Medical transcription companies bracing up for new challenges

In order to reinvent itself, the industry has resolved to move beyond conventional Medical Transcription Services.

Medical Transcription, also known as MT, is an allied health profession, which deals in the process of transcription i.e. converting voice-recorded reports as dictated by physicians and other healthcare professionals, into text format.

Medical Transcription is one of the fastest growing fields in health care. Medical Transcriptionists are in demand in Western countries especially in the US where the entire healthcare industry is based on insurance, and detailed medical records are needed for processing insurance claims. Medical transcription could be one of the speedy growing IT enabled service in India also, with the rapid change in the outlook in the Indian healthcare segment and privatization of the insurance sector. India provides as an ideal location for conducting medical transcription with the large population of educated English speaking people and the comparative low cost which encourages companies abroad to outsource their work to the Indian Medical Transcription field.

Over a decade now, medical transcription has accelerated change to a larger extent. However, transcription equipment has changed from manual typewriters to electric typewriters to word processors to computers and from plastic disks and magnetic belts to cassettes and endless loops and digital recordings. Today, speech recognition (SR), also known as continuous speech recognition (CSR), is increasingly being used, with medical transcriptionists and "editors" providing supplemental editorial services, although there are occasional instances where SR fully replaces the MT.

MT As a Profession:

A Medical Transcriptionist is a person who assists physicians and specialty surgeons usually by transcribing, formatting, and proof reading their dictated medical oriented report of a patient's health history. This dictation covers pretty much everything that takes place between the health care provider and the patient. An MT is also known as a ‘Medical Language Specialist’ or MLS. The equipment that a MT uses is called a ‘medical transcribers.’          

Education and training can be obtained through certificate or diploma programs, distance learning, and on-the-job training offered in some hospitals. Medical transcription is an interesting and challenging career. It is the process whereby one accurately and swiftly transcribes medical records dictated by doctors and others, including history and physical reports, clinic notes, office notes, operative reports, consultation notes, discharge summaries, letters, psychiatric evaluations, laboratory reports, x-ray reports and pathology reports.

Duties as an MT:

• Maintain and consult references for medical procedures and terminology.
• Perform quality assurance check
• Transcribe accurately, utilizing correct punctuation, grammar and spelling, and edit for inconsistencies.
• Accurately transcribe the patient-identifying information such as name and Medical Record or Social Security Number.

Medical Transcription Scope in India:

In India there was a boom in this industry couple of years back with a lot of companies and training institutes entering this field. Most companies except a few could not survive due to lack of proper training and understanding of this comparatively new concept in India. By improving the work standards and quality of service, India has a wide scope for capturing the huge clientele in the US and provides employment opportunities to the huge mass of English speaking and computer literate people in the country. The success of the surviving companies proves that Medical Transcription Services can hold a vital link in altering the Indian job scenario.