How to Find the Right Medical Transcription Service Provider?

What are medical transcription services?

Medical transcription also known as MT is the job of transcribing or putting on paper the medical reports that are in the form of audio records. The reports are dictated by doctors, physicians, nurses and other practitioners of the medical field. The type of data that is transcribed includes.

• Voice notes
• Voice files or
• Any other forms of spoke material

What does a medical transcriptionist do?

A medical transcriptionist is also sometimes known as a healthcare documentation specialist. Their job is to translate the voice recordings of healthcare workers into more formal reports. It is vital that the files accurately document as they are used in medical practices a minor change can have important consequences. The written documents transcribed by the MTs should be well-crafted and of high quality for understanding purposes. The quality of MT is important for the doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers to evaluate and chart out proper treatment for the patient by comparing their current medical conditions.

What is the importance of medical transcription services?

With the development of technologies and the invention of affordable voice recognition software, the demand for human transcriptionist has gone down. There is a wide variety of software available in the market to act as a substitute for a human transcriptionist.

Many physicians now believe they can do the work on their own with the help of such advanced software. However, even though the use of voice recognition software can reduce the turnaround time of the work they are never 100% accurate and there are always chances of error. And because of that, the responsibility of proofreading the transcribed data falls on the shoulder of the physician himself which can sometimes take way more time than expected. This lack of accuracy in voice recognition software makes it necessary to have human oversight.

In recent days, companies providing MT services have spurred in the market and there are several trustable companies providing medical transcription services such as Sybridmd for example. There are even individuals working as freelance transcribers on various online platforms. There are several digital platforms where you can find a medical transcriptionist specialist for the purpose of transcribing your medical work. This gives the healthcare workers time to relax and take a break from their hectic routine as some of the work is leveraged by these transcription service providers.

Choosing a Transcription Service provider

Healthcare workers including doctors, nurses, and physicians can benefit by using MT services. They can use these services as a form of their note-taking process which they can consult whenever they feel the need for it. However, the medical data of patients should be used with utmost care. Here are some ways to implement it:

1. Make sure the data is secure

The security of medical information is the most essential factor. It should be kept in mind that the information and health condition of every patient is different from one another and misuse of data, if not secured, means you can lose your patient’s confidence. Going with the idea that not every patient is comfortable with sharing their medical conditions is important and hence respecting the patient’s privacy should be a top priority for the medical transcription service provider.

2. Legitimacy of data

The main goal of MTs is to save accurate data which the doctor or any other healthcare providers can consult later. Since the data of the patient’s medical condition is taken into account during their diagnosis process even the smallest change can adversely affect the patient’s health condition and can result in negative consequences. The medical service providers should provide at least three to four levels of quality assurance.

The importance of such practice is that there are fewer chances of mistakes and the accuracy of transcribed data can be maintained. This practice also makes sure that the information is free of any error before sending the data to the physician for further use. Hence, it is important to check the level of quality assurance before choosing a medical transcribing service as some transcription services providers use quality control techniques.

3. Meet the deadlines

The important factor to consider while choosing a particular transcription service is to check whether they meet the deadline. Providing data on time is as important for a medical transcriptionist as providing accurate data. Delays in the provision of data can negatively affect patients especially for those where timely treatment is very important for the fast recovery of the patients. Hence, going for a transcription service that can transcribe an accurate report in the shortest ways is essential.

4. The specialty of the transcription service provider

If a company provides a list of references and specialties that they are serving then they are better than novice companies. The specialization of the transcription service provider should be taken into account before choosing one. Not all transcription services are specialized to serve the same specialty. Therefore, it is best to consider a transcription service which got prior experience in serving a similar specialty as they would know the technical terms and jargon used in the specific field.

5. Cost analysis

To ensure that you are not being ripped off or paying extra than the market rate, it is important to consult more than two companies and compare the prices of both to analyze which one fits within your budget. Sometimes companies, especially startup can agree for very low prices but the quality they would deliver might be compromised. So to ensure that you can give short term work to the transcription company to see their performance and once satisfied you can change the short-term contract to long-term contract. One way to do this is to go for monthly subscriptions before signing long term commitments.