Medical transcription has evolved from simple dictation-to-type processes to innovative, dictation-to-web reporting services. As more healthcare organizations and medical professionals shift toward outsourced transcription services, demand for these types of services is steadily on the rise. The entire process of capturing the dictation and formatting into a report for the doctor or healthcare organization can take time, but working with a reliable medical transcription company can increase the efficiency of this process and reduce turnaround time substantially.
What is Medical Transcription?
Medical transcription is the process of converting voice recorded information into text in the form of a report. Medical transcriptionists are professionals who have been trained to type via dictation, and accurately transcribe all notes and related information into a specific format. Many of today's innovative transcription service providers now use web-based programs to capture data, convert it into text, and make it available in the form of electronic reports and other reporting documents. The entire process has become more efficient and accurate, but still requires the work of certified medical transcriptionists to capture the data.
What Does a Medical Transcription Company Do?
A medical transcription company may hire a team of certified medical transcriptionists to complete various projects, or work with home based medical transcription service providers. Outsourced medical transcription companies offer many advantages and benefits over utilizing in-house support staff such as secretaries and administrative assistants, and most work with a guarantee of HIPAA compliance and high standards of accuracy.
The Process of Medical Transcription
There are three main entities involved with the medical transcription process: the provider (a doctor, physician, or healthcare organization manager who has captured a conversation or speech on an electronic device); the transcriptionist; and the transcription service company. The provider dictates the information directly into a digital recorder, phone, or other electronic device and submits the information to the transcriptionist. Today, this may be in the form of a secure FTP server or other secure communication channel such as a file attachment.
The transcriptionist then transcribes this information into a document and sends it to the quality control center or department for review. If the information meets all quality standards and is accurate, it may be forwarded to another division of the transcription company for final review. When the document meets all standards and is free of errors, it may be converted once more into a document that the provider can review.
This entire process can be smooth and seamless when you are working with a technologically advanced transcription service company, and many now offer a variety of options for providers to submit the necessary information. Dial-in phone services, digital recordings, and even web-based delivery are the key ways to submit the information to the transcriptionist, and the vehicle of transmission must be completed with security in mind.
The total transcription process and delivery time may vary depending on the medical transcription service provider you have chosen to work with, and the volume of work submitted. Still, many transcriptionists work with consistency and can turnaround projects at a relatively steady rate.
Medical Transcription Work From
-Toll free telephone lines
-Digital and cassette tape hand held recorders
-Dictation servers
-Transcriptions via secure e-mail, secure file transfer protocol or
website data bank
-Transcriptions via fax or remote internet printer
Dictation on toll free telephone lines:
This is a dedicated computerized system that allows the physicians to call in from any phone including cellular, and dictate. Once the toll free number is dialed voice prompts will guide through the process, which will enable the physicians to dictate. Each physician will be given a unique 4-digit id. Our dial-n-dictate program is very physician-friendly and prompts are given for each step. For the convenience of the physicians facilities like rewind, replay, save, abort, fast forward etc are also available. The chances of losing dictations are very remote eliminating the need for re-dictation.
Digital hand held recorders:
If the physician does not want to dial the numbers every time and do not want to be bound to a phone, digital hand held recorder is the best alternative.
A digital voice recorder is smaller or about the same size of an hand-held tape recorder and is operated like one.
Voice is recorded on internal / removable memory cards like those used in digital cameras. Each card can take up to 10 hours of dictation. It can be plugged into a computer interface and the voice can be sent to the transcription company via Internet. The voice can be saved into the computer or deleted so that the card can be reused. One can continue to record on another card if one is full. Hence waiting for the files to transfer if avoided. By keeping a few cards available, physician can record wherever and whenever required.
It is very easy and takes very little time to remove the card from the recorder, insert it into a computer interface and transfer the files via Internet.
Most important point to remember is, all the transfers should be secure and appropriate HIPAA compliant file transfer program has to be selected like secure ftp, secure email
Dictation servers
The transcription service provider can log into the hospital dictation server if the hospital is already having one.
Alternatively, inexpensive computer programs are available. Physician can directly dictate to the computer using a wireless or wired microphone. The transcription service provider can access these dictations.
Getting back the Transcriptions
Transcribed records can be received by one of the following options:
As an email attachment. However the email service should be secure and HIPAA compliant.
Transcriptions can be received via fax or remote internet printer by which docuemtns are directly printed by the transcription service provider at the physician's end.
Transcriptions can be downloaded from the secure ftp site provided by the medical transcription service provider.
Some of the transcription service providers like Vision Infonet will have online data servers. Physicians can access these servers through a browser to:
-Search, view and secure download the transcriptions anytime
-Transcriptions can be edited and saved online.
-Respective voice file can be played while editing
Both Rao Atluri & Anil Moses are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Rao Atluri has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet, Legal Matters and Computers and The Internet. TransDyne is the new standard in digital medical transcription service and electronic charting. TransDyne utilized its extensive background as an information technology company to develop a system that electronically receives/sends dictations and medical. Rao Atluri's top article generates over 27100 views. to your Favourites.
Anil Moses has sinced written about articles on various topics from Metabolism. Anil Moses is a post graduate in business administration and is associated with ,. Anil Moses's top article generates over 5400 views. to your Favourites.
