Medical transcription- what to look for in a Transcription service provider: Aptitude or attitude?

What is more important, aptitude or attitude? This is a very relevant issue while deciding to outsource medical transcription needs.
What exactly is ‘APTITUDE’ when it comes to judging a Medical Transcription Service Provider? Some of the attributes that reflect the Aptitude in the medical transcription context are:
· Quality/accuracy meaning the accuracy of the completed transcripts vis-à-vis what was dictated. An aptitude for accurate transcription.
· Turnaround time refers to the time taken to deliver the transcribed reports. An aptitude for maintaining promised deadlines.
· Data Security means having adequate security measures to ensure that confidential data transmitted back and forth is safe and secure. An aptitude for maintaining virtual security.
· Reasonable prices denote prices that are fair and reasonable for the services rendered. An aptitude for fair pricing.
· Technology that is easy to use by health professionals, without requiring extensive training. An aptitude for deploying systems that are user- friendly.
What sort of attitude should be looked at by the healthcare facility when it comes to judging a Medical Transcription Service Provider? The attitude of a medical transcription service provider can be judged based on the following characteristics:
· Quality guidelines are the standards by which the Medical Transcription company’s employees perform their duties. Quality Guidelines ensure that the quality of work stays consistent at all levels of the company under all circumstances. An attitude for making quality indispensable.
· In house transcription means that the medical transcription service provider that the healthcare facility is outsourcing to, is executing the work in house and not through sub contractors. An attitude for maintaining standard service.
· Transparent and simple billing means having a method of billing which is verifiable, definable, measurable, consistent, fair and honest. An attitude of transparency.
· Flexibility of dictation methods means offering different options for doctors to dictate their notes. A flexible and client friendly attitude.
· Specialty based Medical Transcription, means training Medical Transcriptionists with special focus in one or two specialties of medicine to make them domain experts. An attitude for going beyond the ordinary
· Document delivery system that allows for easy uploads and downloads and which will make checking on the status of the reports efficient and convenient. An attitude for making the customer’s work life simpler.
· Free trial without any obligatory sign up giving the healthcare facility a chance to review the services of the medical transcription service provider before signing up. A confident attitude.
· Testimonials make it possible to find out from others as to how they have benefited from the services of the medical transcription service provider. An honest attitude.
As can be seen it is important to choose a medical transcription service provider with both the right aptitude and attitude.
TransDyne offers medical transcription with an accuracy of above 99% with a turnaround time of 24 hours & 4-12 hours for STAT reports at a reasonable price, through secure channels and makes it easy to upload and access data. i.e. the Right Aptitude!
TransDyne has quality guidelines in place to ensure quality, executes all medical transcription work in house to ensure security & quality, has a transparent and simple billing method, offers flexible modes of dictation and gets transcription done by expert medical transcriptionists to ensure all special needs are taken care of, through a easy document delivery system, offers a free trial and the testimonials of their satisfied customers. I.e. the Right Attitude!

Medical transcription: Analyze the healthcare facility needs before choosing a Medical Transcription Company

What does a healthcare facility need to know about their organization needs before finalizing their Medical Transcription provider? Outsourcing of a healthcare facility’s Medical Transcription needs can be a difficult and complex decision. Analyzing what exactly are the needs of the healthcare facility can make the decision making process simpler.

What they need is to look at is the current situation and where they want to be in the future. To analyze the healthcare facility’s current position they need to ask themselves the following questions:

· Who does the current Medical Transcription?
They may find that the answer is that they either appoint in-house transcriptionists and/ or combine them with independent home-based transcriptionists. They could even be outsourcing to a local Medical Transcription Company

· How much time does Medical Transcription take?
The answer to this could vary according to the volume of work and/ or according to the availability of In-house transcriptionist staff.

· How many transcriptionists are employed to do the work?
Again this depends on the size of their practice and the amount and type of transcription required

· How much space do the Medical Transcriptionists occupy?
This could vary according to the number of in-house transcription staff appointed and the space required for record creation

· What is the equipment required for Medical Transcription?
This would include computers, listening devices, foot pedals, printers, stationery etc.

· What is the total budget outflow towards Medical Transcription?
To calculate this they will have to include salaries, benefits, management expenses, utilities, cost of telecommunication, HR costs and any interest costs incurred on the purchase of Medical Transcription equipment.

· How much management time is spent on managing Transcription work?
This is one important aspect, which is very often ignored while computing the cost of in house Medical Transcription

· What are the IT requirements for Medical Transcription?
Information technology (IT) investment and the cost of manpower could significantly increase due to in-house Medical Transcription

· What is the expenditure on Annual maintenance and repairs of their Medical Transcription equipment?
Any equipment that is used on a regular basis would require expenditure on it, by way of repairs and maintenance. There will have to be a certain amount of expenditure to be made in this area.

· Are the people involved in Medical Transcription also helping out with other areas of work?
This is the case with many healthcare facilities where Medical Transcription work is passed on to medical secretaries and other office staff. This ties them up with Medical Transcription work and leaves them with very less time for their own tasks, which results in poor quality of work in both areas and results in direct losses and sizable opportunity costs.

· Are they overworked/ under worked sometimes?
Healthcare facilities may find that their in-house staff, who are involved in Medical Transcription work, may either be under worked or overworked due to the fluctuating volume of work. When they are under worked the health care facility may be paying for work that is not even being done and when the volumes are high the health care facility may be paying them extra to work overtime, which again increases their cost per line.

· What is the time allotted by Human Resources Department towards Medical Transcription requirements?
The healthcare facility would find that their Human Resources (HR) department spends a considerable amount of time towards recruitment of Medical Transcriptionists and other related staffing activities when the health care facility has in-house transcriptionist on their payrolls.

· Are they satisfied with the quality, quantity and turnaround time of the Medical Transcription work currently done?
The health care facility may find that the volume and turnaround time of their in-house Medical Transcriptionists could vary according to the volume of patient flow and thereby could have a serious effect on quality of care and the receivables cycle.

· How are the healthcare facility Medical Transcription requirements taken care of on weekends and during holidays?
Healthcare requirements do not halt during Holiday season; in fact the reverse may be true. Managing the healthcare facility’s holiday requirements for Medical Transcription could pose a challenge. They could find there is a serious time lag in getting Transcripts back at these times. Generation of transcribed reports may take as much time as weeks and trying to hasten the process would result in higher staffing costs.

· How much is Medical Transcription ‘actually’ costing them per line?
After computing all the costs they may find that the cost per line of Medical Transcription could be much higher than what they initially planned for.

Having answers to these questions will clarify their current position and give them an idea of what they need to look for in the Medical Transcription Company they are outsourcing to. Now that they have thoroughly analyzed their current situation, they need to plan their future requirements in this area. That should be fairly simple

· Minimum or no investment
In these times of increasing costs and limited budgets one of their priorities would be to make sure that there is minimum or no investment required to take care of their Medical Transcription needs.

TransDyne can make the healthcare facility’s transition to outsourcing with minimum or no investment from their end. TransDyne requires no additional investment in hardware or software. TransDyne also continuously upgrades its’ systems with no additional cost to clients.

· Huge cost savings
One of the important benefits of outsourcing the healthcare facility’s Medical Transcription needs is that of cost saving. They should be looking to save costs not only in terms of cost of transcription but also other cost benefits like cost of utilities, improvement to receivables cycle, opportunity costs and improved employee efficiency.

TransDyne believes in offering a fair and verifiable price that will ensure profits for both the healthcare facility and themselves. Due to the advantages of outsourcing, TransDyne is able to offer both competitive prices as well as quality work. Fair billing for Medical Transcription is ensured by way of the character line method of billing.

· Fast and efficient turnaround time
Medical Transcription does not directly affect the income of the healthcare facility, but it does play a significant role in the smooth and efficient running of the healthcare facility. Getting medical records transcribed on time can help speed up the receivables cycle.

TransDyne assures a turnaround time of 24 hours from the time of uploading the dictation file into our servers. STAT reports have a turnaround time of 4-12 hours. TransDyne offers Fast Medical Transcription and maintains its’ turnaround time by maintaining a large pool of Medical Transcriptionists who are trained to their stringent standards.

· Good quality and accurate Medical Transcription
Maintaining or improving the quality and accuracy of medical records is very important for quality of patient treatment and for record keeping.

TransDyne offers Quality Transcription with accuracy of 99% or above. TransDyne ensures quality by adopting a four level quality check of Medical Transcriptionist, language proofreader, unit in charge and finally by Quality Assurance team which tries to minimize errors before returning the finished reports. TransDyne’s Quality assurance team also runs regular random checks on transcribed files. The inputs given by the Quality assurance team are used as a learning tool to prevent future mistakes.

· Secure Medical Transcription
HIPAA has laid down guidelines to ensure the security and confidentiality of patient information. While engaging a third party to for Medical Transcription work it is very important to ensure that the data is transmitted through secure channels and that the Medical Transcription Company is HIPAA compliant.

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 our premises physically. To ensure Secure Medical Transcription all the transcription is done in our own premises and the premises are secured through appropriate security measures. TransDyne meets all HIPAA regulations that apply to electronic exchange of information.

· Easy adaptation
Being in the health care industry, it is very important that the technology used by the Medical Transcription Company should be easy to use and should not require lengthy training.

TransDyne believes that technology should not only be advanced, but also be easy to use for the end user. TransDyne has made it very easy for the doctors and health providers to upload their dictation through various modes and also down load the transcribed documents in a simple manner.

· Medical Transcription to be done in specified formats
The healthcare facility should look for a Medical Transcription Company, which will be able to provide transcribed reports in specified formats.

TransDyne will collect requirements and specifications of the healthcare facility before the Medical Transcription process and provide Medical Transcription in the specified formats.

· Good customer service
It makes transition much simpler when there are open channels of communication available so that contact with the service provider in case of any clarifications can be through various means, whether through phone, fax or email.

TransDyne believes in being available to the customer 24/7 so that any doubts/clarifications are sorted out at the earliest.

· Powerful archiving facility to facilitate easy document retrieval
One important consideration for the healthcare facility while outsourcing Medical Transcription needs would be that the Medical Transcription Company provides archiving facilities that make document retrieval easy.

TransDyne offers Smart Delivery System that includes features like automated download, saving and printing. The Smart Delivery system allows a user to search for a document based on different criteria like Date of Service, Date of Dictation, MRN #, Patient Name, Provider Name, or a combination of any of these criteria.

Analyzing the current position of the healthcare facility and determining where they need to go will make the transition process from in-house Medical Transcription to outsourcing Medical Transcription much easier and very profitable. Having a company like TransDyne as a partner for transcription needs will definitely help improve the bottom line and make operations of the healthcare facility more efficient.

Outsourcing Medical Transcription can improve the receivables cycle of a healthcare facility.

At the end of the day it is the goal of every enterprise whether in the healthcare business or otherwise to shorten the flow of payments cycle and receive payments sooner. In the case of a healthcare facility this becomes imperative for survival.

Once the patient has visited, diagnosed and treated or further references/tests ordered, essentially the healthcare part of the visit ends and the business side starts. Records have to be created of the whole process so that it can be further processed for coding and billing and finally for insurance claims. The receivable cycle begins with the creation of timely and accurate records. This is where the outsourcing of Medical Transcription can really speed up the process. By handing over the Medical Transcription process to a company who is an expert in the process, more time and resources are freed up, which can be used to concentrate on the core business of healthcare.

Not only does medical transcription play an important role in the receivables cycle, it also plays an important role in other areas such as:

· Patient treatment: The information transcribed from the initial patient-healthcare professional encounter forms a foundation for future treatment, This forms the basis of any follow-up healthcare, has references to the drugs prescribed, allergies and other pertinent information.

· Statutory requirements: The information regarding a patient needs to be maintained for a period of 5 years.

· Evidence in litigation: In case of malpractice suits medical records form a part of the evidence.

· Referrals: In case further treatment is needed based on the present diagnosis these records form the basis of referrals to specialists for further treatment.

The Medical Transcription Company needs to be assessed 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 Company being outsourced to should be HIPAA compliant. The Medical Transcription Company 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 Medical Transcription Company should not only secure but should also be easy to use, without having to require extensive training.

Once a Medical Transcription Company has been evaluated on all these characteristics, the healthcare facility can finalize on a company offering all the benefits and rest easy on the first stage of its’ receivables cycle.

TransDyne offers all the above benefits of outsourcing the Medical Transcription needs Taking advantage of a well-rounded outsourced Medical Transcription service provider like TransDyne and the positive impact it has on the receivable cycle can be felt immediately.

Medical transcription: Billing method and the bottom line

The method of billing adopted by the Medical Transcription Company could have a direct impact on the healthcare facility’s bottom-line!

After all any healthcare facility is going for specialist Medical Transcription services in anticipation of cost saving benefits. It is important to pick a company, which adopts a transparent and simple method of billing.  How complicated could this be? This is an area that is worth studying in detail. According to the principles of MTIA the billing method adopted by a Medical Transcription Company should be:

· Verifiable: The billing method used by a Medical Transcription Company should be easy to verify.

· Definable: The terms and parameters of the billing method used by the Medical Transcription Company should be defined in clear terms.

. Measurable: The formulas used by a Medical Transcription Company should allow for easy understanding.

· Consistent: The method of billing should be consistent for clear understanding and ease of operation. Any changes made in the method of billing should be communicated to the client to avoid inconsistencies

· Fair and honest: The billing method used by a Medical Transcription Company should be a fair and honest representation of charges for work executed

There are various methods, used for billing, which  have been summed up below:

Page: Each page of transcribed material constitutes a billable unit. The problem arises when there is a vast disparity in the content of pages. They could end up paying the same amount for a page consisting of 10 lines, as a page consisting of 45 lines. This would not be indicative of fair payment for services rendered.

Report: The total pages of finished transcription in a report constitute a billable unit. The problem arises when there is a vast disparity in the number of pages in a report. A report could consist of anything between 1 page to 10 pages, which again is not indicative of fair payment for services rendered.

Minute: This means every minute of dictation constitutes a billable unit. This method may seem like a fair one until the healthcare facility considers the different speeds of dictation, the interruptions and distractions faced by doctors during this process. They would be billed for those too!

Gross lines: Simply put, this method consists of visually counting the number of lines. The problem with this method is that it is dependent on the method of formatting used. The amount billed could be more when a Medical Transcriptionist uses tabs and indents excessively.

Character Lines: Character lines are usually defined counting the characters in the finished report and dividing it by a fixed number, say 65. Space and returns are also included. This method is simple, fair and consistent. It has the advantage of being easily verifiable.

TransDyne offers a fair and transparent billing process. TransDyne has adopted the “Character lines” method of billing. This method consists of counting all the characters in a finished report. The total is then divided by 65 to define a Character line. The billing is done on the total number of character lines transcribed.

The process of billing is explained at the very beginning so that what is being paid for is clearly understood. At every stage of the process TransDyne’s team offers further support to explain any clarifications that may be needed. With this billing system in place it ensures that the healthcare facility can rest assured that they are being billed exactly for the services rendered in a fair and verifiable manner.

Medical transcription: Who actually does the work?

Knowing who actually does the outsourced Medical Transcription work is very important because of the very sensitive and critical nature of the work. Making sure that the company chosen for outsourcing, executes the Medical Transcription work themselves, and not through subcontractors or home transcriptionists is very important. This has benefits like:

· Better control
Having to deal with one entity that does the work makes it easier to control all the processes. Otherwise it could result in dilution of control

· Data security
Data Security is one of the most important factors to be considered before engaging the services of an outsourced transcription vendor. Getting work done through a series of subcontractors and home-based transcriptionists would mean that patient data is exposed to various networks and computers.

The more number of people and networks handling this information the higher is the security risk. When outsourcing to a zero-subcontracting company like TransDyne, the data is handled professionally. TransDyne employs the best data security practices like high –end encryption, firewalls and foolproof access control measures

· Consistent Quality of work
When a company engages subcontractors, it has no control over who does the work and how. With a service provider like TransDyne there is more consistency in the quality of work as it is done by the same team of people who handle the same set of providers on a regular basis

· Personalized services
Any personalized needs of the healthcare facility like formats etc can be easily changed/added whenever required and the smallest preferences of each individual dictator are taken care of.

· Better understanding of special needs
When subcontractors work on dictations, they treat the work as a commodity, as a job that needs to be finished with the least amount of resources.

With a company like TransDyne any special needs of the healthcare facility are taken care of as TransDyne has complete control over the entire transcription process and their people are trained to take care of each client’s special needs.

· Better rates
By eliminating the need for the sub-contractor a company like TransDyne will be in a position to offer much better rates for superior service.

· Better customer service
One to one communication means less scope for misunderstanding and this translates into better customer service.

· Zero legal hassles
Due to the sensitivity of the data involved, it is important to keep it secure. Data access to more people can result in legal hassles due to misuse. Getting work done by a zero subcontracting company like TransDyne would mean zero legal hassles.

· Better turnaround time
When home transcriptionists or sub contractors are involved there are a lot of delays due to various factors like power outage, poor connectivity etc. These delays are avoided when the Medical Transcription Company does the transcription in-house.

At TransDyne they believe it is their privilege to be serving their customers’ needs in the best way possible. So any work outsourced to TransDyne, is executed by their own team of trained Medical Transcriptionists, than by the use of subcontractors or home transcriptionists.

The healthcare facility benefits by virtue of their vast experience, their training methods, best practices, and the comfort of absolute confidentiality & data security.

REDUCE UPFRONT CAPITAL INVESTMENT THROUGH OUTSOURCING MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION

Many healthcare facilities may not be aware that outsourcing their Medical Transcription needs can actually reduce their capital outlay in non-healthcare related areas. Healthcare business is ever changing and needs huge investments in the latest equipments to give the best possible care to patients. This means having to stretch limited money resources to cover all needs. Investing in capital equipment not related to the core business, like Medical Transcription can stretch the already over worked budgets to the limit.

What is the Capital investment required for medical transcription?
Capital investment for medical transcription could be in the following areas:

·   Computer systems for transcribing including monitors, headsets, footpedals,  keyboards etc.
·   Software for the transcription systems
·   Server for centrally uploading dictation files and downloading finished transcripts
·   Furniture used by in-house medical transcriptionists
·   Software for integration of the finished transcripts from various transcription sources into the healthcare facility’s central system.

Though not directly related to the core business, Transcription is vital to the smooth running of a healthcare facility and so cannot be ignored. In a situation where too many demands are made on limited resources, one easy fix is to outsource Medical Transcription needs. This then shifts the onus of major capital investment on to the Medical Transcription service provider.

But the decision to outsource Medical Transcription needs should not be taken lightly, and one needs to carefully evaluate the Medical Transcription service provider in terms of:

· Accuracy: This means the percentage of accuracy in the transcribed document with relation to the audio files. Minimum of 99% and above would be acceptable.

· Turnaround time: Turnaround time refers to the time taken to revert the transcribed report to you. 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 Company being outsourced to should be HIPAA compliant. The Medical Transcription Company has to have adequate security measures so that the confidential data transmitted back and forth is safe and secure.

· Fair pricing: Pricing should be fair and reasonable for the services rendered. Pricing method should also be transparent and simple so that concerned parties can verify the same at any stage of the process

Above all the Medical Transcription Company should offer services to take care of all the Medical Transcription needs without involving any additional investments on the healthcare facility’s part.

TransDyne not only offers Medical Transcription with accuracy of above 99%, with a 24-hour turnaround time, at fair prices and with Data security that will match and exceed industry standards, but also offers advantages like:

· Reduced work on filing documents and tracking dictations.
· Eliminating scope for missing documents.
· No additional investment in Hardware or software.
· Configuration for multi provider, multi user and multi location setting.
· Upgrades without any change to the client’s computer

Outsourcing Medical Transcription to TransDyne not only reduces capital investment budget and eliminates the cost of repairs, maintenance and up gradation of equipments but would also help the healthcare facility improve patient care.

MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION: MANAGING ERRATICTRANSCRIPTION VOLUMES

Problems managing the fluctuations in the volume of transcription due to unpredictability of patient inflow and staffing fluctuations?

Managing the transcription volume for a healthcare organization would mean facing two main challenges:

· The unpredictable volume of transcription needs
In the business of healthcare it is nearly impossible to predict the patient inflow to the healthcare facility. Thereby the volume of transcription to be handled can wildly fluctuate according to the volume of patients coming to the healthcare facility.

· Managing in-house transcription staff schedules.
The in-house staff in a healthcare facility is prepared to handle a certain amount of transcription volume. Any excess volume of transcribed reports can create a serious lag in the processing of reports. Moreover issues like vacations, sick leaves etc can create a serious lag in generation of Transcribed reports.

These two issues can leave the healthcare facility with serious lags in generation of transcription reports that can in turn affect patient care and the receivables cycle.

What are the issues that arise due to lag in medical transcription?
Delay in medical transcription can have a spiraling effect in the following areas:

· Increase in the cost per line of transcription: To keep up with varying volumes, the existing staff may either be underutilized or paid extra  to work  overtime increasing the cost per line of transcription.

· Wastage of resources: Resources like management staff, utilities and real estate would have to be allocated to manage overflow of transcription needs, which results in loss of opportunity costs.

· Security issues: To meet urgent transcription needs, the excess work may be outsourced to independent contractors without ascertaining the security measures used by them, and this could result in security breaches.

· Increase in the cost of information technology: Coordinating reports from various resources into the healthcare facility could mean additional IT costs.

Outsourcing Medical Transcription needs to a Medical Transcription Company can solve both problems of fluctuating Medical Transcription needs and issues with staffing in one shot. The Medical Transcription Company would have a huge pool of well-trained Medical Transcriptionists who can expertly transcribe reports on a timely basis, no matter what the volumes are. It would also ensure that the other issues arising out of delayed transcription would be solved at a stroke.

Hiring a professionally managed Medical Transcription Company like TransDyne to take care of the healthcare facility’s Medical Transcription needs will solve both the problems of planning for volume as well as staff requirements. Not just that, TransDyne will also partner with the healthcare facility to try and bring down transcription costs by almost 40% and take care of any volume needs or any holiday staffing needs that may arise, leaving the management of the healthcare facility free to focus on other areas.

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!