Medical transcription: A case study for outsourcing

Dr.Williams, 37, was based in New Jersey in an upscale neighborhood. He was a general physician and had a well-established practice. He had a small clinic right next to his home, a staff of two, a nurse and a receptionist cum secretary. He also had a part time accountant who took care of filing reimbursement forms, bank work and tax filing.

The nurse, Sarah would help him with initial information collection like patient name, social security number, details of the healthcare plan, demographics and assisted him while examining patients, administering injections, checking blood pressure etc. The receptionist/secretary Jane was in charge of scheduling patients, handling patients when they came in and transcribing the doctors notes once he had finished dictating his notes.

Dr.Williams found that he was constantly juggling things, and he could never find the information he wanted on time. He could not actually find fault with Jane as she seemed to be overloaded with work. She constantly seemed to be juggling phone calls, people in the reception, typing out files and maintaining the filing system. He was also informed by Robert the accountant that his fund flow was low, as filing for claims seemed to take an inordinate time, owing to the fact that he could never find information on time.

Dr.Williams would observe whenever there was an additional influx of patients he would receive reports as late as seven days including for those patients for whom he had ordered further tests. This would hinder him from making the appropriate treatment plans. He would find himself relying on scribbled notes, his own memory and the inputs provided by his nurse. And one day he was stunned to observe a patient craning her neck to try and read from the computer trying to view what Jane had typed. When he looked at the screen himself, he was flabbergasted to observe it was a file about a well-known patient of his who was having some rather embarrassing health problems.

He would also find that he had lesser time to spend with his family due to the fact that an inordinate amount of his time was spent looking for information in the patient records and then correcting wrong entries. He would questio
Jane about it only to be told that she only had so much time to do everything. Sometimes he would find that whole tapes of his recordings had been misplaced and therefore big chunks of information would be missing from Patient records, sometimes entire files would be missing.

He tried to outsource the excess work of transcription to an independent contractor (IC) and soon found that the rates were high and he had to spend a lot of time explaining to the IC what he ‘actually’ wanted. He also was not assured of uninterrupted services during weekends and Holidays. In addition, more time was spent on coordinating the files transcribed by his secretary and those transcribed by the IC.

And when claims were filed for reimbursement, he would find that it was very difficult to bill the patient for the rejected amount of the claim as too much time had passed since the patient’s visit.

One day he got in touch with a full service medical transcription provider. The people from medical transcription service provider's office heard his office woes and offered to take care of his medical transcription needs. He was not sure but decided to listen to their offer. The transcription service provider offered him a plan for a complete medical transcription solution with the following benefits:

· He could retain his current mode of dictationrn· Transcribed files would be returned with a turnaround time of 24 hours. If he required STAT files sooner, they could be returned within 4-12 hours. · The files would have a guaranteed accuracy of above 99% · All his weekend and holiday transcription work would be covered. · He would be provided with the benefits of an online system, which would help him trace his dictations and transcribed documents easily. His dictations would be uploaded automatically and he would have the options of printing finished documents automatically, if required · The information would be completely securern· The cost per line of transcription would be 10 cents per 65-character linern· Any specific formats and templates he wanted could be incorporatedrn· Medical transcriptionists who were specifically trained in his specialty would transcribe his filesrn· They had the ability to transmit information from the transcribed files into an EMR system if requiredrn· They would offer him a free trial period to enjoy their services before deciding to sign with themrn· He could talk to their customers who had benefited from similar services

Dr.Williams checked with a couple of satisfied customers and decided to avail a free trial of the company's medical transcription services. He was pleasantly surprised at how easy and convenient it was. In case he or his staff had any queries the service provider would attend to them immediately. He was thrilled to see that his medical transcription costs had come down by nearly 50%. Information was available on time and was captured accurately. The technology features offered by the service provider made life easier, by making it easy to locate any information. He was also happy to observe that the entire process was secure. Dr. Williams decided to sign a contract with them to avail their services

In the next few weeks, Robert the accountant informed him that his funds flow had improved and reimbursements were happening faster because they were now able to file claims much sooner than they were doing earlier.
Outsourcing medical transcription can lead to excellent results when done in the proper manner.