Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Medical transcription: Is outsourcing a smart solution?

It is an undisputed fact that timely and accurate information is one of the vital elements that contribute to quality healthcare. Medical transcription is the process of providing information to healthcare professionals by creating patient records converting audio records of the patient-healthcare professional encounter into text format, thus giving healthcare professionals the solid base of content and context regarding the patient’s medical history.

It is acknowledged that medical transcription is an important contributor to the process of healthcare. But when it comes to creation of patient records healthcare facilities have various options available to them. The process of medical transcription could be carried out in-house, through independent contractors or by outsourcing medical transcription requirements to professional medical transcription service provider.

Though outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider is the most effective solution, there have been a lot of doubts and aspersions cast on the practice of outsourcing medical transcription. After all the process of medical transcription involves working with confidential patient information. Moreover there have been a few unfortunate incidents in the past with unscrupulous medical transcription service providers not protecting patient information or fudging with the terms of billing causing a lot of doubts.

In spite of all these unfortunate incidents outsourcing medical transcription has been found to have a lot of advantages:

Accuracy: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that patient records are created accurately. The expertise of the medical transcriptionists in transcribing specialties and a stringent quality check policy ensures that information captured is of the highest quality

Turnaround time: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that there are no delays in the process of record creation. This is made possible because the medical transcription service provider would have the right technology for upload and downloads and a huge pool of trained medical transcriptionists to ensure turnaround time

Cost: Reduced cost is perhaps one of the main advantages of outsourcing. The cost per line of transcription is restricted to just the direct cost per line of transcription excluding all indirect costs like rent, utilities, cost of IT etc

However to make the process of outsourcing medical transcription smart and effective it is important that the healthcare facility exercise some caution as regards the following:

Security measures: Maintaining confidentiality of patient information is of utmost importance. Therefore it is important to ascertain that the medical transcription service provider has adequate measures in place to protect the data at all stages. To ensure total security, the service provider has to take measures to secure technology, infrastructure, people and processes

Billing methods: Often during the process of outsourcing medical transcription the price quoted by the service provider is taken at face value, without examining the components of the price. Often this leaves room for manipulation on the part of the service provider. To avoid this it is important to ascertain the billing method used by the service provider and understand the components of cost. This ensures that there is clarity in terms of pricing

Testimonials: The experience of the medical transcription service provider in providing outsourced medical transcription solutions to other healthcare facilities is an indication of their expertise. Therefore it is important to check on the testimonials given by the customers of the service provider

Free trial: Apart from studying all the aspects of the medical transcription proposal, it is also important to test them. Availing a free trial of the services provides the added comfort of knowing that the service provider can deliver services as promised

Outsourcing medical transcription is a smart solution for the documentation needs of the healthcare facility provided the healthcare facility evaluates the medical transcription service provider thoroughly.

TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices using the character method of billing, 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 smart solutions by TransDyne for medical transcription needs, click here.

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