Apart from ICD-10, shorter deadlines; the influx of data, stricter regulations, and tighter budgets are all propelling the medical industry through a plethora of changes. All of these changes have left physicians with little or no time on hand to handle medical transcription needs in-house; especially with the hassles involved in finding the right people to handle transcriptions. So while getting transcription done in-house can help you have – direct communication with the in-house staff and involves your decision in their recruitment and training; it also turns out to very time consuming and expensive in more than one way. This is where outsourcing can turn out to be beneficial.

Here are a few reasons why medical transcription outsourcing may turn out to be beneficial.

Reduced capital investment & direct staff costs

Outsourcing means eliminating the need for buying a typing platform or a dictation system. Capital expenditure gets further reduced as you would not require upgrading to newer equipment and software time and again resulting in increased savings. Moreover handling in-house staff means increased training; higher salaries for specialized services; staff attrition rate management; staff costs and so on. Getting transcription services done from a specialized firm results in; eliminating all these direct staff costs and considerable reduction of direct staff costs.

Enhanced Accuracy

Medical transcription outsourcing can mean increased accuracy because most transcription companies being specialists in their field tend to employ several levels of quality control. To maintain their customers they need to be sure that the end result has no typos, misspelled words or incorrect medical terms. If your office is dealing in a specialization like dermatology, neurology or cardiology; then few transcriptionists train their staff to deal in these specific medical specialties. Moreover, some companies will also employ professional editors and clinicians to proofread your documents. To match these quality measures in-house you would need to invest on-going time and effort to streamline your office in this manner.

Improved time management

Either you wish to get home earlier or administer qualitative care on a higher number of patients; outsourcing can play a considerable role in helping you find increased time; to be able to handle these
tasks. Doing transcription yourself; involves sitting for hours in front of the computer; which is most of the time after work to catch up on charting; hence leaving you very little time for anything else. Outsourcing can definitely benefit you with a great avenue for improved time management.

 Faster transcription services

Outsourcing means a firm is solely managing only transcription services and does not need to balance it with other health care tasks; which results in much faster turnaround time as compared to doing it in your office. Transcription firms have dedicated professionals and staff who can take on an increased workload as and when needed; resulting in the work getting done much more faster. If the same increased workload was done in your office it would not only be done slower due to limited staff but also affect or slow-down other important tasks being done by the staff at that point. Overall outsourcing by improving turnaround time; results in shortening of your accounts receivable cycle, and helps your practice in getting paid much more quickly.

Easily access specialized staff at a relatively lower cost

Finally, the best part of outsourcing is that you can access expertise or specialized services at a fraction of the cost you would otherwise incur with getting a full-time employee. While transcription requires a lot of expertise being a highly skilled task; by outsourcing, you can easily get professional services of highly knowledgeable and specialized staff without making much of an effort.

Overall if you are bogged down with a lot of clerical work at your office and need more time for healthcare; then getting an outsourcing service makes sense. The key is to find one which can ensure good quality services; without you having to worry about maintaining the necessary technology or staff, resulting in faster services and more accuracy. As all of these benefits typically come at a cost reduction, it is clear why outsourcing has gained so much popularity over the past few years.