Monday, August 30, 2010

Medical Transcription Offers Real Typing Jobs

Medical transcription jobs from home provide legitimate typing jobs. Because of the aging population, the need for health care services has increased. This in turn has increased the need for medical transcriptionists and there is a lot of work available in this field.

Medical transcription jobs includes working for individual doctors at physician's offices, hospitals, and a variety of healthcare facilities, insurance companies, legal offices, research centers, laboratories, government medical facilities, and other organizations. However, you are not restricted to working in an office, and many transcriptionists work from home either as freelancers or employees.

When freelancing or working from home, you can charge slightly higher fees than medical transcriptionists working in an office because clients do not have to pay employee benefits. They set their own hours and can choose to work part time or full time.

The person who transcribes the dictation is called a medical transcriptionist, typists, medical word processors and medical secretaries. They use a transcription machine and a word processing program to transcribe dictation into a typed document. When transcribing digital recordings, they use a specialized foot pedal and software.

What kind of work will you do as a medical transcriptionist? You simply transcribe or type dictated information into a word processing program.

The health professional dictates the patient information into a recorder or through a phone dictation system. Medical transcriptionists transcribe this information into a typed document. The transcribed documents are sent back to the dictator as a digital file or hard copy for verification and approval and they become part of a patient's permanent medical record.

What skills do you need? You need to be familiar with many medical specialties and must be able to produce accurate transcription. The finished transcription work or transcribed documents provide legal documentation of patient care. They are needed for insurance reimbursement, litigation and scientific research.

To get medical transcription jobs, you will need to be proficient with medical terminology and you may need to have formal medical transcription training. As health records contain patients' personal information and medical information, transcriptionists must keep all information confidential.

How do you start getting medical transcription work from home?

You can receive and send transcription work through the Internet, making it possible to work from any location. Many medical transcriptionists can work from home either as independent contractors or home-based employees.

Client for transcription from home jobs may include medical professionals, physicians, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and insurance companies. It may be easier to start by working for larger medical transcription service offices. Some individual transcriptionists may be open to helping you get started.

You may be able to find clients advertising, through the Internet and online job sites and freelance sites.

If you want to do transcription work from home as an employee, you are more likely to get work from home from an employer you have worked for in an office previously.

If you're looking for legitimate typing work from home, consider medical transcription. It's one of the best home typing jobs from home and there is plenty of work available.

Read more..

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Medical Transcription Service For Healthcare Management Companies

Recognized medical transcription companies provide safe and reliable, customized medical transcription service for healthcare management companies, hospitals, outpatient clinics, and individual physicians.

Transcription services are available for death summaries, patient histories, ER reports, clinic notes, consultation reports, referrals, laboratory summaries, medical billing, verifications, authorizations, medical coding and patient scheduling.

Ensures High Accuracy Rates in Transcription Service

With the help of trained and experienced staff, MT companies convert voice files into text format. Transcription services are available for a number of medical specialties including orthopedics, gastroenterology, radiology, cardiology, podiatry, internal medicine, chiropractic,and more.

To ensure high accuracy rates in medical transcription, the companies keep in-house proofreaders, editors and quality analysts. Besides promising high quality in transcription services, companies offer Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance. HIPAA compliant companies safeguard clients' privacy and confidentiality as per the norms of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Web-based Transcription Service Allows Online Reviews

One of the major advantages of hiring a MT company is that clients are given convenient choices to submit their dictations. These include digital recorders, toll free numbers and computer based dictations. Web-based transcription system allows online reviews and editing. MT companies use HL 7 transcription interface and document flow management software to ensure complete solutions.

Advanced technical devices and expert personnel together help medical transcription companies offer value added services for healthcare management companies with a high accuracy rate of 99% within customized turnaround times. Depending on the requirements of the clients, short term and long term services can be availed of.

Read more..

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Outsourcing Medical Transcription Helps Reduce Management Expenses

Many health care facilities may not be aware that management expenses form a major cost component of in-house transcription

When the cost of in-house medical transcription is computed one of the cost components that are often overlooked is the cost of managing the in-house medical transcription needs. Managing medical transcription in-house would typically involve the following management activities:

Sourcing the right people: This would involve advertising for people and assessing the quality of people before recruiting them as transcriptionists

Sourcing equipment: This would involve assessing the equipment requirements (including computers, listening devices, foot pedals, printers, stationery etc.) And then acquiring them for the right price

Sourcing technology: The technology required for starting up medical transcription like software for routing, firewalls, encryptions, uploading, downloading and archival features etc need to be assessed and acquired

Space allocation: There would be certain space needs for carrying out transcription work in-house this needs to be assessed and allocated

Training the people: People need to be trained on the work requirements and procedures to be followed etc.

Once the resources are in place then the next step is execution of the work which involves the following steps:

Collection of dictation: Dictation of records by doctors needs to be collected in a centralized place for further processing

Allocation of dictation: Dictated audio files need to be allocated to medical transcriptionists so that they commence with their work

Supervising the medical transcription work: Work once collected and allocated needs to be supervised to make sure that it is being executed according to the required standards

Assessing quality: Accuracy/quality of transcribed documents needs to be assessed to minimize errors

Assessing turnaround time: Turnaround time of reports is very important for the treatment of patients, record keeping and managing receivables etc. hence turnaround time schedules have to be maintained

Ensuring security: Transcription would entail transmission of confidential files of patients back and forth, care has to be taken to make sure that all the channels of transmission are secure and HIPAA/HITECH compliant

Collecting all the transcribed files: All the finished files need to be compiled at one central server for transmission back to the concerned doctors for their records and further use

Obtaining feedback: Feedback on the quality of reports along with any special formats required needs to be collected from the doctors and communicated to the transcriptionists for implementation

Updating/training medical transcriptionists on latest developments: Medical field has new developments on a daily basis in terms of drugs, treatments etc, medical transcriptionists need to be constantly updated about these developments

Making arrangements for holiday/emergency medical transcription requirements: Due to unpredictability of patient inflow and staff fluctuations during holidays etc arrangements have to be made so that transcription needs are taken care of during these times

Maintaining archives: Archiving of medical reports for easy access in case of future reference for various purposes

Arranging Repairs and maintenance for all equipments to prevent breakdowns: Repairs and maintenance of transcription equipments is a constant process required for the smooth execution of transcription work

The vast array of management activities required to execute transcription in-house will add to the cost per line of transcription. When the transcription needs are outsourced, effectively all the management costs and activities associated with in-house transcription will be outsourced. Assessing the medical transcription service provider on the basis of quality/accuracy, pricing, turnaround time and data security is important before making the outsourcing decision.

Read more..

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Starting a Medical Transcription Business

Medical transcription is one of the few hot careers of this decade. With aging population and decreasing workforce, never before has the shortage of medical transcriptionists been so evident. This gives an opportunity to explore medical transcription business to strike it big and to strike at right time.

With tough times and economic slowdown, venturing in to any business is a difficult proposition. However, you will be amazed to know how easily you can start your own transcription business without a big hole in your pocket. So what do you require to start a home-based medical transcription business? Well, to be true, not much.

With good knowledge of transcription, starting a home-based business should be very simple. Some important things to consider before starting this business are the initial investments, requisite training, marketing, profitability, and time management. Let us know more in details about each of these.

Investment in transcription is not huge. You require a good computer, printer, fax machine, earphones, foot controls, audio recorders and software required for transcription. These include Stedman, drug dictionary, English dictionary, FTP, audio convertors, audio players, office software and some others. Basically, standard office equipment is what you will need to start with. As the business is home based, you again save on the rent and other miscellaneous expenses.

Training in medical transcription usually requires a period of 4 to 6 months with many courses available on the internet these days; some of them available online too. The fee for learning medical transcription is not too high either. By investing around 5 to 6 hours a day for a period of 4 to 6 months, you can easily become a good transcriptionist.

Most of the transcriptionists are able to work independently by the time they finish their course and so should you. With proper guidance and knowledge, you should be able to work on all sorts of audio transcription and be ready to start your own business after completion of your course.

Every business requires efficient marketing to propel the revenues and get a strong client base. Though medical transcription business also requires marketing, it is certainly not at the same level, as do most other businesses. Most of the time marketing would involve telephone calls and personal meetings.

Being a home-based business, you just require 2 or 3 good clients to support and grow your business. Again, one saves a lot of money in marketing this business as compared to others.

Read more..

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Medical Transcription - The Myths and Truths

In recent times there have been many myths and misconceptions regarding medical transcription, giving it a bad press. Given below are a few myths:

* Medical transcription is easy and anybody can be a transcriptionist: This is a common myth about transcription, given that entry into this profession is relatively easy. No formal qualifications are required except for an aptitude for the English language, good keyboard skills and a keen ear. In spite of the easy entry to qualify as a medical transcriptionist, a person has to go through extensive training in medical terminology, procedures and drugs. This profession also requires a person to constantly educate themselves on the latest developments in the medical field

* Medical transcription is just a data entry service: Transcription is a service, which requires attributes like good listening, applying context when in doubt and an extensive knowledge base to draw from unlike data entry. Moreover transcription goes beyond just a data entry service by having additional benefits like effective report distribution, archiving and adding value to the healthcare facility in terms of reducing staff burden, reducing capital investment in medical transcription, and freeing up resources like utilities and real estate.

* Medical transcription can be replaced with voice recognition software: Voice recognition software is software that automatically converts the dictation of the healthcare professional into a typed text. On the face of this, it sounds like the answer to the transcription needs of a healthcare facility.

But this software is not easy to use due to the following reasons:

1. The software has to be 'taught' to recognize the voice of the user and terminology used
2. A healthcare professional has to dramatically slow down his usual way of dictation and speak in a structured way, including punctuation etc., resulting in loss of productivity of the healthcare professional.
3. In spite of all these preparations the accuracy of the voice recognition software has been found to be only 60%-80%.

Because of such low accuracy levels the need for transcriptionists arises to proof read the reports and edit them to bring them up to the desired level of accuracy.

Outsourcing transcription is time consuming: Outsourcing transcription can be made easy and quick by analyzing the specific needs of the healthcare facility and evaluating a prospective service provider by these attributes. A quick way to assess the service provider is through:

1. Methods of quality assessment
2. Billing method used
3. Technology used
4. Measures for ensuring HIPAA/HITECH compliance
5. Training methods used
6. Assessing if all the work in done in-house or through the use of sub-contractors.
7. Testimonials
8. Free trial

Read more..

Sunday, August 8, 2010

The Pros and Cons of a Medical Transcription Job

Transcription involves the converting of a voice recording into a written hard copy. These oral recordings could be discussions during a meeting, speeches, court proceedings, surgical procedures, or any type of question and answer sessions between two individuals, which could contain important data that has to be stored. Of the different types of Transcription jobs available, the segment known as Medical Transcription is the one that has a lot of work to offer. Other Transcription jobs available relate to Legal Transcription services, and General Transcription services.

Medical Transcription, as the name implies, relates to transcribing medical data. These are primarily case diagnoses of patients or surgical procedures. It may involve conversations with the patient, the doctor's analysis of the medical condition, and other details relating to the disease.

There are softwares that can transcribe oral information into soft copies but given the nature of medical terminologies, a software might need to be improved quite a lot before it can grasp the nuances of language involved in the medical terms. As of now, the recognition system of a human mind is required to translate the type of medical information contained in these recordings. To be adept at doing Medical Transcription, an individual should have good listening skills, accurate and fast typing skills, and a basic idea of medical systems and the terminology involved in it.

Those who are completely unfamiliar with the medical world will have to take courses in order to become a part of any Medical Transcription services. Medical Transcription is a job that has deadlines, and usually a Transcription has to be submitted within 24 hours. As in every other job, ease and fluency will have to come with time.

If you are finding yourself comfortable with the job, you can even take advanced courses that might contain more difficult terminologies and more descriptive medical information. This is a field where workers are always needed, and the more adept you become in the field, the more your will be in demand.

Different levels of Medical Transcription courses are available to familiarize fresh aspirants with the names and functionality of the medical world. A basic course will have to done to get started in the Medical Transcription services field. Once you get the grip of things, it will be much easier, and you will develop speed and accuracy with time.

You can work at night, or during day, as your prefer. It is a type of flexibility that a regular office job would never allow. And if you are a woman, you can attend to household chores at chosen intervals, without in any way disturbing the work schedule. You can also do the job at your own pace. And all these advantages of flexible timings, freedom from commuting, and working at one's own pace, apply to a man also.

Read more..

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Medical Transcription and Voice Recognition

Medical transcription (MT) assignments are one of the highly acclaimed outsourced jobs in the healthcare industry and are mainly aimed at enabling US and UK based healthcare providers to have cost-effective solutions in maintaining day-to-day patient records.

In the competitive healthcare arena where medical facilities are finding it difficult and expensive to maintain their own in-house transcription facilities, having these jobs outsourced spells huge savings in cost and effort. All major medical transcription service providers are now offering their medical transcription and voice recognition services in a highly customized and time-bound manner.

Voice recognition technology has a key role to play in medical transcription services and is one of the major advancements being made in the transcription sector. Voice recognition technology uses computers to recognize doctors’ dictations but current technologies are not capable of providing 100% accuracy in the transcribed documents and hence all documents generated using voice recognition technologies still require manual proofreading to maintain the high accuracy levels required.

Almost all medical transcription facilities are now offering their services in accordance with the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations. These regulations ensure that all online transactions involving patient records are done in a safe and secure manner. The archival facilities provided by transcription firms are highly beneficial to clients as retrieval and transmission of patient records in future will be much easier.

To have accurate documentation of medical reports, most MT facilities have employed highly skilled and trained transcriptionists. The proofreaders and editors working in these medical transcription facilities make sure that all processed records maintain high accuracy levels of up to 99%. Most of these medical transcription facilities take care to update the knowledge base of their employees so that they remain well informed about the latest developments in medical treatments and medicines. This helps them handle their jobs easily and accurately.

The medical transcription facilities also have a number of related services for their clients which include medical coding and medical billing. To provide benefits for the healthcare industry on the whole, most medical transcription providers are now offering their services for a wide range of healthcare clients.

Healthcare clients in the US who are heavily dependent on medical transcription and voice recognition services include private practitioners, hospitals, clinics, long term care facilities and acute care centers. Medical transcription firms provide their services for short term as well as long term requirements and hence all categories of medical care providers are ensured smooth functioning and timely completion of assigned jobs.

Read more..

Monday, August 2, 2010

Medical Transcription - A Profession Whose Time Has Come

Medical Transcription is the process of interpreting and transcribing the dictation made by healthcare professionals, such as doctors, regarding patient status, treatment procedures, prognoses, diagnoses etc.

The Medical Transcriptionist may also edit the text that is produced by voice recognition software, and requires extensive knowledge of medical pharmacological and anatomical terms.

Medical Transcriptionists in the past would listen to dictations and type it themselves, but with voice recognition software this has become mostly unnecessary. Today the medical transcriptionist usually just edits the output of the software which can range from a few corrections to major changes, because voice recognition software still has not been perfected.

The purpose of medical transcription and the medical transcriptionist remains the same as it was in earlier times, to keep a record of a patient's medical status and treatment. Ancient medical transcription has been noted as writing on ancient cave walls and in documents of lost civilizations.

Not until the late 20th century was Medical Transcription recognized as a profession. Prior to that those that did Medical Transcription were given menial labels such as typists, medical secretaries, dictating machine operators, or word processors.

For those who practice medical transcription, this was and is a highly unjustified job title since the profession requires a wide knowledge of highly technical medical terms. Thus, in 1999, MedicalTranscription was assigned its own job classification and those practicing it were officially called Medical Transcriptionists.

The profession of Medical Transcription has basically been underground, and most people have not heard about it. Nonetheless, Medical Transcription is essential in the ever growing health care industry.

Health care staff do not have the time to write every single bit of information they gather from patients. As a result, the demand for qualified Medical Transcriptionist professionals is rapidly growing, in addition to the fact of the increasing numbers of new medical procedures coming into the mainstream, doctors simply don't have the time to personally transcribe all their findings.

The profession of Medical Transcription is very versatile as well. After a few years of education, Medical Transcriptionists can acquire work from medical transcription firms who receive dictations made by doctors and turn these orders over to medical transcriptionists to be transcribed.

As part of that versatility, a Medical Transcriptionist may be able to work full or part-time from home. The American Association for Medical Transcription is the governing body in the United States that certifies Medical Transcriptionists.
Although you may not need certification to work as one, a certification from the AAMT will certainly increase you're "market value" and credibility.

Medical Transcription has grown out of its infancy of merely listening and transcribing the words dictated by a doctor. Medical Transcription has matured and now requires specific education and knowledge regarding medical language, Greek and Latin prefixes and suffixes, physical anatomy, physiology, disease processes, medical science and procedures, medical instruments, pharmacology, laboratory instruments, laboratory test results, medical reference material techniques and many, many more.

Read more..

Future of Medical Transcription

With the demand for quality medical transcription services rising, medical transcription (MT) outsourcing jobs seem to have a bright and secure future. Medical transcription is the most outsourced job in the healthcare industry and is provided with the aim of reducing both time and cost factors involved in the daily documenting of patient details. As the healthcare industry in the United States is closely associated with insurance firms, time-bound processing of patient records is essential for the smooth functioning of both healthcare and insurance firms.

Almost all US based healthcare facilities find medical transcription outsourcing to be highly beneficial and these services have now become an integral part of their daily functioning. By outsourcing these jobs, healthcare providers can concentrate more on providing better infrastructure and facilities for patients and have to worry less about hiring and training medical transcriptionists. With most transcription facilities functioning according to HIPAA regulations, all patient records remain secure, confident and safe.

To produce good quality patient records, most of these healthcare firms have employed highly skilled and experienced professionals in medical transcription, and their skills and knowledge play a key role in the success of these transcription firms. For new recruits, professional training is being given to achieve higher accuracy levels demanded by the industry. With the help of in-house language experts and proofreaders, most processed patient documents maintain high accuracy levels of up to 99%.

Now both established as well as new entrants in the healthcare industry including hospitals, clinics and private practitioners are aware of the benefits of medical transcription outsourcing and hence are moving towards these services. Most MT providers offer related services such as medical coding and medical billing for their healthcare clients.

India and Philippines are two emerging powers in the medical transcription field and are set to become the hub of future medical transcription jobs. The availability of a vast pool of graduates who are computer-literate and fluent in English and the turnaround time of 24 hrs for submitting assignments, are factors working in favor of the growth of medical transcription firms in these countries.

Right from its initial stages, the medical transcription industry has been undergoing revolutionary changes regarding the equipments and technologies used. From the initial typewriters and Dictaphone transcribers to high end computers, the medical transcription industry is always moving with the latest trends in technology. The quality in operations and the flexibility of the industry in adopting new technologies all ensure that the medical transcription community will have a long and bright future.

Read more..
Medical Transcription US and UK, Effective Medical Transcription Services
/* Google analytics */