Reduce management expenses by outsourcing medical transcription.

Does a healthcare facility realize that management expenses form a major cost component of in-house transcription?

When the cost of in-house transcription is computed one of the cost components that is often overlooked is the cost of managing the in-house transcription needs. Managing medical transcription in-house would typically involve the following management activities:

Sourcing the right people: This would involve advertising for people and assessing the quality of people before recruiting them as transcriptionists.

Sourcing equipment: This would involve assessing the equipment requirements (including computers, listening devices, foot pedals, printers, stationery etc.) And then acquiring them for the right price

Sourcing technology: The technology required for starting up medical transcription like software for routing, firewalls, encryption, uploading, downloading and archival features etc need to be assessed and acquired.

Space allocation: There would be certain space needs for carrying out transcription work in-house this needs to be assessed and allocated.

Training the people: People need to be trained on the work requirements and procedures to be followed etc.

Once the resources are in place then the next step is execution of the work which involves the following steps:

Collection of dictation: Dictation of records by doctors needs to be collected in a centralized place for further processing.

Allocation of dictation: Dictated audio files need to be allocated to medical transcriptionists so that they commence with their work.

Supervising the medical transcription work: Work once collected and allocated needs to be supervised to make sure that it is being executed according to the required standards.

Assessing quality: Accuracy/quality of transcribed documents needs to be assessed to minimize errors.

Assessing turnaround time: Turnaround time of reports is very important for the treatment of patients, record keeping and managing receivables etc. hence turnaround time schedules have to be maintained.

Ensuring security: Transcription would entail transmission of confidential files of patients back and forth, care has to be taken to make sure that all the channels of transmission are secure and HIPAA compliant.

Collecting all the transcribed files: All the finished files need to be compiled at one central server for transmission back to the concerned doctors for their records and further use.

Obtaining feedback: Feedback on the quality of reports along with any special formats required needs to be collected from the doctors and communicated to the transcriptionists for implementation.

Updating/training medical transcriptionists on latest developments: Medical field has new developments on a daily basis in terms of drugs, treatments etc, medical transcriptionists need to be constantly updated about these developments.

Making arrangements for holiday/emergency medical transcription requirements: Due to unpredictability of patient inflow and staff fluctuations during holidays etc arrangements have to be made so that transcription needs are taken care of during these times.

Maintaining archives: Archiving of medical reports for easy access in case of future reference for various purposes.

Arranging Repairs and maintenance for all equipments to prevent breakdowns: Repairs and maintenance of transcription equipments is a constant process required for the smooth execution of transcription work.

The vast array of management activities required to execute transcription in-house will add to the cost per line of transcription. When medical transcription needs are outsourced, effectively all the management costs and activities associated with in-house transcription will be outsourced. Assessing the medical transcription service provider on the basis of quality/accuracy, pricing, turnaround time and data security is important before making the outsourcing decision.

TransDyne is a professionally managed medical transcription service provider that offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, 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 how to use TransDyne’s superior outsourced medical transcription services, click here.