Medical transcription outsourcing: Benefit from the best practices of the service provider

The practice of medicine requires expert inputs to meet the high standards of quality care and profitability. Keeping in mind that healthcare is a specialized skill requiring intense focus and concentration to produce the desired results it is important for both healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities to focus on the core business of providing quality healthcare and outsource all support activities.

Outsourcing all activities other than the core process of providing healthcare not only endows numerous benefits like reduction in costs, renewed focus of efforts and resources on the core business, but also ensures that the healthcare facility can benefit from the expertise and best practices established by the service provider.

Medical transcription is one such activity that plays an important part in the healthcare process by creating patient medical records, converting the audio dictation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter into text. Though the information in patient medical records is vital to the smooth running of healthcare facilities; contributing to the process of providing care, providing the basis of coding and billing and providing an important support in risk management, medical transcription is not part of the core activities of the healthcare facility.

The best solution available to healthcare facilities to avail accurate, timely, secure and cost effective medical transcription is to outsource their medical transcription needs to a professional service provider. Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional medical transcription service provider ensures that the healthcare facility can benefit by the best practices established by the medical transcription service provider.

What are best practices in medical transcription that can benefit healthcare facilities?

Best practices have been defined as a method, process, activity that is believed to be more effective at delivering a desired outcome than any other technique, method, process etc when applied to a particular condition or circumstance.

In the context of outsourced medical transcription services, best practices can be defined as those process that produce the desired outcome, namely:

• Accuracy: One of the main quality criteria that medical transcription needs to meet is the accuracy of the information transcribed. The best practices established by the medical transcription service provider have a role to play in this regard. The accuracy would be affected by:         

1.     The skill of the medical transcriptionists: The medical transcription service provider would have best practices with regard to recruiting the best talent and for training policies to ensure expert transcription

2.     Quality check methods: Due to various factors like distorted audio, the style of dictation, the specialty and the skill level of the medical transcriptionists, it is important for medical transcription service providers to have best practices in place that ensure that more than one set of skilled “ears and eyes” are involved in the process of quality assurance.

• Speed: Apart from the accuracy, the other most important quality factor is turnaround time. It is important for healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities to have patient medical records available to them within specific time periods. The best practices of the medical transcription service provider towards maintaining tight turnaround time would involve having: 

1.     A huge pool of skilled and trained medical transcriptionists in different specialties to ensure quick turnaround time without compromising on accuracy

2.     The right technology to ensure speedy and secure delivery of audio for transcription and convenient modes for document delivery

• Convenient: The best practices of the medical transcription company with regard to convenient options could extend to: 

1.     Helping retain familiar modes of dictation enabling healthcare professionals to optimize their limited time

2.     Options for document delivery as per the need of the healthcare professional

• Secure: The best practices of the medical transcription service provider regarding the HIPAA/ HITECH compliance during the medical transcription process would include: 

1.     Secure technology

2.     Secure processes including 100% in-house transcription

3.     Secure infrastructure

• Flexible: The best practices of the medical transcription service provider with regard to flexibility would include volume flexibility, flexibility with regard to turnaround time and other factors like weekend and holiday transcription etc.

• Economical: The best practices of the medical transcription service provider in this regard would be billing methods as per AHDC norms, limiting cost to cost per line of transcription, elimination of fixed costs, no hidden costs and conversion of fixed costs of medical transcription to variable costs. 

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has been serving the needs of some of the leaders in the healthcare sector for over a decade. Drawing on their experience in serving the needs of healthcare facilities and their expertise in information technology, TransDyne has established best practices that help healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities save on money, efforts and time.

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.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Helps create legally compliant documents

While documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter has an impact on the process of providing care and for coding purposes, another important aspect of documenting the patient encounter is that of meeting compliance standards so as to provide valuable support for risk management. Healthcare facilities have various options available to them for documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter, more so now due to the changes in the documentation scenario. Each option available for documenting the process has its own pros and cons.

However keeping in mind the valuable role played by patient medical records in the smooth running of healthcare facilities it is important to pick a method of documentation that is preferred, convenient, easy to use and most importantly helps document the patient encounter in a manner that supports the legal and compliance aspects. It has been found that medical transcription services meet all these criteria. As medical transcription is a specialized service requiring a combination of the right team, the right technology and the right process to meet all these criteria, outsourcing medical transcription to a professional medical transcription service provider has been found to be an effective solution.

How do outsourced medical transcription services help create legally compliant patient medical records?

To meet legal requirements a medical transcript by definition must meet all statutory, regulatory and professional requirements for clinical purposes as well as for business purposes. Patient medical records should meet the norms like:

• A unique medical record should be created and maintained for each patient.
• The medical record should include author of the record, date of the encounter, time of treatment, and authentication as appropriate
• It should be accessible and also meet all security and confidentiality norms
• It should be created according to the procedure required for forms, template etc for specific reports
• The retention, archiving, destruction (of defunct) records should have appropriate procedure to enable data quality management. 

Outsourced medical transcription services help in all these aspects of quality data management by providing services with the following benefits:

• The patient- healthcare professional encounter is transcribed in its entirety to include all the details as required.
• The identifying information provided by the healthcare professional is recorded carefully along with the detailed record of the diagnostic and treatment procedure.
• Outsourced medical transcription services ensure that the patient medical records are made easily accessible by delivering the transcripts through the modes specified by the healthcare professional, using HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels
• Outsourced medical transcription services create transcripts as per the specific template/ format required for the specialty and as specified by the healthcare professional.
• Outsourced medical transcription services provide a system for archiving transcripts that allows for easy access. Older transcripts are archived as per the specific requirement of the healthcare professional/ healthcare facility to enable easy data management. 

It can be seen that outsourcing medical transcription enables proper and descriptive documentation of the patient story retaining the narrative while still enabling adoption of 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 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 outsourcing: Providing quick and convenient solutions

It is acknowledged that healthcare is a complex process requiring total focus of time, attention and resources to have the desired outcome delivering quality healthcare profitably.  Healthcare draws inputs from various sources to be able to deliver quality services and be profitable. To this end it is essential for healthcare facilities to outsource specialized activities that are not part of the core business to ensure total focus on their core business.

Medical transcription is one such component of the healthcare process, which is not part of the core business of the healthcare facility. Medical transcription is the process of creating patient records converting the audio records of the patient- healthcare professional encounter into text format. Outsourcing medical transcription is a quick and convenient solution to the documentation needs of a healthcare facility.

How does outsourcing medical transcription provide a quick and convenient solution?

Medical transcription is a specialized skill, which requires the following inputs:

• Space: Having an in-house medical transcription department would require the healthcare facility to allocate space, which would incur real estate costs. Outsourcing ensures that the healthcare facility can use the space available to them for the purpose of their core business.

• Equipment: Medical transcription requires equipment like computers, headphones, servers, furniture etc. Outsourcing ensures that the healthcare facility is relieved of the task of sourcing, acquiring and maintaining equipment required for medical transcription.

• Personnel: The accuracy and turnaround time of medical transcription depends on the quality of people working on the transcription. In-house transcription would require the healthcare facility to source, recruit and train medical transcriptionists. Not only this, the healthcare facility would also have to allot management/supervisory staff to manage the medical transcription process. Outsourcing ensures that the key personnel of the healthcare facility can concentrate on the core business.

• Information technology: The medical transcription process requires information technology support throughout the whole process, starting from collection of audio files to the delivery of finished transcripts. Outsourcing ensures that information technology support for the medical transcription process would be provided by the service provider.

• Utilities and consumables: Having medical transcription in-house would require the expense of some consumables and utilities, which can be avoided by outsourcing medical transcription. 

Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the healthcare facility/ healthcare professional need not go through the process of sourcing inputs required for medical transcription and supervising the process to ensure quality medical transcription.  Not only that outsourced medical transcription services also provide numerous benefits:

• Flexibility: By outsourcing medical transcription, one of the main benefits that healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals can enjoy is the flexibility. Outsourcing basically converts the fixed cost of medical transcription to variable cost, which is restricted to cost per line of transcription depending on the volumes.

• Holiday and weekend transcription: Outsourcing medical transcription provides a package deal to healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals, which also takes care of any weekend and holiday transcription requirements seamlessly.

• Accuracy: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the audio files are transcribed by specialist medical transcriptionists and put through a stringent quality check to ensure maximum accuracy.

• Turnaround time: When transcription needs are outsourced, turnaround time of the transcripts can be tailor made as per the requirements of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities. The outsourced service provider would meet turnaround time commitments by using the right team and the right technology.

• Reduced costs: Outsourcing medical transcription results in enormous cost savings to the healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals. Not only does outsourced services transform the fixed cost of medical transcription to variable costs, but also saves on cost per line by about 40% to 50%.

• Flexible modes of dictation: Outsourced medical transcription also enables the healthcare professionals to retain their familiar mode of dictation, necessitating no changes in the style of working.

• Multiple modes of document delivery: The software and tools used by the medical transcription service provider can provide healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities the benefits of secure, speedy and multiple options for document delivery.

• HIPAA and HITECH compliance: Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider ensures HIPAA and HITECH compliance throughout the medical transcription process. 

Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider can provide a quick and convenient solution to healthcare facilities for their documentation needs.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has been providing medical transcription services for over a decade. 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 quick and convenient 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: The importance of turnaround time

Medical transcription has been a part of the healthcare process providing valuable support to healthcare professionals and support staff by creating quality patient records.   Apart from the accuracy of the data captured in a patient record one of the other most important factor that defines the quality of medical transcription is turnaround time. Turnaround time is the period of time between the completion of dictation to the delivery of transcripts to the healthcare professionals/ healthcare facilities.

 Turnaround time has an impact on the following:

·       Clinical decision making and the quality of patient care

·       Completing the documentation process as part of risk management

·       Starting the reimbursement process

 The factors that  affect turnaround time are:

1.     The volume of work

2.     Staff

3.     Changes in transcription needs

4.     Implementing new technology/ method of working

5.     Varied turnaround time expectations

To meet the turnaround time requirements of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities needs, a dedicated team, equipment and process are required. And more over it is not possible to predict the volume of transcription required at any given time as the transcription requirements depend on the patient inflow  which is impossible to predict.

Given that it is not possible to predict the medical transcription requirements at any given time and the fact that medical transcription is not part of the core business of the healthcare facility, the best option available to healthcare facilities is to outsource medical transcription. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the patient records are made available to healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals within the specified turnaround times.

How do outsourced medical transcription services ensure prompt  turnaround time?

Medical transcription is the core business of the service provider and the medical transcription service provider ensures prompt turnaround time by addressing all the issues that affect turnaround time like:

·       Well trained staff: The medical transcription service provider would have a process in place  by which they would recruit and train the best talent ensuring that there is adequate manpower to cope with varied volumes of transcription work while still maintaining accuracy.

·       Technology: Technology used by the medical transcription service provider would have an impact on the turnaround time. Some of the software and tools that positively impact the turnaround time are:

1.     Portable dictation devices: This enables the healthcare professionals to narrate the patient- healthcare professional encounter on the move ensuring that audio files are available for transcription promptly

2.     Automatic upload of audio files: Medical transcription service providers would have options in the dictation system  to check for dictation files at preset intervals for automatic and prompt upload of audio files to the server at the service provider's end for prompt transcription.

3.     Multiples modes of document delivery: The medical transcription service provider would use the right technology to ensure that transcripts are delivered speedily and securely  to healthcare professionals in the modes specified by them.

4.     Easy access to audio and text files: Technology used by the service provider enables easy access to audio files for medical transcriptionists and support staff and text files to healthcare professionals and support staff.

·       Process: Outsourced medical transcription service providers would have a process for medical transcription typically involving transcription, proof reading and editing that transcripts are accurate and prompt.

Prompt delivery of transcripts is  vital  as they impact both the operational as well as commercial aspects of  healthcare facilities and outsourcing medical transcription provides the right solution for meeting the turnaround time requirements of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry, has used their extensive background in information technology to develop software and tools for medical transcription that save on time, efforts and money.

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 prompt and speedy  medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Get the maximum benefits

The healthcare process has always been complex and depended on inputs from various sources to be able to provide quality services. One of the inputs that is consistently required by healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities is that of information regarding the patient from their medical records including symptoms, diagnosis, tests, test results, procedures availed, drugs prescribed etc to be able to make informed decisions regarding further treatment and for coding and billing purposes.

Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records converting the narration of the patient- healthcare professional encounter into text format. Medical transcription needs to meet the criteria of being accurate, speedy, cost-effective and secure. To ensure that medical transcription meets all these standards the medical transcription process requires a combination of the right team, the right process and the right technology.

The easy solution for healthcare facilities to ensure accurate, timely, secure and cost effective medical transcription is to outsource the medical transcription process to a professional medical transcription service provider. Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider provides healthcare facilities with numerous advantages.

What are the advantages of outsourcing medical transcription?

• Cost saving: Saving on cost of transcription is perhaps the most significant outcome of the outsourcing decision. The cost savings can be as high as 40% - 50% owing to the expertise of the service provider. Not only does outsourcing reduce direct cost but also there is a significant saving on indirect costs.

• Focus on core business: Outsourcing medical transcription helps the management of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals focus time, efforts and resources towards development of the core business, by reducing their health information management burden significantly.

• Cost restructuring: Outsourcing medical transcription enables cost restructuring with regards to transcription costs. Instead of having fixed medical transcription costs, the cost of medical transcription would become variable, as the healthcare facility would be charged only on a standard rate per line instead of fixed monthly charges as would be incurred when medical transcription is executed in-house.

• Improved quality: Outsourcing has the added benefit of improving the quality of services. The healthcare facility benefits from the expertise and experience of the service provider in providing medical transcription services. The service provider would have refined their quality processes to ensure accuracy, turnaround time and security and healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals would benefit from this.

• Benefit from the knowledge of the service provider: Medical transcription requires significant technological support to make the process easy, quick and secure. Healthcare facilities can leverage on the expertise of the service provider to avail medical transcription services with additional benefits like multiple modes of document delivery, flexible modes for capturing dictation & uploading audio files, archives, HL7 integration etc.

• Operational expertise: Medical transcription needs to follow a certain process, which becomes the responsibility of the service provider when outsourced. Healthcare facilities can benefit from the operational expertise of the service provider with regard to factors like the training process, the quality process and the process of maintaining HIPAA/ HITECH compliance during transcription.

• Access to talented team: Outsourcing provides healthcare facilities access to the talents of not only the medical transcriptionists team but also the managerial and administrative team of the outsourced service provider.

• Capacity management: Outsourcing relieves the burden of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals from having to plan for varying volumes of transcription, like increase/decrease in transcription needs to due to variation in patient inflow, holiday/ weekend transcription needs.

• Helps in risk management: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that all the nuances of the patient- healthcare professional encounter are captured in its entirety. Having all the details of the treatment process can help provide evidence in case of malpractice litigation.

• Frees up time of key personnel: Outsourcing medical transcription frees up the valuable time of the key personnel like support staff, managerial staff, the administrative staff, the information technology staff and even helps the healthcare professionals optimize their limited time. 

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry provides outsourced medical transcription solutions with maximum benefits. TransDyne provides cost effective medical transcription services for varying volumes of transcription without compromising the quality standards of accuracy, turnaround time and security. TransDyne allows healthcare professionals to use flexible modes of dictation. TransDyne provides multiple options for document delivery. TransDyne provides editing support for transcripts as required. TransDyne has HL7 interface to facilitate adoption of EMR/EHR.

To avail medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing resourceful solutions

Healthcare is an ever-changing service having to cope with new diseases/health conditions, new cures/treatments and also the external developments like statutory requirements & regulations. It is important for healthcare as well as other services associated with healthcare to be resourceful so as to cope with changes as they occur. Medical transcription is an important support service aiding healthcare by creating patient records from the audio recordings of the healthcare professionals of the patient- healthcare professionals encounter.

The process of medical transcription is essential to the healthcare process by assuring that comprehensive information is captured to enable healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities to use this information in various ways. The information in patient records is not only essential for providing continued care but is also essential for coding and billing purposes. The process of medical transcription can be made efficient, effective and economical by outsourcing to a professional medical transcription service provider. This not only ensures accurate and timely creation of patient records it also ensures that the medical transcription service provider comes up with resourceful solutions for the needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities.

How does outsourcing medical transcription provide resourceful solutions?

Outsourcing ensures that the various issues faced by healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities during the creation of patient medical records are solved in an effective and imaginative manner.

What are the resourceful solutions provided by the outsourced medical transcription service provider?

• Flexible modes of dictation: Time is a scarce commodity for healthcare professionals, realizing this and understanding the need of healthcare professionals to optimize their limited time resources, outsourced medical transcription service providers offer healthcare professionals to retain their familiar modes of dictation. This enables them to use their regular mode of dictation as per their convenient time and also saves them time spent on learning to use new methods for dictation.

• Automatic upload of dictation: Another means through which outsourced medical transcription service providers offer resourceful solutions is by enabling automatic upload of audio files for transcription. Turnaround time is a critical factor when it comes to patient records. By having a system that checks for audio files automatically at pre-fixed intervals, healthcare facilities can save on time and effort and the process of medical transcription is quickened

• Document delivery modes: healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities would require transcripts delivered to them through various modes like secure Email, fax, in printed form, delivered to specific folders or even delivered to multiple users. Outsourced medical transcription service providers have provided resourceful solutions for such requirements by using technology to ensure flexible, timely and secure modes of document delivery.

• HIPAA/HITECH compliance: Maintaining the confidentiality of patient information is a major concern for healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities. Outsourced medical transcription service providers have resourcefully secured confidential patient information by having HIPAA/ HITECH compliant measures in place to secure people, processes and technology.

• Archives: At any given time the volume of data regarding patients in a healthcare facility would be voluminous. The support staff at healthcare facilities have to keep track of this data as it moves through the various stages. They also need access to patient records for various uses. Outsourced medical transcription service providers have provided a resourceful solution to this problem by creating archives making tracing the information speedier and easier.

• Adoption of EMR/EHR: Adoption of electronic medical records has become mandatory by law. Many healthcare facilities have invested in EMR systems, but find that healthcare professionals prefer the dictation- transcription mode of capturing data convenient. Outsourced medical transcription service provider have resourcefully provided for this by using HL7 messaging to capture information on to the EMR. 

Outsourcing medical transcription to the right medical transcription service provider can provide healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals with resourceful solutions to their needs.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry provides not only resourceful medical transcription solutions but also 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 resourceful medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.