Medical transcription services have aided the healthcare process by creating patient medical records - converting the narration of the patient – healthcare professional encounter into text format. Though there are numerous options available to healthcare professionals to document the patient encounter, medical transcription has proven to be the method that meets all the healthcare documentation criteria. Not only this medical transcription has also proven to be most preferred method of documentation considering the numerous advantages of documenting the patient encounter using this method.
To be effective medical transcription needs to meet the criteria of quality, compliance and usability. As medical transcription is a specialized skill requiring quality inputs in the form of people, processes and technology and requires considerable investment of time, money and resources, the easy fix to ensure that medical transcription meets all the criteria is to outsource the entire process to a professional medical transcription service provider.
Meeting compliance standards for medical transcription:
What are the compliance standards for medical transcription and how does outsourcing medical transcription help meet these standards?
The word compliance has been defined as conforming with stated requirements. In case of medical transcription – the process of creating patient medical records the stated requirements include:
- To serve as a basis for formulating a treatment plan for the patient and document the continued evaluation of the efficacy of the treatment and the patient's response to it.
- To furnish the documentation for the course of the patient's symptoms, evaluation, treatment and changes in the patient's condition.
- To document communication between healthcare professionals that contributes to that patient's care. This ensures that no important information is overlooked and also prevents wastage of resources by eliminating the need for repetitive tests, procedures etc.
- Assist in protecting the legal interests of the healthcare facility and healthcare professionals.
Outsourced medical transcription service providers help in meeting the compliance standards required for medical transcription by providing services that include:
- Preserving the narrative: The narrative is an important part of the patient medical record as it provides important clues that enhance the diagnostic process. Medical transcription encourages the narrative part of the patient story by adhering to the healthcare professional- preferred method of documentation - dictation- transcription. Some of the added benefits include:
1. Flexible modes of dictation: Medical transcription service providers further make the process of recording dictation easier by allowing healthcare professionals to use dictation modes of their choice
2. Editing services for speech recognition software: Outsourced medical transcription service providers provide editing and proof reading services for those healthcare professionals using speech recognition software to record their narrative, ensuring acceptable accuracy levels
3. HL7 interface: In instances where the healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities need to adopt EMR/EHR, outsourced medical transcription service providers enable this using HL7 interface
- Providing easy access to records: Once the patient- healthcare professional encounter has been documented, healthcare professionals may need to refer to older records in case of patients availing a long course of treatment. Outsourced medical transcription service providers provide archiving facilities with easy search criteria to enable this.
- Flexible modes of document delivery: Outsourced medical transcription service providers offer convenient modes of document delivery that ensure secure and quick delivery of transcripts, with add on benefits like remote printing, remote faxing, delivery to multiple users and electronic signature etc. This ensures that all the healthcare professionals that are part of the treatment process can have access to the relevant transcripts
- HIPAA / HITECH compliant transcription: HIPAA has strict norms in place for protection of confidential patient information, HITECH has added to the provisions in HIPAA making it even more stringent. Maintaining the security of confidential patient information is an important aspect of risk management. Outsourced medical transcription service providers aid in this by protecting this information in all the aspects involved in the medical transcription process.
TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry provides medical transcription services with a deep understanding of the functioning of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals. TransDyne has used their expertise in information technology and their experience in having served some of the leaders in the healthcare sector, to come up with medical transcription solutions that help save on money, time 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!
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