Sep 11, 2019
If the heart of a good healthcare practice is a talented and skilled medical team, then the information they use is the blood. Without a strong flow of accurate, transcribed data, progress would slow, wait times would increase, and costly mistakes would become more common. In an attempt to control the transcription process and ensure information is quickly made accessible to their staff in quality documents, some healthcare practices opt to keeping medical transcription in-house. This choice, however, comes at an excessive and redundant cost which could be mitigated with the right medical transcription service.
Let’s review the cost of in-house medical transcription and how a medical transcription service can decrease these expenses.
Some industries are fortunate to know when to expect peaks and lows in their market. A coat manufacturer knows the majority of their sales are going to occur in the fall and winter. The healthcare industry does not have this luxury because they depend on uncontrollable factors. What this means for transcription in healthcare is practices either need to have more employees than they need in case work volumes increase or have a small staff that can be easily overburdened by work if things get busy, slowing the flow of information and care for patients.
A medical transcription service charges per line transcribed, not more or less should the scale of work change. This type of service provides consistency in costs and quality of incoming information for healthcare professionals, regardless of the workload.
The process of hiring temporary employees takes time and resources, placing a burden on healthcare administrators. Interviewing candidates, confirming qualifications, and training can take weeks. The process may need to be repeated several times depending on changing work volumes. If your healthcare practice chooses to hire full-time employees, then the cost to your organization is expounded with benefits, typically costing 20% of an employee's annual salary. More employees can also place a strain on human resource personnel due to the increased volume of employee information.
When enlisting a medical transcription service, the process of hiring and maintaining staff becomes their responsibility. Any changes in personnel are not reflected in a medical transcription service's rate and do not affect the quality of the service provided.
Technology plays a big role in securing healthcare information and improving medical professionals' access to transcribed documents. For many healthcare practices with in-house medical transcriptionists, these developments are out of reach due to budget restraints or simply not a priority. Instead of having transcribed documents digitally secured and made automatically accessible to the appropriate healthcare team member, practices may rely on outdated systems that slow operations, hinder record-keeping processes, and leave them vulnerable to HIPAA violations.
The main focus of a medical transcription service is getting healthcare practices their information in their desired format quickly and effectively. These service providers have the means to invest in the latest transcription technology, making the process as efficient as possible for medical professionals.
The value in enlisting a medical transcription service rather than relying on in-house transcription can greatly impact not only the budget of healthcare practices, but also the quality of care they can offer their patients. Faster turnaround times for accurately transcribed documents, efficient and secure transfer technologies, and reliable, scalable service are all the possibilities made available to healthcare practices that choose Milner's transcription service.
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