Outsourcing Transcription - How to Get the Best Deal

There are many transcription services available but sometimes an affordable transcription service can seem hard to find. Transcription is not cheap, because it is a lot more involved than copy typing, but that doesn't mean you can't find a good deal with a transcription service, and what's more, by providing good quality recordings you can make the transcription more affordable, as it will take less time to complete.

When pricing up your options the most important thing to remember is that it's just not possible to type as fast as you speak. Even an experienced transcriptionist will be able to average four times as long for a good, clear one-to-one interview - so an hour of recording will take an average of four hours to transcribe. (Industry standards obtained from the Industry Production Standards Guide (1998), published by OBC, Columbus, OH, USA). But a poor quality recording will take much longer. So how can you make sure that your transcript is clear, in order to get an affordable transcription price? Basically, the easier you make the transcription for the transcriptionist, the more likely they are to be able to give you an affordable transcription quote.

First of all, use the best transcription equipment you can afford, and make sure it's right for your needs. This means that for interviews you should have a recorded with an external microphone rather than one built into the recorder, which is only designed to pick up dictation. For focus groups you should have several microphones so that all participants are audible, and for conferences the speakers should have good microphones and there should also be people in the audience with 'roving' microphones to take around to any audience members wanting to ask a question.

Always try to make sure that you are recording in a quiet environment. Open windows can cause big problems unless you have a 'noise cancelling' microphone, which many digital ones are these days. So can air conditioning, so if you do have an air conditioning unit in the room try to ensure your speakers are not situated close to it. If conducting interviews by phone, and assuming that you have arranged these in advance (and asked permission to record, of course) then it's helpful to ask your interviewee to try to make sure they're in a quiet environment too!

If you are interviewing and you want the names included then it is helpful to spell out your interviewee's name at the beginning of the recording, before starting the interview, and speak out any information you would like on the transcript header e.g. the date, the job title of your interviewee etc. For conferences a speaker list and also a delegate list, if there will be audience questions, can save the transcriptionist a lot of time in trying to work out names and organisations.

During the interview, unless you need to interrupt in order to take back control of the interview, try not to speak over your interviewee. Often in a normal conversation we say 'yeah, yeah, yeah' or 'right' or 'OK' more to indicate we're listening than for any other reason. Every time you say that you are likely to be obscuring a much more important word or group of words spoken by your interviewee. And in conferences or panel discussions, if one speaker is giving a talk (i.e. without interruptions, not a discussion) make sure everyone else's microphones are turned off. I have, in the past, had to mark whole sentences or even paragraphs of a talk as inaudible, because all I could hear were two panel members chatting about their holidays or little Jonny's operation, and not the speaker!

Most transcriptionists work in a standard format, whether that be tabular, tabbed, interviews shown as initials or full names etc. Again most are happy to work to your specifications, but the standard format might well be cheaper, so think carefully about whether you need something different or not. Find out what the standard format is in advance if it concerns you, and you may be able to adapt it to your needs.

Finally, give some serious thought to whether or not you need a verbatim transcription. Verbatim transcription includes every repeated word, every 'um' and 'erm', all those 'filler' phrases like 'you know' and 'know what I mean' that may be repeated a hundred times in one interview, and can also include pauses, coughs, throat clearing etc. if required. Needless to say, this takes longer. If the transcriptionist can filter out all this stuff the transcript is quicker. In my company the cheapest level is what we call 'intelligent verbatim' which cuts out all these fillers but leaves the rest exactly as it's spoken. Different transcriptionists work this differently though, so always check when you're phoning for your quote. You can find detailed information about our editing levels on our website.

There are, of course, occasions when verbatim is required - depending on your topic it might be required for legal reasons, or you might be studying the language. But if you really don't need it, don't end up paying for it!

And finally, remember that the cheapest transcription quote might not be the most affordable one in the end. There is an oft-quoted phrase: if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. Will it really be cost-effective to send your hard-won interviews to the cheapest service if what comes back is gobbledygook and you have to go through the whole thing correcting every other word? How much time will you then waste that could have been spent more productively? Recommendation is always the ideal way to find a service, but if no one you know can recommend a transcription service then look for testimonials. A good company with a strong track record should always be able to provide these. If you're still not sure, ask questions and base your decision on the quality of the answers. Things you might like to ask are: turnaround time (when will you get the transcripts), confidentiality procedures, whether they have experience in your field, what the standard format is etc. Sphere: Related Content

Outsourcing vs. In-house Medical Transcription

Effectively, outsourcing is the modern day progression of an idea that has always existed in trade, but has found new application with the advancement and adoption of new technologies.

Applied to the area of medical services, as healthcare organizations and providers grow in size and operations, it becomes imperative that their focus be directed to their core activities (patient care) while non-core functions (like transcription and billing) are contracted out or outsourced to organizations which specialize in that particular function. This allows medical providers to do things a lot more efficiently and enables them to do more with less.

With the daily challenges of managing patient information and stringent regulations, managing a full medical transcription staff also puts a strain on the time and resources of a medical organization. Outsourcing medical transcription work in such a scenario is not only immensely beneficial, but also comes with a few other advantages that are not possible with in-house transcription. Listed below are a few of these benefits.

1 Lower Capital Investment & Equipment Expenses

When you outsource your medical transcription requirements, you no longer have to own or maintain a dictation system, a typing platform or worry about upgrading your equipment. Your capital expenses on maintenance with the average maintenance agreement can cost upwards of 10% of equipment costs, annually. Maintaining an in-house transcription team also places certain office equipment and space expenses which are removed by outsourcing.

2 Turnaround time guarantees & Volume fluctuations

While the number of documents generated by a healthcare organization averages out across months, on a daily basis document volume can fluctuate heavily because of dictation frequency and patient volume. This not only increases management overhead but also delays transcription more often than not. With a medical transcription vendor, you are provided with guarantees on turnaround time so that patient documents are never delayed. This removes the need for you to set document priority based on the criticality and urgency of a document and ensures that all documents are available when you need them.

3 Reduced management overheads

The amount of time needed to manage medical transcription in-house can be a large overhead when you consider tasks like managing dictations, allocating transcription work, setting document priority and maintaining archives of audio and documents. Outsourcing reduces these overheads effectively improving efficiency in other areas.

4 Benefits from economies of scale

Transcription firms usually handle dictations from several hundreds and sometimes thousands of medical professionals on a daily basis. Because of the volumes they handle, transcription of documents is streamlined with the implementation of commercial workflow systems, set workflow practices and quality assurance processes. These practices improve quality while reducing costs. More often than not, these cost benefits are passed on to customers reducing your transcription expense while improving quality.

5 Online Documents and Archives

The advent of online medical transcription and associated document management systems, in the last few years has resulted in a number of web based tools that simplify organization and management of documents. In-house transcription requires a painstaking system of distributing and archiving reports generated on a daily basis. Shifting to an outsourced transcription solution usually comes with a free online document management system that removes a number of these document management overheads. These free systems provide a simple a number of secure document management features in an easy-to-use interface. Apart from removing the IT costs associated with owning and maintaining such systems, they result in a number of staff efficiency gains.

6 Lower direct labor costs

Hiring transcribers as full time employees adds to your direct labor costs in terms of salaries, payroll benefits and payroll taxes, increasing the total cost of running your organization. Outsourcing removes a large number of these costs.

We have gone over the efficiency and quality benefits that accompany outsourced medical transcription solutions. We also touched on the broad cost benefits associated with medical transcription outsourcing. Let us now break down some of these expenses to get a clearer picture. The actual amounts spent on each of the below expenses vary from organization to organization.

If you have done the calculation above, it becomes apparent that if you do your medical transcription within the organization, wages constitute only a percentage of your total cost.

When you outsource your transcription the rest of the overheads mentioned above are managed by the transcription provider who takes advantage of economies of scale.

Other bonuses like web-based document management systems and support for a number of features and options, contribute towards making medical transcription outsourcing an invaluable and essential tool that helps a focused Medical Service Organization devote its time to its core function, that of Patient Care.

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How Useful a Tool is Transcription Software?

Some transcription companies, businesses and hospitals who depend heavily on transcription services (medical record transcription, medical dictation transcription, academic transcription, corporate transcription, legal transcription, insurance transcription, media transcription, to name only a few) have started using Voice recognition software (VRS), computer software that transcribes digital voice recordings without the need for typing and dictation services or transcriptionists.

Their reasoning behind choosing to replace traditional on-site transcription staff with transcription software is that the turnaround time for transcribing using VRS is shorter than for the traditional process of transcription and dictation, and that it is less expensive to acquire this transcription software than to train and pay on-site professional transcriptionists.

It is true that VRS has improved steadily over the past two decades, and the most recent versions of this transcription software claim to be nearly as accurate as traditional dictation and transcription services.

The key word here is “nearly”. Nearly is not good enough. Nearly doesn’t warrant replacing human transcriptionists with transcription software. That is our belief at Transdyne. We are a transcription company that doesn’t believe in delivering anything less than 99% accurate transcription, dictation and typing services.

The two major problems connected with this type of transcription software are:

• Changing speech patterns, different accents and non-verbal noises that commonly exist in the dictation process and in multiple voice scenarios (conference transcription and multiple speaker interview transcription, for example) seriously affect the functioning of VRS;
• Even if it has evolved, this transcription software is still far from efficient and is in no way reliable;

At Transdyne, we believe that there will always be a need for human transcribers to ensure quality control of transcripts, dictation and typing services. We are convinced that only with the continued support of expert (human) professional transcriptionists to manage the process of transcription, can we honor our 99% word for word accuracy guarantee on all our transcripts.

Transcription software is certainly going to become more sophisticated, and it may even eventually replace certain subsets of the process of transcription. Until then, Transdyne will continue to rely on its expert staff of human transcriptionists to provide its clients with the premium quality accurate transcription and dictation services they have come to expect.

Your business deserves the best quality transcription and dictation services. Think twice before you entrust these vital components of your business to transcription companies who will compromise the quality of your product, touting the wonders of new technology in an effort to save on hiring professional transcriptionists.

At Transdyne, some of the best human transcriptionists, dictation and typing staff in the country will be happy to serve your needs – in person. So if you are considering outsourcing transcription work, contact Transdyne today to discuss a solution to your transcription and dictation needs.

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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

Key Benefits Of Medical Transcription Software

The increasing demand for skilled medical billing and coding specialists can be attributed to the growing use of medical transcription software for healthcare organizations around the globe. Medical transcription software has slowly replaced the need for manual transcription services that could take up to a week to turnaround a dictation; today’s innovative software and technologies are designed to automate the dictation-to-reporting process so that the final product can be retrieved within 24-48 hours.

Many medical transcription companies now use medical transcription software to capture the dictation and turn it into an accurate report. Coding specialists must be trained to use the this specialized software, and these programs offer several benefits for any data processing agent.

Some of the key benefits of medical transcription software include:

1. Easy voice capture and speech recognition capabilities. This makes it easier for the medical transcriptionist to capture the doctor’s dictation with utmost accuracy. Doctors can submit their dictation via phone or other recording device to make the audio file available to the coding specialist, and the voice capture technologies can make this process more accurate than conventional methods.
   
   
2. Medical spell checking and dictionaries. Since a coding specialist may not understand medical terminology and phrases, a medical spellchecking function may be incorporated into the medical transcription software. This also makes the data capture more accurate and can save time in the grammar and spellcheck process.
   
   
3. Easy document distribution. After the report has passed quality control and is ready for submission, medical transcription software can make documents available in a variety of formats. The report can be synchronized to a doctor’s handheld deviceor computer, or simply sent in electronic form for easy printing.
   
   
4. Supports a variety of audio and video formats. Medical transcription software has been designed to support several audio and video formats so that doctors using different types of technology can benefit from the services. With fewer limitations, more healthcare organizations can begin to use medical transcription services with ease.
   
   
5. Quick and simple editing interface. If errors are present or a medical transcriptionist needs to go back and edit certain areas of a document, the software allows for simple editing with a text editing tool and keyboard short cuts. This reduces turnaround time and improves the accuracy of all reports.
   
   
6. Time code stamp functions. Medical billing and coding specialists can make use of time stamp functions on all their data with a touch of a button. This also reduces turnaround time and provides better, more accurate data for the doctor.
   
   
7. Integration with many healthcare systems and programs. Doctors and physicians can access data easily with today’s innovative medical transcription software and platforms. This reduces time for finding and retrieving data so that reports are readily available, at their fingertips.
   

Medical transcription software used by transcriptionists today offers several benefits for healthcare organizations of all sizes. With accurate reports and efficient turnaround times, the software can make the entire dictation-to-reporting process very simple. Quality control also ensures that all reports are HIPAA-compliant and free of errors so that your healthcare organization can benefit from consistent reporting for the long-term. Sphere: Related Content

Test Transcription Services With a Free Trial

When it comes to handling your patient information there isn`t anything worse than a failure in the security of the transcription company. TransDyne is hard at work to ensure that never happens to a single client.

Your documents are secure with TransDyne. They are HIPAA compliant in all areas and your document delivery will be completely secure. This is something that is very important when it comes to medical transcription, you need to be able to trust your service.

TransDyne strives to serve you with the best quality possible and still at low prices. If your current service isn`t quite what it could be, then you definitely should try out the safer transcription service. There`s even a free trial to make it easy.

Try the free trial and you`ll quickly realize that TransDyne really is head and shoulders above the rest.

You have a free transcription trial offer to test our transcription expertise. This trial has duration of a week’s time, a standard timeframe for services extending similar offers. A week’s time can be used to offer varied recording types that your specialty tends to generate. Apart from the time you buy to have a thorough understanding of our service capabilities, the one week duration helps us get used to your doctors’ accents, their dictation styles etc. Also, it will do wonders to the accuracy of your transcripts that would be coming thereafter. We will be sending back the finished transcripts to you. Do go through the transcripts and send them back to us with all your clarifications and comments.

We're so confident that we provide an excellent medical transcription service that we will provide a TWO WEEK free trial for you to test our services. If you're not completely satisfied by the end of two weeks, simply send everything back and pay absolutely nothing.

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