The Medical Transcription Industry Association

Way back in 1989, Health Professions Institute sponsored and started a forum that was needed for the medical transcription managers and owners to interact and discuss the medical transcription business, its technology etc. Even though the AAMT (American Association of Medical Transcription) was already a very good source of related industry information, there was an unfulfilled need for forming an association that solely represented the interests of the MT business people. Thus gradually in October 1993, MTIA (Medical Transcription Industry Association) officially came into being. Its website is,http://www.mtia.com/index.cfm

MTIA is a not-for-profit trade association serving the needs of medical transcription companies, vendors, and health information management professionals. Its Mission is to create the environment in which the members can prosper, grow, and deliver the highest level of healthcare-documentation services.

Take a look at its board of directors at http://www.mtia.com/bod.cfm and MTIA Code of Ethics at http://www.mtia.com/CodeOfEthics.cfm

See details of the different types of memberships at https://www.mtia.com/MembershipCategories.cfm

MTIA membership application is available at https://www.mtia.com/MTIAMembershipApp.cfm

MTIA's Annual Conference for this year is scheduled for April 23-26, 2008 at Long Beach, California. Here is the schedule of events at the conference, https://www.mtia.com/downloads/MTIA%202008%20Schedule%20at%20A%20Glance.pdf

For outsourcing solutions in medical coding, medical billing and medical transcription services, do call the Oklahoma based medical transcription company OSI (Outsource Strategies International)

Medical Transcription: How to Ensure Good Quality Recordings

If you are representing a hospital that produces voice/dictation recordings which are outsourced / offshored outside your premises for medical transcription and conversion into typed text, then you must be very wary of the quality of your audio material recordings because it can directly affects the costs.

The main fact to remember is that taking care of your audio quality will greatly enhance the cost affectivity of your outsourcing campaign. How? Let me explain. Did you know that all transcription material that comes in for transcription is first assessed? The time taken and charges for transcription will depend on the quality of the recordings. Obviously with bad recording, transcription takes more time and so more work hours and higher charges of transcription. Some of the factors that affects the time /cost of transcribing that are considered while assessing a transcription /dictation recording include,

• Background noise level
• Clarity of recording
• Speed of speech
• Clarity of voice
• Number of speakers
• Accents of speakers
• Technical language used
• Content
• Collect essential details of the material transcribed
• Get details of all participants/leaders

So how does one go about creating good quality audio recordings for your transcription outsourcing provider? Well, essentially one has to make sure that the recording is done as perfectly as possible by,

• Making a test recording
• Minimize tape "hiss"
• Use digital recording
• Minimize background noise
• Use more microphones if more than two people
• Plan all breaks beforehand
• Avoid speakers from speaking among themselves
• Get all details of the speaker/participant (Gender/ title/ representation etc)
• Note Words/minute

Outsource Strategies International (OSI ) is an Oklahoma based medical transcription company that offers professional outsourced solutions in medical coding, medical billing and medical transcription service for clients globally.

Medical Transcription Rules for Preparing Reports

There are certain basic rules that must be followed by all the professionals in the medical transcription industry. The American Association for Medical Transcription (AAMT) style guide is very popular and is in use around the globe. The style guide guides the medical transcription professional in all the different aspects of transcription that includes topics spacing during typing of text,numbering/ numerical typing, punctuation, hyphenation, drug terminology, capitalization rules, measurements, symbols to be used, classification rules, proofreading and more.

Let me now mention about some of the important rules that must be followed during the transcription/preparation of various medical reports.

• While writing the history of the present illness it is preferred to use the present tense or a mixed tense.
• Use past tense only while writing about a past medical history.
• Type all allergies in capital
• The Assessment/Diagnosis/Impression report must be entirely in capital letters without abbreviations for any medical terminology. However measurement units can be abbreviated.
• Use past tense in discharge summaries
• If no allergies found, type "No known drug allergies."
• All major physical examination reports to be in the present tense
• Use the correct verb tense to communicate the appropriate time of the action.(even if the dictation is wrongly tensed)
• The title "Doctor" is to be written in full
• Capitalize brand name medications. One must not capitalize generic medications.
• Use Latin drug abbreviations.
• Arabic numerals must be use when referring to strength, dosage and directions in medication.

Take a look at the basic style guide with the Courtesy of Global Medical Transcription and MT Daily at http://www.mtdaily.com/style.html

If you are looking for a professional medical transcription company that can offer outsourced medical transcription service along with medical coding/billing, just call the Oklahoma based OSI (Outsource Strategies International).

Tips for Medical Transcription Dictation

Years back when I was in India, I knew a pharmacist who was the only one who could decipher everything our hospital's only physician scribbled /prescribed on his pad. (Many rural Indian hospitals still follow the system). Believe it or not, whenever the pharmacist took a day off or was on leave, the pharmacy would give out wrong medications that turned up to be tragic. We later solved the problem by getting a mobile phone for our pharmacist friend whom we called up even on his "off days" and clarified what the physician prescribed. Surprisingly he could solve the problem even over the telephone.

Today it is not bad handwriting but bad dictation. It indeed makes the medical transcriptionist's job more difficult and highly prone to mistakes. Further it causes waste of valuable time. So what can be the solution to this problem? Is it possible to have an exclusive transcription professional for each doctor so that he gets know the physician like the back of his hand?

Well here is a guide with tips to proper dictation that will be very useful for the physician to give good dictations and get error free transcripts. I recently came across a group of medical transcription from different specialty groups who all had similar types of requests/appeal for the dictating physicians /doctors.

• While dictating a difficult medical term it would be greatly appreciated if care is taken to see that the term gets well recorded via the microphone.
• Please start the dictation mentioning about the type/title of document that is been dictated instead of keeping the transcriptionist guessing about it till the end.
• Please avoid the tendency to summarize every thing/procedure and include everything in few long sentences. It would be ideal to present the facts in shorter and more communicative sentences if possible.
• Would appreciate if uncommon abbreviations are expanded and dictated when possible.
• Please move your face away for a moment from the microphone to sneeze/cough.
• Please finish your snack before beginning the dictation or keep it for afterwards.
• Never forget to mention the basic information like date/name/ summary etc
• Try and avoid talking fast/ yawns /hiccups while dictating.

Physicians/surgeons should be aware of the background sounds/ noise and how it can become a hindrance to listening to the dictation. Just a pause at such occasions would be greatly appreciated and can save a lot of time.

Outsource Strategies International(OSI) is a US based medical transcription company that offers outsourcing solutions in medical billing, medical coding and medical transcription service for clients globally.

Surgery Medical Transcription

In any allopathic medical practice, surgery is an important aspect. Surgery transcription involves converting all the surgeon's voice tapes about a surgical procedure into neatly typed documents. And thus surgery transcription is an important specialty in medical transcription. Surgery transcriptions are used for settlement of insurance claims and legal matters.

Some of the different types of surgery transcription areas include,

• Dental surgery
• General Surgery
• Cardiovascular/thoracic surgery
• Abdominal/ gastrointestinal surgery
• Orthopedic surgery
• Obstetric and Gynecology surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Plastic surgery

The surgery transcription process can be very demanding from the medical transcriptionists as it requires a deep knowledge of various surgical procedures, surgical techniques and familiarity with the different medical and surgical equipment that is used during surgery. A good transcription professional will have a good knowledge of the anatomy of the human body and the various types of diseases that affect the various parts of the body.

A good knowledge of the different procedures and surgery performed along with familiarity with all related terminology will go a long way in correctly transcribing the surgeon's voice tapes without making mistakes. However in case of pending doubts it is always better for the medical transcription professional to check out directly with the surgeon who actually did the job. A lot of medical equipments are used by the surgeons that the medical surgery transcriptionist has to be familiar with. These can include knowledge of,

• Surgical instruments (Scissors / scalpels etc)
• Surgical Diathermy
• Endoscopic instruments
• Suction apparatus
• Anesthesia machine
• Pulseoximeter
• Plethysmographs
• Multi parameter patient monitors
• Defibrillators
• Autoclaves
• Infusion devices
• Autoclaves

Outsource Strategies International (OSI) is a US based company that offers a wide range of medical transcription, medical billing and coding services to the clients across the US, Canada the UK and Australia.

Medical Transcription Errors Can be Costly

Errors in our medical records can become an expensive mistake. Experts warn that medical transcription errors along with outdated information and inadvertent omissions can put to risk our ability to secure individual health, life or disability insurance. Even if we do get insurance coverage, inaccurate data can also become the reason for us to pay much more than we should.

According to a very recent study conducted by the New York based health issues researching group Commonwealth Fund one-fifth of working-age adults who seek insurance coverage are turned down. They get charged higher because of pre-existing conditions or are offered plans that exclude some types of health issues.

What are the types/causes of errors during transcription? These include,

• Difficult voice recordings
• Lack of judgment of transcriptionist
• Not clear audio
• Speed of dictation
• Dictation accent
• Omission of process step
• Knowledge errors

From where else do the insurance companies get their information? From credit rating companies like the MIB. MIB Group, Inc., also known as the Medical Information Bureau, is a membership corporation and credit rating agency that serves the North American insurance industry. It collects and furnishes information on for use in the insurance underwriting process. In addition to an individual's credit history it also collects data like medical conditions, driving records, criminal activity etc.

Outsource Strategies International (OSI) is an Oklahoma based company that offers professional services in medical transcription, medical billing and medical coding.

Medical Transcription Professional: See Where He Comes In!

You are not well and have decided to see a specialist about that nagging pain. You go and start talking about the problem to the doctor. Now you may need to talk about the past history of the problem which you will have to remember and maybe rack your brains to remember everything just as it happened. (Ideally you must have some past papers and also made specific notes about the problem).

Anyway, after you have explained your problems and also answered all the queries of the doctor, he will physically examine you and also prescribed for various laboratory tests before he is able to make a diagnosis/differential diagnosis. Only after diagnosis does the doctor comes up with the plan of treatment which he explains and gives you / your family members the required instructions/prescriptions that must be followed. Finally as you come out of the doctor's office, you see the other people waiting for their turn to get in and talk to the doctor. But before someone else walks into the doctor's cabin there is something the doctor does after you have left. Well it's just that the entire encounter he had with you is quickly recorded into a voice recording device (either a cassette recorder, telephone or some other device).

In a few minutes the doctor is on to another patient, another issue and thus the voice recordings continue. By the end of the day/session the doctor has seen many patients requiring various types of treatments. Now where is all that critical patients' data? Can we expect the doctor to remember some of the details? Certainly not! Well as of now, most of the information is on tape and tomorrow the doctor or someone else (like say the insurance people) may need to know exactly what happened with say, patient number 6 who came in last Monday?. Should they be given access to those voice recordings? Can they follow the doctor's rumblings? No indeed, everything has to be neat, and in paper. But then the doctor can't type nor does he have the time for paper work. So who does all that work of converting that technical "doctor talk" into a typed document? You guessed it!

OSI (Outsource Strategies International) is an Oklahoma based domestic and offshore outsourcing solutions provider, for medical transcription, medical billing and coding.

HIPAA Compliant Medical Transcription

What is HIPAA? It stands for The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. It is the standard for electronic exchange of sensitive patient data and protects patients from disclosure of their medical data without authorization. HIPAA has many regulations for electronic transmission of sensitive patient data that define internal procedures that have to be followed for privacy and security. It has become mandatory for all medical transcription service providers to comply with all HIPAA requirements.

Thus HIPAA compliant medical transcription service providers must,

• Ensure security of PHI (Patient Health Information)
• Maintain record of all those who access patient information
• Implement new technology/processes
• Provide physical security requiring password protection.

Today most Medical transcription companies get their transcription done from transcriptionists who may be located elsewhere often outside the US. Transmission is done using the Internet. How safe is the Internet? HIPAA requires all online transmission of voicemails and e-mails be done only after encryption. Or one must use a secure FTP site to send documents. Whenever documents are faxed, a disclaimer statement explaining the confidential nature of the information has to be attached. Telephone dictations are however exempted from the need for encryption during transmission of patient data.

Take a look at the full text of HIPAA at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/HIPAAGenInfo/Downloads/HIPAALaw.pdf

Outsource Strategies International (OSI) is a US based BPO company that offers professional yet affordable services in medical transcription, medical billing and medical coding.

MTIAPI and Medical Transcription in The Philippines

The Philippines is the preferred offshore location after India when it comes to outsourcing medical transcription work to Asia. MTIAPI or The Medical Transcription Industry Association of the Philippines, Inc. is a non-stock, non-profit industry organization recognized by the Philippines government and its BPO industry, with the following objectives.

• Promote the outsourcing of medical transcription services.
• Promote the development and education of individuals and corporations with respect to healthcare information and management.
• Organize any lawful activities within the purposes for which a corporation may be organized under the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Here is a list of the MTIAPI members, http://www.mtiapi.com/memlist.html

Take a look at the new set of the MTIAPI board of trustees for 2008 at http://www.mtiapi.com/trustees.html and its new contact /address at http://www.mtiapi.com/Announcement/Announcement.html

The Philippines has the distinct advantage of having a vast pool of English speaking people. It is actually the third largest English speaking country in the world and also the second largest American English speaking country in the world with a literacy rate of almost 94%. It also has the advantage of having the much preferred 12 hour time difference with the United States. The Philippine government had recently announced that Philippines medical transcription companies have won medical transcription and medical coding contracts worth $1.4 million with American clients.

The Philippines also has registered medical transcription training program institutes like The MTC Academy (MTCA) that provides the latest medical transcription training software and reference materials that are currently being used as industry standards within the United States.

Outsource Strategies International (OSI) is a US based BPO service provider offering professional solutions in domestic as well as offshore medical transcription (from both India and The Philippines), medical coding and medical billing.

Medical Billing Claim Forms

The medical billing and insurance process is always done using specific forms. Whenever a claim is issued to the insurance company during the medical billing process it is obvious that the insurance company must have all the related details about the patient's diagnosis, treatment and the different services that were provided by the health care people. All these details are entered by a professional medical /coder /into the claim forms.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) was previously known as the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA). What is the CMS-1500? The CMS-1500 is the basic form prescribed by CMS for the Medicare program for claims from physicians and suppliers. Where do you get these forms? For a look at the source of these forms look at http://www.empiremedicare.com/partbny/1500/source.htm

Here is the CMS homepage http://www.cms.hhs.gov/

UB92 Hospital claim form is the American Medical Association approved format for filing claims. It is printed to government printing office standards with OCR ink for scanning.

A certificate of medical necessity (CMN) is required for Medicare reimbursement for different types of DME and supplies. CMN is also required for Medicare payments for home health services. For affordable and professional services in medical transcription, medical billing and coding contact OSI (Outsource Strategies International) the US based BPO pioneer.

The Evolving Medical Transcription

Medical Transcription is a fast growing and evolving sector that has been influenced by many factors over the years. As preferences and standards have changed, one of the significant aspects of medical transcription has been the shift to electronic patient record. What are the basic factors for this evolution? They include,

• Advancement in technology
• Practice workflow
• Regulations

There has been a lot of demand to enhance patient safety, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. However, even though it has become mandatory for service providers and healthcare practices to migrate to a HIPAA compliant environment there are many companies who still have not yet adhere to this requirement.

In the distant future one can be sure that the voice recognition software will greatly improve and may slowly even replace manual transcription. Adopted technologies such as speech recognition software and application service providers (ASPs) can keep up with the demands of regulations, standards, and cutting-edge demands in this sector. One can also expect that unlike today, medical coding may become embedded within documentation thereby not requiring a separate process and reduce the overall cost of medical transcription.

There is also the growing need for medical transcription to comply with basic Principles of documentation that has been developed by the Consensus Workgroup on Healthcare Documentation & Report Generation. It will look into the following aspects of transcription.

• Patient details
• Accuracy of document
• Completeness
• Timeliness
• Interoperability
• Retrievability
• Authentication
• Accountability
• Auditability
• Confidentiality
• Security

Outsource Strategies International (OSI) is a US based company that offers services in medical billing, medical coding and medical transcription.

Medical Billing for the Urgent Care

Medical billing for the urgent care is a different and unique way of medical billing. Let me explain. First what is urgent care? By definition urgent care is the delivery of ambulatory medical care outside of a hospital emergency department on a walk-in basis without a scheduled appointment. In the US, there are more than 9000 urgent care centers and these mainly function after the regular office hours when patients need immediate attention without the need to go to the emergency department of a hospital.

The Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA) represents these many urgent care centers that provide appropriate and timely alternatives to the more costly and inconvenient hospital emergency departments. Take a look at the accredited urgent care centers http://www.ucaoa.org/accreditation/sites.html

Medical billing is the process of submitting and following up on claims to insurance companies in order to receive payment for services rendered. Medical billers working in the urgent care sector must have specialized knowledge in urgent care billing and also in the specific area medical coding. It is essential for medical billing services to do highly accurate billing at the same time keep the client's outstanding accounts receivable as low as possible. What are these urgent care situations for medical billing? These include,

• Services in the evening/weekend/ holidays
• Compensation for workers
• Services requiring urgent care/emergency services
• Removing foreign body from eyes
• Drug screening
• Breath testing for alcohol
• Injury in workplace/factories etc

Outsource Strategies International (OSI) is a US based company that offers outsourced services in medical billing, medical coding and medical transcription services for clients in all the US States.