Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing services with a positive impact

Healthcare services have a significant impact on the quality of life. Being such an essential service, healthcare is subject to many rules and regulations.  Healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals draw upon resources from various sources to provide quality services while still meeting all these regulatory requirements and maintaining a healthy bottom-line.  To this end it is vital for healthcare facilities to focus on their core business and outsource those functions that are not part of their core competence.

Medical transcription is one such aspect of healthcare, which aids them in several areas and is essential for the smooth running but is not part of the core activities. Though the patient medical records created by the process of medical transcription aid in the reimbursement process but medical transcription itself is an expense head. Outsourcing medical transcription  ensures that patient medical records are created in an accurate, timely, secure and cost effective manner. Not only this outsourcing medical transcription has a positive impact on the healthcare facility operations.

The positive impact of outsourcing medical transcription is as follows:

• Reducing costs: Reducing the cost per line of transcription is one of the most significant advantage of outsourcing medical transcription. As medical transcription is the core business of the medical transcription service provider, the service provider is able to pass on the benefits of the economies of scale, their experience and expertise to the healthcare facility in the form of significantly lower costs. However while outsourcing medical transcription it is important to evaluate the billing method used by the medical transcription service provider to ensure fair pricing.

• Improving efficiency: Outsourced medical transcription service providers help improve the efficiency of the healthcare facility by providing services with the following benefits: 

1.     Enabling use of familiar modes of dictation

2.     Enabling automatic upload of dictation files at regular intervals

3.     Providing a system that enables tracking of dictation, work in progress, finished documents etc at any given time

4.     Providing various options for document delivery

5.     Archives

6.     Configuring systems for usage of multiple users

7.     Adoption of EMR/ EHR using HL7 interface

8.     Easy to use technology

• Reducing overheads: Outsourcing medical transcription helps the healthcare facility save significantly on overheads like rent, furniture, computers, utilities, management personnel etc that would have been deployed towards in-house medical transcription.

• Scalable solutions: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures curbing of wasted resources and capacity during slack times and extra payment for overflow transcription needs. Healthcare facilities can benefit from this by having scalable solutions according to their changing medical transcription requirements. 

It can be seen that sourcing and partnering with the right medical transcription service provider can have a positive impact on the working life of healthcare professionals and the   operations of healthcare facilities.

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.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Provides services with the most advantages

The healthcare sector has always faced a number of challenges being such a critical service. The interaction of the healthcare sector has not just been limited to healthcare professionals and patients but also extends to Insurance providers, the pharmaceutical sector, the Government and various professional associations to name just a few. To satisfy the diverse demands placed on the healthcare sector it becomes imperative that the healthcare sector draws support from various sources to make their operations more efficient. To do so it is important to outsource all those activities that are not part of the core business. This helps them in two main ways; allows them to concentrate on their core business – that of providing quality healthcare and helps them focus on their second goal – that of increasing profitability.

Medical transcription is one such activity that helps them in both these areas significantly by creating timely, accurate, secure and cost effective patient medical records from the dictation of healthcare professional – patient encounter. Though there are numerous options available for documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter, outsourced medical transcription services have been found to be the method with the most advantages.

Given below are some of the advantages of outsourced medical transcription services:

• Helps make efficient use of the healthcare professionals time: It has been found that the dictation to transcription method of documenting the patient encounter is the method that offers the most advantages. This method of documenting the patient encounter conforms to the working method of healthcare professionals and makes efficient use of their time. Outsourced medical transcription service providers help in this aspect by providing efficient software and tools that enables them to use dictation devices of their choice and ensuring that audio files are transmitted at the earliest for transcription

• Helps preserve face-to-face interaction with patients: One of the major intangible factors that play a role in the healthcare process is the healthcare professional interaction with the patient. Documenting the patient encounter by medical transcription ensures that the face to face interaction between healthcare professional and patient is unhindered

• Ensure quality of clinical data captured: The data captured by healthcare professionals is used for various aspects including clinical decision making, risk management and managing receivables. It is important that this data be accurate, outsourced medical transcription services ensure this by putting each transcript through multiple level quality checks.

• Helps information sharing in an easy and secure way: Outsourced medical transcription service providers understand the operations of healthcare facilities and therefore have developed services that provide healthcare professionals easy access to transcripts. Features like delivery to specific folders, delivery to multiple healthcare professionals, remote faxing & printing, access to archives for search of older records etc has helped healthcare professionals access and share information in an easy way.

It can be seen that outsourced medical transcription services is the method of documenting the patient – healthcare professional encounter that provides the most advantages.

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.

Medical transcription: Transitioning to become an important component of clinical documentation

Given the increasing demand for quality healthcare services, there has been increase in the demand for all the components of quality healthcare. As the volume of people seeking healthcare services increase the need for quality documentation also increases, as it is a vital component that helps deliver quality healthcare consistently. 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.

In the recent past the Medical Transcription Industry Association has changed their name to Clinical documentation Industry Association. The reason behind this is to redefine the role of medical transcription in the changing healthcare documentation scenario by providing innovative solutions for EHR adoption and helping the timely and accurate capture of health information.

Considering the redefinition of medical transcription services and medical transcriptionists as clinical documentation specialists rather than mere typing services it is important to look at the changing role of medical transcription in the current scenario.

What is the changing role of medical transcription services in the current scenario?

Helping retain the narrative as part of patient medical record:

• Helping retain the familiar dictation- transcription: Medical transcription can help healthcare professionals in the process of adopting EHR systems while still retaining the familiar method of dictation to medical transcription. This helps the narrative become part of the patient medical record providing a valuable diagnostic tool that aids in clinical decision making

 

• Transitioning from transcribing to editing: In those instances where healthcare professionals are using speech recognition software to produce patient medical records, medical transcription services have evolved into editing and proofreading services that help in improving the quality of documentation. 

Helping retain the integrity of information: Though other methods of documentation like point and click entry or speech recognition software can help improve the turnaround time, the integrity of the information captured may be compromised. Medical transcription services help in this aspect by checking the integrity of the data and improving the accuracy tremendously.

Helping improve the productivity of healthcare professionals' time: Documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter using the dictation to medical transcription method helps increase the productivity of the healthcare professional and helps increase focus on the process of providing quality healthcare.

It can be seen that medical transcription services have evolved to become an important component of the healthcare documentation scenario, by providing medical transcription services that are accurate, flexible, convenient, timely, secure and cost effective using a combination of well trained medical transcriptionists, the right processes and the right technology.

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: Quality Guidelines to improve the quality of documentation

The importance of documenting the patient encounter is manifold as it helps in many aspects that contribute to the smooth running of healthcare facilities, besides being a statutory necessity. As healthcare services are critical it is important that the process of documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter be subject to certain norms. The patient – healthcare professional encounter can be documented by various means, one of the most preferred being medical transcription; a process which converts dictation to text.

As medical transcription has an important supporting role to play in the process of healthcare, a best practices guide titled “Healthcare Documentation Quality Assessment and Management Best Practices” has been jointly created by AHDI, MTIA and AHIMA. One of the highlights of this manual is alignment with the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle.

Each stage of the process is vital to ensure that the process of healthcare is documented keeping in mind that maintaining the highest standards of quality is a continuous process. The goal of this quality assessment program is to ensure that healthcare documentation is clear, consistent, accurate, complete and timely.

Check: Providing guidelines for quality assessment

Quality Guidelines are an essential tool for assessment of quality in medical transcription. It is important for healthcare facilities to assess the quality policy of the medical transcription service providers by determining the method of quality assurance and Quality Guidelines.

The Quality Guidelines for medical transcription have been categorized into two main categories:

Critical errors: Errors under this category have been a assigned a value of (-3)

The errors, which are considered critical errors, have been defined as those errors, which can have serious consequences due to their occurrence. These include:

• Terminology misuse: An incorrect word can lead to a potentially dangerous situation resulting in the wrong diagnosis, the wrong medical decision and wrong billing. Implication of this error can permeate several levels.

• Omission/ insertion: Omission of key words or insertion of the wrong word can adversely affect patient safety.

• Incorrect patient demographics/ wrong author identification: This category could include the wrong identification of the patient, the wrong serial number, wrong medical record number, wrong date of encounter etc which could have long reaching implications 

Non-critical errors: Errors under this category have been assigned a value of (-1)

Errors under this category have an overall impact on the accuracy and integrity of the document, but do not affect patient safety. These include:

• Misspelling: This means the wrong spelling of words that compromise the integrity of the document

• Incorrect verbiage: This refers to errors caused by inappropriate or excessive editing which do not have significant impact on the meaning of the document

• Failure to flag: This refers to the failure of the medical transcriptionist to flag reports that need clarification

• Protocol failure: This refers to not following protocol like failing to mark courtesy copy etc.

• Formatting / account specification: This refers to the failure of the medical transcriptionist to follow the formatting or account specification. 

There are other errors, which have been categorized as providing feedback or educational opportunities, these include:

• Grammar
• Punctuation
• Capitalization
• Plurals
• Run on/ fragmented sentences
• Abbreviations
• Slang & inflammatory remarks
• Abbreviations
• Inconsequential typos and omissions
• Capitalization of drug names
• Incorrect word forms. 

TransDyne, a leader in outsourced medical transcription industry has made quality a keyword in all their processes, including the process for training. Medical transcriptionists are impressed upon regarding the importance of quality and care is taken to provide the medical transcription team with the right support and resources to enable quality medical transcription.

TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA 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: Providing enterprising solutions

Medical transcription has been a part of healthcare from the very beginning.  After all medical transcription is the scribe that faithfully creates patient records from the details provided by the healthcare professionals of their encounter with patients. Though medical transcription has been around almost as long as healthcare services, it has evolved a long way from the original primitive version of hand written notes to the current version of creating patient records on the computer.

It is recognized that medical transcription is a specialized skill requiring the right combination of team, technology and process and it has been acknowledged that the efficient, effective and economic fix to create patient records is to outsource medical transcription. Outsourced medical transcription services have the advantage of providing enterprising solutions to the changing needs of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals.

How does outsourced medical transcription provide enterprising solutions for the documentation needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities?

Outsourced medical transcription has always strived to provide services that meet the changing needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities by taking initiative, using imagination and undertaking to customize technology to provide safe, accurate, speedy and cost effective medical transcription services.

To understand how outsourced medical transcription provides enterprising services it is important to study how the medical transcription service has evolved to meet the challenges/ needs of the healthcare sector.

Given below are some of the milestones that medical transcription has achieved:

• Providing remote medical transcription services: Medical transcription has evolved from a service requiring the physical presence of the medical transcriptionist to a service, which can be availed from remote locations. Medical transcription service providers have used the Internet enterprisingly to help healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities avail the best quality service without having to incur any overheads. 

This ensures that the healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals can avail the requisite medical transcription services having to pay only for the quantity used. Factors like overtime pay, wastage during slack times, arrangements for weekend & holiday transcription are all covered by the medical transcription service provider without compromising accuracy, turnaround time and security

• Making provisions for flexible modes of dictation: Outsourced medical transcription services have ensured that healthcare professionals can capture the details of the patient-healthcare professional encounter without having to change their style of dictation or having to waste time by allowing them to use familiar and flexible methods of dictation. Medical transcription service provider have enterprisingly used technology to help healthcare professionals in optimizing their limited time resources

• Aiding adoption of EMR/EHR: Investment in EMR/EHR systems requires a huge capital outlay. Medical transcription service providers have provided HL7 interface to enable adoption of EMR/EHR systems

• Editing services for Speech recognition transcription: Some healthcare professionals have invested in voice recognition/speech recognition software. Though this software has the ability to convert speech to text, the accuracy levels have been found to be unacceptable. Medical transcription service providers have enterprisingly provided editing and quality control services for such transcripts. 

• Specialty medical transcription: Healthcare is a vast field having many specialties.  The medical transcriptionists working on medical transcription for specialties need to be familiar with the language of the specialty to provide services of the required accuracy and turnaround time. Medical transcription service providers have enterprisingly provided for specialty transcription by training medical transcriptionists to be domain experts in one or two specialties ensuring quality work from the very beginning

• Archives: One of the requirements of healthcare facilities, especially those generating substantial quantities of transcription work, is to be able to keep tabs on the audio files, work-in-progress and finished transcripts. They also need a system through which can trace patient files easily. Medical transcription service providers have enterprisingly provided archives to enable all these functions. 

• Choices for document delivery: All patient records are vital to the healthcare process, but some require more priority than others. It is important for the medical transcription service provider to have various means to deliver the document to the healthcare professionals in a secure and quick manner. Outsourced medical transcription service providers have provided for this by enabling multiple modes of document delivery. 

TransDyne is a leading provider of outsourced medical transcription services, having served healthcare facilities of all types. TransDyne understands the needs of the healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals and provides enterprising solutions to the varied needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities.

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!         

Outsourcing medical transcription to TransDyne offers additional advantages like:

• Volume flexibility
• Medical transcriptionists trained in specialties
• Customized reports/formats/templates
• Facility to integrate with EMR/EHR
• Option to retain flexible modes of dictation
• Remote printing and faxing options. 

To avail enterprising medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Creation of patient records

Patient records are an essential part of the smooth running of a healthcare facility. They contribute to the actual process of healthcare as well as aid in the reimbursement process. Medical transcription is the process of creating medical records, by converting the audio records as dictated by the healthcare professional into text format. Medical transcription is a specialized service that requires the right team, the right process and the right technology.

Outsourcing medical transcription aids the healthcare facilities to concentrate on providing quality healthcare, by creating medical records in an accurate, speedy, secure and cost effective manner. Not only this outsourcing medical transcription also helps healthcare facilities to curb indirect expenses that they may incur by medical transcription in-house.

What are patient medical records and why are they important?

Patient medical records are the systematic documentation of patient’s individual medical history and care. Patient records consist of the following details:

• Name, date of birth, address, emergency contact numbers, sex, blood type etc.
• Date of last physical exam
• Dates and results of tests and screening
• Major illnesses & surgeries with dates
• List of medication, dosages and duration of prescription
• Allergies
• Chronic diseases
• History of illness in the family 

Patient medical records provide medical history. It is a longitudinal record chronicling disease, major & minor illnesses as well as growth landmarks. It gives the healthcare professionals a feel for what happened in the past to the patient. It also provides clues about current illness. Medical records can prove to be invaluable as an aid in arriving at the right diagnosis.

The information in medical records aid in the following:

• Continuity of care
• Basis for planning present and future care
• Assist in protecting legal interests
• Are the base for billing and coding
• For education and research purposes
• Fulfilling statutory obligations 

It can be concluded that patient medical records are invaluable in the process of healthcare. And as medical transcription is the process of creating patient records, it is vital that healthcare facilities should evaluate the service provider carefully before outsourcing medical transcription.

The criteria for evaluating a medical transcription service provider are as follows:

• Accuracy: This means the percentage of accuracy of the completed transcripts vis-à-vis what was dictated. A minimum of 99% and above would be acceptable.

• Turnaround time: Turnaround time refers to the time taken to revert the transcribed report to the healthcare facility. A Turnaround time of not more than 24 hours for normal reports and 4-12 hours for STAT reports would be considered ideal.

• Data security: The service provider being outsourced to should be HIPAA compliant. The medical transcription service provider has to have adequate security measures to ensure that the confidential data transmitted back and forth is safe and secure.

• Pricing: Reduced costs are one of the main benefits that a healthcare facility hopes to have, from the outsourcing option. Pricing should be fair and reasonable for the services rendered. Pricing method should also be transparent and simple so that both parties can verify the same at any stage of the process

• Technology: The technology used by the medical transcription service provider should not only be secure but should also be easy to use, without having to require extensive training. 

Outsourcing medical transcription to the right medical transcription company can help the healthcare facility not only in terms of efficient, effective and economical creation of patient records; it also has other benefits like:

1.     Retaining familiar modes of dictation

2.     Integration with EMR/HER

3.     Specialty transcription

4.     Automated upload of dictation and download of transcripts

5.     Archiving facility

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: Providing content and context

Healthcare is a complex process, which requires a lot of judgment and skills on the part of the healthcare professional, apart from all the other inputs like the right mix of equipment, education and infrastructure. One other important input to the healthcare process is information from patient records.

Patient records make it possible for healthcare professionals to make the right decisions regarding the patient's treatment. Patient records are basically a culmination of all the information of the patient's health history. They provide valuable information regarding demographics; lifestyle habits, allergies and also include earlier symptoms, diagnoses and treatment availed.  This information is not only valuable in providing further treatment, but is also invaluable when treatment is stretched over a period of time and there are frequent changes in the healthcare professionals and support staff attending to the patient.

Medical transcription is the process by which patient records are created. Medical transcription basically involves the conversion of audio files of the healthcare professionals regarding the patient-healthcare professional encounter into text format.  This is a very simplistic definition of medical transcription.

Medical transcription is a service that extends beyond being just a typing service; medical transcription is a service, which provides healthcare professionals with content and context in the patient's medical records enabling the process of healthcare.

Medical transcription is a skill that requires:

• Good language skills
• Good listening skills
• Knowledge of medical terminology
• Typing skills
• Ability to multitask
• An eye for details
• Research abilities 

To effectively provide content, the medical transcriptionist has to be able to listen carefully and capture the information as accurately as possible. Where needed the medical transcriptionist has to refer to the Internet to fill in the appropriate words.

To effectively apply context while transcribing patient records, the medical transcriptionist has to listen carefully to the words of the healthcare professional and make sure that the record is consistent in terms of details. For example: The gender of the patient or the left/right side injury etc.

One of most economical, effective and efficient options available to healthcare facilities for creation of patient records is to outsource to a professional medical transcription company.

However while outsourcing medical transcription, it is important to assess the medical transcription service provider on the basis of the following:

• Accuracy: This means the percentage of accuracy of the completed transcripts vis-à-vis what was dictated. A minimum of 99% and above would be acceptable.

• Turnaround time: Turnaround time refers to the time taken to revert the transcribed report to the healthcare facility. A Turnaround time of not more than 24 hours for normal reports and 4-12 hours for STAT reports would be considered ideal.

• Data security: The service provider should be HIPAA/HITECH compliant. The medical transcription service provider has to have adequate security measures to ensure that the confidential data transmitted back and forth is safe and secure.

• Pricing: This is one of the main benefits that a healthcare facility hopes to have, from the outsourcing option. Pricing should be fair and reasonable for the services rendered. Pricing method should also be transparent and simple so that both parties can verify the same at any stage of the process

• Technology: The technology used by the service provider should not only be secure and offer advanced features but should also be easy to use, without having to require extensive training. 

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.