Friday, August 24, 2012

Online transcription: Choosing the right vendor

Healthcare transcription has become a fundamental part of the medical care exercise, facilitating in the process of report formation. Essentially medical transcription is an effectual back end support for healthcare practices. Though healthcare transcription is a fundamental element of the healthcare undertaking, it is not part of the most important business of the healthcare facility. The effortless fix to ensure making of patient records in a reasonable, exact, fast and confidential method is to subcontract the complete process to a specialized medical transcription service provider.

Choosing the optimum medical transcription service provider is essential as it is a relationship that will have lasting effect on the running of the healthcare practice.   Selecting a healthcare transcription company is a business resolution that requires a process of listing the prerequisites and assessment to make certain that a working partnership is created. To this end, a healthcare practice has to consider several considerations while outsourcing online transcription

What are the aspects to be taken into account while sub contracting online transcription?
The exercise of choosing the correct medical transcription vendor should realistically follow an undertaking consisting of two phases.

First level of the outsourcing resolution:

Purpose of contracting out: This part of the exercise is possibly one of the most ignored and important phases in the outsourcing exercise. This stage needs the health facility to clearly describe what it hopes to obtain from the sub contracting undertaking.

Typically this could comprise:

  • Streamlining the medical transcription flow: Contracting out online transcription ensures that the undertaking of converting dictation files into patient reports happens as a matter of course
  • Reducing the turnaround time: Contracting out medical transcription makes sure that the turnaround time required by the physician is met with
  • Reducing costs: Sub contracting medical transcription helps the healthcare facility optimize on expenditure of medical transcription as well as other linked costs
  • Enhanced focus on most important business: Outsourcing medical transcription has the additional benefit of allowing the health facility to focus on the main business of delivering superb medical care gainfully
  • Having a leaner organizational structure: Contracting out healthcare transcription helps the organization structure leaner by making sure that along with the demand for transcriptionists, other staff like managers, administrators and it manpower is minimized
  • Accelerating the coding and billing process: Sub contracting online transcription makes certain that transcripts are created on time, thus helping to accelerate the initial stage of the coding and billing cycle. 
Outcomes expected from the contracting out exercise: This step could concern classifying the precise parameters to measure the deliverable of sub contracting healthcare transcription:

  • Adequate accuracy levels: This is probably the most critical factor, as the data transcribed by the medical transcriptionist plays a crucial input in continued patient care
  • Delivery time for both regular reports and STAT records: Turnaround time is very critical as the details should not only be accurate but also timely
  • Total security of private patient details: Maintaining the HIPAA compliance of patient details at every step is obligatory for healthcare facilities. While sub contracting online transcription proper contemplation needs to be given to this factor. 
Factoring imminent demands: This essentially means that the health facility has to include the transcription demands that may occur from the upcoming growth plans of the health facility, covering:

  • Adding new specialties: Adding on new specialties would mandate that the medical transcription vendor should be in a position to provide transcription services for the new specialties without sacrificing the accuracy or turnaround time
  • Opening of new branches: Expansion plans of the healthcare facility would have an effect on the transcription capacity of the medical transcription company
  • Adoption of EMR: It is critical to ascertain that the healthcare transcription company has capabilities to integrate information with EMR/EHR in the form of HL7 messages. 
Second phase of the outsourcing decision:

Sourcing healthcare transcription companies: This has become effortless bearing in mind that details are only a click away. However it is critical to look for more than the price offered for services

Getting bids: This stage would involve looking through the proposals received to look for eligibility facilities like track record of the service provider, HIPAA/HITECH compliance, software and tools used and the type of people available to execute the work

Appraising healthcare transcription companies: This phase of the exercise would concern assessing the healthcare transcription company on the basis of criteria like accuracy, delivery time, rate and HIPAA compliance.

Verifying the credentials. This constituent of the process involves two stages:

  • Authenticating testimonials: This would imply following-up on the recommendations of customers who have utilized similar services
  • Obtaining free trial: obtaining a free trial of services makes sure that the healthcare transcription company is capable to offer services as promised
  • Signing the agreement: This is the final step in the sub contracting exercise comprising defining in black and white what the role of each party is in the outsourcing exercise.
Sub contracting the online transcription needs is basically like choosing a long-term partner and is required to be done with a great deal of care.

TransDyne ensures excellent medical transcription at cost-effective rates, carried out by seasoned and trained medical transcriptionists with a very prompt turnaround time executed through private HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of quality and all this with software and tools that is advanced but easy to utilize!          

To avail complete online transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

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