Medical transcription: The myths and truths

In recent times there have been many myths and misconceptions regarding medical transcription, giving it a bad press. Given below are a few myths about medical transcription:

• Medical transcription is easy and anybody can be a medical transcriptionist: This is a common myth about medical transcription, given that entry into this profession is relatively easy. No formal qualifications are required except for an aptitude for the English language, good keyboard skills and a keen ear. In spite of the easy entry to qualify as a medical transcriptionist, a person has to go through extensive training in medical terminology, procedures and drugs. This profession also requires a person to constantly educate themselves on the latest developments in the medical field.

Over and above all a medical transcriptionist trained in a particular specialty of medicine adds value to the work done by being a domain specialist increasing accuracy and turnaround time.

• Medical transcription is just a data entry service: Medical transcription is a service, which requires attributes like good listening, applying context when in doubt and an extensive knowledge base to draw from unlike data entry. Moreover medical transcription goes beyond just a data entry service by having additional benefits like effective report distribution, archiving and adding value to the healthcare facility in terms of reducing staff burden, reducing capital investment in medical transcription, and freeing up resources like utilities and real estate.

• Medical transcription can be replaced with voice recognition software: Voice recognition software is software that automatically converts the dictation of the healthcare professional into a typed text. On the face of this, it sounds like the answer to the medical transcription needs of a healthcare facility.

But this software is not easy to use due to the following reasons:

1. The software has to be “taught” to recognize the voice of the user and terminology used
2. A healthcare professional has to dramatically slow down his usual way of dictation and speak in a structured way, including punctuation etc., resulting in loss of productivity of the healthcare professional.
3. In spite of all these preparations the accuracy of the voice recognition software has been found to be only 60%-80%.

Because of such low accuracy levels the need for medical transcriptionists arises to proof read the reports and edit them to bring them up to the desired level of accuracy.

• Outsourcing medical transcription is time consuming: Outsourcing medical transcription can be made easy and quick by analyzing the specific needs of the healthcare facility and evaluating a prospective service provider by these attributes. A quick way to assess the medical transcription company is through:

1. Methods of quality assessment
2. Billing method used
3. Technology used
4. Measures for ensuring HIPAA compliance
5. Training methods used
6. Assessing if all the work in done in-house or through the use of sub-contractors.
7. Testimonials
8. Free trial

All these information can be accessed through the service provider’s website

• Outsourcing medical transcription affects the turnaround time negatively: Outsourcing medical transcription actually fine tunes the turnaround time and regularizes any overflow needs due to rise in patient visits. Outsourcing also takes care of weekend and holiday transcription needs, thus lessening the turnaround time.

• Outsourcing medical transcription will adversely affect the quality of reports: Outsourcing actually improves the accuracy level of the reports transcribed, when done right. The healthcare facility needs to look a service provider who has a thorough method for attaining accuracy; specialty based training methods and executes all medical transcription work in-house.

• Outsourcing medical transcription has hidden costs that will increase the cost per line: The cost per line of medical transcription is largely determined by the billing method used. Picking a medical transcription service provider that uses a fair and simple method of billing will ensure that there are no hidden costs, and help keep costs down.

• Outsourcing medical transcription is not safe: This is one of the main myths perpetuated due to a few unfortunate incidents in the past. The security measures used by the medical transcription service provider need to be assessed in detail to ensure security breaches are prevented. The service provider needs to be assessed for security on the basis of:

1. Technology
2. Facilities and infrastructure
3. People and processes

• Outsourcing medical transcription would require an entirely new Information Technology (IT) infrastructure: Outsourcing to the right service provider would ensure this does not happen. Care needs to be taken to choose a service provider who understands the special needs of the healthcare professionals and ensures that the technology takes care of all the needs and at the same time is very simple to use. Features like a flexible mode of dictation, easy uploads & downloads and archiving facilities need to be considered in the assessment process.

TransDyne is a medical transcription service provider that busts all these myths and provides 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.