The New Medical Transcription Scenario

The challenge for any medical transcription company is to enable a seamless coordination of medical care. This coordination can be provided by electronic system of medical records. This system enables seamless transmission of medical data from one doctor to another. If incorporated this system helps to provide coordinated, safe and cost effective care.

An estimated 1% to 7% of the patients have a medication error during their stay at the hospital. The medical records provide a foundation for a support system that enables a check on these kinds of errors.
The need of the hour for the transcription companies is to evolve around the electronic medical record system. Also, the companies need to understand their position in the current day scenario and also learn where they are moving to in the future.

A safe and effective medical care can not be provided without a seamless movement to medical data. This is the most exciting change that is happening all around us and the next three to four years will be the most important in the process to ensure that the timely and accurate medical data is always available to the doctor on the web with the oversight of a transcriptionist to ensure its accuracy.

The medical transcriptionist is the first line of defense in providing the accurate and the timely care that he needs by providing the necessary documentation. Though a transcriptionist works at the background but plays an important and integral part in providing safe and effective care to the patients.

Healthcare, Online Medical Transcription and Medical Billing: What’s Involved?

Anyone who watches the evening news or picks up a national news magazine will recognize one thing to be true: Healthcare has become one of the fastest growing industries in the United States.

With such an explosion of the healthcare industry taking place, more and more people are embarking on careers in the healthcare system in two fields that have logically benefited from this growth: medical transcription and medical billing. These two fields compose vital organs of the medical industry body itself. To participate in such a necessary field will be both challenging and rewarding, as these fields continue to grow and evolve.

What exactly is medical transcription?

Medical transcription, also known as “MT,” is a healthcare profession which involves the converting voice-recorded reports as dictated by doctors and other healthcare professionals into text format. This is most often done on a PC, using a data entry program. Often this type of position can be done from home, widening its appeal to those with both financial needs and a need to remain at home due to family constraints. Likewise, taking the medical transcription courses online is a natural transition to working from home.

And what exactly is “medical billing”?

Medical billing has become one of the most popular careers in the nation. HMOs, PPOs, managed care, and private physicians need employees to process the claims forms and other paperwork associated with insurance plans, strictly adhering to procedural protocol between the insurance companies and the medical provider. As a result, the medical billing specialist must be detail-oriented, have a precise and detailed work style, and understand the complexities of insurance billing.

Medical Transcription and Dictation Services

These days, medical transcription and dictation services are provided to various healthcare settings including clinics, nursing homes, hospitals, healthcare centers and long term acute care centers. Medical transcription is one of the IT related challenging services that require outstanding execution skill with professionalism.

Nature of Work

Medical transcription and dictation services comprise the conversion of a physician’s audio files into written transcripts. The process involves the following steps-

-Physicians dictate their notes into a digital recording device, which involves toll-free phone lines, PC dictation and handheld digital recorders
-Transfer of these voice recordings to transcribers via a file transfer protocol (FTP)
-Medical transcriptionist transcribes the audio files into text format
-Transcribed reports are sent back via browser based secure 256 bit AES encrypted file transfer protocol

Transcription Companies Offer Perfect Solutions

There are many transcription companies that offer medical transcription and dictation services to improve your overall efficiency and patient care. Based on customer requirements, they prepare chart notes, rehabilitation notes, radiography reports, radiology reports, history and physical reports, discharge summaries, progress reports, psychiatric evaluations, emergency notes and SOAP notes.

Medical transcription providers utilize advanced dictation and transcription systems, and meet all HIPAA regulations for electronic transmission of patient information.

Advantages of Medical Transcription and Dictation Services

-Competitive pricing
-Pragmatic and flexible approach
-Streamline information workflow
-Increase efficiency
-Secured access for authorized users to all transcribed reports
-Quick turnaround time
-High data accuracy and security
-Secured access for authorized users to all transcribed reports
-HL7-Based EMR integration capabilities

Approach a Competent Medical Transcription Firm

Find a reliable medical transcription company to benefit from high quality medical transcription and dictation services. While choosing such a service provider, consider the three most important factors – accuracy, turnaround time and security.

EHR Adoption Success Directly Linked to Transcription: Industry Associations Take Solution-Focused Message to Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON – (Business Wire) The proven ability for medical transcription to facilitate accurate, cost-effective EHR adoption will be the key message brought by the members of the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) and the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) to federal legislators on Capitol Hill when the associations convene in Washington, DC, for their annual Advocacy Summit. With the HITECH Act, the Obama Administration’s high priority on nationwide EHR adoption has opened an opportunity for the transcription sector to educate the current Administration and Congress about the need for contemplative, prudent migration to the EHR – one that preserves the role of complex narrative and engages human intelligence in ensuring the accurate, secure capture of patient healthcare encounters.

The Advocacy Summit, being held June 3-4, 2009, in Washington, DC, will focus on the need for standards and regulations in EHR technology integration/adoption, the role of transcription in safeguarding protected health information (PHI), and the need for workforce development funding in healthcare documentation to ensure a knowledgeable.

“Healthcare can ill afford a knee-jerk reaction to the EHR requirements of the HITECH Act,” states Peter Preziosi, PhD, CAE, AHDI/MTIA chief executive officer. “Successful EHR adoption and meaningful interoperability hinge on healthcare’s ability to set standards that promote efficient, cost-effective, quality-driven data capture solutions. The transcription sector is uniquely positioned to offer healthcare delivery the means to make that happen, and that’s what we’ll be sharing with this new Administration and the new Congress.”

The associations will take to the Hill their Transcription: Proven Accelerator to EHR Adoption whitepaper, which includes compelling statistics that demonstrate (a) the loss of income to physicians who integrate EMR/EHR technologies ineffectively, (b) the critical role of transcription technology solutions in facilitating better EHR adoption, (c) the value of solutions that create “rich, interrelated narratives” rather than cookie-cutter records, and (d) the irreplaceable role of a knowledge worker in data integrity management.

About AHDI

The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI), has been the professional organization representing medical transcriptionists since 1978. AHDI sets standards of practice and education for medical transcriptionists, administers a dual credentialing program, has established a code of ethics, and advocates on behalf of the profession. For more information, visit www.ahdionline.org.

About MTIA

The Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) is the world’s largest trade association serving medical transcription service operators. Its mission is to create an environment in which medical transcription companies can prosper, grow, and deliver the highest level of healthcare documentation services. For more information, visit www.mtia.com. The two associations formed a strategic legal partnership in 2007 to pool critical resources and collaborate on key initiatives focused on optimizing healthcare delivery.

Transcription Technology Watch

This is the first in a series of quarterly articles that will focus on technologies relevant to medical transcription. Hopefully, maybe even those MTs who are techno-phobic will find some of the topics enlightening, stimulating and/or of value in making career decisions. But maybe not. To challenge that hope, I’ve started off with everyone’s favorite technology: speech recognition. If you want to really stimulate a transcriptionist, just say “speech recognition.” Or, better yet, assert that “speech recognition will forever change the process of converting physicians’ thoughts and utterances into text.” Then run for cover.

Every transcriptionist out there has heard some form of that assertion. Their reactions range from dismissal to fear to anger. So what’s the truth? What does the future hold? Well, at some point in the future, there will be no medical transcription. Physicians will dictate into a PC or portable device; their speech will be converted to text; and the dictator will make any necessary corrections to finalize the report. No transcription expense. No transcription delay. But that future is at least 3 years off. Just kidding. It’s way more than that. However, there is a future closer than that, related to speech recognition, which has some major implications for this industry.

Doctors hate doing anything that they believe is below their stature or slows down their ability to generate revenue. So we will not see “front-end” recognition-where they correct their own mistakes as described above-in most environments for many years. But there’s a new game in town. It’s called “back-end” speech recognition. Physicians don’t change a thing in their dictation behavior. They continue babbling into telephones or some other dictation device just like they always have. But their voice files are now run through a server-based recognition engine, a draft is produced, and a medical editor corrects the errors both in recognition and dictation.

This technology is truly beginning to get some traction. Physicians love innovation, but they hate change. So this suits them just fine. In fact, they typically don’t even know it’s going on. The goal of back-end speech recognition is to at least double the productivity of transcriptionists. And to do it for about a penny a line. Most implementations are not quite there yet. Speech recognition talk has always been ahead of speech recognition technology. Nonetheless the handwriting is on the wall. This technology will begin to transform transcription in the coming years. So it seems wise for MTs to learn more about it and perhaps even to embrace it.if they like what they learn.

Currently, it is prohibitively expensive for an independent transcriptionist or small transcription company to purchase a recognition server. However, there are a number of ASPs popping up, which charge by the line to produce a draft. I could tell you a lot more groovy stuff about this rather exciting technology, but I’m just about out of my allotted space. So tune in next quarter for the second Watch article, which will explain more about how it works and what it means for medical transcriptionists. Unless, of course, I feel like writing about something else.

Medical Transcription and EMR

Professional medical transcription companies provide excellent EMR solutions.

With the introduction of the EMR system, medical transcription has become more reliable, cost-effective and systematic. The EMR solution effectively manages records such as death summaries, radiology images, photographs, histories, clinic notes, consultation reports, referrals, laboratory summaries, medical billing, verifications, authorizations, medical coding and patient scheduling. One of the major advantages of EMR is that it permits clients to add, delete and edit records and other medical notes.

Ensures High Accuracy Rates in Transcription

EMR is a typical database system that helps medical practices to make digital formats ensuring high accuracy rates in the transcription process. Professional medical transcription service providers offer excellent EMR solutions, giving maximum automation and security for SOAP notes and other medical data. The latest features of EMR solution include:

-Management of SOAP notes
-Document scanning
-Customized data management
-Medical billing software
-Specialist support for medical billing
-Diagnosis code directory
-HL7 custom interfaces

The Advantages of EMR System in Medical Transcription

An EMR system provides physicians and medical professionals with uncomplicated interface and legible documentation. It helps to convert medical documents into PDF with electronic signature so that the files can be easily sent over the internet. The EMR system runs on a UNIX server that ensures the unique security features of UNIX. You are not required to buy any expensive hardware or software; all you require is a computer with internet connection. The advantages of the EMR system include:

-Reduces storage costs
-On-site and off-site storage facilities
-Reduces human resources
-Lessens transcription errors
-Affordable and systematic
-Speeds workflow
-Various types of data can be stored
-Specific EMR solutions for various specialties

The application of EMR system in medical transcription services ensures high accuracy rates together with a perfect management system to meet specific requirements of the clients.

Medical Transcription as Proven Accelerator of EHR Adoption

The transcription sector took a solution-focused message to Capitol Hill June 3-4 in response to President Obama’s provisions and mandate for EHR adoption under the recent HITECH Act. With this administration’s push to have both a definition and criteria for “meaningful use” determined by July of this year, the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) and the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) believe there is a critically narrow window of opportunity for this sector to ensure that such criteria includes provisions for the evolving role of transcription in hybrid capture, where complex narrative is preserved and quality outcomes, not just fiscal savings, drive adoption and integration. The HIT vendor community is positioning itself around key decision-makers in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in whose hands the determination of “meaningful use” now resides. Inarguably, the primary interest of those vendors is in securing widespread EHR adoption through HITECH provisions, and our message to legislators was that HHS needs others at the decision-making table whose interest is geared more toward how these technologies will be deployed and not whether they will be deployed.

Defining “meaningful use” is not the role of HIT but rather of clinicians and experts in health care documentation who can speak to the document workflow process and the complexities of capturing health stories in a way that informs clinical decision-making and promotes coordination of care. If the “meaningful use” definition is shaped only by the vendor community, there is great risk for EHR deployment to fall short of health care’s goals for capturing and consuming health information. All stakeholders, most importantly the patient, lose under such an imprudent integration approach.

More than 120 legislative appointments were held during the 2-day summit through collaborative dialogue from both MTIA business owners and AHDI health care documentation workers who met together with Senate and House members to share the importance of our quality-focused sector in accurately capturing patient health stories. We visited with legislators from 26 states and delivered letters from AHDI members to their respective legislators for 28 states. Each person had an opportunity to share the key talking points and messages prepared for the event, as well as to engage in dialogue with legislators and their aides about the role transcription can and does play in accurate capture. Likewise, we stressed the need to preserve complex narrative in the EHR so that the important nuances of a patient’s story are captured outside of restrictive point-and-click templates. Consideration must be given, as well, to the impact on clinicians who are inefficiently deployed to capture health care encounters rather than engaging in provision of care. And we talked about the value of a knowledge worker positioned in partnership with physicians to ensure the accurate, secure capture and repurposing of health information.

MTIA and AHDI will be engaging the services of a lobbying firm to push this message to the right people on the HELP committee (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) as well as those in HHS who will ultimately be responsible for the “meaningful use” definition. In addition, through our lobbying firm, we will continue to drive this message and our recommendations to David Blumenthal, the National Coordinator for Health IT, so that the role of transcription is not left out of EHR integration standards, recommendations and regulations. Both medical transcription service organizations (MTSOs) and MTs will have an opportunity to contribute to and participate in this advocacy effort.