KLAS Study Reveals MTSO Ratings

Advance for Health Information Professionals gave some details about the recent KLAS study last week.  The study reported on the current trends in the world of medical transcription outsourcing.  I’ve listed a few of the study’s findings in bullet points below:

 

For providers using MTSO, the overall satisfaction scores rose 4.5 points in 2007 from 77.2 to 81.7 out of a possible 100 points.

 

Although many are still not comfortable with the idea of sending medical transcription offshore, the overall perception is improving. Some of the benefits of using medical transcription service organizations were faster turnaround times (TAT), reduced costs and improved quality.

 

Even though the idea of offshore medical transcription is slowly increasing in popularity, the number of provider organizations who reported using them has decreased from 55 percent in 2006 to 38 percent in 2007.

 

The need for medical transcription is increasing due to a) Electronic medical records and the need to populate them quickly, and b) speech recognition services needing editing on the back end, so many MTSOs are increasing their capacity.

 

Pricing is also changing.  The most popular method continues to be charging per line (67 percent of respondents use this method), down from 81 percent in 2006.  Those charging by the Visual Black Character (VBC) has grown from 12 percent in 2006 to 23 percent in 2007.  Overall, the average medical transcription price ranges from 11.9 cents to 13.2 cents per line.

 

Study respondents also listed multiple tips for their fellow providers who are considering outsourced medical transcription, so I condensed those answers as well into a bullet point list:

 

Look into the whole medical transcription package when choosing a vendor.  For example, some MTSOs may charge less to transcribe, but they might require you to do more quality checks upfront.

 

If you are thinking of sending work offshore, be sure to look closely at where the work is being performed and the employment policies and practices that mitigate your risk.

 

Find out how MTs are assigned.

 

Ask the vendor about their support structure and customer service practices.

 

Do some investigative work and see how a medical transcription service communicated with providers in the past to get an idea of how communication with your company will be.

 

Look closely at the types of tools that are available to distribute, track and capture inbounc dictation, work in progress and outbound reports.

 

Understand how charges will be handled.

 

Know how quality standards will be measured and ensured.

 

Click here to read the entire article, Study Reveals Medical Transcription Services Organization Ratings, by Michael K. Smith

 

 

 

Thoughts on the merge between AHDI and MTIA

As long time members of both MTIA and AHDI, PRN Funding is excited about all the new opportunities that are now available to the medical transcription industry because of the partership between MTIA and AHDI.

The president of PRN Funding, Phil Cohen, has already taken advantage of some of the technological opportunities provided by the AHDI/MTIA alliance when he gave a webinar presentation to medical transcriptionists and MTSOs across America.  We’re equally excited to exhibit at ACE08 and MTIA’s 19th Annual Conference as well.

Overall, the new partnership seems to be running smoothly from our vendor point-of-view.

Q: How do you feel about the partnership between the two organizations?

Speech Recognition Technology – Embrace it or Fight it?

Bob Gerzel, Executive VP of Transcription, Technology, & Support, LLC wrote an article in the October 2007 edition of Health Data Matrix entitled: A 360-degree Look at SRT in which he talked about how technological advances in the medical transcription industry affects customers, prospective customers, MTSOs and MTs.

 

In the article, Gerzel writes:

 

“To many MTSOs, speech recognition is nothing more than a productivity tool enabling them to accomplosh more with the same or fewer resources.  Some MTSOs have embraced speech recognition technology and have enjoyed much success in this environment.  They continue to find a growing number of opportunities on a variety of platforms, while others have chosen a model whereby they operate on the client/vendor speech recognition platforms.

 

Since healthcare organizations continue to look to reduce costs and increase performance, those MTSOs who have chosen to embrace speech recognition technology have positioned themselves well for future opportunities.”

 

Q: Do you agree with Gerzel’s analysis?  Should MTSOs continue to embrace new technologies in the medical transcription industry?  Should they continue to partner with vendor management systems?

 

Evolving Medical Transcription Model

Gartner Industry Research released a new report on the future of medical transcription. The report outlines the much talked about “Editor” Model of medical transcription, in which medical transcriptionists spend the majority of their time correcting, reformatting and augmenting the material already created by speech recognition programs.

The report also discusses another dictation approach that have left some industry experts worried. The “Once-and-Done” Model (OAD), which appears to be rapidly gaining acceptance in the ambulatory, single-physician and small physician’s practice marketplace.

The report goes on to explain the model: “In the OAD model, a physician performs dictation while seated at a computer terminal. Speech recognition is used to convert the physician’s voice directly into text, and this same physician is responsible to correct errors in speech recognition, as well as to format the document appropriately…A clinical decision support system may then examining this content to determine whether any alerts or warnings are warranted based on the information that has just been generated.”

Although Gartner hails the OAD model as the next big thing in medical transcription with little disadvantages, not all industry experts agree. (Click here to read the October Cover Story of For the Record Magazine – Once & Done Transcription: A Bold Spin or Off Target?) Whether you agree or disagree with the emergence of this new medical transcription model, it’s certainly something that MTSOs should be watching closely.

2007 AHDI Reno, NV Conference

We’re back from the AHDI 29th Annual Conference that was held at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, NV! Held from August 15-17, the trade show proved to be a busy one for PRN Funding. We were able to connect with many medical transcription service owners (MTSOs) who were interested in learning more about PRN Funding’s accounts receivable factoring services.

Q: Did you attend the AHDI conference? What did you learn? Will you be attending next year in Orlando, FL?

New transcribing options available for medical transcriptionists

With all of the changes going on in the medical transcription industry, medical transcription service owners (MTSOs) and medical transcriptionists have a lot on their plate. Still there are a lot of transcriptionists who remain optimistic and have good reasons to back up their viewpoints. In her blog, thrivingandtranscribing.com, Diane Fusco (an 18-year medical transcriptionist veteran) often talks about triumphs in the medical transcription industry. Below is a passage from her blog, which talks about a new transcribing outlet that has recently become available to medical transcriptionists out of necessity:

“I am saving the best news for last: with the popularity of teleseminars, Webinars and podcasts, it seems like just about everyone has some audio that needs to be transcribed. In the last six months I’ve had more requests to type general than medical audio. These clients just find me. But do you want to know where to get clients who are in a field that uses a lot of transcription? Coaching! That’s right—personal and business coaches do their fair share of teleseminars and each of these needs a transcript. And with coaching deemed one of the hottest professions of the next ten years, that’s indeed good news for transcriptionists.”

To read more of Fusco’s blog, visit thrivingandtranscribing.com.

MT Recognized as Apprenticeable Occupation

As of March 2007, graduates of selected medical transcription training programs now have access to registered apprenticeship programs, as the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has now declared medical transcription to be an apprenticeable profession – the first step in establishing a national apprenticeship program. The Office of Apprenticeship Training, Employer and Labor Services approved the application for apprenticeability determination submitted by the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) along with the Association of Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI), formerly American Association for Medical Transcription (AAMT).

The Registered Apprenticeship Program, sponsored by the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA), will offer structured on-the-job learning and related technical instruction for qualified medical transcriptionists entering the profession. The two associations, along with the Office of Apprenticeship Training, Employer and Labor Services, are finalizing program details.

Click here to read the entire press release Medical Transcription Recognized as an apprenticeable occupation by the U.S. Department of Labor or visit MTIA’s workforce development page for more information.

MTSOs & Platform Providers Battle for Clients

For years now, small and mid-sized medical transcription services owners (MTSOs) have worried about how new speech recognition technology and off-shoring will or won’t affect the MT marketplace. Now a new issue has arisen, and it has the potential to be the most threatening to the current livelihood of small and mid-sized MTSOs who are already battling for business in a competitive industry.

In an article that appeared in May’s edition of For the Record Magazine, writer Elizabeth S. Roop describes a “high-priced tug-of-war” match with MTSOs pulling on one side of the rope and larger technology companies yanking on the other. Click here to read the article: MTSOs & Platform Providers Battle for Clients, Control.

Joint Task Force Recommends MT Industry adopt visual black characters

There’s no question that the need for a standard unit of measure within the medical transcription industry is long overdue. With that said, earlier this year, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) Joint Task Force on Standards Development gave its formal recommendation that the MT industry should adopt visual black character (VBC) as the standard unit of measure for the medical transcription of medical records.

 

Originally a discussion topic within MTIA’s Billing, Methods and Principles (BMP) Committee, a statement outlining five billing method principles (Verifiability, Definability, Measurability, Consistency and Integrity) was developed to help identify key business practices. The BMP Committee’s principles later helped define the VBC.

 

As detailed in A Standard Unit of Measure for Transcribed Reports, the Joint Task Force defines VBC as “a character that can be seen with the naked eye.” Spaces, bolding, underlining and spell checking are among the configurations that would not be counted using this new measurement. In order to help MTSOs, medical transcriptionists and other industry professionals better understand the VBC, AHIMA/MTIA released a FAQs.

 

The medical transcription industry has developed a reputation of questionable integrity based on the unethical actions of a few rogue firms that have taken advantage of the fact that a line was virtually immeasurable. This should serve to level the playing field and let the best companies thrive. Needless to say, PRN Funding supports this standardizing venture.

Happy National Medical Transcriptionist Week!

Established in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan, National Medical Transcriptionist Week, National Medical Transcriptionist Week is celebrated annually in the third week of May to bring public and industry-wide attention to the role and contribution of medical transcriptionists in healthcare delivery and clinical documentation.

The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI), formally American Association for Medical Transcription is celebrating the week with the AAMT Walk for Red Day: Walk for Red Day is a day set aside during National Medical Transcriptionist Week for AAMT members and component groups to participate in a walk-a-thon with the goal of raising awareness about women’s heart health and raising funds to support both The Heart Truth and sponsorship of fitness celebrity Richard Simmons to the AAMT Annual Convention and Expo in Reno, Nevada, in August of 2007.1.

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