Thursday, June 30, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing the right kind of support

Medical transcription has always played an important role in the healthcare process by creating patient records. Patient records are essential to the smooth running of healthcare facilities, aiding in both the operational and commercial aspects. Medical transcription services aid in the operational aspects by providing healthcare professionals a longitudinal record of the patient's health history. Medical transcription aids in the commercial aspects by providing the base for coding and billing.

Though medical transcription is an integral contributor to the smooth running of healthcare it is not part of the core competence of the healthcare facility. One easy fix to ensure that quality patient records are created on time in a cost effective manner without having dilute the focus of the healthcare facility is to outsource medical transcription to a professional medical transcription service provider.


Outsourcing medical transcription provides healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals seamless services which benefits them in the following:

è    Cost: One of the main benefits of outsourcing medical transcription is that of the enormous savings on cost of transcription. Outsourcing medical transcription basically converts the fixed costs incurred by the healthcare facilities on medical transcription into variable costs. This ensures that healthcare facilities end up paying only to the extent they have used the medical transcription services. This automatically reduces the cost burden of the healthcare facilities.

            Another major saving is the reduction in the actual cost per line of transcription. The             economies of scale, the superior training methods used by the medical transcription             service provider, the technology used by the service provider and the best practices             established by the service provider reduce the cost per line and this benefits the             healthcare facility by helping them save substantially on costs.
           
è    Convenience: Outsourcing medical transcription is a very convenient solution for healthcare facilities seeking to create timely and accurate patient records without affecting the efficient running of their operations. Some of the convenient solutions offered by outsourced medical transcription service providers are:

1.      Retaining current modes of dictation

2.      Convenient, speedy, secure modes of document delivery

3.      Easy to use technology with numerous benefits

4.      Easy integration with EMR

5.      Seamless transition to outsourced services without much change in the way the healthcare facility operates.

6.      Transcription backup for varying volumes of medical transcription needs including holidays, weekend medical transcription requirements.

7.      Accurate medical transcription for any specialty

8.      Saving on resources like real estate, capital investment, utilities, management and administrative staff etc.

9.      HIPAA/ HITECH compliant medical transcription

è    Customized solutions: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that the services are customized to suit the specific needs of the healthcare facility/ healthcare professionals. There are various factors that affect the scope of transcription services required. Factors like varied turnaround time requirements, reports in specific templates/formats, modes of document delivery, frequency of upload of dictation, integrating with the existing systems used by the healthcare facility, speech recognition transcription, the need for customer service backup and even the type of contract would be customized to suit the specific requirements of the healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry offers transcription  solutions that are convenient, cost effective and customized to suit the specific needs of the healthcare facilities. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified 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 cost effective, convenient and customized medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Simplifies the way healthcare facilities work!

Medical transcription has been allied with healthcare since the very beginning. Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records of the patient- healthcare professional encounter. Though medical transcription is essentially a service that documents the patient- healthcare professional encounter; outsourced medical transcription services have evolved from the early stages of being data entry/ typing services to that of a sophisticated service that helps the working life of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals.   Outsourced medical transcription services simplify the way healthcare facilities work.

How do outsourced medical transcription services help simplify the way healthcare facilities work?

  • Speedy creation of transcripts: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that creation of patient medical records takes place within the turnaround time required by the healthcare professional/ healthcare facility. Delays in creation of patient records can lead to the treatment process being hindered, wastage of time in following up by healthcare professionals & support staff and thus impact the smooth running of the healthcare facility.

  • Safer: Maintaining confidentiality of patient information is a major concern for healthcare facilities at all levels. Sourcing a HIPAA/ HITECH compliant medical transcription service provider  ensures that this data is protected through the entire transcription process.

  • Accurate: outsourcing medical transcription ensures that all the details of the patient- healthcare professional encounter are captured with maximum accuracy. The healthcare facility/ healthcare professional would benefit from the training processes, the process for ensuring quality and best practices established by the service provider to maintain the high levels of accuracy.

  • Technology: One of the major advantages of outsourcing medical transcription is the technology used by the outsourced service provider. Technology has become an important component of medical transcription services in the following aspects:

1.      Capturing dictation
2.      Transmission of audio file through secure channels
3.      The transcription process
4.      Encapsulating the work status
5.      Delivery of transcripts through different modes as per the convenience of the healthcare professionals
6.      Archives to enable locating transcripts

            Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that healthcare professionals and healthcare             facilities have the benefits of leveraging on the software and tools used by the medical             transcription service provider without having to invest substantially.

  • EMR adoption: Many healthcare facilities may have already invested in EMR or may plan to do so. Outsourcing medical transcription has the advantage of helping healthcare facilities adopt EMR without having to make many changes in the working style of healthcare professionals.

  • Reduce costs: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that healthcare facilities make substantial saving on cost of transcription. They also gain from better utilization of their resources towards their core business as outsourcing eliminates overheads related to medical transcription.

  • Accelerate reimbursements: Information in patient records is the basis on which coding and billing start. Speedy creation of patient records can help accelerate the reimbursement work.

  • Smarter working: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that all the activities associated with medical transcription like recruitment & training of medical transcriptionists, collection of dictation, allocation of work, report distribution, keeping track of work in progress, tracing transcripts from archives are passed on to the service provider. This enables the healthcare professionals and other staff to use their time in a more efficient manner.

  • One stop shop: outsourcing medical transcription provides an one stop shop for all the medical transcription needs of the healthcare facility like transcription for different specialties, varying turnaround time requirements, formats/templates required, weekend & holiday transcription requirements, remote faxing & printing etc

Outsourcing medical transcription aids the functioning of healthcare facilities in many ways apart from the obvious benefit of savings on costs.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has been providing medical transcription services for over a decade. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified 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 complete medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing support for medico-legal documentation needs

Medical transcription has been providing valuable support to the healthcare sector by faithfully documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter in its entirety. The process of medical transcription becomes even more efficient and economic by outsourcing medical transcription. Outsourced medical transcription services are able to meet all the required standards of medical transcription like accuracy, turnaround time, security and being cost effective as medical transcription is the core business of the service provider and all the resources of the service provider are focused towards providing quality services.

Another aspect that medical transcription services aid in is the medico-legal aspects of healthcare facilities by creating comprehensive and accurate patient records. In an increasing litigious environment complete patient records are vital as evidence in case of malpractice suits.

Medical transcription helps in medico-legal aspects by

  • Properly recording and documenting patient's current and past medical history
  • Helping document the rationale surrounding the medical reasonableness of the treatment
  • Documenting necessity of all patient diagnostic testing administered
  • Providing sufficient basis to reconstruct, fully justify and explain the facts and circumstances giving rise to the patients' condition and course of treatment
  • Ensuring that the patient case history contained in the clinic file for the patient will become the centerpiece of any litigation and/or claims negotiations regarding the reasonableness and necessity of the treatment and diagnostic testing by capturing all the details completely and accurately.

Documentation usually reflects a course of treatment; increased emphasis on proper documentation provides proper safeguards against malpractice claims. Proper documentation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter has the following advantages:

1.      Increase the quality of patient care by recognizing accelerated or prolonged symptoms leading to further investigation
2.      Provides justification for patient care, by reflecting detail and capturing objective physical examination findings that support the course of treatment. This aspect of documentation also helps in claiming payments
3.      Proper documentation helps in increasing referrals to the healthcare professional by reflecting on his/ her ability to provide quality care
4.      Protection against litigation.

It can be seen that outsourcing to a medical transcription service provider who believes that maintaining quality and security of documentation as their priority helps the healthcare facility in many ways.

To ensure quality documentation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter, the medical transcription service provider needs to be assessed on criteria like:

  • 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 service provider being outsourced to should be HIPAA and HITECH compliant. The medical transcription service provider 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 service provider should not only secure but should also be easy to use, without having to require extensive training.

As documentation of patient- healthcare professional is vital for protection in the medico-legal aspects, choosing the right medical transcription service provider is vital.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has been providing medical transcription services for over a decade. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified 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 outsourced medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing affordable and integrated solutions

Healthcare services play an important role in modern life, helping maintain and improve quality of health and well-being. Healthcare services also play an important role in emergency situations. Healthcare depends on various inputs internally and externally to provide quality services.  Medical transcription services provide valuable inputs to the healthcare process by creating patient records. Outsourcing medical transcription has been found to be one of the most efficient solutions for healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals seeking accurate, speedy and cost effective services.

Outsourcing medical transcription provides affordable and integrated solutions

How does outsourcing medical transcription provide affordable solutions?

  • Lowering costs: The most obvious and immediate outcome of outsourcing medical transcription is the reduction in costs. Factors like medical transcription being the core business of the service provider, the best practices established by the service provider, economies of scale help the medical transcription service provider in providing quality services with substantial savings.

  • Eliminating indirect costs: Outsourcing medical transcription also helps healthcare facilities save on indirect costs like cost of real estate, utilities, investment of transcription equipment & systems, salaries & benefits paid to transcriptionists.

  • Helping protect existing investments: In case the healthcare facility has already invested in a transcription system or EMR system, a technologically savvy medical transcription service provider can help protect these investments by integrating existing systems to enable outsourced transcription services and by allowing for transmitting information into the EMR system using HL7 interface.


How does outsourcing medical transcription provide integrated solutions?

Establishing a process for transcription: The process of medical transcription starts with the patient- healthcare professional encounter. The transcription process can be follows the sequence given below:

  1. Dictation
  2. Uploading files
  3. Transcription process
  4. Delivery of transcripts
           
Outsourcing medical transcription provides an integrated process not only for the actual transcription process, but also for dictation, collection of audio files, uploading             files for transcription and secure, speedy modes of document delivery as per the             preference of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities.

Using software and tools: The software and tools used by the medical transcription service provider provides integrated solutions to the needs of varied departments in the healthcare facility involved in the smooth running of the healthcare facility. Outsourced transcription services provide integrated solutions to:

  1. Managerial staff: Outsourced medical transcription services help the managerial staff in conserving the resources of the healthcare facility.
  2. Records management staff: Outsourced medical transcription services aid the records management staff by providing transcripts within the required turnaround time, reports in required formats/templates and by providing them with an efficient system for tracking the work in progress
  3. Support staff: Outsourced medical transcription services provide integrated solutions to the needs of support staff by enabling multiple modes of document delivery and providing them with archival facilities
  4. IT staff: Outsourced medical transcription provided integrated solutions to information technology by integrating transcription systems with the healthcare facility systems, automatically upgrading software, integrating with EMR and providing HIPAA/HITECH measures for technology during the medical transcription process.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has used their extensive background in information technology and their experience in serving the needs of the healthcare sector to provide affordable and integrated medical transcription solutions.

TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified 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 affordable and integrated medical transcription services  from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Serving healthcare facilities at all levels

Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records of the patient- healthcare professional encounter. It is a known fact that medical transcription services aid healthcare professionals in the provision of quality healthcare. And outsourcing medical transcription helps create patient medical records in an accurate, speedy, secure and cost-effective services.

But a lesser advertised and less known fact about outsourced medical transcription is how it aids the operations of healthcare facilities at every level.

Outsourcing medical transcription has the following benefits:

The managerial staff:

  • Savings on investment: Outsourcing medical transcription helps the managerial staff save on investments substantially, by eliminating the need to invest in transcription equipment and furniture required for transcription.

  • Saving information technology: Expenses for Information technology for executing transcription in-house can be avoided or substantially reduced by outsourcing medical transcription.

  • Staffing benefit: Outsourcing medical transcription enables the staff of the healthcare facility especially the managerial and executive level staff to focus on the core business of providing quality healthcare.

The records management staff:

  • Recruiting and retaining medical transcriptionists staff: One of the main inputs for quality medical transcription is that of qualified and trained transcriptionists. Outsourcing medical transcription effectively eliminates the need to recruit, train and retain the transcription team.

  • Turnaround time: As turnaround time is the guaranteed by the outsourced medical transcription service provider it eliminates the responsibility of the records manager to constantly monitor and follow-up on turnaround time.

  • Process for medical transcription: By outsourcing medical transcription, effectively the responsibility to have an organized process for maintaining services at requisite quality levels is also outsourced.

  • Keeping track: The outsourced medical transcription service provider would have a system in place that would provide a summary of the job status for transcription work, making it easier for the record management staff to keep track of dictations sent, transcripts received and the work-in-progress.

  • HIPAA and HITECH compliance: The onus of securing confidential patient information by securing the team, the technology and processes becomes the responsibility of the outsourced medical transcription service provider.


The support staff:

  • Multiple modes of document delivery: The support staff at the healthcare facility benefits from the multiple modes of document delivery provided by the outsourced service provider.

  • Archives: Archival facilities provided by the outsourced medical transcription service provider enables the support staff to retrieve transcripts easily by using various search criteria.

The Information technology staff:

  • Redundancy and backup of data: The outsourced service provider would be making provisions for redundancy and backup of systems lessening the burden of the information technology staff.

  • Interfacing of systems: By using advanced technology that is easy to use the outsourced medical transcription service provider would make interfacing the healthcare facility system with that of the outsourced service provider very simple.

  • Install/upgrade software: The responsibility of installing/upgrading software for transcription is undertaken by the service provider when transcription is outsourced.

  • EMR adoption: Outsourcing medical transcription would help in adoption of EMR through HL7 interfacing.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has been providing transcription solutions that are customized to suit the specific needs of healthcare facilities. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified 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 complete medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing overall benefits

Much has been said about healthcare, one often ignored factor about healthcare is that, it is a business in spite of being a life & death/ quality of life improving service. Like any other business the goals of healthcare facilities are straightforward; to be able to provide quality healthcare services while still maintaining a healthy bottom-line. In order to achieve these goals it is important for healthcare facilities to concentrate on their core activities and outsource all other activities that are not part of the core.

Outsourcing non-core activities will have an impact on the following:

·        Improved focus on the core business of providing quality healthcare
·        Reducing allocation of limited resources on non-core activities

The healthcare process is a complex one, drawing inputs from numerous sources to complete the process of providing quality healthcare. One such input that contributes significantly to the healthcare process is the information captured in patient records. Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records by transcribing the audio files of the patient-healthcare professional encounter into text format. Patient records are not only vital for providing continued care to patients they also play a vital role in the process of reimbursement.

However medical transcription is a process that requires the right combination of people, processes and technology to be able to be accurate, timely, secure and cost effective. To be able to produce medical transcription that meets all these criteria, the healthcare facility has to dedicate a substantial portion of its resources in terms of investment, manpower, time and other resources to the process of medical transcription.

Outsourcing medical transcription has proven to be an effective solution for the medical transcription needs of healthcare facilities without compromising quality and security standards. In fact outsourcing medical transcription has proven to curb both direct and indirect expenses incurred for in-house medical transcription.

How does outsourcing medical transcription offer effective solutions?

The word effective has been defined as producing or capable of producing an intended result. By this definition outsourced medical transcription services are effective. They meet the criteria used to evaluate medical transcription:

·        Accuracy: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that patient records are created with maximum accuracy. The medical transcription service provider would ensure accuracy by having a well-trained team of medical transcriptionists working the transcripts and by having an effective quality process to ensure errors are minimized.

·        Turnaround time: Outsourcing medical transcription would ensure timely creation of patient records by using the right technology, the right process and the right team. Meeting turnaround time standards would ensure that the process of providing healthcare is unhindered and also ensure that the process of reimbursement takes place on time.

·        Security: Preserving the confidentiality of patient records is an important consideration for healthcare facilities. By outsourcing medical transcription the onus of providing for the security of patient information during the transcription process is on the service provider. Security of patient information would effectively ensured by the medical transcription service provider by securing processes, technology and the team.

·        Lowering costs: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that not only is the cost per line of transcription reduced by 40%-50% but also is also restricted to the cost per line of transcription. All indirect and overhead expenses are eliminated

·        Other benefits: Apart from being accurate, timely, secure and cost effective, outsourced medical transcription offers other benefits incurring from the technology used, like:

a)     Retaining familiar modes of dictation
b)     Archives
c)      Flexible modes of document delivery
d)     Remote printing and faxing
e)     HL7 interface etc.


TransDyne a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry offers complete            medical transcription solutions. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified 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 effective medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Get the maximum benefits

The healthcare process has always been complex and depended on inputs from various sources to be able to provide quality services. One of the inputs that is consistently required by healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities is that of information regarding the patient from their medical records including symptoms, diagnosis, tests, test results, procedures availed, drugs prescribed etc to be able to make informed decisions regarding further treatment and for coding and billing purposes.

Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records converting the narration of the patient- healthcare professional encounter into text format. Medical transcription needs to meet the criteria of being accurate, speedy, cost-effective and secure. To ensure that medical transcription meets all these standards the medical transcription process requires a combination of the right team, the right process and the right technology.

The easy solution for healthcare facilities to ensure accurate, timely, secure and cost effective medical transcription is to outsource the medical transcription process to a professional medical transcription service provider. Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider provides healthcare facilities with numerous advantages.

What are the advantages of outsourcing medical transcription?

  • Cost saving: Saving on cost of transcription is perhaps the most significant outcome of the outsourcing decision. The cost savings can be as high as 40% - 50% owing to the expertise of the service provider. Not only does outsourcing reduce direct cost but also there is a significant saving on indirect costs.

  • Focus on core business: Outsourcing medical transcription helps the management of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals focus time, efforts and resources towards development of the core business, by reducing their health information management burden significantly.

  • Cost restructuring: Outsourcing medical transcription enables cost restructuring with regards to transcription costs. Instead of having fixed medical transcription costs, the cost of medical transcription would become variable, as the healthcare facility would be charged only on a standard rate per line instead of fixed monthly charges as would be incurred when medical transcription is executed in-house.

  • Improved quality: Outsourcing has the added benefit of improving the quality of services. The healthcare facility benefits from the expertise and experience of the service provider in providing medical transcription services. The service provider would have refined their quality processes to ensure accuracy, turnaround time and security and healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals would benefit from this.

  • Benefit from the knowledge of the service provider: Medical transcription requires significant technological support to make the process easy, quick and secure. Healthcare facilities can leverage on the expertise of the service provider to avail medical transcription services with additional benefits like multiple modes of document delivery, flexible modes for capturing dictation & uploading audio files, archives, HL7 integration etc.

  • Operational expertise: Medical transcription needs to follow a certain process, which becomes the responsibility of the service provider when outsourced. Healthcare facilities can benefit from the operational expertise of the service provider with regard to factors like the training process, the quality process and the process of maintaining HIPAA/ HITECH compliance during transcription.

  • Access to talented team: Outsourcing provides healthcare facilities access to the talents of not only the medical transcriptionists team but also the managerial and administrative team of the outsourced service provider.

  • Capacity management: Outsourcing relieves the burden of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals from having to plan for varying volumes of transcription, like increase/decrease in transcription needs to due to variation in patient inflow, holiday/ weekend transcription needs.

  • Helps in risk management: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that all the nuances of the patient- healthcare professional encounter are captured in its entirety. Having all the details of the treatment process can help provide evidence in case of malpractice litigation.

  • Frees up time of key personnel: Outsourcing medical transcription frees up the valuable time of the key personnel like support staff, managerial staff, the administrative staff, the information technology staff and even helps the healthcare professionals optimize their limited time. 
TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry provides outsourced medical transcription solutions with maximum benefits. TransDyne provides cost effective medical transcription services for varying volumes of transcription without compromising the quality standards of accuracy, turnaround time and security. TransDyne allows healthcare professionals to use flexible modes of dictation. TransDyne provides multiple options for document delivery. TransDyne provides editing support for transcripts as required. TransDyne has HL7 interface to facilitate adoption of EMR/EHR.

To avail medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here