A Guide to medical transcription outsourcing

What are the factors that should guide an outsourcing decision?There are many factors that guide the medical transcription outsourcing decision, increasing profits by reducing costs being one of the main factors. That apart there are a few other factors that make the medical transcription outsourcing decision making process easier and faster. Listed here are few of the important factors:Skill level of the medical transcriptionists: Quality of medical transcription is a function that totally depends on the skill set of the medical transcriptionists. While outsourcing it is important to assess the medical transcription service provider on the training methods used to train their workforce. Well-trained medical transcriptionists would mean that the accuracy of the transcripts would be very...

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Did EPIC CEO Judy Faulkner of Epic declare that �healthcare IT usability would be part of certification over her dead body?'

At the HisTALK blog 5/31/10 update, a site with thousands of readers involved in all aspects of health IT, the following anonymous (at this point) report appeared:From Tabula Rosa: �Re: EMR usability. At one of the ONC Policy Committee meetings, [founder and CEO] Judy Faulkner of Epic supposedly declared that �usability would be part of certification over her dead body.� I wonder if she has similar sentiments about making software accessible to people with disabilities?� Unverified. This inspired my new poll question � keep reading below. Epic Systems Corporation is one of the largest health IT vendors in the U.S.If this report is true,...

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Medical transcription: What are the methods of quality assessment?

Quality is an important criterion in any decision making process. Assessing quality becomes even more important when it comes to availing service as critical as medical transcription. Medical transcription is the process of converting audio records of a patient- healthcare professional encounter into a text format.This accuracy/quality of medical transcription critical as this forms the basis of:Permanent patient historyPresent and future treatment plan and basis for monitoring progress of the patientReferrals/tests/procedureStatutory requirementsEvidence in case of disputes/litigationAccounts receivable processingIt is important that records that play such an essential role be of the highest accuracy/quality possible. While making the decision to outsource medical transcription needs it is...

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Cool Technology of the Week

Every Memorial Day, I plant my summer vegetable garden with those species that do not tolerate cold - eggplant, cucumbers, corn, and peppers. I clear out the spring planting beds that were filled with numerous kinds of lettuce, turn my compost pile, and use fresh compost to amend the soil before planting.In the Spring, I start making compost by using greens (cut grass, weeds, trimmings) and a few browns (leaves, twigs, kitchen trimmings). I add a bit of baking soda to reduce the acid content of the mix, add compost starter and moisten the mixture to the consistency of a wet sponge - not too wet, not too dry. Everything goes into my rotating...

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Food Allergy Carnival

Looking for some great information from those active and involved in food allergy on the web? Check out the latest addition of the Food Allergy Blog Carnival. From recipes to advice to tips and ideas, you'll find it all at the latest carniv...

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Medical transcription: A necessity or luxury?

To assess whether medical transcription is a necessity or luxury one needs to look at the history of medical transcription and the role it plays in the provision of quality care and the profitability of a healthcare facility.Evolution of medical transcription: Medical transcription is process of creating records of patient-healthcare professional encounter. Creation of records of the patient encounter has been around for a long time. Over time medical transcription has evolved from its’ early stages due to the advance of technology and the Internet. The various stages of evolution that medical transcription has gone through are as follows: Hand written notesDictation-shorthand-typing on the manual typewriterDictation- recording on tapes- transcribing on manual/electronic typewriter.Uploading...

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A "Pump and Dump" Stock Scheme and a University's "Incredible Gift"

Here is a new twist on how respected academic institutions have gained from less than respectable donors.  As reported by the Palm Beach (FL) Post, John David Mazzuto and a colleague stole more than $60 million from his former company and its investors, New York prosecutors said Tuesday afternoon. ... the Manhattan District Attorney said today that, while he was in bankruptcy from 2002 to 2009, he siphoned more than $15 million from Industrial Enterprises, and used the money to support 'a lavish lifestyle using millions of company dollars for homes, travel, and personal expenses.'They included Mazzuto's 7,715-square foot house at 11503 Green Bayberry Drive. Palm Beach County records show a corporation managed by him bought it for $2.6 million in 2007. No mortgage was recorded, suggesting...

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The Leiter Lecture

Yesterday after the HIT Standards Committee meeting, I had the honor of delivering the 2010 Leiter Lecture at the National Library of Medicine.My topic was the grand challenges and proposed solutions as we implement healthcare information technology in support of meaningful use with a special focus on the role of Medical Librarians and Informaticians that provide knowledge services.Here are my slides.My grand challenges included1. Managing Consent for data exchange2. Engaging Patients and resolving the National Healthcare Identifier issue3. Accelerating use of Standards, especially vocabularies4. Aggregating Data for population health, registries, and research5. Providing Decision SupportHere's the streaming vid...

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Medical transcription: Why is dictation an important part in medical record creation?

Why document the patient-doctor encounter?The documentation of the patient-doctor encounter takes place for a number of reasons, some of which are given below:1.Records provide the medical history of the patient enabling healthcare professionals to administer the best care possible.2.It is legally mandatory to maintain patient records.3.Patient records provide the basis for referrals4.Patient records are the basis on which insurance claims are made5.Patient records provide evidence in case of malpractice suits.Having looked at the importance of having to create medical records, now the focus is on the process of record creation. Medical transcription plays an important part in the speedy and accurate creation of medical records. The medical transcription process starts when the doctor dictates...

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The May HIT Standards Committee Meeting

Today, the HIT Standards Committee held their May meeting via teleconference and discussed several important topics.1. The National Information Exchange Model Standards and Interoperability Framework continues to make progress. 11 RFPs have been issued (I will post updates next week) and 8 will be funded shortly. Coordinating 11 different contracts which support standards harmonization, specification writing, testing etc. requires masterful orchestration. A Concept of Operations (ConOps) document will detail the processes by which all these efforts will intertwine. At the June Standards Committee meeting, we will review the ConOps document, ensuring alignment between the NIEM effort and the HIT Standards Committee work.2. NHIN Direct continues to make substantial progress. There...

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How Did the CEO Who Presided Over the Company that Paid a $1.7 Billion Fraud Settlement Become a Credible Candidate for a State Governorship?

This one fits in the "you just can't make this stuff up" category.  Let me provide a summary from the Fort Lauderdale, Florida Sun-Sentinel,It was and still is the biggest Medicare fraud case in U.S. history and ended with the hospital giant Columbia/HCA paying a record $1.7 billion in fines, penalties and damages.Now the man who ran the company at the time wants to be Florida's governor.Rick Scott was co-founder and CEO of Columbia/HCA in the 1990s, when the FBI launched a massive, multi-state investigation that led to the company pleading guilty to criminal charges of overbilling the government.Today, Scott is a Republican candidate for governor, running his campaign from an office in downtown Fort Lauderdale.Here is the Sun-Sentinel's review of the Columbia/ HCA case from the end of...

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Food Allergy Assumptions

Anaphylaxis Australian says, "assumptions or inactions often lead to avoidable reactions". This is in response to a discussion about dining with food allergy. While those of us who live this every day know that we should never make assumptions about what is in the food we serve to our food allergic loved one,there are several points that bear repeating:Check all labels every time.Always carry emergency medication.Never assume that a food is safe.Specifically talk to wait staff and/or the chef about food allergy when dining out. Consider a chef card. Leave if "it doesn't feel right".Know that anything could contain a hidden ingredient- peanut butter in chili, dairy in non-dairy whipped topping. Do your research.Here's the article that sparked this list. Do you have anything to a...

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Medical transcription outsourcing: The right solution for healthcare facilities to cope with expansion plans

In today’s world change is the one thing, which is constant. Change has never been more relevant than when it comes to healthcare. A healthcare facility has to cope up with the latest developments in healthcare, all the while stretching their budgets to the limit. The latest equipment, the latest techniques, adding on new specialties to the existing practice, all this can put a strain on limited resources.As the scope of operations of a healthcare facility keep expanding their back office requirements like medical transcription and medical billing needs also expand accordingly. As this happens the first reaction of the healthcare facility is to add on more staff to cope up with increasing medical transcription needs or alternately outsource the overflow of transcription requirements to independent...

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Genzyme Settles

In late 2009, we posted about problems at a Genzyme plant that manufactured some fabulously expensive drugs, e.g. Cerezyme whose cost to patients approximated $160,000 a year.  We thought then that for a drug costing that much, the company ought to have figured out a conservative process to provide pure and unadulterated product.  In a later post we also why a company that could afford to make its CEO very rich could not afford to adequately maintain its manufacturing facilities.Now Genzyme has reached a settlement with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the matter.  As reported by the Boston Globe,Genzyme Corp will remain under federal oversight for the next seven to eight years as it works to fix quality-control problems that have bedeviled its Allston Landing...

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Gas Fueled Power Systems

This Spring, many houses in Massachusetts suffered flooding due to failed sump pumps. This motivated me to replace our existing sump pump and install a back system. When I think about home disaster recovery in general, an electrical power is a single point of failure. When does power fail - during a storm, when you need heat, water pumping, and humidity control.The likelihood that gas (natural gas/liquid propane) will fail at the same time as electrical is very remote, so natural gas powered electrical generators seem like a reasonable choice for creating home electrical redundancy.Home Depot sells the kind of unit that is needed.Yes, it must...

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The Stewards of an Elite University, or a "Politburo" of "Shadow Bankers?"

We have postulated that one of the key reasons US health care has become so dysfunctional is that the leaders of some of the most august health care institutions have strayed from, if not totally abandoned their organizations' fundamental missions.  There are many possible reasons for this phenomenon, but one is that the ultimate stewards of not-for-profit health care organizations, their boards of directors or trustees, have become uninterested in the mission, or impotent to uphold it.  So, we have tried to figure out what has happened to these boards that has lead to this sorry state.Dartmouth College: the Packing of the Board of TrusteesOne example we have come frequently discussed (beginning here) is that of Dartmouth College, despite its name, really a university, and one...

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Blood Test For Risk of Food Allergy

A simple blood test is able to predict whether newborns are at risk for developing allergies later in life. Researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia have determined that a specific protein separates those infants who are susceptible to developing allergies from those who are not. It's all in the protein kinase C zeta, dah...ling...This holds great benefit for those families who already have one or more members dealing with food allergy. Creating an allergy action plan for at risk babies is much easier than playing catch-up after trial and error testing finally points to allergy in a child. This test takes out much of the guesswork.There is a great deal of food allergy research in Australia as 40%, yes four zero, of Australian children suffer from some type of allergic disease.Check...

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Digital Signatures with SAFE-BioPharma

In the recent TISH meeting I attended, one of the discussants emphasized authentication/securing the endpoints/identity management as one of the great enablers of healthcare information exchange. SAFE-BioPharma is a multi-stakeholder effort that uses digital certificates with private keys held on a smartcard or a USB device to provide electronic signatures which the FDA has determined meet 21 CFR Part 11 requirements, and also to authenticate securely among the stakeholders and Federal government agencies. The effort uses public key infrastructure and enables all of the stakeholders to have a common trust relationship with Federal agencies using the Federal government�s own federated security mechanisms. As we think about strong authentication methods - biometrics, hard tokens, and smart...

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