OPTWIZE Medical Transcription Services

The Philippines is fast becoming a top choice for Medical Transcription (MT) outsourcing. From the United States alone, vast amounts of MT outsourcing jobs have been flowing in for the past few years, since the medical transcription business started growing significantly.

Several other countries like the US are taking advantage of the benefits of MT outsourcing to developing countries. Companies and organizations requiring medical transcriptionists could cut up to 50% of operational costs by outsourcing. They can thrive by availing of cheaper yet highly efficient labor. Also, they no longer need to provide training for potential MTs.

The Philippines is aggressively positioning itself as a global leader in the MT field. What sets the Southeast Asian country apart from the likes of India, Thailand, and other neighboring nations is the exceptional familiarization of its local workforce with the English language. The country uses English as a second language in schools, offices, and the government.

A former American colony, Filipinos are very much Western-oriented in everyday life. Growing up, an average Filipino is exposed to American magazines, television programs, movies, books, and thus, the language. Citizens understand English idioms, colloquialism, and slang, giving them an edge against their Asian counterparts.

In line with the Philippines’ goal to lead in the field MT outsourcing, a number of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) –accredited organizations and centers have emerged to provide standardized training for those interested in making a career out of home-based medical transcription.

As the demand for medical transcriptionists is expected to continue growing from the country, these institutions strive to provide proper training in the proper documentation of medical tests, treatment of patients, and other procedures. Filipino medical transcriptionists are guaranteed to be efficient and they value integrity.

Outsourcing involves hiring the services of other companies, organizations, or individuals not part of the company itself to perform specific tasks or functions. It has become a booming and lucrative industry in the past several years especially for developing countries. Organizations doing outsourcing are reaping the benefits of outsourcing as it is an option that allows many of them to save up on operational costs.

For instance, instead of providing internal training for services like janitorial and information technology, a third party is engaged in performing the housekeeping needs of a certain organization thus saving on hiring and training costs. Since the companies being outsourced specialize in outsourcing, they are expected to deliver high-quality output and better efficiency.

As in many fields, medical transcription (MT) is now taking advantage of outsourcing services. Many health care institutions and medical organizations can now forego the need for in-house transcription and instead outsource this job to a third party. As a result, they could give more attention to more demanding aspects of their operations.

Outsourcing for medical transcription also has its pros and cons. If you are an organization planning to outsource, carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages outsourcing might have on your company. Consider the following facts about outsourcing:

One positive feedback about outsourcing, as mentioned earlier, is the substantial amount of savings a company gains as compared to using its own resources to perform the needed tasks. Outsourcing also gives other people the chance to demonstrate their skills and talents towards producing the best results.

Outsourcing could save a company up to 50% of operational costs that is otherwise used for training its own people. Aside from cheaper yet efficient labor offered by outsourcing firms, companies could altogether eliminate budget for training functions.

Outsourcing is also beneficial because organizations offering such services specialize on outsourcing. This allows the company that needs outsourced labor to focus on more important functions within its business.

Outsourcing could also be disadvantageous in some cases such as in newly developed countries. One of the main concerns is the establishment of trust. Companies need to be able to fully trust the third party they will hire to take responsibility for specific jobs. Otherwise, confidentiality, which is a point of debate in medical transcription, will be at stake. It is possible for unreliable outsourcing firms to sell valuable information to your competitors.

As MT outsourcing rose in demand in many countries including the Philippines, the development of MT technology is keeping up with the trend. Many technologies serving various purposes have emerge with the goal of making MT more automated, accurate, and quick.

Digital Dictation Systems. State of the art digital dictation systems provide various record and playback functions to ease the task of medical transcription. Many of such systems are accessible via toll-free phone numbers to be dialed by clients. They usually support formats widely used in the digital world so it is pretty much easier to learn how they work.

Transcription Tracking Systems. Transcription tracking systems are software that help monitor jobs being outsourced. It registers the date a job

was received, assigned to a transcriptionist, and returned to the client, as well as the method it is delivered.

There are quite a few other technological advances in the field of medical transcription but outsourcing human labor is still very much in demand. MT is expected to revolutionize in the future, not just because of technology, but because of many other factors like regulations and practice workflow.

However, it can be assured that human outsourcing for MT will keep on growing due to many reasons:

HIPAA has set firm regulations that could only be met by human transcriptionists. Companies looking to outsource will no doubt demand HIPAA-accredited outsourcing services as they comply with international standards and are more secure.
MT outsourcing is not purely business. It involves patient safety and security. Nothing better understands this than human resource.
New MT technologies are no doubt highly beneficial to the MT business but they would be better utilized by human beings. Human beings are more analytical and understand speech better. MTs are trained to study medical jargon and other terms. They are equipped with proofreading skills, required to take interest in the medical language, and must have good listening abilities. These are just a few of the characteristics not common in machines and MT systems.