Inside Medical Transcription

Medical transcription jobs are on the rise and will continue to be for the next decade, largely due to the aging baby-boomer population and the special medical treatment and care they will require.   Couple that with the fact that the average age of medical transcriptionists is now 55, one can see that a shortage of medical transcriptionists will soon become a critical issue.

But wait: It is no secret that a lot of medical transcription work is being outsourced, sent overseas to India and the Phillipines. The per line cost is cheaper, and many companies are willing to sacrifice quality for the bottom line. Surely that will save us from the MT shortage. It may indeed. However, what it will not save us from is the inexcusable compromise and swapping of quality for quantity in the medical field. It is dismaying to those of us who have remained dedicated, committed, and proud to do our very best as medical transcriptionists to see such a decline in quality.

It is not that medical transcriptionists in India or the Phillipines do not care about quality. I firmly believe they do care.   One of the main problems is the English language itself. There are so many colloquial and slang expressions that even a person whose primary language is English is hard pressed to know them all. When you throw medical terminology on top of that with a doctor who is talking sloppy and as fast as he can, is it any wonder then that the result is poor quality medical reports?

Here is an example: I remember dictating a medical record review in which I was reviewing billing information. Several dollar amounts were even amounts; i.e. $175.00, $20.00, $55.00. Consequently, I dictated the amounts: ”One hundred seventy-five dollars even, twenty dollars even, and fifty-five dollars even.” When I received the dictation back from India, it read: ” $175 even, $20 even, and $55 even.”  I had to go in and edit many entries. I had taken for granted that what I had dictated would be understood, but it definitely got lost in the cultural translation.

So what am I saying about medical transcription jobs? I am saying it is best to keep the work in our home country. We who work here know company names, the lingo, the jargon, the slang, and colorful nuances that other individuals from other countries cannot begin to fathom.  The most precious thing we can do for patients is to provide them with the best medical care and that is based on an accurate, quality medical report, is it not??

Doctors are notorious for sloppy, incomplete, and inaccurate dictation. They could clean it up if they were so motivated, but they leave that to the MTs. We are the gatekeepers who ensure quality medical reports are produced, and if medical transcription jobs keep going abroad, quality patient care may literally and figuratively be lost in translation.

“In recent years, the outsourcing industry has expanded to include not only call centers, but also companies that offer support to the administration as a medical billing and medical transcription services. His promise of lower costs and a convenience means that more and more health professionals and organizations in the outsourcing of some of its requirements for back office. More than half of the needs of transcription, in fact, are outsourced to foreign companies in countries like the Philippines and India.

With the growing popularity of outsourcing these allied health professions (it is estimated that more than half of these jobs are outsourced), more and more companies offering medical transcription and medical billing services have begun to sprout.

The question now is, how do you find the business of outsourcing for you? What features do you look for in a company to ensure that you get only the high value of service you expected?

Here is a list of different traits of any good medical transcription and billing company must have:

§ An effective medical transcription company must have a fast return period. Ideally, you should be able to complete a project within 24-72 hours.

§ A person must be able to ensure your privacy and security of information you send.

§ A good company transcription and billing company should provide nothing less than high quality work. They must have great attention to detail and be able to provide transcripts.

§ Their work should be composed exclusively of experienced professionals with extensive knowledge of medical terms and technology. The medical transcriptionists should also be able to decipher and understand the different accents to ensure greater competition and a more accurate output.

§ A good medical billing and transcription company should be able to give 24-hour customer service. Must have knowledge and capacity to customer service agents able and willing to answer their questions at any time of day.

§ order that is capable of providing consistently good quality of work, the company should be supported by stable and reliable technology. Should have the ability to efficiently download and play everything from recordings from cassettes to digital audio recordings.

§ One of the main reasons (if not the sole purpose) Why do companies outsource is to reduce costs, so that a good medical billing and transcription company should be able to give good quality output without burning a hole in its portfolio. Superior service at low cost — this is what we should receive (and expect) from the outsourcing firm will recruit.

Not all outsourcing firms are created equal, and some undoubtedly provide better service than others. Look for these characteristics are different when you are planning to search for an offshore company that can offer medical transcription and medical billing services you need and always reliable and good quality service.

It seems that nature and the sun’s movement is in favor of the medical transcription communities of India and the US. Doctors and other medical professionals across USA treat diseases and take care of the sick all day long. But just treating or curing is not enough. The why, what, and how details of every single patient that walked into a hospital have to go on digital record because today it is required by law. So after finishing every single process /procedure doctors are seen talking in and recording details into Dictaphones or other recording devices.

Who listens to these miles of tapes that get accumulated at the end of the day in these hospitals? Well that is precisely the medical transcription professional’s job. The medical transcription must transcribe every uttered word into text so that it can be stored as printed or electronic data and become accessible in the future for the world if required. Actually medical transcription has always been there since ages. The medical transcribers of yesteryears were usually those who assisted the doctors and manually made note of the patient and the treatment details.

Outsourcing of Medical transcription to Asia is very favorable. Of course primarily because Indian labor is good and cheaper and also because of the low TAT (Turn Around Time). All voice recordings that are sent can get transcribed by the next day morning itself. Is it that someone sits all night and transcribes those tapes?

Yes and No. Let me explain.

The day’s audio files are daily sent by evening to India where it is now day break. (Due to the natural 12 hour time difference) The data is then transcribed during the day (Indian day) and uploaded back via the Internet to the US in the evening (Indian evening) where it is going to be dawn. So the doctors are happy when they come in next day and see all their yesterday’s work / dictations in print or as transcripts first thing in the morning. Now isn’t that naturally convenient for the medical transcription outsourcing community in the US and also for the transcription professionals based in India?