what is medical Transcription Medical transcription as the name suggests is the diligent process of converting a health care provider’s dictated notes in to accurate and readable data records. This includes a sophisticated yet simple method of listening to voice data and converting it in a hard copy and readable form. The process of converting this voice data in readable format can be basically described as transcription. Most of the material transcribed include patient’s history, physical reports, patient assessment, workup, therapeutic procedures, clinical course, diagnosis, prognosis, clinic notes, office notes, pathology reports, operative reports, consultation notes, discharge summaries, letters, psychiatric reviews, laboratory reports, x-ray reports and many others similar kinds of medical records, etc. It is not as easy as a task of just transcribing voice data but also involves a lot of editing of dictated material for grammar, medical terminology and clarity as necessary and as appropriate. Medical transcription is usually carried out for medical professionals operating out of small clinics to large hospitals. These transcribed records are used for purposes of archives, reference or serve as legal proof of medical advice. In concise, this process starts with the health care providers seeing patients in their hospitals and clinics and dictating and recording important information about the patient’s history, physical examination, diseases, procedures, laboratory tests and diagnoses in the form of voice data. These are then heard by the medical transcriptionists who accurately interpret it and transform in to much needed readable and documented format.
So when transcribing a particular report the transcriptionist has to see that the document is free from all errors later on AAMT (American Association for Medical Transcription) has setup few rules and regulations how a medical transcriptionists is suppose to translate a document free from errors.
How to Become a medical Transcriptionist
There are lots of institutions and schools available who impart efficient training for medical transcription . Essentially, entry level transcriptionists must graduate from a MT certificate program and according to industry standards are considered experienced only after 3-5 years of full time equivalent work hours. The reigns of medical transcription are in the hands of “The American Association for Medical Transcription”, which also offers a Medical Transcriptionist Certification Program (MTCP). To obtain certification, an individual must pass a 2-part test – a written test on essential knowledge (terminology, language use, anatomy/physiology, etc.) and a dictation transcription covering report types and specialties. However, Certification is a fairly new development that has been created to improve professionalism and quality of MT work product.
It takes most students about 3-6 months to complete the program, although some take a little longer. A proper training program includes overview in depth on Medical terminology, English and grammar usage, building up English and medical vocabulary and the most important part of keyboard and typing skills. During this period, students are exposed to a variety of dictations from all fields of medicine so that they are ready to give the desired output as required by the industry.
Successful medical transcription training results from a combination of knowledge, skills, effective transcription experience with careful assessment and evaluation by professional and caring instructors.
Industry Trends and Potential Threats
The most conceivable and recognizable threat to the medical industry as a whole is the emergence of new voice recognition software. However, in spite of the advances in this technology, it has been difficult for the computer to grasp and analyze the human voice and the English language with all its diversity. Besides, as many as software develop, there will still be people needed to edit what is transcribed by the software. Hence, there will continue to be a need for skilled medical language specialists who expand their education and have the knowledge to identify and edit the inevitable errors created by speech recognition systems and who have enough understanding of health records to create an accurate final document. Medical transcriptionists will therefore remain the ultimate qualified persons to discern the nuances of human speech.
Billing/Counting Lines in Medical Transcription
Billing, which is quite the most important task in medical transcription is itself quite a huge task, not because it is difficult but because of lack of any standardized format for billing process. This till date has remained a mystery. It is supposedly one of the controversial, misunderstood, misused, and abused concepts in the industry. Though everyone does complain about it, still the fuzziness surrounding this issue still carries on. However, over the past few years, there has been a general consensus among industry players, which in coming years will pave the way for standardization. Before proceeding with understanding this billing cycle and process, lets get familiar with basic definitions provided by AAMT.
1. Gross Character: Any letter, number, symbol or function key necessary for the final appearance and content of a document, including the space bar, carriage return, underscore, bold, and any character contained within a macro, header or footer.
2. Net Character: Printed characters only. Note: to convert to Gross Characters multiply Net Characters by 1.2
3. Net Line: A defined line length that includes a predetermined number of gross characters (55, 60, 65, 70, 75, etc.).
4. Gross Line: Any printed line that has one or more characters. (To convert Gross Lines to Net Lines multiply Gross Lines by .70).
5. Keystroke: Each stroke of a key is counted - including the space bar, carriage return, underscore, bold, etc. Note: macros become an issue here - technically, if a macro requires three keystrokes, then for billing purposes, three keystrokes would be billed.
6. Net Word: A net word is defined as five (5) alpha/numeric characters plus one(1) space for a total of six (6) characters.
7. Recorded Minute: One recorded minute of dictation is equal to an average of 777 gross characters for Medical Records dictation (including ER) and an average of 782 gross characters for Physician Practices dictation.
General Methodology for Accounting: The most accepted system in the industry is to bill transcribed reports on the number of lines, which is usually a 65-keystroke line. In other language, all characters with spaces divided by 65 gives the total number of lines in the document. Though some clients do bill on the basis of all characters without spaces divided by 65. However, still billing per page is still in accordance at some places where majority of reports are very concise and short. Anyhow, it remains in the repertoire of the client and the transcription provider as to how best they can negotiate with each other.
After a successful negotiation, comes the most difficult task of counting the number of characters and lines in each document. But thanks to information technology, a variety of softwares are available in the market to reduce this taxing task to a question of minutes.
These include:
Speed cent – Developed by Spinet global solutions, tailor made as per requirements.
Abacus - Sorcerer Software,
MedPen - Emmaus MedPen
MP Count - Emmaus MedPen
Slycount II (WordPerfect) - Sylvan Software
Slycount IV (MS Word) - Sylvan Software
WP Count - Productive Performance, Inc.
In addition, the widely used document processing software, Microsoft Word and Word Perfect each have their own built-in line counting utility - which may prove adequate depending on your application. However, the best programs provide all the options of including or excluding spaces, carriage returns, headers, footers, transcriptionist ID, etc. This allows for optimal flexibility in tracking and billing line counts.
Careers in Medical transcription
We've had a lot of transcriptionists come our way looking for work - many exalting their competence as transcriptionists, only to test and miss the most important things that every company requires. We have joined many other transcription companies in serving their clients. We know the importance of good skilled transcriptionists. We know the type of work fellow organizations need to succeed in their business and we also know what transcriptionists are looking for, by taking all these into consideration. We have designed our training course to suit the needs of the people. After the completion of the course you will become an asset to the aspiring employers. Our training and mentor programs will help not only to work in our organization but also help you to work either from home or in any other center.
ITS training and mentor programs help you to improve five of the most important skills that most companies are looking for. By learning these core skills in the training part you will be able to build your professional expertise and accuracy.
Our slogan is "we care for your career" in the field of medical transcription.
Medical Transcriptionists Skills, Duties, Roles and Responsibilities
Skills
v Adequate proficiency in English is a must.
v Must be good at typing and keyboard skills.
v Knowledge of using appropriate grammar.
v Correct punctuations and capitalization rules.
v Should be good at listening and comprehension skills.
Roles and Responsibilities
v Should Transcribe accurately the patients-identifying. name and medical record or Social Security Number. Should perform quality assurance check.
v Should transcribe accurately, utilizing correct punctuation, grammar and spelling, and edit for inconsistencies.
v Should maintain a transcription log.
How Does It Work?
Just choose the program; that fits your ability - your personal need. We also have in-home training facility provided with an online training methodology. You can choose any one of them. Some lessons require tuning in an assignment. These assignments help us to see what areas of your skills have to be given more attention - how well we're connecting with you. After each segment, there's a quiz. Quizzes work the same way, giving you a better idea of what you've excelled in and what you could understand better. Assignments quiz paper-I and Paper-II are graded on a 100 point scale to grade your overall progress. For more details check transcription services.