Medical transcription outsourcing is very efficiently done in India

Medical transcription basically means the act of translating spoken word of medical reports on a whole into written text. This provides one a complete analysis of the patient and other recorded material. Hiring someone internally, to be solely devoted towards transcription increases overhead costs. This service process needs to be done very accurately and with precision, so outsourcing transcription services to an experienced and reliable company is a good move to most businesses. Outsourcing of transcription process results in a huge operational cost advantage.

The process of outsourcing is the process to hand over work to a third party company. The decision to outsource is often made in the effort to lower the cost or utilizing time in better way or utilizing the capital and resources more efficiently.

The Medical Transcription business is growing by 20% every year whereas the availability of Medical Transcriptionists is falling by 8%. As a direct result the medical companies around the world are now outsourcing the jobs to meet to their high demand of quality transcripts. The present market share particularly of the US medical transcription industry is estimated at US $ 20 billion. The US Bureau of Labor estimates a 51% increase in the need of medical transcriptionists by the year 2011.

India is among the prime countries where Medical Transcription outsourced because of the two very important reasons, one the difference in time zone with countries such as the US and secondly the availability on economic and efficient labor. Medical Transcription outsourcing projects boosted in India boosted nearly 15 years ago. The first of the companies to begin Medical Transcription in India are located in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. For 15 years, the industry developed immensely, and now we can see many companies that offer medical transcription services in India. All operational general medical transcription is the major share in the Indian market. Now there are various different ways in which transcription services are performed. These include: Internet services, home services, center-based services. The industry also gave rise and support to new industries, such as educational institutions, additional hardware required to support transcription, etc. India, given the high English literacy levels, and the weak rupee, provides the ideal location for conducting Medical Transcriptions. Medical transcription jobs pay very well. At entry level, medical transcriptionists are paid around Rs. 5,000per month, which can exceed to Rs. 20,000 per month within two years. As a trainee, though, you'll get about half of that. There are also additional rewards dangled by some companies, in the form of perks and performance-based incentives.

There are great opportunities at hand, one would be amazed with the number of companies that have already adapted into medical transcription industry in India and at the pace and depth at which this industry has evolved, and cities of India are preparing themselves to tap this huge opportunity. With the rapid change of outlook in Indian healthcare and privatization of the insurance sector, documentation of all patient records will become mandatory in the future. Thus Medical transcription outsourcing will hold a key link in changing and uplifting the Indian job scenario. What the doctors do is hand over their audio records to a company that gives them transcripts in clean and perfect English for filing and reference. Naturally, these companies need people who know the language to do the actual transcriptions, and won't charge them the world! India, given the high English literacy levels, and the weak rupee, provides the ideal location for conducting these transcriptions.

Author:Sharad Gaikwad

Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/

Transcription outsourcing: optimize as much as 40% on costs

Contracting out medical transcription has many advantages the most apparent being that of saving on expenditure. While investigating costs healthcare providers tend to overlook several major expenses heads hence the comparison between the price per line given by the outsourcing vendor and the current expenses per line is not correct.

What should be included while calculating expenditure on captive transcription?

Direct expenses

* Direct transcriptionist staff wages: This consists of the salary paid to captive transcriptionists.

* Costs of preparation: The expenses of teaching the new team to enable them to execute jobs as per the healthcare practice’s requirements.

* Supplies: The stationery expenses and the expenditure of other supplies used for transcription would have an impact on the costs per line.

* Expenditure of overflow jobs that is contracted out: Sometimes when the captive team is not able to keep up with excess workflow the tasks needs to be outsourced and this adds to the costs.

Indirect expenses

* Depreciation of machinery: Over time the equipment used would have some wear and tear, this depreciation expenditure will have to be added to the expenditure

* Apportioning salaries of management and administrative staff: The wages of managerial and administrative staff contributing to the medical record creation method will have to be apportioned and added accordingly.

* Benefits given to employees other than the wages: plus points given to staff like health insurance, dental care etc will have to be added in the category of indirect costs.

* Taxes: Having staff on rolls would mean taxes would have to be paid.

* Costs of space used: allocation of expenditure of real estate costs would have to be made according to the space usage.

* Costs of employee turnover: This would include fees paid to consultants, signing bonuses, expenses of teaching new employees and the expenditure of advertising for new employees.

* Costs of technology: The costs of software and tools used for healthcare transcription and the expenses of integrating this with the hospital’s system needs to be added.

Apart from the direct and indirect expenses of transcription in-house the other factors that need to considered are:

* No of days taken for delivery of records

* Correctness of reports

* Physician satisfaction

* Data security

* Reports generation and distribution

* Easy availability of qualified staff

Given below is a table of typical expenses of healthcare transcription captive:

Item costs in US $ per annum

Salary 30000

Other benefits 8000

Real estate 2000

Furniture 1000

Computers 2000

Management 5000

Consumables 1000

Utilities 500

Miscellaneous 500

Total costs 50000

Given below is the productivity of a medical transcriptionist

Number of line per 8 hour day 1250

Work hours per year 1920

Lines per year 300000

Downtime in % 10%

Actual lines produced in a year 270000

Expenditure per line 18.5

After calculating the expenditure of all these factors one can arrive at the costs per line.

The rate offered by a typical transcription vendor is 10 cents per 65-character line. This shows a clear conservation in the expenditure per line. The 65-character line is calculated according to the billing method principles as per the MTIA guidelines. The costing method used is supportable, definable, measurable, reliable and equitable & open. .

Not only that contracting out the transcription needs of a healthcare practice to a professional transcription vendor has advantages like:

* Quality of above 99%

* 24 hours turnaround time, with a choice of 4-12 hours turnaround time for STAT records.

* IT that enables smart upload by allowing flexible modes of dictation and facilities like smart delivery and web delivery for ease of use.

* Makes sure data security and HITECH compliance by using the correct technology and having safety procedures in place for security of people and infrastructure.

Author:Renee

Source:http://www.myarticle.com/

Medical Transcription Outsourcing - Offering Effective Solutions

Healthcare sector has taken steps to improve its quality of life and death improving services by making it target oriented as other businesses and made it more customer centric. It is essential that they concentrate on their core activities of providing quality health life to society and outsource its support activities to organizations providing professional services in the industry.

Thus by allocating limited resources on non-core activities, heathcare services would be able to focus on improving its services.

In order to provide quality healthcare services, it is essential to draw inputs from numerous sources to complete the process. One important input contributing to healthcare process is information captured in patient records. Medical transcription is creating medical records of patients by transcribing audio files into text format. Patient records play an important role in providing continued care to patients as well as are essential in the process of reimbursement.

Medical transcription requires right combination of processes and technology and skilled manpower, in producing timely, accurate cost effective and secure services. To meet the desired standards, healthcare facility has to allocate its resources in monetary investment, skilled work force and time to its processes.

Effective solution to fulfill documentation needs of healthcare facilities is outsourcing medical transcription which maintains excellent quality and security standards. This helps in reduction of direct as well as indirect expense in the process.

How outsourcing medical transcription services are preferred?

Outsourcing medical transcription services is preferred because of benefits associated with it. It is opted because of following reasons:

•Quality

It produces details of patient records with utmost accuracy. This could be attained by recruiting

highly-skilled professional team of transcribers and having an efficient quality assurance process to minimize errors.

•Cost-effective

Outsourcing reduces overall cost of the transcribing the file to approximately 50%. It also eliminates other overhead expenses involved in the process.

• Turnaround time

It ensures production of patient records in a timely manner, using appropriate technology, and skilled work force. It meets turnaround time standards and which further facilitates the process of reimbursement on time.

•Maintaining confidentiality

Most companies sign a confidentiality agreement with the service provider to maintain confidentiality of patient records. Bridging the contract is an offense which no company would risk for.

To know more about and avail other benefits involved outsourcing medical transcription services visit at: http://www.outsourcingtranscriptionservices.com

Author:James G Lee

Source: http://articlenexus.com

Medical Transcription Outsourcing - Simplifies Healthcare Facilities !

Medical transcription has been allied with healthcare since the very beginning, as it is the process of creating patient medical records of the patient- healthcare professional encounter. Though this is essentially a service that documents the patient- healthcare professional encounter; outsourced services have evolved from the early stages of being data entry/ typing services to that of a sophisticated service that helps the working life of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals. Outsourced medical transcription services simplify the way healthcare facilities work.

How do outsourced services help simplify the way healthcare facilities work?

Speedy creation of transcripts: This ensures that creation of patient medical records takes place within the turnaround time required by the healthcare professional/ healthcare facility. Delays in creation of patient records can lead to the treatment process being hindered, wastage of time in following up by healthcare professionals & support staff and thus impact the smooth running of the healthcare facility.

Safer: Maintaining confidentiality of patient information is a major concern for healthcare facilities at all levels. Sourcing a HIPAA/ HITECH compliant vendor ensures that this data is protected through the entire transcription process.

Accurate: This ensures that all the details of the patient- healthcare professional encounter are captured with maximum accuracy. The healthcare facility/ healthcare professional would benefit from the training processes, the process for ensuring quality and best practices established by the service provider to maintain the high levels of accuracy.

Technology: One of the major advantages of availing these services from an outside entity is the technology used by the transcription vendor. Technology has become an important component of these services in the following aspects:

Capturing dictation

Transmission of audio file through secure channels

The transcription process

Encapsulating the work status

Delivery of transcripts through different modes as per the convenience of the healthcare professionals

Archives to enable locating transcripts

Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities have the benefits of leveraging on the software and tools used by the service provider without having to invest substantially.

EMR adoption: Many healthcare facilities may have already invested in EMR or may plan to do so. Outsourcing has the advantage of helping healthcare facilities adopt EMR without having to make many changes in the working style of healthcare professionals.

Reduce costs: Availing specialized services ensure that healthcare facilities make substantial saving on cost of transcription. They also gain from better utilization of their resources towards their core business as outsourcing eliminates overheads related to creation of patient medical records.

Accelerate reimbursements: Information in patient records is the basis on which coding and billing start. Speedy creation of patient records can help accelerate the reimbursement work.

Smarter working: Getting the services of a professional transcription vendor ensures that all the activities associated with medical transcription like recruitment & training of transcriptionists, collection of dictation, allocation of work, report distribution, keeping track of work in progress, tracing transcripts from archives are passed on to the service provider. This enables the healthcare professionals and other staff to use their time in a more efficient manner.

One stop shop: Engaging the services of a professional transcription vendor provides an one stop shop for all the patient medical record creation needs of the healthcare facility like transcription for different specialties, varying turnaround time requirements, formats/templates required, weekend & holiday transcription requirements, remote faxing & printing etc Outsourcing medical transcription aids the functioning of healthcare facilities in many ways apart from the obvious benefit of savings on costs.

Author:Renee

Source:http://www.myarticle.com/

Medical Transcription Outsourcing - Points to Be Considered During Outsourcing

Outsourcing medical transcription is a prudent business decision and helps the healthcare facility focus totally on their core business while providing the right support. However the outsourcing decision is not one to be taken lightly and needs a thorough analysis of what the healthcare facility hopes to gain from the outsourcing decision. To make sure that everybody in the healthcare facility is comfortable with the outsourcing decision it is important for the healthcare facility to ask itself some questions:

1. Is this activity part of the core business of the healthcare facility? Creating patient medical records is not part of the core business of a healthcare facility though it does play an important role in the operational and commercial aspects of a healthcare facility. It is a specialized skill requiring a combination of the right team, the right technology and process to be able to meet the criteria of being accurate, timely, secure and cost effective.

2. How much is it costing currently? Having this activity in-house could be costing the healthcare facility more than what they originally would have estimated. While calculating cost of in-house transcription factors like these should be taken into consideration:

* Overheads

* Allocation of management & administration staff for managing in house creation of patient transcripts

* Wastage of resources during slack times

* Overtime pay during excess inflow of work

* Extra pay for weekend and holiday transcription

3. What are the other resources being used? In-house medical transcription could also involve usage of resources like secretaries, Information Technology staff, capital equipment etc.

4. What are the accuracy levels and turnaround time of transcripts? In-house creation of patient medical records could result in varied levels of accuracy due to the varying volumes of transcription. The accuracy levels could be high when volumes are low and low when volumes are high. The turnaround time could also similarly vary depending on the volume of transcription. The turnaround time being shorter during slack periods and vice versa during periods with high volumes.

5. Is it important to retain this activity in-house? There are certain factors like concerns for security of the data that could be a hurdle to the outsourcing decision. Choosing a service provider with measures in place to secure people, processes and technology can eliminate security concerns and remove any hurdles to the outsourcing process.

6. What are the alternate options available? Healthcare facilities have the option of outsourcing their overflow transcription needs to a combination of independent contractors or professional transcription vendors. This could however result in the healthcare facility having to put in more efforts to coordinate this function from various resources. The easy fix to ensure that transcripts are created in a timely, accurate, secure and cost effective manner is to outsource the whole activity on a turnkey basis to a professional service provider

7. What is the cost of outsourcing? Outsourcing ensures that the cost of transcription is restricted to the cost per line of transcription. Initially the healthcare facility may have to have a minimum outlay towards finalizing the service provider and adapting to the technology used by the service provider.

8. What are pitfalls of outsourcing medical transcription? The common pitfalls while outsourcing a function as vital as this is the fear of poor quality and security concerns. Another major concern is that the price quoted by the service provider may have hidden costs. Both these concerns can be overcome by choosing a service provider who has the right team in place to meet quality concerns, has adequate measures in place to ensure total security and uses a billing method that is measurable, verifiable, definable, consistent and fair& honest.

9. What is the value addition in outsourcing? Outsourcing medical transcription provides the healthcare facility with many value added services like technology that offers multiple benefits like different modes of document delivery, archives making it easy to trace transcripts in different stages, specialty medical transcription etc.

10. What about the transition to outsourced services? Transition from in-house transcription to outsourced services can be eased when the service provider has open channels for customer service. This would enable the service provider to solve minor issues as and when they crop up.

11. What about existing investments in EMR? Existing investments is EMR/EHR can be protected if the medical transcription service provider has the capability for HL7 interface enabling data to be transmitted to the EMR/EHR system.

12. What are the options available to capture dictation? This is a main concern for time starved healthcare professionals, this concern can be overcome by choosing a service provider who allows the healthcare professionals to retain their familiar modes for capturing dictation.

The process of outsourcing medical transcription can become easier by choosing a service provider who alleviates these fears/doubts that may rise during the outsourcing process.

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 Kelly

Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Hire Medical transcription outsourcing companies and enjoy exclusive benefits

What can be more favorable then getting your work done by somebody else? Every person drowned in his or her workload dreams of this. Well, the dream has come true since the expansion of outsourcing business. Outsourcing firms are called on board by big corporate houses to lessen their workload. A flourishing business buzzing across the market is Medical Transcription outsourcing. This business has helped the health care sector to further their research and development and manage the overall health condition of their innumerable patients. Medical transcription outsourcing is the most affordable form of deal that is creating noise in the industry assists you in saving at least 60% of your total costs.

Outsourcing - a business since a decade:

Outsourcing has been prevalent since ages; the only difference was its secluding nature. Offshore medical billing or Medical transcription outsourcing business provides cost effectiveness deals to a corporation fast and easy. You just have to give them the contract and the outsourcing company takes care of everything required to get the work done pertaining to medical transcription. Many times, medical transcribers in hospitals fail to live up to the standards of the hospital and are sacked. It is difficult to find a replacement immediately, instead hire an outsourcing company and get the worked outsourced.

Outsourcing companies recruit highly qualified people who can fathom the criticality of a particular job profile. They are provided specialized training and made aware of all the possibilities that can occur while completing a particular work. The training provided to them, make them highly skilled to handle the delegated task at hand. Outsourced medical transcription involves medical maintenance, record customization, medical record conversion, medical record, migration and other transcriptionist services.

Benefits of medical transcription outsourcing firms:

Medical outsourcing firms cater to the entire healthcare industry and have cited their capability therefore amassed immense popularity. Getting medical transcription outsourced delivers quick and accurate results. They are proven to be cost-effective to all organizations. You can invest one-third of your total budget and get all your pending work done at the cost of peanuts. There are newfangled outsourcing firms that will do your work for free just to gain experience and establish themselves in the market.

The accuracy level of the outsourcing firms is remarkable since they train their staff for the job. Sometimes the staff members are not efficient at some tasks and cause losses therefore it is in the company's interest that you get your work done by professionals trained for that particular job. Such firms do not dissatisfy you in terms of deadlines or turnovers.

Deciding on the best options for outsourcing:

Primarily you need to review your transcribed audio files and determine the needs of transcription. If the medical transcriptions are electronically stored, you can send them to the outsourcing company directly but if it the medical history is stored in audio tapes then it is smart to choose a local outsourcing company. Call for tenders from all the companies you have listed, go through the proposal and check the cheapest quotation that fits your budget, while selecting the cheapest contender also review its accuracy level and recommendation, do a background check then you can go ahead with the company. Include a secrecy clause in the contract to avoid future consequences. Once the outsourcing company agrees to abide by the rules and regulation of the hospital, sign the contract.

Medical transcription outsourcing companies are abounding in the market; it is just up to you to make the right choice.

Author:Sharad Gaikwad

Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/