Sunday, April 24, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: The evaluation process

In today's business environment it has been acknowledged that due to the advent of the Internet it has become possible for any business to avail quality products and services from any where in the world. This has resulted in enhanced quality with the enormous cost benefits. The healthcare sector is no different, as this sector too depends on quality inputs to be able to provide quality services. Documenting the healthcare process has played an important role in facilitating the delivery of quality services among various other factors that affect the operations of healthcare facilities including receivables management and risk management.

Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records from the dictation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter; medical transcription too has benefited from the advent of the Internet rendering the concept of a global village. Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider has been found to be an ideal solution, as medical transcription is a specialized process requiring professional medical transcriptionists, a stringent process and the support of software and tools to deliver optimum results. Outsourcing medical transcription not only ensures seamless creation of patient medical records but also has added benefits like increased focus on the core business, savings on cost, accelerated reimbursements etc.

However medical transcription is a vital part of the healthcare delivery process and it becomes vital for healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities to partner with the right service provider to ensure a long-term partnership. To this end it becomes vital for healthcare facilities to follow a stringent process of evaluation to choose the right medical transcription service provider for optimum results.

Given below are the factors to be considered for the evaluation process:

Expected service levels: While sourcing a medical transcription service provider to partner the needs of a healthcare facility it is important to enumerate the expected outcome. This should include the expected accuracy levels, turnaround time expectations, the required formats/ templates, dictation modes, modes of document delivery etc for both the present as well as future.

Credibility: Medical transcription is a vital part of the healthcare process involving handling of confidential patient information. It becomes important to establish the credibility of the service provider. Factors like no of years in existence, technical capabilities, past experience, client testimonials, free trial, billing method used etc needs to be evaluated

Cost: Savings on cost of transcription is one of the most important reasons for outsourcing medical transcription. Therefore it becomes important to study the price quoted by the medical transcription service provider in detail to ensure that the billing method used is definable, measurable, verifiable, consistent, fair & honest.

Impact on workflow: As medical transcription services have an impact on several areas of the healthcare facility operations it becomes vital to choose a medical transcription service provider who will provide services that smoothly integrate into the workflow of the healthcare facility and help enhance the productivity of healthcare professionals and support staff. Benefits like automatic upload of audio files, document delivery options, HL7 integration etc plays a vital role in improving the workflow of healthcare facilities.

HIPAA and HITECH compliance: Protecting the confidentiality of PHI (patient health information) is both a legal and moral obligation. As medical transcription is a process which involves transmission of this data to and from the medical transcription service provider's premises it becomes important to evaluate the service provider on HIPAA and HITECH compliance

Outsourcing medical transcription has multiple benefits for healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities. Choosing the right medical transcription company as a partner can have long-term benefits

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.

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