MTS Transcription Services : Blog

Medical transcription, which involves the creation of patient records from voice dictations delivered by physicians that pertain to their meetings with patients, is an essential service for the healthcare industry. More and more healthcare providers are outsourcing this back office task and achieving cash savings of 30 to 40 percent.

The Significance of Patient Medical Records

The patient medical records/transcripts are important considering that they:

• Provide information about any pre-existing disorders or diseases, symptom records and previous diagnoses and treatments
• Contain details about allergies and prescribed formulations and medication
• Provide data pertaining to lab tests, examinations or procedures performed in the past
• Are a basis for referrals and for medical billing and coding
• Can be used as valid proof in cases of litigation
• Provide statutory specification

Medical Transcription Services – The Security Aspect

Maintaining privacy and security of protected health information (PHI) is an essential aspect of the medical code of ethics. Indeed, this is where HIPAA compliance comes into play. Medical transcription outsourcing companies take several steps to ensure that they adhere to the HIPAA stipulations. Steps include:

• Providing training in this respect to the employees and making them hand in signed commitments
• 24/7 manned security
• Password, firewall and virus protection of computers
• Non-employment of sub-contractors
• Back-ups are done of computer data and securely kept in locked premises
• Minimum 128 bit encryption for file transfer
• Employees are searched on entry and before exit
• Random checking
• Periodic technical assessments to ensure compliance with security requirements

When outsourcing, healthcare providers should ensure that their medical transcription company is HIPAA compliant.

Quality medical transcription services contribute towards safeguarding a healthcare practice from legal hazards. Certain things may be beyond the practice’s control such as an unexpected death despite the best medical intervention. Yet, some other things such as mistakes in healthcare documentation can be curbed and prevented to avoid minor or serious legal action.

How It Is Possible

Three important ways in which your medical transcription outsourcing company can help protect your practice are highlighted below:

Maintaining Consistent Accuracy – The medical transcriptionists in a reliable company would be experts in medical terminology, the structure and process of the human body, different styles and formats, and English language spelling, punctuation and grammar. If you require voice transcription services for a particular medical specialty, a team of transcriptionists that have experience in transcribing notes for that particular specialty would be entrusted with your project. It is thus possible to achieve a transcription accuracy of 98 percent and above. If the prepared medical records are of such precision, you have less cause to worry if a malpractice litigation issue should arise.

HIPAA Compliance – A HIPAA compliant service provider would ensure that patient information is protected. Measures they would have in place include:

• Ensuring that no floppy disks or laptops are brought into the company quarters and that no information or CDs from the office are taken out
• Providing password and anti-virus protection for computers
• Keeping a fire extinguisher and smoke alarm
• Maintaining computer system back-ups

HIPAA compliance can help to avoid complaints from patients pertaining to a breach of patient privacy.

Timely Completion – Timely completion of projects is something that can’t be compromised in medical transcription services. Timely completion ensures that physicians have whatever particulars they require to design a strategy for the patient’s care and treatment, on time. This again can help to prevent litigation.

The U.S. is still feeling the negative effects of the recession along with problems such as strict compliance regulations, packed deadlines and difficult budgets. So, medical transcription outsourcing is something which your healthcare practice shouldn’t have to think twice about. This blog gives you some good, valid reasons to outsource.

• Better Quality – Your back office team may not as familiar with medical terminology and English language use as you would want them to be. There are chances of errors creeping in. Medical transcriptionists at a reliable transcription company would have received exhaustive training in comprehending medical terms and jargon and foreign dialects and accents and in English language use and style. These transcriptionists would have also acquired experience in preparing different medical records for a wide range of medical specialties. You can thus expect fewer errors.

• Offshore Resources – Very often, medical transcription outsourcing companies use the services of offshore manpower. This is good because wages are lower in countries such as India and the Philippines. What’s more, the difference in time zones gives you the assurance that there are people working dedicatedly on your project even as you sleep, to complete and deliver it to you by the time you wake up. Backlog can also be cut down.

• Lower Costs – Managing an in-house transcription team is a costly affair. You have to worry about matters such as hiring and training suitable staff, installing costly infrastructure, ensuring its upkeep and also upgrading to more modern equipment. Outsource and you don’t have to worry about all these things. You’ll also notice that your operating costs get considerably reduced.

• Convenient Output – A first-class service provider would usually deliver documents that are both comprehensible and multipurpose at all interfaces.

• Transferable Across the Globe – With the internet revolution, service providers can now transfer your files to wherever you are, in whichever part of the globe.

• HIPAA Compliance – If you are outsourcing to an HIPAA compliant company, you can rest assured that their infrastructure would be secured against data theft.

• Anytime Access – A leading medical transcription service provider would keep backups of patient records. If you want to access them at a later date, chances are that the files would still be there with the company. In addition, once you’ve outsourced a transcription project to the company, you can view the files to see the work that has been/is being done and to make any necessary corrections.

Some of the other benefits of medical transcription outsourcing are flexibility in dictation modalities and file transfer, efficient customer support, custom turnaround and EHR or EPM feeds.

Medical transcription services performed by an outsourcing solution provider can help a medical practice ensure it is always up-to date with respect to medical records. It would also ensure among other things, superior quality and HIPAA compliance. So would be the case when you send ER dictations and notes to outsourcing companies for transcription.

Medical Transcription Service for a Good Price

Medical transcription outsourcing companies would have transcription specialists in a variety of medical specialties including emergency room. As such, healthcare centers, hospitals, individual practitioners, medical emergency centers, trauma care centers and other medical practices don’t have to worry about training their own back office staff to be experts in medical terminology, lab values, diseases, anatomy, the English language, and so on. These companies, provided they are established and reliable ones, would know it all and perform the transcription for a very good price. They would also adhere to the specific ER transcription formatting requirements provided by the client.

A stringent quality control process would ensure that the ER medical reports with their different sections such as chief complaint, past medical history, history of present illness, physical examination and disposition are free of spelling, language, medical terminology related and other errors.

HIPAA Compliance Is Important

HIPAA compliance is something which cannot be avoided. When you outsource emergency room medical transcription to an HIPAA compliant service provider, you can be ensured of the following:

• Confidentiality of all data that you share with the company
• Superior measures for secure transfer of files
• Password and virus protection for computers
• Monthly data backups

When seeking reliable emergency room medical transcription services, make sure you look for a company that is flexible in the modes of dictation it accepts and the methods of file transfer it supports, offers digital or electronic signature capabilities, uses advanced technology, enables you to do online review and editing, and can meet your specific turnaround requirements. The company should also be able to give you a free trial and should keep itself up-to-date.

To the layman who doesn’t know much about the medical profession, medical transcription accuracy would probably mean no more than accurately documenting a physician’s dictations. However in reality, accuracy also very often means transcribing what the physician actually wanted to say and not what he dictated. It also means trying to make sense out of the physician’s fast or slow paced speech, his accent or mumblings.

Requirements of a Medical Transcription Outsourcing Company

The requisites for accuracy on the part of a medical transcription service provider are much more than just proficiency in medical terminology. Other essential requirements are:

• Extensive understanding of disease processes, laboratory values, medications, anatomy and physiology and signs and symptoms.
• Superior judgement skills and refined intuition
• Expertise in English usage, style, grammar and punctuation
• Focus and organization
• Wonderful research skills to do things like look up drug names or medical terms

Why Accuracy is Essential

The importance of precision in the medical transcription process can never be underestimated. Even the slightest transcription error can put the healthcare provider or patient or both, at risk. Whether the error is grammatical or pertains to the use of medical terms, it is sufficient for a plaintiff attorney to use as threatened or real legal action against healthcare providers or centers. Serious errors such as lab value mistakes, dictated right/left inconsistency, patient demographics and errors in the name of drug and drug dosage have been reported in the past. Regular and effective monitoring is thus the need of the hour to ensure improved if not cent percent accuracy.

So when you decide to outsource medical transcription, devote adequate time to making the right choice of a company. HIPAA compliance and a stringent quality protocol are factors you surely wouldn’t want to leave out. Once you’ve made your choice, provide all measurements, benchmarks and standards to them. It would really help the company do their task well. Keep in mind, a medical transcription company that is always eager to get feedback from you will definitely stand you in good stead.

The rapid growth of the medical transcription outsourcing industry is proof that outsourcing overcomes many challenges. Besides technical advantages, there’s also the very important element of immediate cost savings that follow from medical transcription outsourcing. Having an in-house infrastructure for transcription has proved quite expensive for medical establishments, and this is of one of the main reasons why they prefer to outsource the work to a professional medical transcription company.

The medical transcription process itself is quite challenging. Medical trancriptionists have to accurately decipher physician dictation and transcribe it within the given time limit. A diverse medical vocabulary is a must-have. Even if voice recognition software is used, the text has to be presented in a logical form. The prepared document has be edited, proofread, interpreted, referenced and formatted for practical use.

Medical transcription companies can provide faster capture of medical dictation while maintaining quality, completeness and accuracy. Their team of skilled transcriptions can deliver solutions in customized turnaround time. The important medical transcription services these companies offer include toll-free and digital recorder dictation facilities, FTP and browser-based file transfer to ensure security, and error-free transcription with multi-level quality checks. A proper document flow management system allows end-to-end data tracking.

If your practice or hospital is seeking to outsource medical transcription, consider the following factors when you choose a vendor: cost, response time, quality of service, turnaround time, accuracy, and return on investment. Make sure that the medical transcription service provider has relevant experience in the field. Partner with a HIPAA-compliant medical transcription company that can assure secure transcription solutions with savings of 30%-40% on your transcription cost.

A professional medical transcription company utilizes various kinds of technology to ensure that the transcription output is accurate and conforms to the client’s formatting and other guidelines. The application of technology can be seen right from the time the physician sends his dictations to the transcriptionist to the time when the transcription is complete and is delivered. Some of the technology applications of a medical transcription company are discussed below.

The Importance of Technology for Medical Transcription Service

Methods of Dictation – Consider the popular modes of dictation. Two commonly provided options are digital dictation machines and toll free number. In the former method, the medical information is dictated and recorded by the digital recorder. The data is downloaded to a local computer for use by the transcriptionists. In the second method, the physician would dictate through the telephone. The numbers provided facilitate direct dictation to the protected servers. After the physician has transferred his dictations, the transcriptionists use their own IT tools such as the computer and the internet to download the dictations and start the transcription process.

Software – Providers of medical transcription services in the US make use of different kinds of advanced software for benefits such as the following:

• Voice capture
• Word processing
• Speech recognition
• Speech processing
• Quick editing
• Document formatting
• Audio playback
• Document distribution
• Electronic signature
• Medical dictionary/spell check
• Merging with other healthcare systems
• Quick editing
• Facility for insertion and exports
• Convenient printing capability

File Transfer – The transfer of the transcription output is also technology based. It can be done using one of two methods – browser based transfer using the client’s internet browser or by way of secure FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

Indispensable

Technology is thus an indispensable aspect when it comes to quality transcription. A reliable medical transcription service provider can guarantee state-of-the-art solutions only with the support of the latest advanced technology. Ask your MT company about the technology utilized, and also make sure that the firm is HIPAA compliant before you outsource to it.

Medical transcription services have made things easy for time-strapped physicians. All they have to do is either dial a toll-free number to dictate the medical information to be transcribed, or use a battery operated digital recorder for the purpose. The medical transcription company retrieves the recordings made to the phone. Files dictated to a recorder can be converted to the MP3 format and sent via the Internet using FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

Highly Knowledgeable Professionals

The medical transcriptionists employed by the service provider firm are competent and knowledgeable about medical terminology and can accurately transcribe the dictations without errors. They would also be well-versed in comprehending and transcribing foreign accents. You just have to specify a turnaround time and they complete your project by the given deadline.

HIPAA Compliance – An Important Factor

The security and confidentiality of patient information is of utmost importance. Thus, if you have found yourself an HIPAA compliant company, you need have no worries. The important security measures that such companies take are:

•    Passwords required to use computers and even to start Windows
•    Password protection of storage lockers
•    Employees at the company are searched as they enter and before they leave the company premises
•    Monthly back-ups
•    Training provided to staff on HIPAA privacy, confidentiality and security.

You Can Edit Transcribed Files

Your medical transcription company would give you the facility to view files that are in the process of being transcribed and to edit them if you feel the need. You can benefit from flexibility in the format of your transcription and in the mode of delivery of the completed project. A free trial would help you to analyze the medical transcription services of an MT company before you decide to outsource your requirements to them.

The decision to outsource medical transcription to the right service provider is a value solution that helps to effectively meet the documentation requirements of healthcare facilities. Here are some tips to help you make the right choice.

Specialty Specific – A medical transcription service company may specialize in transcriptions for a specific group of medical specialties. Find out if your service provider is an expert in the particular specialty for which you require the service.

Experience – You should outsource to a company that has sufficient years of experience and not to a new company.

Testimonials and Reviews – Go through testimonials posted on the company website and reviews published online. Try to verify these testimonials and reviews.

Privacy and Confidentiality – Enquire with the company to make sure that they take all necessary measures to ensure data security and confidentiality. One such important security measure is 256 bit AES encryption. In short, if the company is HIPAA compliant, it is to be preferred.

Pricing – Find out about pricing and billing and see if it is suitable for you. A reliable pricing calculation is 65 character line billing.

Free Trial – If the company offers a free trial, it is an added advantage. You would be able to assess the accuracy and format of medical transcription provided by the company.

Other factors to consider when you want to outsource medical transcription are the company’s quality control measures, whether it is flexible with respect to accepted methods of dictation and modes of delivery of the transcribed output, and ability to meet different turnaround requirements.

Medical transcription involves the creation of patient medical records from the audio narration provided by healthcare professionals. These transcripts are extremely important with regard to ongoing patient care and treatment. Therefore these have to be ideally organized for easy access. Most medical companies and healthcare professionals take the help of medical transcription companies to successfully carry out the transcription work. Services are available for multi-specialty clinics, hospital-based clinics, and group practices. All your medical transcription needs, ranging from dictation capture to document distribution – are efficiently met by utilizing state-of-the-art hardware and user-friendly software.

A recognized and experienced medical transcription company provides services for almost all major medical specialties. You can request for the transcription of your:

• Progress and chart notes
• Different kinds of necessary reports including the diagnostic reports
• Discharge summaries
• Emergency room reports
• Clinic/office consultation notes
• Physical/operative reports
• Lab/X-ray reports, and more

All these reports are customized and formatted to meet specific client requirements. You can expect quality services because the professional transcriptionists in a transcription company have in-depth knowledge in relevant medical terminologies. Clients can view and check the reports online during the processing.

Medical Specialties Served

Some of the specialties for which these companies offer medical transcription services include:

• Cardiology
• Dermatology
• Internal medicine
• Nuclear medicine
• Orthopedics
• Behavioral medicine
• Allergy and sleep medicine, and much more.

Benefit from Error Free Services

The main reason why healthcare professionals look for medical transcription service is because of the high level of accuracy guaranteed for the transcripts. Once the data is transcribed, reliable transcription companies carry out stringent quality checks with the support of efficient editors and proofreaders. The transcribed documents are also scanned with the help of electronic medical dictionaries.

Transcription Service Providers Reduce Your Workload

In medical transcription companies, the professional transcriptionists can easily cope with the high volumes of work involved. At the same time, there will also be no compromise in the quality. Service providers offer additional benefits such as customized turnaround time, HIPAA compliance, maximum accuracy, cost-effective pricing, round-the-clock technical support and more. The pricing usually depends on factors such as volume, turnaround time, types of dictation chosen, specialty requirements, and document management flow system requirements.

There is no doubt that a dependable transcription service provider will reduce your workload. As the client of a reputable medical transcription company, your transcription work is streamlined, with the transcripts readily accessible whenever you need them. With the time saved, you can concentrate more on patient care and other important processes.