MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION: MANAGING ERRATIC TRANSCRIPTION VOLUMES

Problems managing the fluctuations in the volume of transcription due to unpredictability of patient inflow and staffing fluctuations?

Managing the transcription volume for a healthcare organization would mean facing two main challenges:

·       The unpredictable volume of transcription needs

In the business of healthcare it is nearly impossible to predict the patient inflow to the healthcare facility. Thereby the volume of transcription to be handled can wildly fluctuate according to the volume of patients coming to the healthcare facility.

·       Managing in-house transcription staff schedules.

The in-house staff in a healthcare facility is prepared to handle a certain amount of transcription volume. Any excess volume of transcribed reports can create a serious lag in the processing of reports. Moreover issues like vacations, sick leaves etc can create a serious lag in generation of Transcribed reports.

These two issues can leave the healthcare facility with serious lags in generation of transcription reports that can in turn affect patient care and the receivables cycle.

 What are the issues that arise due to lag in medical transcription?

Delay in medical transcription can have a spiraling effect in the following areas:

• Increase in the cost per line of transcription: To keep up with varying volumes, the existing staff may either be underutilized or paid to overtime increasing the cost per line of transcription.

• Wastage of resources: Resources like management staff, utilities and real estate would have to be allocated to manage overflow of transcription needs, which results in loss of opportunity costs.

• Security issues: To meet urgent transcription needs, the excess work may be outsourced to independent contractors without ascertaining the security measures used by them, and this could result in security breaches.

• Increase in the cost of information technology: Coordinating reports from various resources into the healthcare facility could mean additional IT costs. 

Outsourcing medical transcription needs to a medical transcription company can solve both problems of fluctuating medical transcription needs and issues with staffing in one shot. The medical transcription company would have a huge pool of well-trained medical transcriptionists who can expertly transcribe reports on a timely basis, no matter what the volumes are. It would also ensure that the other issues arising out of delayed transcription would be solved at a stroke.

Hiring a professionally managed medical transcription company like TransDyne to take care of the healthcare facility’s medical transcription needs will solve both the problems of planning for volume as well as staff requirements. Not just that, TransDyne will also partner with the healthcare facility to try and bring down transcription costs by almost 40% and take care of any volume needs or any holiday staffing needs that may arise, leaving the management of the healthcare facility free to focus on other areas.

TransDyne 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 service, click here.

Medical transcription outsourcing: Who actually does the work?

Knowing who actually does the outsourced medical transcription work is very important because of the very sensitive and critical nature of the work. Making sure that the company chosen for outsourcing, executes the medical transcription work they, and not through subcontractors or home transcriptionists is very important. This has benefits like:

·       Better control

Having to deal with one entity that does the work makes it easier to control all the processes. Otherwise it could result in dilution of control

·       Data security

Data Security is one of the most important factors to be considered before engaging the services of an outsourced transcription vendor. Getting work done through a series of subcontractors and home-based transcriptionists would mean that patient data is exposed to various networks and computers.

The more number of people and networks handling this information the higher is the security risk.

When outsourcing to a zero-subcontracting company like TransDyne, the      data is handled professionally. TransDyne employs the best data security practices like high –end encryption, firewalls and foolproof access control measures

·       Consistent Quality of work

When a company engages subcontractors, it has no control over who does the work and how. With a service provider like TransDyne there is more consistency in the quality of work as it is done by the same team of people who handle the same set of providers on a regular basis

·       Personalized services

Any personalized needs of the healthcare facility like formats etc can be easily changed/added whenever required and the smallest preferences of each individual dictator are taken care of.

·       Better understanding of special needs

When subcontractors work on dictations, they treat the work as a commodity, as a job that needs to be finished with the least amount of resources.

With a company like TransDyne any special needs of the healthcare facility are taken care of as TransDyne has complete control over the entire transcription process and their people are trained to take care of each client’s special needs.

·       Better rates

By eliminating the need for the sub-contractor a company like TransDyne will be in a position to offer much better rates for superior service.

·       Better customer service

One to one communication means less scope for misunderstanding and this translates into better customer service.

·       Zero legal hassles

Due to the sensitivity of the data involved, it is important to keep it secure. Data access to more people can result in legal hassles due to misuse. Getting work done by a zero subcontracting company like TransDyne would mean zero legal hassles.

·       Better turnaround time

When home transcriptionists or sub contractors are involved there are a lot of delays due to various factors like power outage, poor connectivity etc. These delays are avoided when the medical transcription service provider does the transcription in-house and the turnaround time commitments are met with.

At TransDyne it is believed that it is their privilege to be serving their customers’ needs in the best way possible. So any work outsourced to TransDyne, is executed by their own team of trained medical transcriptionists, than by the use of subcontractors or home transcriptionists.

The healthcare facility benefits by virtue of TransDyne’s vast experience, their training methods, best practices, and the comfort of absolute confidentiality & data security.

To avail medical transcription services form TransDyne, click here

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing specialized services

Medical transcription is the process of converting audio files of the patient-healthcare professional encounter into a typed report. Medical transcription plays a supporting role in the healthcare process by making information available in an accurate and timely manner. Records need to be created of the patient –healthcare professional encounter for the following purposes:

• For patient treatment
• As part of the permanent patient records
• Statutory requirement
• As the first step of the accounts receivable process for insurance claims
• For further references/treatments/procedures/therapy.
• As evidence in case of litigation. 

The quality and timeliness of these records is dependent to a large extent on the quality of medical transcriptionists working on it. Therefore it becomes important to evaluate the caliber of medical transcriptionists while evaluating a medical transcription service provider. The caliber of the medical transcriptionists would largely depend on the training method used.

How does the training method used affect Accuracy? Training medical transcriptionists in one or two areas of the medicine enables them to become domain experts; this in turn ensures that the accuracy level of the finished transcript is the highest possible.

How does the training method used affect Turnaround time? Training medical transcriptionists in one or two areas ensures that they are able to produce quality transcription in a very short time. This in turn ensures that the turnaround times guaranteed are met with.

How does the training method used affect the Cost per line? The number of errors in a finished report are dramatically reduced due to the specialist based training this reduces the cost per line of transcription by bringing down the cost of quality checks required.

It takes a specialist to take care of specialty needs. TransDyne believes in tailoring their medical transcription Services to the needs of their clients. TransDyne understands that the field of medicine is vast and highly specialized. It needs the service of people who are well versed in medicine to offer the best quality transcription. Rather than offering generic medical transcription Services, TransDyne firmly believes in training their medical transcriptionists in one or two areas of medicine.

This training method of training the medical transcriptionist in one or two areas makes it easier for TransDyne to offer faster and accurate medical transcription Services from day one. There is no time wasted on the learning curve of the medical transcriptionists, as they do not need time to learn the area of specialization that the healthcare facility providers would dictate about. They have already been trained extensively in that area and they are well versed with the appropriate anatomical and medicinal terminology.

TransDyne updates their medical transcriptionists regularly on the latest developments in their area of specialization as part of mid-career training programs. TransDyne understands the special needs of healthcare facilities and have tailored their training programs accordingly.

TransDyne offers accurate medical transcription of above 99%, at reasonable costs, with a turnaround time guarantee of 24 hours, through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, using advanced technology that is easy to use.

To avail medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here

Healthcare transcription contracting out: satisfying the requirements of healthcare providers at all junctures

Medical transcription is the process of making patient clinical records of the patient- doctor encounter. It is a well-known truth that online medical transcription services support health professionals in the dispensing of excellent health management. And contracting out medical transcription supports transcribes patient clinical transcripts in an error-free, prompt, safe and reasonably priced solutions.

But a lesser advertised and less established actuality about contracted out medical transcription is how it supports the operations of health facilities at every phase.

Contracting out online medical transcription has the following plus points:

The management manpower:

Curbing on capital investment: Outsourcing medical transcription facilitates the organizational manpower save on capital investments substantially, by getting rid of the responsibility to expend resources in online transcription devices and furniture demanded for voice transcription.

Savings on technology: Expenses for software and tools for executing voice transcription in-house can be prevented or substantially lowered by contracting out voice transcription.

Staffing benefit: Sub contracting medical transcription helps the human resources of the healthcare provider especially the organizational and executive level staff to focus on the principle business interest of imparting quality health management.

The transcripts management manpower:

Employing and retaining online transcriptionists personnel: One of the principle ingredients for excellent voice transcription is that of proficient and well-prepared medical transcriptionists. Sub contracting online medical transcription effectually overcomes the necessity to recruit, develop and retain the record creation team.

Turnaround time: As delivery time is guaranteed by the contracted out medical transcription company it removes the requirement of the reports manager to regularly monitor and follow-up on turnaround time.

Method for voice transcription: By outsourcing online medical transcription, effectively the requirement to have an organized process for preserving services at essential quality degree is also contracted out.

Follow-up: The subcontracted healthcare transcription company would have a system in place that would ensure a summary of the work level for transcription work, making it smooth for the document management personnel to keep an eye on of audio files delivered, records gathered and the work-in-progress.

HIPAA & HITECH compliance: The onus of safeguarding protected patient data by protecting the manpower, the technology and undertakings becomes the obligation of the contracted out medical transcription service provider.

The support staff:

Several avenues of document dissemination: The support personnel at the health facility obtain benefits the various channels of document dissemination offered by the subcontracted transcription contractor.

Archives: Archival facilities offered by the outsourced healthcare transcription service provider helps the support human resources to view records straightforwardly by employing various search parameters.

The software and technology personnel:

Redundancy and backup of data: The outsourced transcription vendor would provide for redundancy and backup of systems reducing the pressure of the software and technology personnel.

Amalgamating of systems: By employing superior software and tools that is effortless to employ the outsourced healthcare transcription contractor would make amalgamating the healthcare practice system with that of the contracted out transcription service provider very uncomplicated.

Put in/improve software: The necessity of putting in/developing software for the transcription service provider performs transcription when record creation is outsourced.

EMR adoption: Contracting out medical transcription would support in adoption of EMR through HL7 interfacing.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced healthcare transcription industry has been ensuring report creation alternatives that are customized to suit the specific needs of health facilities. TransDyne offers quality online medical transcription at economical charges, carried out by accomplished and expert medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through protected HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high degree of accuracy and all this with software and technology that is advanced but effortless to employ!         

         

To benefit from thorough online medical transcription solutions from TransDyne, click here.

Online transcription contracting out: Delivering overall plus points

It is a recognized reality that outsourcing digital medical transcription aids physicians by delivering them with timely, precise and confidential transcripts of patient medical information at affordable costs. Speedy and error-free making of patient reports aid doctors in providing quality care to their patients by delivering applicable data about the patient like demographics, pre-existing health conditions, past diagnosis, procedures/tests undertaken, medications, allergies etc. This supports the healthcare professional make knowledgeable choices instead of relying on his/her memory or contribution from patients.

That apart, healthcare transcription benefits other members of the healthcare facility by ensuring usability added services.

How does sub contracting digital medical transcription benefit other members of the healthcare practice?

Sub contracting healthcare transcription has the improved advantage of improved technology employed by the healthcare transcription contractor. These increase value to digital medical transcription services in the following aspects:

Archives: In healthcare facilities with a substantial extent of jobs as a result of unpredictable inflow of patients it is quite difficult to locate transcripts. It would mandate the support staff to walk down to archives and having to manually go through patient records to trace the particular document that is considered necessary. Contracted out transcription vendors have come up with a simple answer by delivering archival features.

The records collected from the health facility are stored in the digital medical transcription systems of the transcription service provider for a given period of time, after which they are archived.  The healthcare provider can mandate the degree of time that these transcripts stay archived. Searching for reports becomes easy as an consumer is authorized to find from the archives for a transcript according to varied norms like date of service, date of audio records, MRN #, patient name or combination of any of these criteria.

Activity summary: It is complicated for the staff at the healthcare facility to check of audio records, the number of reports in a dictation recordings and retrieval of records. Sub contracting healthcare transcription to a specialized medical transcription contractor would ensure that they have a system in place that provided them with a activity outline, making it effortless for the support staff at the healthcare facility to keep track of the outline of the audio files sent, the reports received and the pending activities.

Clear costing method: Billing method for healthcare transcription has always been a mind-boggling aspect having too many variables. Contracting out to a medical transcription company who employs a supportable, assessable, identifiable, consistent, equitable and honest costing method can facilitate alleviate the worries of the healthcare provider about the billing method A expert transcription contractor would make certain that the healthcare provider is clear on the costing method and clarify all the elements of expense to the health facility staff to ensure that everybody is on the same page.

Transfer of audio files: Sub contracting healthcare transcription to a transcription contractor who utilizes advanced technology can deliver uncomplicated to operate gains like automatic transfer of audio files. The system could be scheduled for checking for audio records at predefined time intervals according to the demands of the healthcare facility.

Assimilation with EMR: An online transcription contractor having resources and options like HL7 interface could support the healthcare practice in adopting EMR systems.

It can be understood by contracting out to a technically competent medical transcription company, healthcare facilities can gain from several plus points as well as that of error-free, speedy, HIPAA compliant and cost-effective healthcare transcription services.

TransDyne, a leader in the contracted out medical transcription line of work has employed their extensive background in software and technology to come up with online transcription services that ensure easy to use services for the needs of physicians and other staff of the healthcare practices. TransDyne offers competent healthcare transcription at cost-effective prices, accomplished by knowledgeable and qualified transcriptionists with a very speedy delivery time accomplished through protected HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of precision and all this with technology that is superior however effortless to use!                 

To avail subcontracted healthcare transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Medical transcription sub contracting: Requirement for secure services

Medical transcription is the undertaking of documenting the patient-physician meeting in depth. Patient records are a critical component of healthcare. Patient transcripts play a crucial function in the following:

• Record of symptoms, diagnoses and treatment
• Record of pre-existing health conditions
• Details of Allergies and current medication
• Developments of treatment
• Foundation for referrals
• Statutory specification
• Proof in case of legal action
• Foundation for coding and billing 

Contracting out medical transcription has been found to be one of the most competent, effectual and cost-effective means for making patient reports. Time and again accent has been placed on the magnitude of ensuring confidentiality of confidential patient details. And the outsourced medical transcription vendor has an enormous role in safeguarding patient information, as medical transcription is the process of making these reports. The exercise of online transcription also involves transmission of this information back and forth during the transcription process this adds to the requirement for rigorous security precautions.

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) was initiated to safeguard private patient details. More recently HITECH has come into force and has expanded the worries of HIPAA and enhanced the clout of HIPAA to put into effect measures and parameters for shielding of private patient data.

Why is confidentiality of secure patient data, and crucial element of medical transcription?

The origin of protecting patient details occurs from the revered patient-healthcare professional association. A patient-health professional relationship is principal to the practice of medicine and is fundamental for the facilitating of quality health management. The caliber of patient-physician association is crucial to both parties. The better the association in terms of mutual respect, knowledge, trust, shared values and viewpoint about diseases & life, the better the amount of data, making better quality of diagnosis and quality of care.

In reality the security of the details regarding the patient as offered to the health professional/health facility is one of the elements of the premises for the medical code of ethics

As healthcare transcription is a valuable connection in the cycle for offering quality medical care, it is critical that the online transcription vendor comprehends and acknowledges the necessity for HIPAA compliance and has measures in place to make sure of confidentiality. Confidentiality of patient records is not only mandatory by law, but also the moral obligation of the medical transcription company.

What are precautions to be taken by the online transcription service provider to protect private patient details?

The undertaking of outsourcing online transcription to a medical transcription vendor would involve:

• Uploading audio records  (narration of patient-health professional meeting) to the server
• Conveyance of audio records
• Retrieving the audio records
• Transcribing the dictation files
• Conveyance of the finished records
• Downloading the finished transcripts by the health facility. 

Allowing for the process engaged in HIPAA compliance of patient details is pertinent at all phases:

When information is at rest: This would be safety of data when it is collected prior to conveyance to the medical transcription company and when the finished transcripts are accumulated before delivering back to the health facility.

When information is in motion: This would include safety of data during transferring audio files, transmission of audio files, downloading audio files and relaying of transcribed records

When information is in use:  This would involve safety of data when the audio files are being transcribed.

When patient details is disposed:  This would concern securely disposing of defunct files in such a way to make sure that they are absolutely destroyed and cannot be accessed by unauthorized entities.

TransDyne, a leader in the sub contracting online transcription industry realizes the necessity for maintaining HIPAA compliance of patient details and has provisions in place to ensure HIPAA / HITECH compliance.

How does TransDyne ensure HIPAA/HITECH compliance?

Utilization of the right information technology: The employing of 128-bit data encryption, multi-tiered application architecture, design level confidentiality safeguards, firewall protected networks, sterilized e-mail servers, denial of access procedures and multi-modal alerts safeguards data when it is at rest and when patient details is in motion.

Use of processes: Employing of procedures like company owned & managed facilities, not engaging any sub-contractors, employing manned confidentiality at the entry/exit points, round-the-clock video surveillance and the lack of removable storage media protect the patient details in use. The other measures taken for making sure of HIPAA compliance of patient details in use are limiting the access to the application by User ID and an encrypted password. Access to files is limited based on the user's function. Once a user is logged in, if no activity is performed for certain time, the user is automatically logged out of the system. This ensures that there is complete HIPAA compliance of information when it is in use.

Educating manpower: Educating teams on the significance and process s for HIPAA/HITECH compliance gives them a professional outlook. Having them give a commitment in writing further make certain of HIPAA/HITECH compliance. This protect s the patient details in all levels.

TransDyne believes in sustaining security criteria that not only fulfill HIPAA/HITECH criteria, but also surpass them.  TransDyne also delivers online transcription services with accuracy levels of above 99%, assured turnaround time of 24 hours with an choice of 4-12 hour delivery time for STAT reports at a very cost-effective rate, using technology that delivers various benefits while still being effortless to use!

To avail HIPAA compliant healthcare transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Healthcare transcription contracting out: Availing specialty services

Online transcription plays an important role in the medical care undertaking by creating patient transcripts from audio records files of the patient-health professionals meeting. Online transcription has distinguished itself as a service separate from that of being a medical secretary or that of medical coding and billing. However to understand the specific role of online transcription in the healthcare exercise it is important to understand what makes healthcare transcription a professional service. This will help us understand why it is important for a healthcare facility to outsource online transcription to make the process of transcribing patient records efficient, effectual and cost-effective.

What makes medical transcription a specialty service?

To grasp why online transcription is regarded as a specialty service it is crucial to understand the characterization of the word “specialty” and see how it pertains to online transcription.

The word specialty has been classified as a unique activity, an occupation, and an aptitude, having a skill, state of being special or distinctive, and a service of particular superiority.

Contracted out medical transcription services matches the criteria as classified by this definition of specialty.

• Offering medical transcription services would be considered a unique activity needing the medical transcription company to gear the whole organization to offer this service. Expert online transcription services are an outcome of the optimum people, the correct procedures and the optimum software and tools

• Providing healthcare transcription services would be regarded as an pursuit having certain standards for functioning and functioning on the basis of a rigorous code of ethics

• Providing medical transcription services that are quick, exact, secure and economical require the medical transcription vendor to have the correct capacity. This will help them to employ teams with essential training to make sure maximum parameters of quality service and utilizing information technology to provide highest effectiveness with ease of utilization.

Medical transcription is a professional service in that it is distinctive from other services like billing or that provided by medical secretaries. Not only that healthcare transcription caters to physicians, who are specialized in distinctive areas of medicine. This needs transcriptionists working on healthcare transcription to be specialized in transcribing for one or two specialties making them domain experts

It can be concluded that medical transcription requires huge dedication and focus, not to mention investment towards human resources and information technology to be convenient. Therefore it makes sense for healthcare facilities to outsource medical transcription to an expert online transcription company to ensure that they can focus on their core business; that of offering superb medical care, profitably.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced healthcare transcription industry has specialized in adapting medical transcription services to satisfy the distinctive needs of healthcare facilities. TransDyne adapts their services to fit the needs of the health facility, no matter how small or big. Some of the plus points of outsourcing healthcare transcription to TransDyne are:

• Creation of patient reports with an accuracy of above 99%
• Professional transcriptionists to cater for specialty healthcare transcription requirements
• Delivery time of 24 hours, with an alternative of 4-12 hours turnaround time for STAT reports
• Economical and clear pricing
• HIPAA/HITECH compliant online transcription
• Information technology that delivers maximum provisions and advantages with comfort of utilization. 

To avail the advantages of outsourced healthcare transcription services by TransDyne, click here.