Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Provides services with the most advantages

The healthcare sector has always faced a number of challenges being such a critical service. The interaction of the healthcare sector has not just been limited to healthcare professionals and patients but also extends to Insurance providers, the pharmaceutical sector, the Government and various professional associations to name just a few. To satisfy the diverse demands placed on the healthcare sector it becomes imperative that the healthcare sector draws support from various sources to make their operations more efficient. To do so it is important to outsource all those activities that are not part of the core business. This helps them in two main ways; allows them to concentrate on their core business – that of providing quality healthcare and helps them focus on their second goal – that of increasing profitability.

Medical transcription is one such activity that helps them in both these areas significantly by creating timely, accurate, secure and cost effective patient medical records from the dictation of healthcare professional – patient encounter. Though there are numerous options available for documenting the patient- healthcare professional encounter, outsourced medical transcription services have been found to be the method with the most advantages.

Given below are some of the advantages of outsourced medical transcription services:

  • Helps make efficient use of the healthcare professionals time: It has been found that the dictation to transcription method of documenting the patient encounter is the method that offers the most advantages. This method of documenting the patient encounter conforms to the working method of healthcare professionals and makes efficient use of their time. Outsourced medical transcription service providers help in this aspect by providing efficient software and tools that enables them to use dictation devices of their choice and ensuring that audio files are transmitted at the earliest for transcription.

  • Helps preserve face-to-face interaction with patients: One of the major intangible factors that play a role in the healthcare process is the healthcare professional interaction with the patient. Documenting the patient encounter by medical transcription ensures that the face to face interaction between healthcare professional and patient is unhindered.

  • Ensure quality of clinical data captured: The data captured by healthcare professionals is used for various aspects including clinical decision making, risk management and managing receivables. It is important that this data be accurate, outsourced medical transcription services ensure this by putting each transcript through multiple level quality checks.

  • Helps information sharing in an easy and secure way: Outsourced medical transcription service providers understand the operations of healthcare facilities and therefore have developed services that provide healthcare professionals easy access to transcripts. Features like delivery to specific folders, delivery to multiple healthcare professionals, remote faxing & printing, access to archives for search of older records etc has helped healthcare professionals access and share information in an easy way.
It can be seen that outsourced medical transcription services is the method of documenting the patient – healthcare professional encounter that provides the most advantages.

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 complete and reliable medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing scalable solutions

Though healthcare is an essential service, it is not a sector where volume of demand for services can be easily predicted except in very general terms. Moreover healthcare is a sector that depends on various inputs to be able to provide quality services consistently. Considering these factors resource planning becomes a complex exercise for healthcare facilities. One solution for healthcare facilities to resolve this issue is to outsource non-core activities to reliable services provider who will be able to provide scalable solutions without compromising on quality. Medical transcription is one such activity.

Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records from the dictation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter. Medical transcription is the method of documentation that intrinsically blends with the working life of healthcare professionals, while still maintaining the quality standards of accuracy, turnaround time and security. Outsourcing medical transcription provides healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals with scalable solutions for their varying needs.

The scalable solutions provided by outsourced medical transcription service providers would include the following benefits:

  • Scalable solutions for varying volumes: One of the major problems faced by healthcare facilities is planning for varying volumes of medical transcription needs which in turn depends on the volume of patients. Any delay in creation of patient medical records would have a cascading effect resulting in delay in proper treatment, delay in reimbursements or in increased medical transcription expenses for overflow transcription and overtime. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that quality patient medical records are created on time regardless of the volumes. Outsourcing medical transcription takes care of overflow transcription and helps the healthcare facility avoid the cost of idle capacity.
  • Scalable solutions for addition of new healthcare professionals to the practice: Whenever new healthcare professionals join a healthcare facility it results in additional medical transcription work. Outsourcing medical transcription helps in this aspect by providing services for the new healthcare professionals within the turnaround time specified by them. Additional benefits include configuring the dictation device used by the healthcare professional into the transcription system, customizing template/formats, customizing document delivery modes etc as per the preference of the healthcare professional.
  • Scalable solutions for adding on new specialties: The demands on medical transcription services increase when new specialties are added to the healthcare facility. Outsourced medical transcription service providers provide expert transcription services for all specialties by having teams of medical transcriptionists trained in specific specialties making them domain experts. This ensures that the quality of transcription is maintained
  • Scalable solutions for changing technology demands: The advent of technology has left no sector unaffected, this includes healthcare and the way healthcare services are documented. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that technology used for medical transcription is automatically updated as per the changing scenario. Some examples of the scalable technology provided outsourced medical transcription service providers is the editing and proofreading services provided by them for healthcare professionals using speech recognition software technology to produce transcripts or adoption of EMR/EHR using HL7 interface
  • Scalable solutions for changing formats: Outsourced medical transcription service providers take care of changing norms prescribed for patient medical records by automatically updating these changes into their transcription procedure
  • Scalable solutions for changing norms: The changing statutory norms for documentation are updated into the medical transcription system as per the changing needs.
It can be seen that outsourcing medical transcription to a reliable service provider can provide scalable solutions for the varying needs of healthcare facilities without adversely affecting quality or cost.

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 scalable medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Helps in cost restructuring

In an increasingly challenging business environment it is important for businesses to focus on maximizing revenues and minimizing expenses. The healthcare sector is no different, though strictly speaking healthcare is a service that is aimed at improving the quality of life by managing health issues and a service aimed at saving lives. In spite of the noble objectives of healthcare, it is a business like any other that has to focus on maximizing income so as to be able to continue providing quality services. As healthcare is a sensitive service it is also subject to statutory norms apart from the usual pressures of having to deliver quality services consistently and maximizing profits.

To this end it is important for healthcare facilities to examine every input that forms a part of the entire healthcare process both in terms of quality and cost. One such input to the healthcare process is the information from patient medical records, which play a vital role in the clinical decision-making process, reimbursements and risk management. There are numerous options available to healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals for documenting the care process, however medical transcription the process of converting the dictation of healthcare professionals into text has been proven to be one of the most convenient and efficient methods.

However medical transcription is a process that requires substantial investment in terms of resources, people and technology to be able to meet the expected quality levels, an investment which would result in dilution of focus of the healthcare facilities from the core business. Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional medical transcription service provider has been found to be one of the most effective solutions to ensure total focus of the healthcare facility on their core business of providing quality care. Outsourcing medical transcription not only ensures that quality standards of accuracy, turnaround time and security are met with, but also helps with cost restructuring.

How does outsourcing medical transcription help healthcare facilities in cost restructuring?
Outsourcing medical transcription essentially offers healthcare facility the option of converting their fixed cost of medical transcription to variable costs that is dependent on the volume of transcription required.

Normally the cost of medical transcription would involve the following cost heads:

·       Allocation of space for transcription
·       Cost of utilities for medical transcription
·       Capital investment in software and tools for medical transcription
·       Furniture and other expenses for medical transcription
·       Cost of recruiting and training medical transcriptionists
·       Salaries and other benefits for medical transcriptionists
·       Cost of supervision
·       Cost of coordinating the medical transcription activities
·       Cost of HIPAA and HITECH compliance
·       Cost of editing and proofreading for speech recognition software transcription

In spite of the enormous commitment of resources towards an in-house medical transcription department, healthcare facilities have no guarantee of the capability of their team to meet increasing volumes of medical transcription without compromising on accuracy or turnaround time. Moreover the cost of idle capacity during slack volumes would have to be included as part of cost of medical transcription making it very unattractive.

Outsourcing medical transcription to a reliable medical transcription service provider essentially enables the healthcare facility to avoid all these expenses, as they would be charged on the basis of volume of services utilized. This will help restructure the fixed cost of medical transcription to variable costs resulting in enormous savings and increased focus on the core business of providing quality healthcare. Moreover outsourced medical transcription service providers also enable adoption of EMR/ EHR using HL7 interface.

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 economical medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Helps in optimizing capacity management

Along with the rest of the world, the healthcare sector also has moved on into the information technology era. Healthcare draws upon information technology to operate better in an increasingly competitive environment. Though the contribution of information technology to the actual process of healthcare may not be direct, it helps in improving the efficiency of the healthcare facility. One such area that is positively affected by information technology is that of managing clinical documentation of which medical transcription is an important component by helping created accurate, timely, cost- effective and secure patient medical records. Efficient medical transcription requires information technology to meet all these criteria.

Though Information technology provides valuable support in various aspects of running a healthcare facility, investing in information technology is a costly proposition and would dilute the focus of resources from the core business of the healthcare facility. Outsourcing medical transcription is an ideal solution for healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals and also helps optimize capacity management.

What is capacity management and how does outsourcing medical transcription help in the process of capacity management?

Capacity management is a process that seeks to ensure that the organization operates at optimum capacity while maintaining customer satisfaction levels by ensuring that information technology capacity meets current and future requirements in a cost-effective manner.

Outsourcing medical transcription helps in the capacity management aspect by helping healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities operate at their optimum capacity by ensuring that information required by them in the form of patient medical records for clinical decision making, risk management and revenue management is made available to them. This is done by using the right blend of technology and human expertise. The process of ensuring this is done in a proactive rather reactive manner to ensure efficiency and curb wastage.

Some of the benefits of outsourced medical transcription services in this aspect are:

Outsourced medical transcription service providers use software and tools for medical transcription, which include the following benefits:

  • Accepting different modes of dictation: Each healthcare professional has his/her own preferred mode for dictation. Outsourced medical transcription service providers have allowed them to continue using the mode of their choice by using the right technology to configure this into their transcription system

  • Automatic upload of audio files for the transcription process: Outsourced medical transcription service providers have enabled the upload of audio files at predetermined intervals to save on time and avoid delays.

  • Provision for healthcare professionals and support staff to keep track of work in progress: Considering the huge amount of data moving through healthcare facilities support staff at healthcare facilities would like to have the option to have a system that enables them to keep track of work in progress. Outsourced medical transcription service providers have provided for this in their transcription system

  • Delivery of transcripts through preferred modes: Outsourced medical transcription service providers have enabled secure and timely delivery of transcripts through the mode specified by the healthcare professional

  • Provision for electronic signature: The transcription systems used by outsourced medical transcription service providers enable healthcare professionals to view transcripts and sign off on them electronically.

  • Facility to enable remote printing and faxing: Transcripts can be faxed/ printed at remote locations at the touch of a button

  • Delivery to specified folders: Outsourced medical transcription service providers have also enabled the delivery of transcripts to specified folders

  • HL7 interface for EMR adoption: Outsourced medical transcription service providers have allowed for EMR adoption using HL7 interface while still retaining the preferred mode of documentation; dictation- transcription.

  • Ensuring HIPAA compliance through the entire transcription process including ensuring security during transmission: Maintaining the security and confidentiality of the document is vital. Outsourced medical transcription service providers provide for this throughout the entire process of transcription.

  • Providing editing and proofreading services for speech recognition software transcription: Some healthcare professionals have started using speech recognition software as a method of creating transcripts. It has been found that the accuracy levels of the transcripts using this method are unacceptable. Outsourced medical transcription service providers provide editing and proofreading facilities for these transcripts to help bring the accuracy levels to acceptable levels.
It can be seen that an experienced and technologically savvy medical transcription service provider can help with several aspects of capacity management.

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 complete and reliable medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing services that help validate clinical data

The process of healthcare is complicated requiring the complete attention of healthcare professionals and the focus of all resources of the healthcare facility. In this situation it is important to ensure that healthcare professionals get all the support they require to be able to provide quality services. It is important that healthcare professionals are not burdened with additional activities to their already complex repertoire. These activities though essential to the process of healthcare do not necessarily have to be performed by the healthcare professionals themselves. Medical transcription; the process of creating patient medical records is one such activity.

Though patient medical records are essential for seamless operations of healthcare facilities playing an important role in the clinical decision making, risk management and receivables management, it is counter-productive for healthcare professionals to focus on this activity. This could result in dilution of care and curb their productivity.  One easy fix to ensure that this does not happen is to outsource medical transcription to a professionally managed medical transcription service provider. This ensures that patient medical records are created with maximum accuracy, minimum turnaround time, and maintaining HIPAA compliance and in an economic manner. Moreover having another set of expert “ eyes and ears” validating the input from the healthcare professional can help improve the usability of the patient medical record.

It is a known fact that medical transcriptionists and medical transcription service providers do not provide the substance for the patient medical record; this comes from the narration of the healthcare professional regarding the patient encounter, but they do play an important role in improving the form of this data by validating it.

How do outsourced medical transcription service providers validate the clinical data provided by the healthcare professionals?
Medical transcription services have evolved from simple typing services or data entry services to services that help healthcare professionals to maximize on their productivity by providing versatile services that ensures that the information in patient medical records conforms to the following standards:

  • Clarity: Healthcare professionals use various methods for capturing the details of the patient encounter including dictation devices of their choice, speech recognition software etc. Medical transcription service providers ensure that clarity of the patient medical record is preserved in spite of the method used for capturing this information by putting the transcripts through a rigorous quality assurance process.
  • Usability: The information from the patient medical records needs to be in a form that enhances their usability. Outsourced medical transcription service providers ensure this by providing healthcare professionals easy access to the patient medical records, delivering transcripts through the modes specified by the healthcare professional and ensuring that the records are created in the formats/ templates specified by them
  • Accuracy: Realizing that the accuracy of the data in patient medical records is vital for every aspect of successfully running the healthcare facility, medical transcription service providers ensure maximum accuracy possible by using skilled and specially trained medical transcriptionists, subjecting each transcript to a rigorous quality assurance process involving multiple checks.
  • Efficiency: Outsourced medical transcription service providers not only ensure efficiency in the actual process of medical transcription but also help enhance the efficiency of the healthcare facility at all levels by curbing direct and direct expenses.
It can be seen that outsourcing medical transcription helps validate the clinical data collected by healthcare professionals.

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 complete and reliable medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing smart services

Over the years the dependence of the healthcare sector on proper documentation of the patient encounter has increased keeping in view the escalating statutory regulations and patient requirements. The information from patient medical records is used for various purposes including clinical decision-making, receivables management and as a backup support for risk management. Medical transcription services have evolved to suit the changing needs of the healthcare sector using the right training methods to develop skilled teams, the right technology to support increasing demands and the right processes to ensure that quality standards are maintained. In fact, it has been found that availing medical transcription services from a professional service provider has been found to be more beneficial than having an in-house medical transcription department or engaging the services of independent contractors.

In fact outsourcing medical transcription helps healthcare facilities save on time, money and efforts, while still maintaining quality standards. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals have access to SMART solutions for their medical transcription needs.

How do outsourced medical transcription service providers provide SMART solutions to the needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities?

The SMART solutions provided by medical transcription service providers can simply be described as:

S- Simple technology

Over the years medical transcription services have evolved into sophisticated services aimed at providing maximum benefits to healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities using the latest technology. As healthcare professionals are busy individuals whose main concentration is on providing quality care to their patients, outsourced medical transcription service providers have ensured that the technology used by them for medical transcription provides numerous benefits while still being simple to use. Some of the benefits from technology that simplify the working life of healthcare professionals are:

  • Options to use dictation devices of their choice
  • Automatic upload of audio files for transcription
  • Editing and proofreading services for speech recognition software transcription
  • Easy access to older records
  • Document delivery modes of their choice
  • Electronic signature
  • HL7 interface
  • Remote printing and faxing options

M- Meeting HIPAA and HITECH standards

The relationship between the patient and the healthcare professional is sacrosanct and is based on the trust shown by the patient in the healthcare professional/ healthcare facility's ability to keep this information confidential. Outsourced medical transcription service providers have mitigated the concerns of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities in this aspect by ensuring services with HIPAA and HITECH compliance.

A- Maintaining accuracy levels

 As the information from patient medical records is the basis of many aspects of successfully running the healthcare facility it is important that the accuracy levels are as close to 100% as possible. Outsourced medical transcription service providers have ensured that high levels of accuracy are maintained by training their medical transcriptionists in specialties making them domain experts and have a quality assurance policy involving multiple level checks. This ensures that patient medical records are transcribed by expert medical transcriptionists and are subject to quality checks involving several “eyes and ears”

R- Reducing costs

One of the main concerns of the healthcare facilities is the need to curb costs. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that they can save on cost of transcription substantially both in terms of direct and indirect costs. Moreover outsourcing medical transcription also ensures that the fixed cost of medical transcription is converted to variable costs that are based on the actual usage of these services.

T- Timely services

It is important for healthcare facilities to have timely access to information from patient medical records for every aspect of operations including providing care, managing the receivables cycle and preparing for risk management. Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that transcripts are delivered on time to healthcare professionals through the mode specified by them, through secure means and without compromising on quality standards

It can be seen that outsourcing medical transcription to an experienced and professional medical transcription service provider can help healthcare facilities in various aspects.

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 smart medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing efficient and reliable support

The process of healthcare has always depended on quality inputs to be able to deliver quality care. One of the inputs in the process of healthcare that has remained unchanged over the years is the need to maintain records of the patient- healthcare professional encounter, though the mode of documenting the patient encounter has evolved considerably. With the advent of technology the patient records evolved from often illegible scribbles to neatly typed notes and from thereon to the current form; electronic records. As the standards for these patient medical records became stringent and the technology used for creating these records became more complex these services have evolved into specialized services requiring the right processes, the right team and the right technology to meet these criteria.

In its current form medical transcription -the process for creating patient medical records from the dictation of healthcare professionals has become a specialized service requiring dedicated resources. Considering the often-contradictory demands placed on the limited resources available to healthcare facilities, outsourcing medical transcription has become a prudent decision. Outsourcing medical transcription not only helps the healthcare facility concentrate on their core business, but also provides efficient and reliable support for the present and future medical transcription requirements of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities

How do outsourced medical transcription service providers provide efficient and reliable support to healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals?

Outsourced medical transcription service providers provide efficient and reliable support by providing services that include:

Volume support: One of the major hurdles faced by healthcare facilities is planning medical transcription support for varying volumes. This occurs due to the unpredictability of the patient volume at any given time. Outsourced medical transcription service providers provide efficient and reliable services for varying volumes without compromising on accuracy or turnaround time.  Timely and accurate medical transcription in turn not only ensures quality care but also ensures that reimbursement process also takes place on time.

Supporting all dictation modes: Outsourced medical transcription service providers support dictation as the method of data collection, which is the most preferred method of healthcare professionals. Moreover medical transcription service providers also allow healthcare professionals to use dictation modes of their choice, which helps them optimize on their time.

Modes of document delivery: The technology used by the medical transcription service providers ensure that transcripts are delivered to healthcare professionals in a quick, secure, reliable and efficient manner through the mode preferred by them. This saves on the efforts of healthcare facility support staff. Outsourced medical transcription service providers also use HL7 interface for adoption of EMR/EHR.

Easy access: Outsourced medical transcription service providers ensure that healthcare professionals and the support staff at the healthcare facility have easy access to patient medical records by providing archive facilities

Reducing costs: Outsourced medical transcription service providers ensure efficiency and reliability by helping the healthcare facility save on cost of transcription substantially.

HIPAA and HITECH compliant services: Ensuring the security of patient medical records during the medical transcription process are cause for major concern. Outsourced medical transcription service providers help mitigate this concern by having efficient and reliable measures in place to secure confidential patient data in all aspects.

It can be seen that outsourced medical transcription service providers provide efficient and reliable support to healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities by making efficient use of technology, the right teams and the right processes.

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 complete medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.