Medical transcription outsourcing: Strategic advantages

Due to the advent of Internet, services from all over the world have suddenly become more accessible. As the concept of global village advances, it makes sense for all businesses to outsource non-core activities to make the most of their limited resources. Communication facilities have improved, development of processes have reached maturity and there are well-integrated teams in place to provide specialized services at reasonable rates.

When it comes to healthcare, administrators of healthcare facilities have to deal with shrinking budgets, reduced reimbursements and increased demand for quality healthcare services. It makes sense to strategically outsource those functions that are not part of the core business. Medical transcription is one such function that demands a high level of commitment in terms of both time and resources. Outsourcing medical transcription to a professionally managed medical transcription service provider can provide the healthcare facility with numerous advantages:

1. It streamlines medical transcription: By outsourcing the medical transcription needs of the healthcare facility to a professional medical transcription service provider the process gets streamlined. The medical transcription service provider acts as a one-stop shop to provide varied services with different parameters from one source. Co-ordination for quality, turnaround time, security and pricing becomes simpler.

2. Reduces demand for medical transcription staff: It has been seen that getting the right people to work on transcription is important to meet all parameters like accuracy, turnaround time and security. By outsourcing medical transcription the onus of acquiring the right team is passed on to the service provider.

3. Provides access to additional resources in the form of skill sets and technology: By outsourcing medical transcription the healthcare facility can have the advantage of the technology used by the service provider along with the skill sets of the provider’s team.

4. Guarantees reduction in expenses: By outsourcing medical transcription to the right medical transcription service provider, the healthcare facility can expect to benefit from both the skills and the economies of scale of the service provider in terms of drastic reduction in the cost per line of transcription.

5. Special medical transcription needs/problems are attended to immediately: Due to the benefits of having a huge team of skilled medical transcriptionists available to the medical transcription service provider, they would be in a position to accommodate any special needs of the healthcare professionals, whether in terms of formats, or turnaround time or any other parameters required by them.

6. Services improve and become more reliable: Medical transcription is the process of consolidating information regarding the patients’ encounter with the healthcare professional. Timely medical transcription can have a positive impact on the quality of healthcare services by providing timely and accurate information.

To avail the strategic advantages of outsourced medical transcription, the healthcare facility has to undergo a process of identifying their needs and picking out the right service provider.

Medical transcription: Process for outsourcing

Having seen the strategic advantages of outsourcing medical transcription, a healthcare facility needs to adopt a strategy for outsourcing medical transcription that enables them to avail all the advantages.

The process for outsourcing should include the following:

· Selection of appropriate vendor for medical transcription, based on:

a) Long-term experience of the medical transcription service provider: While outsourcing services as vital as medical transcription it pays to be cautious while picking out the provider. History of the provider in providing similar services  is vital. This shows that the medical transcription service provider is prepared in every way to deliver the right solution.

b) Availability of skilled people with the service provider: The quality/ accuracy and the timeliness of the records transcribed are vital for providing quality healthcare and have other uses like the forming the basis of coding & billing and as evidence in case of litigation. The accuracy of the transcripts and the turnaround time are dependent on the skill level of the medical transcriptionists. Therefore it is important that the medical transcription service provider has a team of expert medical transcriptionists.

c) Technical infrastructure available with the service provider: The technological capabilities affects the turnaround time, security of data and the ease of use. Factors like flexible modes of dictation, automatic upload of audio files and download of transcribed records, archiving facilities and HL7 integration are important factors to be analyzed.

d) Pricing: Pricing in medical transcription can be as easy or as complex as the billing method used by the medical transcription service provider. Often prices are discussed without properly qualifying the billable units or the billing method. This leaves room for manipulation and ambiguities. The billing method needs to be verifiable, measurable, definable, consistent and fair& honest.

e) Integration capabilities: The systems/technology used by the service provider needs to easily integrate with the systems of the healthcare facilities. This ensures access to information in an easy and workable manner.

f) Security measures taken by the medical transcription service provider: Patient data is confidential and needs to be protected at every stage. Because the medical transcription process involves the transmission of data through electronic channels and is exposed to medical transcriptionists during the process of transcription, it is highly vulnerable to misuse. Security measures taken by the medical transcription service provider needs to cover technology, process and people to ensure total confidentiality.

g) Investment required for availing the services: One of the main reasons for outsourcing medical transcription is to curb capital investment towards non-healthcare related areas in a healthcare facility. While outsourcing medical transcription, the healthcare facility needs to ensure that no further capital investment is required.

h) Adaptability of service provider to varying demands: The demands of healthcare professionals may vary according to many factors like their specialty, influx of patients and other factors. While choosing a medical transcription service provider it is important to choose one that has experience servicing varied requirements.

i) Customer service channels: Transition from in-house medical transcription to outsourced medical transcription requires a certain period of handholding to make the process smooth. Even after the transition process is complete, there may be numerous instances where instant turnaround on queries is required. An open channel of communication is essential while outsourcing.

· Verifying testimonials: Success stories of clients who have availed of similar services need to be checked before finalizing the outsourced medical transcription service provider.

· Free trial period: Availing a free trial period will ensure that the service provider is capable of delivering services as per the promised criteria.

· The contact: The actual contract needs to be studied and all the requisite parameters required should be included, in a clear and unambiguous manner.

Medical transcription:Cardiology

Medical transcription is a back office function that assists healthcare professionals by creating accurate and speedy records of patient visits. Medicine is a vast and complex field having various specialties. The terminology, treatment procedures and the drugs used in each specialty are different. That is why healthcare professionals train for a particular specialty to become specialists in that field.

Cardiology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the heart and blood vessels. The field includes diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary heart disease and electrophysiology. Physicians specializing in this field are called Cardiologists. And physicians specializing in surgery related to cardiology are called Cardiac surgeons.

Medical transcription for cardiology services require medical transcriptionists to be well versed in the terminology and familiar with the treatment modes and drugs used. Recognizing the need for professional and skilled medical transcriptionists to transcribe records dictated by cardiology specialists, TransDyne has created a team of medical transcriptionists specializing in Cardiology.

Medical transcriptionists are hand picked during the training period and trained to learn in detail, the terminology, procedures and drugs associated with cardiology.

How does specialty training in Cardiology transcription affect accuracy?
Training a medical transcriptionist in cardiology transcription helps increase accuracy of the finished transcript, by familiarizing the medical transcriptionist with all the terminology and procedures associated with Cardiology. This ensures that the medical transcriptionist does not misspell or misunderstand any of the terms used by the healthcare professionals. The medical transcriptionist is able to produce accurate records from the very beginning without leaving room for guesswork.

How does specialty training in Cardiology transcription affect turnaround time?
Turnaround time refers to the time taken to revert the transcribed report to the healthcare facility. By familiarizing the medical transcriptionist with all the terminology used in cardiology, the turnaround time can be maintained due to the familiarity of the medical transcriptionist with the associated terms and cutting down time spent on research. Moreover the time spent on multi level quality checks would also reduce, reducing the turnaround time.

How does specialty training in Cardiology transcription affect pricing?
Specialty training in Cardiology transcription can help bring down cost per line of transcription, by increasing the productivity of the medical transcriptionist. Moreover due to the increased accuracy of the transcripts the cost of several level quality checks can be reduced.

Apart from offering accurate, timely and reasonably priced cardiology transcription, TransDyne also offers the following:

Data Security: TransDyne ensures data security 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 further ensures data security by ensuring that data doesn’t leave it’s premises physically. To ensure secure nedical transcription all the transcription is done in TransDyne’s premises and the premises are secured through appropriate security measures. TransDyne meets and exceeds all the HIPAA and HITECH regulations.

Technology: TransDyne believes that the technology used for medical transcription like uploading dictation and downloading finished transcripts should be advanced to ensure reliability, but very easy to use requiring very less or no training. TransDyne also has a system with powerful archival features enabling the healthcare professional to easily trace old records. TransDyne also facilitates HL7 interface for interacting with other systems.

Medical transcription: Radiology

Radiology is the branch of specialty medicine that deals with the study and application of imaging technology like X-ray and radiation for diagnosing and treating disease. Radiologists direct an array of imaging technologies such as ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), nuclear medicine, positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to diagnose or treat disease.

Scope of radiology also covers:

· Mammography radiology
· Cardiac radiology
· Musculoskeletal radiology
· Neuroradiology
· Pediatric Radiology
· Nuclear radiology

Medical transcription is the process of converting the audio records of healthcare professional-patient encounter into text format, which then forms a permanent part of the patient’s health record. This ensures the continuity of care by ensuring the patient’s detailed health history is available as reference.

Medical transcription for Radiology requires the skill level of medical transcriptionists to be high. The medical transcriptionists need to be well versed in the terminology, techniques and procedures that form part of radiology.

TransDyne acknowledges that the field of medicine is vast and has many specialties; therefore medical transcription for a particular specialty requires the team providing medical transcription support to have in-depth knowledge about the specialty. This ensures that the audio records dictated by the specialists are fully understood by the medical transcriptionists and the records are transcribed with maximum accuracy and within the requisite turnaround time.

TransDyne has a team of specially trained  medical transcriptionists working on radiology medical transcription. This team has been extensively trained on the terminology, techniques and procedures related to radiology.

How does specialty training in Radiology in medical transcription affect accuracy?
Specialist training in radiology medical transcription ensures that the teams working on the transcripts are domain experts. This ensures familiarity with the “language” used by the radiologists and reduces errors dramatically.

How does specialty training in Radiology in medical transcription affect turnaround time?
Turnaround time of the finished transcripts is dependent on the skill level of the medical transcriptionists. Specialty training in radiology transcription helps develop the skill level of the medical transcriptionists, thus enabling them to meet turnaround time commitments.

How does specialty training in Radiology in medical transcription affect pricing?
Specialist training in radiology increases the productivity of medical transcriptionists and also minimizes errors. Both these factors help bring down the cost per line of transcription.

TransDyne gives healthcare professionals in radiology the benefit of specialist transcription maintaining high levels of accuracy, turnaround time and reasonable prices..

Not only that, availing medical transcription services from TransDyne has the following benefits:

Data Security: 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 and HITECH regulations that apply to electronic exchange of information.

Technology: 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:

· 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.

· Web Delivery: TransDyne’s web delivery system tackles all issues related with tracking dictations, receiving documents and finding old files form the archives.

· Smart Delivery: Smart delivery is an automated program that addresses the automatic downloads, saving files and printing needs of a healthcare facility.

· HL7 integration: TransDyne can configure and send healthcare information as HL7 messages to the client’s EMR with no additional costs.

Medical transcription: How does outsourcing help increase cash flow?

Outsourcing is the process of obtaining certain services through an outside service provider. Usually the services that are outsourced are essential services that form part of the costs. Outsourcing is a good method to cut down costs and sharpen focus on the core business.

Medical transcription is the process of creating medical records of the patient -healthcare professional encounter. Though medical transcription is an essential part of the healthcare process and plays an important role in the receivable cycle, it is not part of the core competence of the healthcare facility. Outsourcing medical transcription to professional service provider is a cost effective method of record creation in a timely, accurate and secure way.

Apart from the obvious advantages of outsourcing medical transcription, there is the added advantage of increased cash flow.

How does outsourcing of medical transcription services improve cash flow?

· By restricting cost of transcription: Outsourcing medical transcription limits the cost of transcription to the cost per line of transcription. There is no wastage of idle production capacity during slack times and no extra expenses for medical transcription when the patient influx is high. A professional medical transcription service provider would provide a package deal including weekend and holiday transcription requirements.

· By reducing investment in infrastructure: Outsourcing medical transcription eliminates the need for investment in capital investment like computers, furniture, and servers with regard to medical transcription. The healthcare facility can channel these funds for other purposes.

· By reducing expenses in utilities: In-house transcription would incur a large expense in terms of utilities like power, Internet etc. by outsourcing medical transcription the cost of utilities would be dramatically reduced, thus improving the cash flow.

· By shortening the receivables cycle: It is a known fact that the medical record of the patient is the basis for coding and billing and medical transcription is the process of creating these records. Timely medical transcription accelerates the process of reimbursement, thus improving cash flow.

TransDyne is a professionally managed medical transcription service provider that has been providing outsourced medical transcription services for over a decade. TransDyne provides medical transcription services, which are tailored to suit the specific needs of different healthcare facilities. Apart from increasing the cash flow of a healthcare facility, the advantages of outsourcing medical transcription to TransDyne are:

Medical transcription: Understanding cost

Medical transcription is the process of converting audio files of the patient-healthcare professional encounter into text format. These records form a part of the permanent patient record and are used for various purposes, including coding and billing for the purpose of reimbursements. Medical records are a valuable resource to the healthcare professional for providing quality healthcare on a timely basis.

In spite of being an important part of the healthcare process and an accelerant of the receivables cycle, medical transcription is one of the cost factors. To understand the cost of medical transcription it is important to evaluate all options available for availing medical transcription and evaluate the cost components of each method. A healthcare facility can avail medical transcription services by the following means:

By having an in-house transcription team: To calculate the cost per line of transcription under this method, the healthcare facility needs to include indirect costs like cost of real estate, overheads, utilities, managerial/supervisory costs, cost of training, cost of repairs & maintenance, cost of weekend & holiday transcription, cost of Information Technology(IT)  along with  direct costs like Salaries and benefits paid to the medical transcriptionists. Factors like cost of overtime and loss of productivity during slack hours also need to be added to arrive at realistic costs.

By having independent contractors working for them: To calculate the costs under this method, apart from the cost per line of transcription, factors like cost of coordination of transcription activities, cost of in-house IT towards medical transcription, server costs for upload & download of files, cost of equipment & software provided to the Independent contractors, cost of security measures, needs to be added to arrive at the actual cost per line of transcription.

By outsourcing to a professional medical transcription service provider: Under this option the cost per line of medical transcription is clearly defined by the service provider. However the medical transcription service provider needs to be evaluated on  accuracy, turnaround time, security, technology used and the billing method before arriving at the final costs.

By having a combination of the above methods: Using more than one source to meet medical transcription needs can lead to complexities like different methods of billing, different methods of calculating accuracy, different technology used by different providers, cost of coordination and the additional cost of ensuring security of data. This method could probably create confusion and additional work.

In conclusion, it can safely be said that outsourcing to a professionally managed medical transcription service provider can help the healthcare facility curb costs and limit it to the cost per line of transcription. However while doing so, care needs to be taken to evaluate the medical transcription service provider on the following:

· Billing method
· Security measures taken by the medical transcription service provider
· Quality measures to obtain accuracy
· Turnaround time
· Technology

TransDyne is a professionally managed medical transcription service provider. Some of the advantages of outsourcing medical transcription to TransDyne are given below:

Fair and transparent method of billing: TransDyne uses the character line method of billing. This method is measurable, verifiable, definable, consistent and fair & honest. TransDyne takes care to explain the billing method in detail at the very beginning so that both parties understand all the components of cost.

Secure medical transcription: TransDyne ensures security of confidential patient data by securing technology, infrastructure and people & processes. The methods used by TransDyne to ensure security of data not only meet HIPAA and HITECH standards but also exceed them.

Accuracy of above 99%: TransDyne ensures accuracy levels by training their medical transcriptionists in one or two specialties making them domain experts enabling to transcribe at top quality. TransDyne further adopts a four level quality check method to attain maximum accuracy.

Turnaround time of 24 hours: TransDyne ensures turnaround time using the right technology, the right training method and the right people.

Medical transcription services for Podiatry

Podiatry is a branch of healthcare devoted to the study, diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the foot, ankle and lower leg. A podiatrist is a doctor of Podiatric medicine,  also known as podiatric physician or surgeon, qualified by his/her education and training to diagnose and treat conditions affecting the foot, ankle and related structures of the leg. Podiatrists are uniquely qualified among medical professionals to treat the foot and ankle based on their education, training and experience.

Medical transcription is a service allied with the field of healthcare by creating accurate, timely and reasonably priced records of the patient-healthcare professional encounter. To provide medical transcription based on all the parameters, medical transcriptionists needs to be well versed in the language of medicine, along with listening skills, keyboarding skills and research abilities.

Having acknowledged that catering to special needs requires a higher level of expertise, TransDyne has geared their training practices to meet these needs. TransDyne has formed special teams of medical transcriptionists who are trained in specific specialties, to make them domain experts in that specialty. TransDyne has a team of medical transcriptionists who have been trained in podiatry to enable them to provide podiatry medical transcription services.

How does specialty training in podiatry medical transcription affect accuracy?
Specialist training in podiatry ensures that the medical transcriptionist is well versed in the terminology and the procedures used in podiatry, thus ensuring that the complex terminology is easily understood by the medical transcriptionists, ensuring that the highest levels of accuracy are maintained from the very beginning.

How does specialty training in podiatry medical transcription affect turnaround time?
Specialist training in podiatry medical transcription enables medical transcriptionists to not only achieve high levels of accuracy but also enables them to meet the turnaround time committed. Moreover due to the high level of accuracy, the need for more number of quality checks are reduced, thus reducing turnaround time.

How does specialty training in podiatry medical transcription affect pricing?
The productivity of the medical transcriptionist are high, the accuracy levels are high and the need for quality checks are lowered, thus reducing the cost per line of transcription. The healthcare facility  benefits in terms of cost saving due to the expertise of the medical transcriptionists.

Apart from meeting the commitments of higher levels of accuracy and turnaround time, at lower prices, Podiatry medical transcription by TransDyne has the following benefits:

Data Security: TransDyne ensures Data security 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 further ensures data security by ensuring that data doesn’t leave its premises physically. To ensure secure medical transcription all the transcription is done in TransDyne’s premises and the premises are secured through appropriate security measures. TransDyne meets and exceeds all the HIPAA and HITECH regulations.

Technology: TransDyne believes that the technology used for medical transcription like uploading dictation and downloading finished transcripts should be advanced to ensure reliability, but very easy to use requiring very less or no training. TransDyne also has a system with powerful archival features enabling the healthcare professional to easily trace old records. TransDyne also facilitates HL7 interface for interacting with other systems.