Web delivery: This addresses all the problems associated with tracking voice files, transcripts, or retrieving old files from archives
• Smart delivery: This deals with automatic downloads, remote printing/ faxing and other modes of document delivery.
• HL7 interface:Enables accepting and transmitting HL7 based ADT/order transmissions via TCP/IP, HTTPS or VPN

Apart from the benefits of the software and technology used by 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 digital medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing value added services

Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records of the patient- healthcare professional encounter, converting audio to text. Medical transcription services have always provided valuable support to healthcare in both the operational and commercial aspects. However medical transcription is a specialized service requiring healthcare facilities to source the right team, purchase the right equipment and have efficient processes in place to ensure accurate and prompt creation of patient records. Moreover medical transcription also requires substantial commitment from the healthcare facility in terms of overheads like space allocation, utilities and participation of staff from several departments. All these factors add to the costs, making having an in-house medical transcription department an unattractive option.

Outsourcing medical transcription has been found to a convenient solution for healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities seeking to create patient records in a hassle free and cost effective manner. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that patient records are created in an accurate, prompt and secure manner, while bringing down the cost of transcription by more than 40%. Though substantial savings on cost of transcription is one of the foremost benefits of outsourcing medical transcription it is important to concentrate on all the factors that could  add value to the process.

What are the factors that add value to medical transcription services?

• Providing a system for medical transcription:Though the concept of medical transcription is fairly simple; converting audio to text, it requires technological backup to follow a sequence from dictation to transcription. The typical sequence would be

           

1.      Dictation

2.      Uploading audio files to the server

3.      Transmitting audio files for transcription

4.      Medical transcription

5.      Transmission of transcripts

6.      Delivery of transcripts through preferred modes

7.      Archiving of files

8.      EMR adoption

            Outsourcing medical transcription would ensure that healthcare facilities and             healthcare professionals would benefit from the software and tools used by the service             provider which would ensure an automatic sequence for the entire             process

• Customized delivery modes: Another major benefit of outsourced medical transcription services is that the healthcare professional and healthcare facility can specify the preferred mode of document delivery. Options like delivery to specified folders, delivery to multiple users, remote printing/ faxing options etc. could be customized as per the specifications of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals.

• HIPAA and HITECH compliant medical transcription: The major concern of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals is that of protecting confidential patient information. By outsourcing to a HIPAA/ HITECH compliant service provider the healthcare facility can rest assured of the security of data through the medical transcription process.

• Leveraging on the medical transcription service provider experience:The experience of the medical transcription service provider is another factor that should be considered during the process of outsourcing. This factor ensures the healthcare facility/ healthcare professional of long term hassle free services.

While outsourcing medical transcription it is important for healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals to look beyond  the price quoted by the medical transcription service provider. This will ensure that the healthcare facility/ healthcare professional can benefit from the experience and expertise of the medical transcription service provider on  a long term basis.

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 total 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: 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.