Medical Transcription

The medical transcription can be exactly defined as the process of making copies of dictated or written records, which are related to the practice of medicine.

In other way you can define medical transcription as an act of translating from an oral to written form, which can be on paper or electronically.

A medical transcriptionist (also called as an MT) is the person who accurately transcribes the medical records dictated by the doctors or others.

The type of reports in medical transcription:

1. Initial Consultation.

2. Progress notes.

3. Discharge summary.

4. Operative reports.

5. Radiology reports.

6. Letters.

7. Diagnostic procedures.

Introduction to Medical Transcription:

When someone falls sick, he/she visits a physician. The physician needs to keep a record of the patient’s treatment, which includes the illnesses, causes of illnesses, medications being taken, allergies, physical exam, radiological studies performed if any, treatment so far, future treatment, procedures performed if any.

Practically, it is very difficult to do all those things manually or to employ so much manpower. So, the physician dictates all the above-mentioned things in a sequential manner into a digital recorder called Dictaphone, which records the audio in the form of a voice file. Dictating is much easier and less time consuming than writing all the things down on the paper. This voice file is then sent to the medical transcriptionists working in-house or across the world through internet. They listen to the audio with a headphone and transcribe the report. The transcribed document should match exactly as dictated by a physician. Minimum accuracy should be 98.5%.

Use of Medical transcription:

But what is the need for all those documentation? Nearly all other countries in the world do not maintain such type of extensive records. Still, there is no problem.

In America, the cost of healthcare is very high. So, most of the people prefer to have medical insurance. Without the medical insurance, it is very difficult for a common people to have good quality medical treatment.

Approximately 80-85% population of America is covered by medical insurance. This insurance covers some specific drugs and procedures. Therefore, while processing the claims, insurance companies have to go through the medical records of the patient. The healthcare documentation plays a very important role here.

Keeping records

Keeping records of previous files and the new terms including doctor names you come across is a very important thing.

While transcribing a file, we come across some doctor names, difficult words, or standard words and phrases dictated by a particular doctor. Most people do not document them and when the same word or phrase comes again, they start searching it again and spend a lot of time searching for it. This is just a waste of time.

Instead, if you document all the new words, doctor names, medical words, instruments you come across everyday, you will find it very easy afterwards.

How to crack a blank faster?

In medical transcription, a blank is a part of an audio, which an MT is not able to make out due to some of the following problems:

1.         Bad audio.

2.         Difficult English or medical word, which you are not aware of.

3.         Poor concentration.

4.         No specific reason.

If you follow a systematic approach to crack a blank, in a few days, you will find it very easy to find a blank and wonder why I had spent so much time previously.

Now, suppose you are listening to a file and you thing you are not able to make it out.

1.         Listen to that part 2-3 times.  Most of the time, you will get it.

2.         If you do not get it, put an underscore there with audio timing.  E.g.  ____1:23_____.  Go ahead, most probably you will find the same word again in the file and this time you will get it.

3.         Even if after listening to the whole file you do not get it, come to that audio part of the blank.  See in the old file of the same patient whether it is a standard phrase.

4.         If it is not, copy some part before as well as after the blank and Google it with an asterik (*) in place of the blank or just the preceding or exceeding part with an asterik in place of the blank.  E.g. Coronary * disease, * catheter,

5.         If you still do not get it, the phrase between quotes and Google it.  E.g. “Coronary * disease”

6.         If you still do not get it, decrease the audio speed and listen to the audio again.

7.         Save and close the file for some time and listen to it again.  Lots of time you get the blank by this method.

8.         If you do not get it at all after trying so much, take help of your colleague who does the client regularly or who you thing has the listening ability to crack a blank.

The way we have provided here to crack a blank is just a guideline, and we do not claim it is the best way because everybody has his/her own way to find a word.  This is just a general idea.

Proper hardware maintenance

If you observe, a lot of time is consumed of a medical transcriptionist by system problems. This results in decrease in productivity and hence efficiency. So maintaining your system in a good condition certainly saves the time and can earn you extra money.

• 1. As far as possible, use authentic softwares for your computer system including your operating system and softwares needed for medical transcription. You will find it a little bit costlier at start but you will get the returns within one year because of the performance, support, and updates the authentic softwares give.
• 2. Always use the best quality hardware for your computer system. Please do not settle for cheaper ones. It will cost you more in long run. Your computer RAM, hard disk, CPU speed affect the speed of your computer and hence your line count.
• 3. Use good quality keyboard for smooth and hassle free typing. Poor quality keyboard can cause harm to your hands including carpal tunnel syndrome and can make you handicapped for whole of your life. TVS Gold is a good quality keyboard we recommend.
• 4. Always use a good quality headphone such as Phillips, which will cover external parts of your ear and you will get minimum noise disturbance.
• 5. Delete your temporary files everyday.
• 6. Delete all unnecessary data from your hard disk.
• 7. Do not save unnecessary data onto your desktop.
• 8. Install a good quality antivirus and antispyware.
• 9. Uninstall all unnecessary programs from your computer.
• 10. Keep you computer system and its surroundings clean and neat.
• 11. Get your computer system checked by a professional hardware engineer periodically.
• 12. Make sure your PC has a proper power backup such as an UPS or an inverter, so that power failure will not damage your PC.

History of Medical Transcription

Healthcare documentation existed at early age in ancient cave writings. The medium of writing changed from metal plates to clay tablets, temple walls, paper, and now to electronic files.

Until the 20th century, physicians had to play roles of both providers of medical care and scribes.  When standardization of medical data became critical to research, medical stenographers replaced physicians as scribes who used to take their dictations in shorthand.  With the advent of dictation equipment, physicians and scribe need not work face-to-face and the career of medical transcription was born.

Now in the 21st century, lots of hospitals, transcription companies, and some medical transcriptionists use speech recognition technology to transcribe the files.  In the coming future, speech recognition will be very common and everybody will be using it but still the need of medical transcriptionists will be there because a machine can never give you 100% accuracy in medical transcription.

At-home medical transcription

At-home medical transcription simply means doing the medical transcription from home and not from any company's office.

It is a topic of debate whether a medical transcriptionist working from home earns more than one who is working from a company. Actually, this is a situational thing and depends on the conditions in which a medical transcriptionist is working. Both things have their own advantages and disadvantages.

According to AAMT, about 25% of medical transcriptionists prefer to work from home, which shows the popularity of work from home medical transcription.

Advantages of at-home medical transcription jobs:

It can be true that a medical transcriptionist who is working from home is earning more than a person who has a fixed salary. This is because people doing medical transcription jobs at home are paid on line-count basis, and the salaried person gets a fixed salary irrespective of the volume of work he/she is doing. So, if an at-home medical transcriptionist does more line count, he gets paid more but the same may not happen with the salaried medical transcriptionist.

At home, you can choose your working hours as per your convenience. If you feel that morning is convenient for you than afternoon, you can work in the morning or if you have some work to do in the morning on a particular day, you can work in the evening or night as per your convenience. At home, you are your own boss. If you want to sleep for some time, go and sleep, get refreshed and start working again.

You can accept work from different companies, so that you do not need to rely on one particular medical transcription company for your work.

A salaried person may need to work in shifts including night shifts but while working at home, there will be no shifts for you.

At-home medical transcription is best suitable for housewives who have to take care of their home and at the same time earn some money.

Disadvantages of at-home medical transcription jobs:

As you will be working alone at home, you may find it boring and depressing after a few days. Lots of people leave at home medication transcription for this reason. In this profession, you frequently need help of others to crack some blanks or clear the doubts. So, you should be able to work independently.

The solution for this is that you can find some similar at-home medical transcriptionists and work in a group.

Some companies do not pay on time or sometimes do not pay at all. You should be very careful while choosing the company you will be working with.

You will not get the facilities that you would have been with working in an established company e.g. paid leaves, meals, health insurance, provident funds, etc.

Your working place should be quiet and there should be no disturbance as this profession requires a very high level of concentration.

In general, there is less work for medical transcriptionists in the month of December and January. So, for at home medical transcriptionists, it is actually the time of recession as they are pain on per line basis. So, less work means less money.

Useful tips for medical transcriptionists doing at-home medical transcription:

Maintain your computer system in good working condition. Get the high-speed internet connection in the market. Use good quality hardware and especially keyboard. Get your computer services frequently by a professional.

If you are doing at home medical transcription, work for at least two different companies. So if you get no work from one company, you will get it from other. If you are not paid on time by one company due to some reason, then you will have a chance of getting paid by other one.

Get a client which is very easy and will give you a very high line count in less time. It is a decisive factor and makes a big difference over a salaried medical transcriptionist. So try every possible thing to get it.

Threat of speech recognition software to medical transcription industry

Speech recognition software (SRS) is the software, which converts human voice into words. So in an ideal situation, if a doctor dictates in the Dictaphone, he will automatically get a transcript without any human help.

The main job of a medical transcriptionist is to listen to audio dictated by doctor and transcribe it into words. Therefore, the speech recognition software is considered as a biggest threat to the medical transcriptionists. It is said that on one fine day, speech recognition software will replace all medical transcriptionists.

Let us see if it is possible at all in an unbiased way.

Advantages of speech recognition software:

1. For some dictators, it can give amazing accuracy.

2. Sometimes, it catches very difficult words, which an MT would not find easily.

3. It can prove very cost effective in some situations.

4. It consumes less time.

5. With the advent in technology, they are getting smarter and smarter day by day. The price will also decrease in the future.

Disadvantages of speech recognition software:

1. Its accuracy varies with dictators. Sometimes it is 90-100% accurate but sometimes it is not even 10%.

2. It cannot do formatting on itself, which is an important part of transcription.

3. It cannot correct the mistakes committed by the dictator.

4. It easily makes mistakes at sound alikes.


5. It is very costly.

6. It may catch unwanted sounds like paper rattling or other people talking around.

7. The final transcript has to be checked by a human being as it is not that reliable.

Conclusion:

So, we can come to a conclusion that at least at the present situation, an SRS cannot replace a human medical transcriptionist, but it can certainly cut the jobs of number of medical transcriptionists. Because, at the end level, there will certainly be a need of a proofer who will correct the mistakes and make sure everything is fine. So, it is less threatening to editors than to MTs.

It can be our good friend also. It will transcribe for us and what we have to do is just proofread it.