This article presents a lucid view of how medical transcription services, especially of the outsourced variety, are beneficial for physicians. These time-bound solutions enable healthcare practices to achieve more within less time and while using up less resources and expending less money.

When a physician need spend only less time to attend to a back office task, he would naturally have more time to spend with his patients. This would improve his quality of patient care and also patient satisfaction.

Medical Transcription Services €" More Benefits

Versatility and Hassle Free - A second benefit of getting outside assistance for the important back office task is versatility. Medical transcriptionists develop expertise in several areas because of the unique training they receive €" English language usage and style, typing accuracy and speed, use of Word processing software, medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, comprehension of different dialects and accents and so on.

They are thus able to:

€ Set up a wide array of medical reports including but not limited to history & physical, radiology reports, patient charts, follow-up notes, operative notes and discharge summary
€ Transcribe for a wide variety of medical specialties ranging from anesthesiology and cardiology to oncology and nuclear medicine
€ Transcribe in different formats

So the physician need not be concerned about training his own staff to develop the required expertise in these areas.

Accuracy €" Superior medical transcription outsourcing companies achieve accuracy levels of no less than 98 % in the records they prepare. This is possible because of the kind of references they use, software that makes dictations more clear, and a three-tiered level of quality control.

Cost-effective €" If the physician outsources, he does not have to spend money to hire staff, manage them and provide them ongoing training for the purpose of in-house transcription. He also does not have to spend for developing his infrastructure. His medical transcription services provider would have the entire infrastructure along with skilled and experienced transcriptionists. The physician can thus save 30 to 40 percent on transcription costs.

HIPAA Compliance €" HIPAA compliance is important for the financial health and reputation of healthcare practices. An infringement of the HIPAA guidelines could lead to malpractice litigation and loss of patients. Physicians and their support staff may find it difficult to ensure that they are complying with all HIPAA regulations. Outsourcing takes this burden off their heads and ensures that the transcription is HIPAA compliant.

Custom Turnaround €" The outsourcing solution providers would be able to meet different turnaround requirements from 24 hours to less time.

Local or International Transcription €" Physicians can opt to have the transcription done in the US or at offshore centers such as India and the Philippines.

Choice Methods of Dictation and File Transfer €" The medical professionals can choose between:

€ Digital dictation machines or toll free number as dictation method
€ Secure browser (256 bit AES encryption) or FTP for file transfer

Anywhere, Anytime Access €" The transcripts can be accessed from anywhere and the physician can retrieve or edit them whenever he feels the need after getting a username and password from the service provider.

Greatly Helped by the Outsourcing Industry

Now that you know how medical transcription services are beneficial for physicians, you can realize just how much the outsourcing industry is benefiting the healthcare industry.