Factoring Makes List of 101 Ways to Save Money

Jill Amadio, Jacquelyn Lynn, Ivan R. Misner, Chris Penttila, Guen Sublette and Laura Tiffany of Entrepreneur.com came recently contributed to a very important document for business owners: 101 Ways to Save Money in Your Business.

Compiled to advise business owners and entrepreneurs on how to save money in a penny-pinching economy, the accounts receivable factoring specialists at PRN Funding found #86 particularly helpful:

“Consider the factors. Factors–companies that essentially buy and then liquidate a company’s accounts receivable–provide an option to tied-up money.”

PRN Funding Celebrates Medical Transcription Week

Following suit with the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI), PRN Funding wants to extend a very heartfelt, Happy Medical Transcription Week!

Per the organization’s web site, the AHDI is encouraging medical transcriptionists and editors to embrace the theme of the 2009 National Medical Transcription week, Knowledge is  and celebrate “by doing something important for yourself.”

Click here to see what else you can do to celebrate National Medical Transcription Week.

AHDI/MTIA EHR Task Force Recruiting for Focus Group

The AHDI/MTIA EHR Task Force has a very real goal to “develop and release an EHR Readiness Toolkit, a resource guide for our sector in preparing for healthcare’s migration to an electronic health information infrastructure,” according to a recent Vitals eNewsletter.

In order to meet this goal, the Task Force wants to form two focus groups of transcriptionists with EMR/EHR integration experience to provide insight, recommendations and feedback to help develop the toolkit.

The Task Force is seeking approximately 8-10 MTs or transcription managers/supervisors who have experience as employees with facility migration to an EMR/EHR are needed for one focus group, and approximately 8-10 MTSOs or independent contractors who have been part of a client’s migration to an EMR/EHR for the second focus group.

Some of the duty’s involved with the focus groups include: complete a comprehensive questionnaire, partake in 1-2 meetings, and review the toolkit prior to its release.

If you are interested and able to participate, contact Tiffany Wagner (twagner@ahdionline.org or 209-341-2461).

2009 MTIA Conference Recap

PRN Funding recently had the opportunity to connect with many MTSOs and medical transcriptionists when we exhibited at the 20th Annual MTIA Conference in Louisville, KY a couple of weeks ago.

Account Manager, Joanna Schafer, represented PRN Funding in booth #26, and she had the opportunity to speak with a number of MTSOs about the benefits of PRN Funding’s medical transcription funding program.

In a recap email, MTIA listed a slew of key issues and priorities discussed at this year’s conference as well, namely:

  1. The 2009 MTIA Conference had 80 first-time attendees.
  2. MTIA membership grew by 10%.
  3. Attendees wholeheartedly supported a uniform visibility campaign comprised of advocacy to key health policymakers and a public relations strategy focused on the sector’s contribution to quality patient care delivery.
  4. MTIA recognized that the recently enacted HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act) and healthcare reform present tremendous opportunities for the clinical documentation sector, as long as the sector is organized and focused.
  5. “Discrete reportable transcription” can be integrated with EHR technology as a method of increasing EHR adoption.
  6. With the number of consumers who are documenting their personal health stories continues to increase and more outcomes driven data coming from the provider community, there are new dynamic business models being created for the clinical documentation sector.
  7. The Health Story Project promotes and enhances the value of narrative text in the age of EHRs by producing and encouraging the adoption of  standards for the flow of information between common types of healthcare documents and EHRs.
  8. The SRT Summit held an active dialogue concerning the impact of SRT on the clinical documentation sector with an ultimate goal of creating a white paper to assist MTSOs with the challenges of purchasing, adopting and implementing SRT.
  9. The QA Summit reviewed essential elements of a quality assessment process and outlined key components and metrics in order to begin producing a widely accepted quality standard protocol that will serve the healthcare community as prudent, efficient, cost-effective, valid, reliable and scalable to ensure quality of all health records.

Philippines Gaining Ground in Outsourced Transcription

According to an article in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times, “The business of transcribing American medical files employed 34,000 Filipinos and generated $476 million in revenue last year,” and it’s been predicted that the number of medical transcriptionists will triple, and revenue will jump to more than $1.7 billion by the end of next year.

To date, India has held the largest share of outsourced U.S. medical transcription work, but it’s facing growing competition from Philippines, Pakistan and Caribbean countries.

Ernesto Herrara, a former senator who heads the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, mentioned in the article that Filipinos have an important advantage over Indians when it comes to outsourced medical transcription–Because the Philippines is a former American colony, its citizens are more familiar with American accents. He also explained that the country has a “vast pool of jobless medical workers who need little additional training to take dictation from American doctors.”

Not to mention that the fact still remains that it’s more pricey to have things transcribed in the States as opposed to overseas. American medical transcriptionists make $31,250 a year compared to a $6,000 annual salary for a Filipino medical transcriptionist.

Click here to read the entire article: American’ medical files go digital, by way of Asia.

Cloud Lifted on MedQuist Lawsuit

In January, we gave our medical transcription blog readers an update on the MedQuist Class Action Settlement. Four months later, we have a new update… In short, the litigation cloud that had been looming over MedQuist has finally been lifted because the Company recently announced entry of final judgment approving settlement and started dismissing the consolidated medical transcriptionist class action lawsuit.

As a refresher, Medquist originally reported in 2004 that certain individual medical transcriptionists began class action litigation against MedQuist, alleging that the medical transcription service systematically and wrongfully underpaid medical transcriptionists.

As part of the settlement, MedQuist agreed to implement certain measures to ensure transparency in medical transcription pay. In addition, MedQuist agreed to pay $1.5 million (approximately $1.1 million will be given to the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity). The funds are to be used to develop programming for the general benefit of medical transcriptionists and the medical transcription industry. AHDI also agreed to offer certain programs for free to class members outlined in the settlement documentation.

Click here for additional information on the MedQuist Lawsuit.

PRN Funding Headed to Louisville for MTIA Meeting

If you are an MTSO interested in increasing your company’s cash flow, and you are planning on attending the 2009 MTIA Conference April 22-25, be sure to stop by booth #26 to learn about PRN Funding’s medical transcription factoring program.

Click here to read the official PRN Funding press release: PRN Funding Set to Exhibit at 2009 MTIA Meeting.

Speech Recognition to Meet During MTIA Conference

The Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) has brought together a group of  experts within the medical transcription workplace and technical experience to form guidelines for the MT community to employ when utilizing speech recognition platforms.

The most recent MTIA Association Update reports:

The Workgroup decided to hold a summit during the annual conference in Louisville, Kentucky on Friday, April 24, 2009, to seek input related to a broad range of issues that arose during an initial draft of a white paper on SRT adoption. The summit objective is to finalize and publish the white paper and issue a “Speech Recognition Adoption Guide” for members of the industry to use when considering the incorporation of SRT into their operations. The purpose of the Adoption Guide is not to debate the technology, but to provide guidance on the operational impact and requirements that may be encountered during implementation.

Click here to read the initial scope and objectives document for the Speech Recognition Adoption Guide.

MTIA Board Plans Strategic Retreat

Linda Yaniszewski, president of the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) announced in an article in February’s Health Data Matrix that the board members of MTIA were headed  to Daytona Beach, FL for an upcoming strategic retreat.

In an effort to “master the changes” in the medical transcription associations (MTIA and AHDI) and the medical transcription industry, the retreat is scheduled to cover an aggressive agenda. In her own words, Yaniszewki said highlighted the demaning agenda:

  1. Revisit our vision and purpose to ensure that it is still relevant to the association to support our members
  2. Discuss what we do well and what we need to do better as an association to support our members and help them in these turbulent economic times
  3. Define our core values–what’s most important to us in how we treat our members and each other
  4. Perform a SWOT exercise where we will identify our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as an industry and an association
  5. Clarify our strategic priorities to help overcome those challenges
  6. Determine the critical success factors and what success will look like for MTIA if we accomplish our goals
  7. Identify new ways to make sure we execute the above and hold each other accountable

Half of Nation’s Hospitals Operating in the Red

It wasn’t very long ago when PRN Funding wrote a 3-part series on the healthcare cash flow crisis in America, giving a glimpse into the actual costs of America’s healthcare system. Written at the end of 2004,we shared a startling statistic in the three-part Cash Poor Series, 1/3 of the nation’s hospitals were operating in the red. Just 4 years later, 50% of America’s hospitals are currently operating in the red, and many are in the midst of cutting back on services and staffing.

According to an article that appeared in today’s Los Angeles Times, “Forty-four percent of hospitals have seen declines in surgeries, with hip procedures showing the steepest drop-off at 45%, according to another new survey. As a result, 47% of the hospitals surveyed expect to make staff cuts, and 69% plan to cancel or delay equipment purchases, according to the survey by Novation, a company that manages supplier contracts for hospitals.

Novation has responded by demanding that vendors maintain or roll back prices on the goods they sell to hospitals.”

Click here to read the entire article: Half of nation’s hospitals running losses.

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