Friday, June 29, 2012

Medical transcription outsourcing: Taking the right approach for long-term success

The advent of newer methods for creating healthcare documentation has proven that medical transcription services continue to play an important role in the documenting the patient encounter. Outsourcing medical transcription enables healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities to save on costs, gain from the technical expertise of the medical transcription company, gain access to the pool of well-trained medical transcriptionists that the service provider has and benefit from the quality processes developed by the medical transcription company.

Medical transcription companies have also started adapting their services and technology to help in the adoption of EMR/ EHR without hindering the productivity of healthcare professionals and ensuring that the patient medical records contain the narrative portion of the encounter.  Some of the options provided by medical transcription companies in adopting EMR/ EHR includes editing & proofreading services for speech recognition software, structured dictation & transcription, discrete reportable transcription and HL7 interface.

Having various options for documenting the patient encounter helps healthcare professionals focus totally on patients during the care process, conserve their time by using dictation modes of their choice and benefit from the rich narrative in the patient medical record in terms of improving the care process and aiding in risk management aspects.

Though outsourcing medical transcription has many benefits, it is important to source the right medical transcription company to ensure a strategically beneficial and long-term partnership.

Apart from the basic criteria of accuracy, turnaround time, pricing and HIPAA compliance, it is important to evaluate the medical transcription company based on the following:

  • The suitability of the parameters of the services offered by the medical transcription company with the needs of the healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities. This needs to be evaluated not only in absolute terms but also in terms of minimizing changes that need to be made by healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities to use the transcription services

  • The willingness of the medical transcription company to customize services according to the needs of the healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities. This needs to be evaluated not only in terms of turnaround time and report formats but also on the basis of vital areas like collection of dictation, delivery of transcripts, EMR/ EHR adoption etc

  • The expertise and agility of the medical transcription company in expanding their services to suit the changing need of the healthcare documentation sector and other requirements

  • A customer oriented attitude that puts the needs of the end user foremost; this includes keeping up with the changes in the healthcare industry, developing solutions for the changing needs after consulting with healthcare professionals and other support staff, ensuring HIPAA and HITECH compliance throughout the transcription process etc.
It can be seen that taking the time to evaluate the medical transcription company keeping in mind the immediate and future needs can ensure that the healthcare facility has complete support for its documentation needs. The key to successful outsourcing lies in knowing what is required, listing out the characteristics the need to be evaluated to fulfill these objectives, going through a process of evaluation and checking on references & availing a free trial before actually outsourcing medical transcription.

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.

Among the software and tools offered by TransDyne for transcription, the smart delivery system has a large role to play in easing the path to EMR/EHR adoption The Smart Delivery system, which has features like User defined folder paths to enable easy imports to EMR systems is the suggested mode of document delivery where pre-defined file saving would help import documents to EMR systems.  Apart from this TransDyne also offers discounted rates for those healthcare facilities that provide demographic data entered in the EMR rather than through other modes.

Along with medical transcription services involving multiple level quality checks to ensure accuracy, the use of the right technology for ease of use, turnaround time and security, at reasonable rates, TransDyne also provides discrete reportable transcription for adoption of EMR/ EHR.

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

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