Medical transcription Outsourcing: Availing specialty services

Medical transcription plays an important role in the healthcare process by creating patient records from audio files of the patient-healthcare professional encounter. Medical transcription has distinguished itself as a service separate from that of being a medical secretary or that of medical coding and billing. However to understand the specific role of medical transcription in the healthcare process it is important to understand what makes medical transcription a specialty service. This will help us understand why it is important for a healthcare facility to outsource medical transcription to make the process of creating patient records efficient, effective and economical.

What makes medical transcription a specialty service?

To understand why medical transcription is considered a specialty service it is important to understand the meaning of the word “specialty” and see how it applies to medical transcription. The word specialty has been defined as a special pursuit, an occupation, an aptitude, having a skill, state of being special or distinctive, and a service of particular superiority. Outsourced medical transcription services fits the parameters as defined by this definition of specialty.

Providing medical transcription services would be considered a special pursuit requiring the service provider to gear the whole organization to provide this service. Professional medical transcription services are a culmination of the right people, the right processes and the right technology

Providing medical transcription services would be considered an occupation having certain parameters for performance and operating on the basis of a strict code of ethics

Providing medical transcription services that are timely, accurate, secure and cost effective require the medical transcription service provider to have the right aptitude. This will enable them to use a team with requisite training to ensure high standards of quality service and using technology to provide maximum utility with ease of use

Medical transcription is a specialty service in that it is distinctive from other services like billing or that provided by medical secretaries. Not only that medical transcription caters to healthcare professionals, who are specialized in distinct areas of medicine. This requires medical transcriptionists working on medical transcription to be specialize in transcribing for one or two specialties making them domain experts

It can be concluded that medical transcription requires enormous dedication and focus, not to mention investment towards manpower and technology to be effective. Therefore it makes sense for healthcare facilities to outsource medical transcription to a professional medical transcription service provider to ensure that they can focus on their core business; that of providing quality healthcare, profitably.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has specialized in customizing medical transcription services to meet the distinct needs of healthcare facilities. TransDyne tailors their services to suit the needs of the healthcare facility, no matter how small or big. Some of the advantages of outsourcing medical transcription to TransDyne are:

• Creation of patient records with an accuracy of above 99%
• Specialty medical transcriptionists to cater for specialty medical transcription needs
• Turnaround time of 24 hours, with an option of 4-12 hours turnaround time for STAT reports
• Reasonable and transparent pricing
• HIPAA/HITECH compliant medical transcription
• Technology that provides maximum features and benefits with ease of use

To avail the benefits of outsourced medical transcription services by TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Availing standard services

When it comes to outsourcing a portion of the workflow it is important to pick the right service provider. Medical transcription is a vital link in the healthcare chain, aiding the process in many ways. Though medical transcription has a critical role to play in the healthcare process it does not directly contribute to the revenue inflow. That is why outsourcing medical transcription is not only effective, efficient and economical it is also preferable. Outsourcing medical transcription enables the healthcare facility to focus on the core business objectives of providing quality healthcare profitably.

However while outsourcing a vital component of the healthcare process like medical transcription it is important to source a medical transcription service provider who can offer standard medical transcription services.

What is meant by standard medical transcription services?

The word “Standard” has been defined as something established or widely recognized as a model of authority or excellence. Or something, which is, established as a rule or model by authority custom or general consent.

Medical transcription services do fit the definition of being measured against standards, as there are strict norms that need to be adhered to, to be acceptable.

What are the standards that define medical transcription?

Medical transcription is the process of creating permanent patient records by converting audio records of the patient-healthcare professional encounter into text form. Patient records play a vital role in the following:

• Basis for future treatments
• Basis for tracking response to treatment
• Basis for referrals to specialists
• Basis for coding and billing
• Evidence in case of litigation
• Are part of the statutory requirement

As patient records play such a vital role in the operational and commercial aspects of healthcare it is important that the process of creating patient records, i.e medical transcription adheres to established standards.

The standards that define medical transcription are as follows:

Accuracy: This is defined by the level of accuracy in the information captured in the patient record viz. a viz. the audio recording. The accuracy of the patient record needs to be as close to 100% as possible, as the information in the patient record plays an important role in the healthcare process. It is the role of the medical transcriptionist to maintain the standard of the patient record by maintaining the highest level of accuracy possible.

Turnaround time: For the healthcare facility to flourish operationally and commercially it is important for patient records to be available on time. A medical transcription service provider needs to maintain a standard of 24 hours turnaround time.

Security: The information captured in the patient record needs to be protected at all levels. The standard for maintaining confidentiality of patient information by the medical transcription service provider has been defined by HIPAA/HITECH regulations.

Technology: Technology plays an important role in the medical transcription process by increasing speed, eliminating security breaches and by offering easy to use features for healthcare professional to optimize their productivity. The standard for technology in medical transcription can be defined as advanced and easy to use.

Pricing: Pricing in outsourcing medical transcription has to meet the standards of being reasonable, definable, measurable, verifiable, consistent, fair and honest.

While outsourcing medical transcription it is important to source a medical transcription service provider that meets all the criteria to provide standard services.

TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert 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 standard outsourced medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Helps improve reimbursements and reduces risk of litigation

The healthcare process is the culmination of the qualification, skills, experience, equipments, drugs, procedures and information from various sources. The medical transcription process plays an important role in the healthcare process by capturing the details of the patient- healthcare professional encounter to create patient records.

One way to make the medical transcription process more efficient, effective and economical is to outsource the entire patient record creation process to a professional medical transcription service provider. This ensures that patient records are created on time, with maximum accuracy, within reasonable prices and with maximum security. Outsourcing medical transcription also adds value to the process by easing the life of healthcare professionals using the right technology that offers multiple features and benefits with ease of use.

Apart from the above-mentioned benefits, outsourced medical transcription can aid in the following:

1. Speeding up the receivables cycle: Medical transcription is the first step in the receivables cycle. The data captured in the patient record is the foundation for coding and billing, which leads to reimbursement. By maintaining standard turnaround time, outsourced medical transcription quickens the process of reimbursement.
2. Optimize reimbursement potential: Medical transcription also aids in optimizing the reimbursement process by making sure all the details of the patient-healthcare professional encounter are captured completely and accurately. This ensures that none of the steps in the treatment procedures are missed out ensuring that nothing is missed while coding and billing. To ensure that all details are captured it is also important for the healthcare professional to dictate the patient encounter in its entirety. Outsourced medical transcription ensures this by allowing healthcare professionals to retain familiar modes of dictation.
3. Protection against litigation: Detailed patient records form an important part of evidence in case of litigation. Outsourced medical transcription ensures this by maintaining both accuracy and turnaround time. Moreover healthcare facilities also face the risk of litigation due to violation of HIPAA/HITECH by failing to protect confidential patient information. Outsourcing medical transcription aids in preventing this by protecting the data at all stages during the process of medical transcription.

It can be seen outsourcing medical transcription has advantages beyond just the obvious. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures accuracy, turnaround time, cost saving and security of data it also has numerous other benefits that benefit the healthcare facility by accelerating the receivables cycle and protection against litigation.

However while outsourcing medical transcription it is important to evaluate the medical transcription service provider on various factors.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry offers total solutions to suit varying need of different of different kinds of healthcare facilities. TransDyne has teams of medical transcriptionists who are trained in different specialties, making them domain experts. This ensures that TransDyne can cope with medical transcription for any specialty with an accuracy level of above 99%. TransDyne offers a turnaround time of 24 hours with an option of a turnaround time of 4-12 hours for STAT files.

TransDyne has the technical capabilities to integrate with the existing systems of healthcare facilities, requiring no additional investments. TransDyne offers medical transcription for weekends and holidays, and has people and systems in place to cope up with varying volumes of transcription. TransDyne has software and tools that offer additional features like archiving, remote printing & faxing among other benefits. TransDyne ensures security of confidential patient information, by securing people processes, infrastructure and technology

To avail the benefits of outsourced medical transcription services by TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing Innovative solutions

The process of medical transcription has evolved a lot since the beginning to accommodate changing demands of the healthcare sector, by providing innovative solutions to make life easier for healthcare professionals and other members of healthcare facilities.

How does outsourcing medical transcription provide innovative solutions?

The word “Innovative” has been described as a new way of doing something, making the old method more useful, incremental, revolutionary changes in thinking, increasing value and overall bringing about positive change. Let us see how medical transcription fits into this innovation.

New way of doing something: Medical transcription has been constantly adapting technology to add features to services, which can benefit healthcare professionals and other staff enormously. A good example of this point would be remote printing and faxing of reports. This results in cutting short a lot of steps in the process of document delivery.

Making the old method more useful: Use of Internet has quickened the process of medical transcription eliminating the need for the physical presence of the medical transcriptionist to provide medical transcription services. Adding features like archiving has made life much easier for healthcare professionals and support staff enabling them to locate medical records instantaneously

Revolutionary changes in thinking: Outsourced medical transcription services have brought about revolutionary changes in the way a healthcare professional is able to manage his/her limited time by allowing them to use familiar modes of dictation, instead of forcing them to adhere to any particular method as prescribed by the medical transcription service provider

Increasing value: Outsourcing medical transcription has added value to the basic service of listening to the audio recordings of healthcare professional and converting them into text format, by having medical transcriptionists trained in specialties. This has added value to medical transcription services by ensuring the team working on the transcription understands the nuances of the service required and provides medical transcription with maximum accuracy and minimum turnaround time

Bringing positive change: By use of technology, medical transcription service providers have brought about positive changes in the medical transcription process by securing confidential patient data at all stages

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry offers innovative solutions to suit the needs of healthcare facilities. TransDyne offers medical transcription services with the following benefits:

• Accuracy of above 99%: TransDyne offers medical transcription services with an accuracy of about 99%. TransDyne ensures consistent quality of patient records using:

1. The right people: The team of medical transcriptionists are recruited through a stringent process and medical transcriptionists are trained on one or two specialties making them domain experts
2. The right processes: The audio files are transcribed by expert medical transcriptionists and put through a rigorous quality check process consisting of four levels

• Turnaround time of 24 hours: TransDyne ensures that it maintains a turnaround time of 24 hours for normal files, with an option of 4-12 hours for STAT files by using the right people, the right processes and the right technology.
• Total security during the transcription process: TransDyne ensures data security of medical transcription by incorporating security measures like 128-bit data encryption, multi-tiered application architecture, design level security, safeguards, firewall protected networks, sterilized e-mail servers, denial of access procedure and multi modal alerts. TransDyne also ensures data security by ensuring that the data doesn’t leave their premises physically. To ensure secure medical transcription all the transcription is done in the company’s own premises and the premises are secured through appropriate security measures. TransDyne meets and exceeds all HIPAA/HITECH regulations that apply to electronic exchange of information.
• Technology that is easy to use: Considering that time is one of the most precious commodities for healthcare professionals, TransDyne believes in using technology that provides multiple features with ease of use. Some of the features of the software and tools used by TransDyne are as follows:

1. Smart upload: TransDyne offers doctors the choice of using modes of dictation they are already comfortable with. Then these files can be uploaded to the servers to be made available for transcription. Smart upload enables transfer of dictation files from the healthcare facility’s server to TransDyne’s server by checking for new dictations at pre-fixed intervals.
2. Web Delivery: TransDyne’s web delivery system tackles all issues related with tracking dictations, receiving documents and finding old files form the archives.
3. Smart Delivery: Smart delivery is an automated program that addresses the automatic downloads, saving files and printing needs of a healthcare facility.
4. HL7 integration: TransDyne can configure and send healthcare information as HL7 messages to the client’s EMR with no additional costs.

• Reasonably priced services: TransDyne offers medical transcription services that are reasonably priced using the right team, the right process, the right technology and by using a billing method that is verifiable, definable, measurable, consistent, fair and honest, ensuring that there are no hidden costs.

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

Medical transcription outsourcing: Convenient solutions

Medical transcription has earned its place in the healthcare process by creation of patient records, converting the audio records of the patient-healthcare professional encounter into text format. The process of medical transcription becomes even more convenient when outsourced to a professional medical transcription service provider.

What is meant by convenient medical transcription services?

The word convenience has been defined as being favorable to the user’s comfort, suiting the purpose and needs of the end user. It has also been defined as accessible, fitting, appropriate, timely and suitable. It is important to assess whether outsourced medical transcription services fit all these criteria.

• Favorable to the users’ comfort: The services of a medical transcription service provider serve the needs of a healthcare facility at several levels. The primary beneficiary of patient records, through medical transcription services is the healthcare professional. Others who benefit from outsourced medical transcription services are the support staff, the administrative staff and the billing department. An efficient medical transcription service provider would serve the needs of all the users , by providing medical transcription services with benefits like:

1. Familiar and flexible modes of dictation
2. Creation of patient records with maximum accuracy
3. Archives
4. Eliminating overheads for medical transcription
5. Keeping up the turnaround time commitments, enabling the billing process to start on time

• Suiting the purpose and needs of the end user: The purposes of outsourcing medical transcription are:

1. Saving time of healthcare professionals and other staff
2. Providing specialty transcription based on the specialization of the healthcare professional with speed and accuracy
3. Reducing cost per line of transcription

Outsourcing medical transcription to the right service provider would fulfill all these objectives

• Accessible: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures the accessibility of services. It enables the healthcare professionals to avail services according to their time and volume constraints
• Fitting: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the services are tailored to suit the needs of different healthcare professionals. Requirements like turnaround time, templates, formats, modes of dictation, mode of document delivery and even fonts are included while designing the services
• Appropriate: One of the major requirements of healthcare facilities is protecting the sanctity of confidential patient information. Medical transcription service providers understand the need to protect the information and appropriate measures are taken to ensure protection of data at all stages
• Timely: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the creation of patient records take place in a timely manner. Not only this timely creation of patient records also helps quicken the receivables cycle
• Suitable: Outsourcing medical transcription is a suitable solution for the problem of shrinking budgets and increasing demands on the limited resources available to the healthcare facilities. Outsourcing medical transcription not only ensures lowering of transcription costs but also saves on the overhead costs of the healthcare facility towards in-house transcription

It can be concluded that outsourcing medical transcription is indeed a convenient solution for the documentation needs of a healthcare facility, as it fulfills all the criteria by being favorable to the user’s comfort, suiting the purpose and needs of the end user and by being accessible, fitting, appropriate, timely and suitable. However to benefit from all the advantages of outsourced medical transcription it is important to source, evaluate and choose the right service provider.

TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert 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 convenient medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription: Choosing the right service provider

Medical transcription has become an integral part of the healthcare process, aiding in the process of record creation. Essentially medical transcription is an effective back end support for healthcare facilities. Though medical transcription is an integral part of the healthcare process, it is not part of the core business of the healthcare facility. The easy fix to ensure creation of patient records in a cost–effective, accurate, speedy and secure way is to outsource the entire process to a professional medical transcription service provider.

Choosing the right medical transcription service provider is vital as it is a partnership that will have long-term impact on the running of the healthcare facility. Choosing a medical transcription service provider is a business decision that requires a process of qualification and evaluation to ensure that a working partnership is formed. To this end, a healthcare facility has to consider numerous factors while outsourcing medical transcription

What are the factors to be considered while outsourcing medical transcription?

The process of choosing the right medical transcription service provider should logically follow a process involving two phases.

First phase of the outsourcing decision:

Purpose of outsourcing: This part of the process is probably one of the most ignored and important steps in the outsourcing process. This step requires the healthcare facility to clearly define what it hopes to gain from the outsourcing process. Typically this could include:

• Streamlining the transcription flow: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the process of converting dictation files into patient records happens as a matter of course
• Reducing the turnaround time: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the turnaround time required by the healthcare professional is met with
• Lowering costs: Outsourcing medical transcription helps the healthcare facility save on costs of medical transcription as well as other associated costs
• Better focus on core business: Outsourcing medical transcription has the additional benefit of allowing the healthcare facility to concentrate on the core business of providing quality healthcare profitably
• Having a leaner organizational structure: Outsourcing medical transcription helps the organization structure leaner by ensuring that along with the need for medical transcriptionists, other staff like managers, administrators and IT staff is reduced
• Quickening the receivables process: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that records are created on time, thus helping to accelerate the first stage of the receivables cycle

Deliverables expected from the outsourcing process: This stage could involve defining the exact parameters to measure the outcome of outsourcing medical transcription:

• Acceptable accuracy levels: This is perhaps the most crucial factor, as the information captured by the medical transcriptionist plays an important role in continued patient care
• Turnaround time for both regular reports and STAT files: Turnaround time is very important as the information should not only be accurate but also timely
• Total security of confidential patient information: Maintaining the confidentiality of patient data at every stage is mandatory for healthcare facilities. While outsourcing medical transcription due consideration needs to be given to this factor

Factoring future requirements: This essentially means that the healthcare facility has to include the transcription requirements that may arise from the future expansion plans of the healthcare facility, including:

• Adding new specialties: Adding on new specialties would require that the medical transcription service provider should be in a position to provide transcription services for the new specialties without compromising the accuracy or turnaround time
• Opening of new branches: Expansion plans of the healthcare facility would have an impact on the transcription capacity of the medical transcription service provider
• Adoption of EMR: It is important to ascertain that the medical transcription service provider has capabilities to integrate information with EMR/EHR in the form of HL7 messages

Second phase of the outsourcing decision:

Sourcing medical transcription service providers: This has become easy considering that information is only a click away. However it is important to look for more than the price offered for services

Receiving proposals: This stage would involve sorting through the proposals received to look for qualifying features like experience of the service provider, HIPAA/HITECH compliance, technology used and the type of team available to execute the work

Evaluating medical transcription service providers: This stage of the process would involve evaluating the medical transcription service provider on the basis of criteria like accuracy, turnaround time, price and security.

Verifying the credentials. This part of the process involves two steps:

• Verifying references: This would mean following-up on the testimonials of customers who have availed similar services
• Availing free trial: Availing a free trial of services ensures that the medical transcription service provider is able to deliver services as promised

Signing the contract: This is the final step in the outsourcing process involving defining in black and white what the role of each party is in the outsourcing process.

Outsourcing medical transcription requirements is essentially like choosing a long-term partner and needs to be done with a great deal of care.

TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert 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!

For more details about the advantages of a long-term partnership with TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription: Blend of human expertise and technology

Medical transcription has been acknowledged as an integral part of the healthcare process by creating accurate, speedy, secure and cost-effective patient records. It has also been acknowledged that outsourcing medical transcription is an easy and economic fix to ensure timely and accurate creation of patient records.

However while outsourcing, healthcare facilities have to go through a stringent process of evaluation to ensure that they have sourced the right medical transcription service provider. For the process of assessment to be effective it is important to understand the components of medical transcription. This will provide the healthcare facility the right criteria to evaluate the service provider.

The process of medical transcription consists of the following steps:

Input: The inputs for medical transcription come from the dictation of the patient- healthcare professionals encounter in the form of audio files. The quality of the audio files is an important contributor to the accuracy of medical transcription. The quality of audio is a combination of the right technology and the dictation skills of the healthcare professional. Thus the quality of dictation is the product of a blend of the right technology and the right human skill

Process: The actual process of medical transcription involves the following steps:

• Uploading audio files: This step ensures that all the audio files are uploaded into a server to be made available to the medical transcription service provider to begin the transcription process. Technology plays a huge role in this step of the process by making the process secure, speedy and easy to use for healthcare professionals
• Downloading audio files: Downloading the audio files to begin the process of transcription involves using the right technology. This not only ensures timeliness and maintaining the quality of audio, it also ensures security of data during the process of transmission
• Listening to audio files: This part of the process involves human skills to a large extent. It is important for medical transcriptionist involved in the process of transcribing to have the requisite knowledge regarding the specialty being transcribed. This ensures that the medical transcriptionist has knowledge of the language, terminology, procedures, drugs and therapies associated with the specialty
• Typing the contents of the audio files: This part of the process also involves human skills, as speedy and accurate transcription requires that the medical transcriptionist possess keyboarding skills, knowledge of the specialty and language skills. It also requires the medical transcriptionist to have multitasking abilities, since the process involves listening and typing at the same time. The role of technology in this part of the process is limited to providing the required templates, formats, assuring audio quality and assisting with research as and when required.
• Running quality checks on the transcribed files: Running quality checks on the transcripts involves human skills, as it is the application of context and checking on the content. This requires listening skills, concentration and thinking-on-your feet abilities.

Output: In medical transcription the output is the patient record created during the transcription process. These transcripts need to be transmitted back to the healthcare facility and further distributed to the right healthcare professionals. The process of transmitting finished transcripts in a speedy, secure and efficient manner involves the use of technology. Technology adds further benefits by making it possible to use multiple document delivery modes, to print reports at a remote location, instant transmission by faxing, and easy retrieval by creating archives, integration with EMR through HL7 interface etc.

It can be seen that medical transcription is a blend of human expertise and the right technology. The process of medical transcription would be incomplete without either of these components. The skill set of the medical transcriptionists contributes to the accuracy, speediness and to a certain extent to the security of the patient records. Technology contributes to the turnaround time, ease of use and security of the medical transcription process. Both technology and the human skills involved contribute to lowering the cost per line of transcription. Therefore it is important to pick a medical transcription service provider who has the right blend of technology and people skills.

TransDyne provides medical transcription service with a blend of the right technology and the right team. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert 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!

For more details about the advantages of outsourcing to a professional medical transcription service provider like TransDyne, click here.