Medical Transcription Outsourcing Helps Manage 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 transcription?

Delay in 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 service provider can solve both problems of fluctuating medical transcription needs and issues with staffing in one shot. The service provider 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.

However outsourcing medical transcription it is important to assess the service provider on the basis of certain criteria like accuracy levels, turnaround time guaranteed, pricing, technology used and the security measures taken by the medical transcription service provider to protect confidential patient information.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry offers customized medical transcription solutions tailored to suit the needs of healthcare facilities. Visit http://www.transdyne.com for more details. Click http://www.transdyne.com/html/contactus.aspx to avail medical transcription services from TransDyne.Author:Renee KellySource: http://EzineArticles.com