Importance of Outsourcing Medical Transcription in Healthcare
Healthcare is quite a complex & challenging field of all. Doctors, surgeons, nurses & other medical professionals have the most formidable jobs. While they are responsible for the betterment of their patients, they are also urged to constantly learn and evolve with time to ensure they’re qualified with the latest knowledge and equipment. Keeping patients’ recovery in mind, they stand to help all day long. That can be frustrating sometimes. Plus, they have to document all the patient details such as their illness, lab reports, medical check-ups, diagnoses, and medications.
This documentation is essential in terms of record-keeping practice and compliance protocols. Such exhausting paperwork interrupts their time with their patients. The need to do this every time highlights the critical role of medical transcription services in the healthcare field.
Medical transcription aims to keep a written record of a patient’s medical history. The approach is believed to have emerged in 1960, along with the beginning of electronic health record systems.
What is a Medical Transcription (MT)?
Medical transcription is a process in which medical audio files (recorded & given by a physician, nurse, or any healthcare expert) are converted into organized word files. The voice reports contain clinical synopsis, lab results, surgery notes, and other medical procedures. The files are either printed or created in digital format to be submitted to the electronic health record (EHR) or electronic medical record (EMR) system of the relevant medical facility.
The global medical transcription services market size was US$ 69.33 billion in 2021. The market size is predicted to reach US$ 126.5 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7% from 2022 to 2030.
Transcription has always helped healthcare and wellness professionals extract, organize & save valuable data that doesn’t just help healthcare providers and insurance companies but establishes the basis for vital medical research & analysis. In fact, in 2019, the U.S. The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated 58,500 healthcare transcription tasks, excluding the freelancing positions posted online. The healthcare & medical transcription services significantly help medical consultants, dentists, general practitioners, acute care facilities, long-term care institutions, hospitals, and many more healthcare professionals.
Why is Human Transcription the Best Choice over Voice Recognition?
Many physicians believe that voice recognition software (VRS) will fulfill their requirements and perform as satisfactorily as medical teams. Eventually, they realize that the software doesn’t translate correctly or cannot comprehend the sentences properly. Hence, the experts must make the necessary changes, which will take even more time. This explains one crucial point– VRS cannot replace the human element.
The Human Touch that Ensures Perfect Data for your EHR and EMR systems
When you outsource medical transcription services, a person qualified with medical knowledge & terminology interprets & transcribes your data. Unlike any machine or software, a medical transcriptionist can understand human sentiments well. Due to this, you get precise, useful, and consistent electronic health records.
Well-known medical transcription outsourcing companies ensure that their teams complete training in medical terminology and gain industry experience. This validation ensures that they are well-versed with the medical terminology to create comprehensive, practical, and precise transcribed files whenever they are assigned a project. The transcription outsourcing companies also provide hospital transcription services for the data digitization of the entire facility.
Technology is the future for sure. However, certain procedures still require human efforts, especially sensitive medical records. Databases must not suffer due to the technology. Outsourcing medical transcription services means having a team devoted to your practice and patients just as much as you are, which will reflect in your database. Let’s explore a few more benefits of medical transcription outsourcing services.
- Data Collaboration & Centralization – Be it a small clinic or multi-specialty hospital, one doctor will tend to our ailment, making detailed patient data a central component to give the proper treatment. Sometimes, a situation necessitates the expertise of more than one specialist, doctor, or healthcare provider. At such times, having a medical transcriptionist pays off. They transcribe the given files, ensure the data gets centralized in sequence, and ensure proper care.
- Satisfactory Insurance Settlements – Medical data or information contains more value than we think. Accurate records protect the healthcare industry from legal disputes, complaints, or lawsuits. And a lot of credit for that goes to the expert transcriptionists. They create reliable, meticulous, and law-compliant documentation of records that can be used as evidence. While sustaining the operations and management of your medical facility, the transcribed files also help the staff bill insurance companies. Transcribed files have to be absolutely accurate as they are used to claim rights and settlements. Hence, hiring adept medical transcriptionists would be a sensible option.
- Useful for the Support Staff – Medical transcription services have become a boon for nurses, medical students, and other medical professionals. Here’s how- If a doctor is unavailable for some reason, the support staff can use the medical transcriptions to understand the patient’s health and alarming symptoms, if there are any. They can even assist the lab technicians with testing samples while prescribing the right dosage of medicines.
- Accurate Medical Records – Outsourcing medical transcription services helps to create an accurate patient database that ensures the provision of the right cure. Transcription maintains the records of the patient’s treatment, current health condition, and the future course of action to cure the ailment. Maintaining patient history (reports, diagnosis, medication, surgery notes, and lab tests) is documented perfectly and improves the efficiency of doctors and surgeons.
- Saves Valuable Lives – Many times in medical facilities, patients are required to move to other countries for better or more specific treatments according to their medical condition. At the time, having multilingual medical transcription helps the doctor who will cure the patient. The files depict the patient’s exact condition, the medication they are currently on, and the lab or test reports. If the patient is to be treated by multiple experts, such a well-documented patient record entirely enriches communication amongst doctors from diverse specializations. The documented data saves time and benefits the medics to decide upon the best possible diagnosis and treatment.
To Conclude
Outsourcing medical transcription services encourages medical experts to focus more on the patient. Rather than writing down the notes on the notepad or directly on the EHR, they can comfortably speak to the patient and record the conversation on the recording device as required. Preferring medical transcription outsourcing is safer than a standard medical scribe due to the possibility of functional creep. Functional creep means utilizing the scribe for clerical work (that is outside the scope of their work) and putting the medic at risk of carelessness. When outsourcing with a company providing medical transcription services, you also sign necessary documentation (NDA, SLA) that ensures the complete accuracy and the security of the transcribed files, substantially reducing the risk of functional creep.