How To Find Medical Transcription Service Providers Online?
What is Medical Transcription?
Medical transcription is an allied health profession, which deals with the process of transcribing voice recorded medical reports. Physicians, nurses and other health care practitioners dictate these reports. These reports can
be voice files, notes or some other spoken material. A transcriptionist then transcribes these files into written documents. It is a key in the medical practice and must be accurate and on time. Physicians need to be sure that their vocal dictations will be accurately transcribed into well-polished written documents. Quality transcription is important for not only the physician and medical practice, but also the patient, other medical professionals, and insurance companies which will be revising claims.
Medical Transcription Services
Medical transcription services have been a tool of medical practices and hospitals since long. Trained transcriptionists are hired to save physicians time. A transcriptionist or a medical transcriber is an individual who transcribes medical reports from voice files, notes or spoken materials.
In recent years, the medical transcription industry has undergone a massive change which has made another new option widely available. The arrival of relatively cheap and fairly accurate voice recognition softwares. These softwares are driving down the demand for human transcriptionists. With these voice recognition softwares, physicians themselves can complete their reports in real time, without being dependent on any transcriptionist. While the voice recognition softwares have reduced turnaround time, however, the dictating physician needs to act as the proofreader now. Although voice recognition softwares have come a long way, it still makes a lot of mistakes while transcripting and hence requires human oversight.
Nowadays you will also find companies who offer transcription services and you don’t even need to take any trouble. All you need to do is sit back and relax while trained transcriptionists will do all you work. Medical transcription services allow the physicians to record the information of the patients at their leisure, which can be sent to a service provider that will transcribe it while the physician takes their time with the patient.
Choosing a Transcription Service provider
Transcription service providers are of great help to the physicians. However, while choosing such Medical Transcription Service providers, one should be very careful and keep the following things in mind:
1. Security of Data
The transcription service provider should keep the highest possible rate of confidentiality so that the physicians as well as the patients can be assured that their recordings will remain safe. Every case and patient is different. Everybody is not comfortable in sharing his or her medical problems publicly. Hence the need of confidentiality.
2. Accuracy
The sole purpose of transcriptions is to store the accurate information. It is very important in the medical field as even the slightest mistakes can have a negative effect on the overall performance of the patient. A good transcription service provider offers two to four layers of quality assurance. This means two to four people, including the
transcriptionist will go through the transcribed record before it is sent to the physician. This practice guarantees that errors will be caught and rectified before the transcribed document is returned to the physician concern. However, some transcription services providers only have a single layer of human oversight. Therefore, you need to check on this before selecting a transcription service provider.
3. Turnaround Time
Apart from being accurate, being on time is also necessary for a medical transcription. Choose the transcription service provider who can give you reports in the shortest time possible. Most of the transcription service providers have a standard time turnaround of 24 hours. However, if paid an additional fee, some documents and
services can be completed even more quickly.
4. Speciality experience
The documents which one physician needs to get transcribed might be different from those of other specialities. Hence its always important to make sure that the transcription service provider chosen has experience serving the speciality. If a company provides a list of references they are the most favourable ones.
5. Price
Price is another important factor, which should be kept in mind while selecting a transcription service provider because different transcription providers have different prices. Compare them and select the one which provides the best at the lowest price.
After ensuring these things and choosing a service provider, try getting a short contract negotiated. This way, if the chosen service provider ends up being something else than what was expected, you have elsewhere to go. Its better to find a company with monthly subscription offers.
