Top Ten Reasons to Outsource Medical Transcription

What is Outsourcing? Subcontracting. Support. Managed services. However you define it, outsourcing has become the hot, creative solution that is helping more and more hospital CFOs, Health Information Managers (HIMs), and owners of physician practices do more with less. Less money. Less time. Less resources.

In these challenging times of tight budgets, compressed deadlines, exploding amounts of information, and stringent compliance regulations, managing medical transcription yourself can cost you in more ways than one. That's why outsourcing medical tanscription has become such an attractive solution for so many.

While outsourcing medical transcription is not a new concept, it might be new to you. And when done correctly, it's a pain-free process that gives you the freedom to focus on more important things, like patient care. Please take a few minutes to read the Top 10 Reasons why it can help you now to outsource medical transcription --- and in the long run.

Reason 1: Eliminate Capital Investment with Medical Transcription Outsourcing

When you outsource your entire medical transcription process, you no longer have to own a dictation system or invest in a typing platform or worry about upgrading to the very latest equipment.

In fact, all your capital expenses for supporting dictation and transcription are greatly reduced because you no longer have to own or maintain them. And maintaining these systems and varying equipment can really cost you, with the average maintenance agreement costing upwards of 17% of equipment costs, annually. Even if you only partially outsource your medical transcription, you can still reduce your expenses and make your budget work harder for you.

Reason 2: With Medical Transcription Outsourcing, Manage Report Volume and Staffing Fluctuations

There are some things you just can't control, no matter how hard you try. Report volume and staffing are just two of them, as these variables fluctuate without warning. Having to react to these challenges at a moment's notice can bring your day, department, and transcription process to a screeching halt.

Not to mention how these gyrations can negatively affect your budget. By outsourcing all of your medical transcription --- or even just the overflow --- you can cost-effectively manage sharp increases in report volume or a shortage in staffing without having it impact your turnaround time, workflow, quality, or compliance.

Reason 3: Outsource Medical Transcription and Reduce Management Expenses

Whether you're a CFO, Health Information Manager, or head your own physician practice, managing medical transcription in-house can be a costly proposition. With so many vast, overlapping layers to manage --- from dictation and routing to transcription and archiving --- there are variables at every turn, eager to steal your time, attention, and budget dollars. By outsourcing all or part of your transcription process, you are free to concentrate on more important priorities and leave all the headaches and stringent demands to your outsourcing partner. Outsourcing also reduces the need for robust in-house staffing which results in additional cost savings for you.

Reason 4: Reduce Direct Labor Costs

If you are managing your medical transcription process in-house, then most likely you are also carrying direct labor costs that are putting a strain on your already tight budget. As an integral part of document creation, transcriptionists and coding specialists are imperative to the success of your medical transcription process. Yet, hiring such staff as Full-Time Employees (FTEs) means not only having to pay their salaries, but also having to provide them with benefits. By outsourcing all or part of your medical transcription process, you can gain greater control, streamline your staff, and greatly reduce or eliminate these expenses.

Reason 5: Improve Report Accessibility and Distribution with Medical Transcription Outsourcing

A major benefit of outsourcing your medical transcription is finding a solution that's web-based. Through a secure, password-protected process, one can log-on to a user-friendly interface, search, view, edit, and print reports --- from any computer with Internet capabilities. You can also distribute documents to multiple destinations with the touch of a button. Older technologies, such as dictaphones and tape, do not give you that kind of easy, immediate accessibility. And because the solution is web-based, it comes with powerful keyword search capabilities so you can easily retrieve what you want, when you want it. You'll also have access to an entire year's worth of records, not just the last month or so by outsourcing your medical transcription.

Reason 6: Reduce IT Responsibility

When you manage medical transcription in-house, it greatly impacts your IT department. Not only are they expected to manage and troubleshoot the various medical transcription platforms and technologies you own, but they often inherit the maintenance of your onsite equipment. In addition, they're expected to keep up with the latest technology demands and updates to keep the system running to the best of its abilities. By outsourcing your medical transcription, you not only free up your IT team to work on more important things, but you also rescue a vast amount of space on the server that was once dedicated to supporting your dictation system. It all adds up to a more efficient, productive IT team and a faster, leaner server.

Reason 7: Eliminate HR Transcription Staff Recruitment

It's no secret there's a domestic shortage of qualified, certified medical transcriptionists. And maintaining a pool of dependable prospects you can call at a moment's notice puts a definite strain on any already burdened Human Resources (HR) department. With so few qualified medical transcriptionists to choose from and the constant need to fill the hospital's pipeline with new prospects, HR is caught in a losing proposition --- trying to fulfill constant requests from the HIMs and looking at a shallow prospect pool. By outsourcing your medical transcription, you eliminate the constant cycle of unsuccessful recruitment efforts and the inefficiencies and lost man-hours they incur.

Reason 8: Improve Report Accuracy and Turnaround Time

When you manage your own medical transcription process, you are ultimately responsible for the accuracy and turnaround time. Are you able to stringently measure performance and impose penalties if quality levels are not met? You can if you outsource your medical transcription process. Outsourcing medical transcription services regularly document their accuracy and turnaround time rate, making sure they have metrics that prove they're meeting Quality Assurance levels. Many outsourcing services also provide performance guarantees right in their contracts, which range from productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness to quality, turnaround time, and resource utilization.

Reason 9: Shorten Account Receivable Cycle

One of the easiest ways to shorten the accounts receivable cycle is to streamline your medical transcription process. If you manage your own medical transcription, you are managing people, records, medical coding, HIPAA compliance, technology, turnaround time, and all the possible variables that come with it. By outsourcing your medical transcription, you greatly simplify workflow. What was once ten steps can be reduced to five. This allows you to better meet 24-hour and even 12-hour turnaround time, but also realize soft cost savings that can be very meaningful. And ultimately, shorten your accounts receivable cycle.

Reason 10: Take Advantage of a Single-source Medical Transcription Solution

When you have to piece together your own medical transcription process, the entire weight of the solution is on your shoulders. Researching the right technology, platform, equipment, and recruits. Working closely with IT, accounts receivable, and HR. Squeezing every penny in your budget. Struggling with HIPAA compliance. And dealing with the day-to-day problems, cost surprises, and emergencies that constantly crop up. By outsourcing your medical transcription process to a single source, you free yourself of the burden, save substantial money by consolidating all your services with one provider, and still maintain complete control of the process --- while ensuring all necessary standards of quality, turnaround time, and HIPAA compliance are met.

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How To Use Transcription Training Software

The days of manually entering dictations and data into a database are giving way to transcription software, and today’s skilled medical billing and coding specialists can capture and format data at incredible rates with the right program. Transcription training software is readily available for anyone who wants to learn how to capture a dictation and convert it to a report for a healthcare organization or doctor. From chiropractic offices to emergency room administrative staff, transcription training software can be used to train candidates effectively; the result is quality reports with a high level of accuracy.

Transcription training software is designed to guide billing and coding specialists through the entire dictation-to-reporting process so that they can provide high quality medical transcription services with ease. Software programs can be run within a medical office or at home to deliver well-formatted reports and documents for various specialties and organizations. After completing the training program, a coding specialist should be able to use real transcription software that is integrated with healthcare organizations’ transcription internal data systems; this can lead to accurate, reliable and efficient reporting for the long-term.

Transcription training software allows the user to learn the essential elements of medical billing and coding so that they can employ the correct formatting guidelines and protocol with ease.

Transcription training software is designed to:

• Provide tools for efficient editing – the program may include text editing tools and other features to make editing a very simple and smooth process. This helps improve turnaround times on reports and makes it easier for both quality control departments and medical coders to fix errors and improve the report at a touch of a button

• Make it easy to export and submit data – the program can be integrated with several other software programs and tools to help specialists submit the final report to a client’s specifications

• Incorporate electronic signature capabilities – today’s innovative software programs are equipped with electronic signature functions that make it easier for physicians and clients to obtain a complete report without ever having to print it out

• Provide access to medical spell-checking programs, dictionaries and word processor tools – these can help specialists draft up accurate reports so that they do not have to memorize medical terminology for every dictation. This can speed up the turnaround process and make workflow even more efficient.

• Employ tools for document distribution – part of the medical transcription process involves distributing the document to the appropriate departments. Trainees can learn how to distribute and organize the data for processing and distribution so that the final report gets into the hands of medical professionals in a timely manner

Transcription training software helps any medical coder or billing specialist learns how to refine the dictation-to-reporting process and create high quality documents on a consistent basis. A medical transcription company is staffed with well-trained transcription professionals who have completed a rigorous training program and have the necessary skills to provide quality services for healthcare organizations of all types and sizes. Transcription training software is a valuable tool for any company who needs to train candidates in the latest technologies and programs for better data management. Sphere: Related Content

Gain The Medical Transcription Wages You Deserve

Do you want to know what a great medical transcription wages is and how to get there fast? All transcriptionists want to know this.

That really is only natural after all - what is the point in learning the medical terminology skills if the rewards are not there?

The first thing you need to note is that MT wages vary considerably. They increase with both your competence and experience.

According to the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, in May 2007 the mean hourly medical transcription wage was US$15.44. The mean annual wage was US$32,120.


As you read on you will see how you can far surpass these medical transcription wages.

Industries with the highest levels of employment were General Medical and Surgical Hospitals, and wages rates were highest in Medical and Diagnostic Laboratories.

The top paying industries for a medical transcription salary were in Agencies, Brokerages and Other Insurance Related Activities.

In the US the highest concentration of workers was in South Dakota, where the hourly mean wage was $13.28 and the annual mean wage was $27,620. The top paying state was California with their hourly mean medical transcription wages of $19.15 and an annual mean wage of $39840.

In May 2002 a survey was conducted by the AHDI that reported an average medical transcriptionists salary to be US$31,400.

A survey conducted towards the end of 2002 by the magazine Advance for Health Information Professionals revealed that certified medical transcriptionists earned more than their non-certified counterparts.

The average medical transcriptionists salary was US$29732 with the CMT’s earning an average of US$36,225 annually.


Medical Transcription Wages Per Line Rates

The number of lines you can produce on a daily basis is an important factor and often the medical transcription wages you earn are determined by this production. This is especially so for those employed by a medical transcription services company or as an independent contractor.

Medical transcription pay rates vary on the number of lines and the price you are being paid per line.

To give you an idea, a medical transcriptionist typing

800 lines/day @ 8 cents per line = annual income US$16,640

1500 lines @ 6 cents per line = annual income US$23,400

1500 lines @ 10 cents per line = annual income US$39,000

1500 lines @ 14 cents per line = annual income US$54,600

2000 lines @ 6 cents per line = annual income US$31,200

2000 lines @ 12 cents per line = annual income US$62,400

As you can see from these figures two important factors in your income are your ability to negotiate the best package, and your productivity. Remember you also need the accuracy.

A positive self image and good people skills helps when negotiating.

An average annual income for full-time entry-level medical transcriptionists typing hospital reports is in the range from US$20,000 to US$35000, depending on your location and competence.

As you gain experience, and if you chose to become an independent contractor, you are in a position to increase your earnings. Overheads need to be deducted from your income when you are a contractor.

The average production based medical transcription wages are between 6 cents and 10 cents per line. As your speed and proficiency increase and you gain your own clients, you can bill 10 cents to 16 cents per line.


Primary Factors Affecting Medical Transcription Salary Income

1. Competence

2. Area of Specialty

3. Experience

4. Whether you are a Contractor or Employee

5. Speed and Efficiency

6. Flexibility

7. Geographic Location (this is becoming less important with technology changes)



Those specializing in areas of health like acute care, multi specialty clinic ER, Oncology and Radiology are in demand and this increases the rates paid to the competent transcriptionist.

When looking for the best position consider the medical transcription jobs employee benefits that go along with the job.

Summing it all up to achieve the best medical transcription wages you need to:

• Become certified

• Specialize in an in demand field that you enjoy

• Get your speed and accuracy up

Then as your experience increases, you WILL be in demand! Sphere: Related Content

When Is Outsourced Transcription A Good Choice?

Quality of patient information and records should be paramount and that is the reason why many hospitals, clinics and doctor offices are outsourcing medical transcription services. There are a number of benefits to outsourcing transcription work, whether you are looking for services full-time, part-time or just on an overflow or emergency basis.

Outsourced transcription services are quickly becoming the preferred method of workflow management and control of medical billing and coding needs, thanks to the advances in technology and improved communication and data transmission options available. More and more healthcare organizations are turning to medical transcription service providers offsite because they can provide a more reliable product, more accurate reporting, and offer a number of benefits for physicians and other medical professionals who need to access reports and other information easily.

Reducing your Costs

Cost minimization is by far the most logical and popular reason why many medical facilities outsource their transcription needs. First of all, the cost of hiring, training and managing employees in transcription is eliminated. You have no salaries to pay, benefits to offer or vacation or sick days to juggle to ensure that all the transcription duties are taken care of.

Because the need for transcription ebbs and flows, you are essentially losing money on an employee whose sole purpose is transcription if there is little work for them. In a similar vein, by outsourcing, you are freeing up some employees who have other duties that they should be concentrating on. Outsourcing medical transcription services makes sense for so many reasons.

Outsourcing Options

You can choose to hand off all of your transcription projects off to the outsourced company of your choice and free up your budget and allocate leftover resources to better serve your patients. Or, you could consider outsourcing on a part-time basis. This is advantageous for those medical offices which have employees allocated for transcription but also fulfill other duties as well. When overflow becomes a problem, you can then outsource the transcription to pick up the slack.

If you are pleased with your in-house transcription employees but feel that you need a contingency plan in the event that your computer networks break down or some other disaster, an outsourcing medical transcription company is a logical choice. Regardless of your needs, outsourcing medical transcription services makes sense both financially and security-wise.

If you’ve been considering outsourcing your medical billing and coding projects to another company, there are a few key questions to ask and consider:

Can I count on HIPAA compliance from my current administrative staff and workforce?

Reliable medical transcription service providers will provide a guarantee of HIPAA compliance, and this ensures all work received and submitted is checked for quality control and accuracy. Most medical transcription companies will run each report through a series of data control and management centers to ensure compliance every step of the way. This can save you time on insurance and legal costs, and ensure that all the information transmitted is secure.

Do I have a secure data management and storage system in process?

Secure data management and documentation are just a few benefits of working with an outsourced medical transcription company; this ensures HIPAA compliance, and also makes document management much more efficient. Medical professionals in your company will have secure access to a data-encrypted site to retrieve data, and this will be monitored by the transcription company to prevent a security breach.

These are just a few of the most important factors to consider when you are choosing to outsource your transcription services. From secure data management to quality reporting, it’s important to consider a variety of factors for managing your transcription projects. Outsourced transcription companies offer several benefits for healthcare organizations of all sizes and budgets, and you can count on reliable, professional transcriptionists to provide you with a quality product every step of the way.

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Medical Transcription Training - Is A Medical Transcription Career Right For You?

Medical Transcription is a career that is interesting to work in. You will be listening to the physician’s notes in regards to how the patients visit went on things such as symptoms, diagnosis, referral tests, and much more. Many notes are in regards to the results of tests done by radiology, blood work, etc.

A medical transcriptionist transcribes dictated recordings from healthcare specialists and physicians and makes reports, correspondence, or other materials regarding administration.However, since the career field has gone from the micro-cassette tapes to digital transcription the jobs have opened up for those wanting to work at home.The main thing is learning the terminology and report formatting.

Now that Medical Transcription has went from tapes to digital you can live in one state and work from home for a doctor or hospital that might be thousands of miles away from you. Medical transcriptionists must understand terms associated with medicine, procedures used to diagnose, comprehend assessments of treatments and have knowledge in physiology, anatomy, and pharmacology.

While your typing speed is important in Medical Transcription; accuracy is a MUST! Your typing speed will determine how much you make per hour on average. Even though you are usually paid by the character line it still averages out per hour. However, your accuracy can determine if you have a job or not. They will only allow a 2% error in most cases. This means your accuracy must be a 98% or better to work at home as a Medical Transcriptionist. Experienced transcriptionists proofread medical reports to point out errors or discrepancies and to make necessary corrections. To decrease the possibility of patients receiving improper or damaging treatment, transcriptionists must have the ability to comprehend and accurately transcribe assessments of patients.

A lot of people say they want to work at home to be with their children. While this is possible, it is important to know that when you are working at home it is just that “work”. You can’t work at home transcribing medical records and have your children yelling in the background. It is very important to either schedule your time around your kids or have a family member or friend come in and help with child care while you get your work done. Also, let others know when you’re planning to work so that they do not interrupt you with requests to run to the store, run errands, etc.

A Medical Transcriptionist can make a good income working at home. The income can have a wide range depending on where your doctor is located, how fast you can type and how many hours you work each day / week. The average for starting out is around $15 - $17.00 an hour. After a few years; many Medical Transcriptionist can make up to $23.00 + an hour. When you factor in not paying for fuel back and forth to the office, office wardrobe, etc. you actually are making more money with all the money you save.

Make sure the Course / School you take does offer Job Assistance to help you through your 1st year at least. There are jobs out there for Medical Transcriptionist that are new, however it does help when you have assistance from the course / school you take your training from. Remember that every experienced MT had to start brand new to get their experience. Some additional duties for medical transcriptionists working in clinics and physicians' offices may include: checking in patients, scheduling appointments, and handling the phone and mail. When written reports are of spoken words are mandatory for communication, keeping records, or legality, medical transcriptionists translate reports word for word of speeches, conversations, legal proceedings, meetings, and other events.

Most medical transcriptionists enjoy comfortable surroundings including offices, hospitals, transcription service offices, clinics, laboratories, libraries of medicine, facilities provided by the government, or even home. Several medical transcriptionists telecommute from offices at home working or subcontracting for hospitals and transcription services. They can also work independently as a contractor, being self-employed Sphere: Related Content

Medical Transcription Proofreading Tips

The correct attitude for a Medical Transcriptionist should be one of independence and responsibility for his or her work. Medical Transcriptionists function with a minimum of direct supervision. The majority do have an immediate supervisor “somewhere” responsible for quality control. Working as a professional Medical Transcriptionist means to take pride in the accuracy and completeness of your work. A professional gains satisfaction from a job well done.

Excellent proofreading skills are critical for a Medical Transcriptionist. Proofreading is looking for mistakes of all types in a transcribed document and correcting them. The most common errors a Medical Transcriptionist will be looking for include:

• Omission of important dictated words
• Selecting the wrong English or medical word
• Misspelling words
• Typographical errors
• Grammatical errors
• Punctuation errors

Proofreading skills will improve with practice. You will know what your areas of weaknesses are as you proofread and find your errors. If you find that you miss few medical words, but misspell many English words, you can improve by paying particular interest in English words as you transcribe and proofread dictation.

Consider the following four-step method to help you achieve the best results from your proofreading:

1. Look words up in reference books as you encounter them. Don’t wait until the end of the report. You will have forgotten how some of the words sounded. Search until you find and don’t go any further in your medical transcribing until you find the words you get stumped on. Leave a blank if you exhaust all resources and still cannot find your word.

2. Briefly proofread what you transcribe as it appears on the screen of your word processor or the paper you are typing on. This will help you catch missed words and typographical errors as they occur. Print out your reports on paper if you are using a word processor. It is easier to proofread the printed report on paper than it is on the screen.

3. If you just cannot find a word, leave a blank of an appropriate length, according to how long or short the word sounds. Attach a flag (a flag is a sheet of paper clipped to the report or a sticky note placed on the report which identifies all blanks, which lines of the report they are located on, and what the dictated word sounded like to you.

4. Use a medical or English spellchecker as the final step in proofreading. Spellcheckers will not catch errors such as transcribing no instead of not or transcribing ilium instead of ileum.

Excellent proofreading skills come only after continual practice to perfect. Consider the following tips:

• To avoid omitting important dictated words adjust the speed control on the transcriber unit and transcribe slowly to assure no dictated words are overlooked. Slowly increase your speed of the tape, which will increase transcription speed as you learn to keep up with the dictator.

• The tape recording (if you are transcribing from a tape) does not perfectly reproduce the human voice. Sometimes the words and phrases sound garbled or something quite different from what they really are. A Medical Transcriptionist should never transcribe what he or she “thinks” they hear. You should transcribe only what makes sense in the context of the report. Careful word searching and careful attention to word definitions help the Medical Transcriptionist to avoid selecting the wrong English or medical word. The wrong medical word can convey a wrong diagnosis for a patient. The error can be carried in the patient’s permanent medical record and cause extreme havoc and chaos. The professional Medical Transcriptionist NEVER transcribes anything that does not make sense and/or cannot be verified in a reference book. In other words, don’t just make up a word either just to fill in all the blanks. It is better to leave a blank.

• Misspelling of medical and English words can be avoided by careful proofreading and using a spellchecker.

• Typographical errors are usually the result of carelessness or attempts to type too fast rather than focusing on accuracy. Careful proofreading will eliminate typographical errors.

• Grammatical errors are hard to catch while transcribing and must be identified through careful proofreading.

• Punctuation errors can actually change the medical meaning of a sentence. Keep your punctuation references within easy reach.

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