February 19, 2010

HIPAA Compliance in Medical Transcription

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA, as it is popularly known has been enacted and enforced to protect the health care rights of the patients. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) through this act makes it illegal for all the health service providers to disclose, transfer or divulge the patient health information to any unauthorized entity.

Hospitals, clinics, health insurance companies and other health service providers come under the direct purview of the HIPAA and are completely accountable to regulatory authorities. These entities are known as covered entities and are bound by the HIPAA law, which makes it mandatory for them to safely store, process and exchange the confidential patient health information. Any lapse will invite penalties and convictions.

But there are some secondary healthcare entities that are not covered by HIPAA but are somehow related to the covered entities. Companies which provide medical transcription services to hospitals or clinics fall under the category of business associates. Medical transcription companies will only come under the purview of HIPAA only when they actually perform any activity, which falls under HIPAA.

Keeping in mind the differences that exist between the state and national laws pertaining to the HIPAA compliance requirements of the business associates, it is necessary for the covered entities to enter into a written agreement with their business associates. A written assurance, from the transcription services provider to adhere to HIPAA compliance norms during transcription process will completely ensure safety and integrity of the patient health data.

Hospitals, clinics and other health service provider are directly accountable to HIPAA. While signing a business contract they should get a written assurance from their business associate that patient health information will be protected as per HIPAA norms. Hence it is important for the business associates like medical transcription service provider to very well understand they are also responsible for protection of patient health information and any lapse on their part can invite strict HIPAA penalties and suffer loss in business from the covered entities.

Medical transcription company should transcribe patient health reports as per HIPAA norms.

Jason Gaya

Read more on Medical transcription at www.mediscribes.com

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — admin @ 1:15 pm






February 13, 2010

Introducing Cardioscribes

Before I start sharing my posts on the blog, I wish to give you a brief idea about what this blog is all about. All your thoughts, suggestions, questions and inquires are welcomed over here. I would try my best to inform you as much as possible about cardiology and the role of cardioscribes in this medical vertical. Hope you would find it interesting!

Let’s start with knowing more about what is Cardiology!

Cardiology is the study of cardiovascular illness, basically the diagnosis and management of diseases which affect the heart and circulatory system. It is a specialized field among physicians, wherein cardiologists perform tests and procedures like angioplasty.

Through conducting investigations a Cardiologist studies your current stipulations like blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol and other diseases that endanger damaging the heart. He helps patients to manage a variety of heart disorders including arterial blockages, angina, heart attacks, aortic dissection, rhythm disturbances, heart failure, and congenital heart diseases.

Because of the specific nature of Cardiology, the treatment is suppose to be taken from a cardiology specialist rather than going to a normal healthcare provider.

Hope this gives you some what idea about Cardiology, if you are a physician or a cardiologist, it would be great if you can add up your comprehensions to it, which would be more helpful to our readers.

What is Cardioscribes?

Cardioscribes is a very significant part of Mediscribes, Inc. specializing in medical transcription for the vertical of cardiology! Cardioscribes has been set up to specifically focus on transcription activities pertaining to cardiology. The transcriptionists at Cardioscribes have received focused training in cardiology related subjects, to offer you a high quality & accurate cardio-transcriptions.

You’ll be able to find out more details about cardioscribes on www.cardioscribes.com

We’ll discuss more about Cardiology and some new updates about the healthcare industry in the coming post…So stay connected.

Jason Gaya

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — admin @ 2:17 pm






February 2, 2010

Medical Transcription- Synchronizing with EMR to create a Better Medical Documentation system.

Medical transcription is a process in which the health information of the patient is dictated, stored and transmitted to a transcriptionist as voice file. This is converted into an electronic format like a computer text file and sent back to the physician, who stores it in his or her computer, for later use.

The EMR or Electronic medical record is medical documentation system in which the information of the patient is directly fed into the computer by selecting related terms from pre-structured point-and-click templates. The doctor simply points and clicks on the appropriate clinical terms from the available choices to enter medical observations of the patient.

Electronic medical record or electronic health record is gaining in importance as it allows the doctors to store and manage efficiently voluminous protected health information in safely. The information can be retrieved easily whenever needed. The medical information of a particular patient stored by one doctor can be easily used or updated by another doctor during the course of treatment. This provides a greater flexibility to the treatment process. As this form of documentation process has lesser human interference it is prefered by tech savvy doctors over medical transcription.

But medical transcriptionists can bridge this gap between these two forms of medical documentation systems to create more efficient system where both of them complement each other. The transcriptionists provide the trained eyes and are better trained to process the information without errors. Also extra safe guards like, quality control audits ensure high accuracy rates in the medical transcription. This feature is missing in the EMR as everything depends on what the doctor enters into the template with no crosschecks in place. Wrong information entered can be carried forward or used by other doctors.

Further the output from templates is too canned and identical in EMR. It loses individuality for each patient and this shortcoming can be well addressed in the transcription process where the description of the patient is vividly converted into a detailed electronic record that is customized to address medical requirement of the patient. Some doctors prefer EMR while other prefer medical transcription due to their own advantages and disadvantage that these two form of documentation offer.

But transcriptionists can play a pivotal role by helping the medical fraternity to harmonize EMR with medical transcription by providing the much needed reliability in form of trained eyes and human instinct. By synchronizing both these documentation systems it is possible create a better and larger medical documentation system, which efficiently manages the protected health information of the masses in accost effective manner and at same time adhere to HIPPA norms.

Medical Transcriptionist can bridge the gap between medical transcription and EMR to create a better documentation process.

Jason Gaya.

Read more at, www.mediscribes.com







Medical Transcription Outsourcing- Boon to Hospitals

The health care industry is growing at a rapid pace. As a result the hospitals and health centers need better infrastructure and more trained staff to efficiently manage patient health records. The documentation process should be such that all the medical records are created and stored in safe and secure manner, and retrieved conveniently whenever the need arises.

To do this efficiently, the hospitals should to have in-house transcription house that has state-of-art computer systems, transcribing machines and highly skilled transcriptionists. This additional setup is quite expensive and reduces overall efficiency and productivity of the health facility. The medical transcription outsourcing provides the right solutions by offering many benefits to the heath care facilities and they are:

  • The transcription service providers take care of all the transcription needs of the hospitals. This means that the hospitals do not have to spend money on costly transcription infrastructure.
  • The Human resources department of the health facility does not have to allocate time, effort and resources on the transcriptionists. This reduces the manpower overheads.
  • The transcription service providers are generally HIPAA compliant and it becomes easy for the health organization to outsource the medical transcription to them at a cheaper price, without compromising the quality standards of the transcribed reports.
  • The transcribed reports remain available on the providers’ server for two years. Any old medical record can be easily retrieved and sent to multiple destinations through internet. This all is done is highly secure manner through a system of encrypted files and passwords.
  • The transcribed reports are available to users in rapid turn around time. The full fledged infrastructure and skilled manpower make it possible to cut drastically the process time and at same time maintain high accuracy by adopting quality audits on a regular basis.
  • The transcription service provider takes care of documentation process through an in built communication system with the client through fax, emails, tracking reports, quality control feedback and billing to maintain a seamless connectivity and ensure that there is no communication gap, which slows down the whole process.
  • The electronic exchange and storage of the patient health information is kept highly confidential by adhering to HIPAA norms. The transcription service has in built safety mechanisms, which ensure that all the health data processed is safe and secure, and in no way creates liabilities for the hospitals in form of lawsuits or fines for non-compliance of HIPAA norms.

Thus, medical transcription outsourcing eliminates the burden of medical documentation on hospitals and allows them to allocate their precious time and resource to other critical areas. This helps them to achieve the desired levels of excellence in providing the patient care.

Medical transcription improves the quality of patient care through better documentation of patient health information.

Jason Gaya,

Read more at, www.mediscribes.com







December 19, 2009

Understanding Medical Transcription


Medical transcription
has come a long way from the manual typewriter to modern day computer. The transcription process is about converting a dictation into a text format that can be stored and retrieved as per convenience. It requires a skilled person who is known as a transcriptionist to accurately convert the recorded medical dictation into an electronic text, which can be saved as a file in the computer.

When ever a patient visits the doctor for a health check up, the concerned doctor after medical examination records the all the observations, which are later dictated into a hand held cassette player or a telephone that is connected to the central server of the hospital. From here the recorded voice is sent to the transcription services provider, where a transcriptionist attentively listens to the recorded voice and starts to convert into written text.

It is important that the medical transcription is highly accurate because it involves the safety of the patient. Any error in dictation or transcription can pose a serious risk to life of the patient. Hence a doctor speaks slowly and clearly in the recording instrument and on the other hand the transcriptionist carefully converts the recorded voice into an error free text. To do this, he or she needs to have some special qualities like:

  • Sharp listening ability and memory
  • Good grammar and typing skills
  • Understand foreign accent easily
  • Well versed in medical terminology and is able to update the knowledge regularly
  • Ability to sort, check and verify data accurately.

The medical transcription is boon to patients and doctors. There are many benefits that are associated with it and are mentioned below:

  • It considerably reduces the retrieval time for patient health data
  • The medical facility is able to reduce infrastructure cost by outsourcing the work to qualified transcription services provider at a cheaper price.
  • The inclusion of HIPAA norms in medical transcription process has made it very safe and secure to transfer and store confidential patient health data.
  • The HIPAA regulations and high quality transcription procedures adopted ensure high accuracy of stored health data of patient that can be easily relied on by the doctors, for later use.

In the end medical transcription is at highly skilled process that ensures that health records of all the patients are securely stored in an electronic form, which can be later retrieved by the doctor to treat the patient.







November 11, 2009

Healthcare Reforms in US

Our today’s topic would be something that is now a days becoming talk of the town in US health care industry.You guessed it right! Yes I am talking about the National Health Care bill measuring at $1.1 trillion. As per the bill all Americans would be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, a government plan or by purchasing it on their own.

The measures in the bill would bar insurers’ from practices such as charging more to those in poor health or denying them coverage altogether. The national health care would extend coverage to nearly all Americans by providing government subsidies to help pay premiums.There have been different appeals being made by public about the bill, some are positive and some have raised objection against its implementation.

Republicans were nearly unanimous in opposing the plan that would expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans who lack it and place tough new restrictions on the insurance industry.“It provides coverage for 96 per cent of Americans. It offers everyone, regardless of health or income, the peace of mind that comes from knowing they will have access to affordable health care when they need it,” said Republican John Dingell, the 83-year-old Michigan lawmaker who has introduced national health insurance in every Congress since succeeding his father in 1955.On the other hand in a phone interview with KULR-8 immediately following the vote, Representatives Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said. “It is a giant increase in an already bloated bureaucracy that is going to add to our debt and our deficit. It is going to be something our children and grand children will be paying back long after we’ve used these services.”Despite of all these issues, late Saturday night the U.S. House of Representatives passed a sweeping bill to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

The Democratic-controlled House has narrowly passed landmark health care reform legislation, handing President Barack Obama a hard won victory on his signature domestic priority. The 220-215 vote late Saturday cleared the way for the Senate to begin a long-delayed debate on the issue that has come to overshadow all others in CongressObama, who went to Capitol Hill earlier on Saturday to lobby wavering Democrats, said in a statement after the vote, “I look forward to signing it into law by the end of the year.”For now, Reid is trying to find the votes for a different approach: a government plan that states could opt out of.I guess we have a lot more to come on this bill in the coming year. Lets hope whatever gets finalized should be for the best of the American public.

Jason Gaya







November 9, 2009

Medical Transcription at Mediscribes

Medical transcription has been a talk of the town in outsourcing world since a couple of decades. Here I would like to give you an idea about Medical Transcription services and how it works.

Medical Transcription is basically the process of accurately & swiftly transcribing the medical records dictated by doctors and physicians. It is a specialized skill which requires high degree of training and dedication. The doctors examines the patient in hospitals and clinics and dictates important information about the patient’s history, physical examination, diseases, procedures, laboratory tests and diagnoses. They talk in technical terms and often so quickly that you must know approximately what they are supposed to say or you won’t be able to understand it when you hear it!

In USA it is vital and mandatory for physicians, doctors and other healthcare professional’s to keep a medical record of their patients. Through these records they can further communicate their patient’s information with other physicians and insurance companies, etc. These records even help in

  • Anticipating future health problems
  • Keeps a record of standard preventive measures of the patients
  • Identifies deviations from the expected
  • Helps as a legal record for any uncertainty
  • Assist in clinical researches

To eliminate paperwork and to maintain a huge volume of medical records, hospitals often go for electronic storage in their databases. Such electronic databases allow immediate access to other departments or providers regarding the patient’s history till date, with notes on previous or present medications, notify about the allergies and create a narration on the patient to facilitate healthcare delivery regardless of geographical distance or location.

The document resulting from the process of medical transcription is termed as medical transcripts / reports / record. The medical record details things such as the date of the patient’s visit, the patient’s condition, the patient’s statements, the physician’s physical findings, and the plan of treatment the doctor recommends. These medical reports are generated by the healthcare professional’s on each meeting with a patient on a specific date of service. The transcribed reports are merged with their specific date of service and become a part of patient’s medical history even known as “patients chart”. In all, maintenance of such records facilitates the patient with better health care services.

Jason Gaya,
Mediscribes, Inc.

To get more details on medical transcription, please visit our website (www.mediscribes.com) or write to us on (marketing@mediscribes.com).

Mediscribes, Inc is one of the renowned names in the field of medical transcription in United States. Since its inception in 2004, Mediscribes has matured with a wide network of 150-plus transcriptionists and more than 600 satisfied providers, producing 18 million lines last year.

Filed under: medical transcription — admin @ 12:34 pm