Looking for the perfect medical transcription service to meet your needs? Look no further! In this article, we will guide you through the essential factors to consider when selecting a transcription service for your medical transcription.
What is Medical Transcription?
Medical transcription is the process of converting voice-recorded letters, notes and reports from doctors and other healthcare professionals into written text. Medical transcription is essential for creating accurate and comprehensive medical records, which are vital for patient care, billing, research, and obviously, for legal purposes.
What are the Benefits of Outsourcing Medical Transcription
Medical transcription is a vital but complex task that requires careful consideration. Whether you choose to do it in-house or outsource it to a professional company, like OutSec, you need to weigh the pros and cons of each option. Ultimately, you want to pick the best medical transcription solution that can deliver high-quality, timely, and secure transcripts for your healthcare practice.
So, what are the benefits of outsourcing your medical transcription needs?
1. Helps You Increase Productivity
Dictating a document is more cost-effective than typing a document yourself.
Why is Dictation More Efficient than Typing?
It is more efficient for the simple fact that we can all speak considerably faster than we can physically type, as demonstrated by these stats:
“The average person types between 38 and 40 words per minute”.
A “good rate of speech ranges between 140 -160 words per minute.”
This means that dictation is up to four times faster than we can type. Therefore, simply dictating a document is more cost-efficient.
2. Gives You Access to Highly Experienced Medical Transcriptionists When You Need them
At OutSec we believe in having highly experienced medical transcriptionists who have worked in private medical practices and clinics or the NHS. Indeed, we have been providing transcription services to this niche market since 2002.
Our transcriptionists truly understand the importance of client confidentiality and accuracy in their work.
This makes OutSec’s Medical Transcription Team, one of the best in the industry and they are available to you at the touch of a button.
Are you:
- having issues recruiting in your area?
- finding it difficult to hire a transcriptionist with the right experience?
- struggling with a backlog of work?
Then why not use OutSec for all your transcription needs?
3. Reduces Costs
When you employ staff you must pay: monthly salaries, PAYE costs, National Insurance contributions, offer a pension scheme and pay a certain percentage of tax per employee. You also have other fixed costs such as desk space and office costs per employee, and the costs of infrastructure like computers, telephones, workspaces etc.
Unproductive Time
What most employers forget is the indirect costs of employment such as “unproductive” time. Recent research suggests that:
“In an eight-hour day, the average worker is only productive for two hours 53 minutes”.
Clearly, by outsourcing your medical transcription needs, you eliminate any unproductive time. By using OutSec, you pay per minute of recorded dictation (rounded up to the nearest minute) which means you are not paying for any unproductive time. Therefore, you are not paying for your transcriptionist to make a cup of tea or coffee, to have or make a snack or lunch, or indeed have an office chat – all of that is eliminated!
Reduces HR Costs
Hiring, training and supervising your practice’s medical transcriptionist staff can require an investment of your HR Manager’s time. There are costs involved in advertising for qualified transcriptionists. By outsourcing, you never have to worry about any of these HR-related costs.
According to the National Office of Statistics, an “estimated 185.6 million working days were lost because of sickness or injury in 2022“. This worked out to be 5.7 working days per worker. The most common reasons for sicknesses were:
- Minor illnesses;
- Mental health conditions;
- Musculoskeletal problems.
Holiday Pay
Whilst statutory paid holiday entitlement in the UK is 28 paid holiday days, most employers in the UK give considerably more holidays to their employees.
Clearly, by outsourcing your transcription needs, you eliminate this cost to your practice.
Changes a Fixed Cost into a Flexible Cost
Private practices and clinics recognise that replacing a static fixed cost with a flexible skilled outsourced provider has many positives. If your typing requirements are low, then the costs are low. This also enables upscaling support as a clinic grows or in times when workloads are high.
OutSec can offer support by either acting as a complete, secure, outsourced solution. Or as an overflow, allowing your practice to keep up with the demands of your business.
4. Business Continuity Planning
In 2020, businesses around the world had their business continuity plans truly put to the test, as Covid-19 swept the globe. Whilst some businesses were forced to close their doors when lockdowns came into effect, OutSec continued to operate as normal. OutSec continued to be able to support our clients and those that needed our help, during this difficult time. As one of our clients stated:
“We are so glad that we have you as it certainly makes it less stressful not having to worry about getting typing completed”.
Using OutSec affords your practice a business continuity solution to enable your business to access typing support, that expands (or contracts) with your practice’s specific needs. You can also use OutSec for upscaling support as the practice grows. This eliminates the need for employing additional typing staff (or indeed, any of the employment costs or risks thereof).
5. Eliminate the Need for Temporary Staff
As any manager knows, the need for temporary medical transcriptionists or secretaries can easily fluctuate over time. We know that staff are likely to take the majority of their holiday entitlement in the summer months. Unfortunately, it is harder for practices and clinics to predict unexpected illnesses. We can, of course, predict that in the winter months, someone may come to work with a cold (and in a matter of days, everyone has come down with it!). Environmental factors such as snow, or other extreme weather events, can also result in staff being unable to make it into the office.
Employing temporary staff has always been expensive. It is often double that of regular staff without taking into account the additional time required on induction practices to bring them on board.
By using OutSec, you can access typists in times of absence, whether it is through illness or extreme weather, reducing the need for using expensive temporary staff to bridge the gap at a cheaper cost. This can produce savings of up to 70% on the costs of temporary staff.
6. Clinics Need Faster Turnaround Times in Today’s Tech-Centric World
In today’s clinical world, there is more increased pressure on doctors to turn around dictation ‘faster’ as anxious patients expect to receive their letters ‘overnight’.
Patients see a seven-day wait for a letter is unacceptable in today’s tech-centric world.
The reality is, ‘the day to day running of a clinic or general practice is often unpredictable and typing is regularly delayed’.
Today’s digital demands require faster documentation turnaround. Increasingly clinicians are turning to outsourced transcription providers who are reliable day-in, day-out, 24/7 to provide this service.
Conclusion
Medical transcription is a vital but complex task that requires careful consideration. Ultimately, you want to pick the best medical transcription solution that can deliver high-quality, timely, and secure transcripts for your healthcare practice.
You also need to ensure that any medical transcription service employs professionals who possess a solid background in medical terminology, procedures, and documentation standards. Experienced medical secretaries will always be better than voice recognition or poorly qualified temps. Medical secretaries will always understand the medical context of the dictation. They will also be able to spot clinical dictation errors and ensure that the letter makes sense, thereby reducing clinical risk.
Looking for a medical transcription service? Look no further!
About OutSec
OutSec is the UK’s leading online transcription company whose business has grown substantially since 2002. We are one of the most successful medical transcription companies in the United Kingdom.
Key to its success has been the dedicated one-to-one client-transcriptionist provision which ensures continuity and 99% accuracy. It is in essence like having your own personal secretary, who would normally be down the corridor, working remotely enabling your in-house typing resources to be used more effectively within the practice.
With OutSec there are no contracts, no minimum spends and no hidden fees. What is there not to like?
Want to get started? It’s simple!
- Open an account.
- Your dedicated account manager will be in touch instantly.
- Download our App
- Dictate.
- Transcription is returned within 24 hours or once completed, when using our priority service.
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