Sunday, June 27, 2010

Medical transcription: Strategies for outsourcing

What is the strategy to be adopted for outsourcing medical transcription?


1.Identify healthcare process: This will show the healthcare facility the flow of work and identify processes that can be outsourced and those, which are to be retained in-house.

The typical workflow for healthcare would be as follows:

  • Appointment by patient to visit doctor/emergency visit
  • Filling up of demo forms
  • Doctor visit
  • Dictation of notes
  • Medical transcription
  • Medical coding
  • Medical billing
  • Insurance claims processing
  • Re-imbursement
  • Follow up of payment over and above insurance re-imbursement.
This flow clearly shows that the first four tasks cannot be outsourced but other tasks like medical transcription can be outsourced.

2.Assess the feasibility of outsourcing medical transcription:
a. Can medical transcription be executed outside the healthcare facility premises?
With the advent of Internet, it is possible for medical transcription to be executed outside the physical premises of the healthcare facility.

b. Are there any security implications to outsourcing medical transcription?
Security of confidential patient health information has to be ensured. Care has to be taken to make sure that the medical transcription service provider is HIPAA and HITECH complaint and covered under a business associate agreement.

c. Can medical transcription be tailor made to match the requirements of the healthcare facility?
The needs of different healthcare facilities is different, care has to be taken to source a medical transcription service provider who can cater to different volumes, formats and specialties and according to the turnaround time specified.

d. Can the medical transcription service provider’s performance be monitored?
The performance of a medical transcription service provider can be monitored in terms of accuracy and turnaround time.

3.Sourcing medical transcription service provider
a. Cost: Savings on cost  is perhaps one of the most important criteria for outsourcing, Care has to be taken that the cost per line of transcription parameters are understood completely before comparing quotes.

b. Turnaround time: Turnaround time is an important factor that affects both the healthcare and profitability aspect of the healthcare facility.

c. Availability of talent pool: To make sure that a service provider can provide continuous and consistent service it is important to evaluate the talent pool available to the service provider.

d. Risks: This refers both to the risk of poor quality as well as security of information. To mitigate this assurances of quality level and the security measures taken by the service provider need to be evaluated

4.What is the value proposition of outsourcing medical transcription?
a. Speed: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures the speedy creation of medical records under all circumstances.

b. Profit increase: Outsourcing medical transcription brings down the cost per line of transcription and improves the bottom line. It also helps increase profits by shortening the receivables cycle.

c. Increased process efficiency: Outsourcing medical transcription increases the efficiency of the healthcare process by making information available to the healthcare professionals on time.

d. Improved Management focus: Outsourcing medical transcription improves the management focus by freeing up valuable resources like real estate, supervisory staff, capital investment etc.

TransDyne is a professionally managed medical transcription service provider that 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 TransDyne’s superior outsourced medical transcription services, click here.

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