Medical transcription has a vital role to play in the process of delivering quality healthcare, as it is the process of creating permanent patient records from the audio recordings of the patient-healthcare professional encounter. A healthcare facility is faced with various options for availing this service. This activity can be a part of the healthcare facility's operations; can be availed from independent contractors or by outsourcing to a professional service provider, or a combination of any of the methods. Though having this activity in –house and executed through independent contractors has a few advantages; outsourcing to a professional service provider has been found to be the most beneficial.
What are advantages of outsourcing medical transcription?
· Increases operational efficiency: This not only helps improve the efficiency of the healthcare professionals, but also has the advantage of reducing the burden of several departments within the healthcare facility. The creation of patient records is automatic, without interrupting the workflow of the healthcare professionals and other support staff
· Helps strategize resources: A healthcare facility would be able to deploy its limited resources to reap maximum benefits. Resources like management, Information technology, real estate etc are freed up when the process of creating patient records is outsourced. This results in better utilization of limited resources
· Improves quality of service: Helps improve quality of healthcare services by providing timely and accurate information and also enabling the healthcare professionals and other support staff to focus on the healthcare process by allowing them to use their limited time in the best way possible
· Improves finances: Helps increase cash flow by reducing costs and accelerating the receivables cycle
· Increases access to information: The information contained in patient records is utilized by various healthcare professionals as well as support staff, throughout the course of a patient's treatment. Availing specialist services allows healthcare professionals as well as associated staff easy access to information by using the right technology
· Helps with budgeting: Helps the administration of healthcare facilities cope with tight resources by allowing them to get rid of indirect expenses that they would incur by executing this process in-house
· Improves turnaround time: Ensures that the turnaround time between the dictation and the time when the patient records are accessible is streamlined. This is possible by the medical transcription service provider using the right team, the right processes, and the right technology
· Improves coordination between various departments: The information in the patient records provides inputs for usage by various departments. Outsourcing helps different departments like the support staff, the coding and billing department and the finance department to have access to patient records through archiving features
· Keeps records up to date: Ensures that patient records are maintained up to date, as all the information is updated into the patient records automatically
· Improves quality of information: Ensures that the patient-healthcare professional encounter is captured in a descriptive form without missing any vital information. A medical transcription service provider would have a process in place to ensure this by having more than one ear listen to the dictation and having a quality check process is in place to ensure maximum accuracy
Author Resource:
Renee Kelly has written numerous articles on medical transcription , which has served as an amazing resource for healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals seeking transcription services .