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08 Jan 2005
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NASSCOM draft on cyber legislations

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Dear Friends,

A Happy New Year 2005!

The National Association of Software and Services Companies
(NASSCOM) is working on a new draft proposal on cyber laws to
address loopholes in the existing laws and to restore confidence
among multinationals (MNCs).

Disclosing this to mediapersons on Tuesday on the sidelines of a
one-day seminar on Industry-Academia Meet on HR, NASSCOM president
Kiran Karnik said cyber/information security is a major issue for
MNCs which have doubts over outsourcing important jobs to India.

"India has good cyber laws, however, there are some loopholes which
call for stringent measures," said Mr Karnik adding "the proposed
draft proposal will incorporate some of the stringent measures of
the EU as well as the US to allay fears of the MNCs, who want to
outsource jobs in the areas of income returns, healthcare, credit
cards, etc."

"We are working on the new processes and systems to make India a
safe destination for offshore outsourcing through suitable
amendment of the IT Act and the Contract Act," Mr Karnik pointed
out.

While reiterating on the possible 30-32% growth in the overall
software exports during the fiscal, Mr Karnik also expressed
concern about two major factors like infrastructure and human
resources.

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To participate in the Coffee Break XIX, click here now:
http://www.mtindia.org/jobs/
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Ciao!

Dr Amit Chatterjee, SM
Strategist / Founder ~ mailto:amit@...
MT India ~ www.mtindia.org
"The Community of MT Professionals"

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NEWS AND VIEWS :
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1) Outsourced HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act) work to India may be subject of multi billion
dollar law suits in United States

While the HIPAA act was enacted a few years back, the official
guidelines from the Department of Health and Human Services is
still fluid and in the next ten years, the courts in United States
will finally give HIPAA a shape for legal interpretation. In this
situation, it is extremely risky to outsource HIPAA work from
India. When Privacy and related law suits come, the third party
vendor contracts may not protect the American company.

According to some legal experts, Indian companies can also be sued
for possible divulging of Protected Health Information of US
citizens even if they did not divulge the same. The legal experts
warn that both the American and Indian counterparts should increase
their errors and omission insurance by 100 times. HIPAA
non-compliance carries up to quarter million dollar fines and jail
term for each violation. Especially in the case when an American
company knowingly outsourced this sensitive work to India, and a
non-compliance is registered by the Department of Health and Human
Services, the courts may slap penalties easily.

While the Indian counterpart can be immune from HIPAA law in India,
they can be sued and be liable for billions in United States.

HIPAA work is lucrative. Healthcare, which is one of the very few
sectors in US that are growing requires HIPAA compliance for
privacy as well as eCommerce as related to Gap analysis of HIPAA
transaction sets based on data dictionaries of the Department of
Health and Human Services. HIPAA EDI/X12 translator work is also
very lucrative. But legal experts are recommending that these work
be not sent to India to avoid complications at this time.

HIPAA is one of the very few fields where Indian companies can
still get some work other than legacy system maintenance and code
conversion from some old to contemporary systems in 2005. However,
HIPAA regulations may provide a total damper on the outsourcing of
this lucrative work from India in 2005.

Sources said that the US government has set a compliance deadline
of mid-'05 for these new norms. It means documentation have become
much more stringent than never before, though the deadline pertains
to only data-transfer. "There are many new clauses, arising from
the complete overhaul of US health insurance practices, which apply
to technology workers from India," said the finance head of a
Bangalore-based software vendor . "For instance, Indian software
companies have to face complicated compliance norms applicable to
techies engaged in on-site assignments. In fact, there are ways and
means for these companies to insulate themselves from the
complicated web of Hipaa compliance norms, such as absolving from
access to private health information of employees," said Mark Hanna
of Hanna Insurance Solutions. Mr Hanna works with several Indian
software companies offering health insurance solutions to software
companies who send workers abroad. "Privacy statutes are
increasingly becoming a concern for Indian companies who are
sending technology workers abroad," he adds.

However, the healthcare practices head of a leading software
company said that there are more opportunities than challenges to
Indian companies.

"Offshoring contracts from large multinational companies in
pharmaceuticals, insurance and integrated dealer networks are bound
to increase once Indian companies comply with these Hipaa norms,"
he said. However, he admits that once the general compliance rules
take effect next year, all business associates (Indian software
companies which handle offshoring contracts) have to ensure that
they adhere to these certification norms.

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/12-20e-04.asp

2) Passing of an MT legend - George Morton

George Morton, CMT, author of "How to Become a Medical
Transcriptionist--A Career for the Twenty-First Century," 55, a
Princeton resident for the past five years, passed away on December
30 at home, following a six-month battle with pancreatic cancer.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, he immigrated to California in 1976
where he worked for Kaiser Permanente. In 1999, he moved to New
Jersey, where he worked as quality control manager for All Type
Medical Transcription of North Brunswick.

George was a medical transcriptionist for 25 years, working in
acute care hospitals, running a successful home-based service, and
representing AAMT and the profession as a committee member,
speaker, and author. He was a nationally recognized expert,
consultant, author, and speaker on medical transcription.

He is survived by his wife, Teresa Castaldi; a daughter, Fiona
Morton of San Diego; his parents, Baroness Elisabeth vonKirchbach
Morton and George Russell Morton of Bournemouth, England; and a
sister, Jacki Morton of Dunbar, Scotland.

A memorial service was held January 4 at The Mather-Hodge Funeral
Home. Burial was at Holy Cross Burial Park in South Brunswick.

http://www.towntopics.com/jan0505/obits.html#obit5

3) Offshore IT/BPO Services: Limited Tsunami Impact Report

After a scrutiny of local Indian firms, U.S. firms with Indian
operations, and other IT/BPO off-shore providers regarding the
impact of the Tsunami in South Asia. Our takeaways in this report
by Wachovia Securities are:

Feedback from numerous sources in India indicate no impact on
operations is expected from last week's devastating tsunami. We
have heard of no impact to either facilities or communications.
Several companies have indicated either direct financial aid,
and/or matching gift programs for their employees, which may have a
modest impact in the December and March quarters.

We heard numerous accounts of information technology (IT)
professionals stepping up with both financial aid and hands on
support for the victims. Even clients are offering support. Acusis
is sending $110,300 to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund in
New Delhi. This will only reinforce the important role that IT
plays in the strongly growing Indian economy.

The only major IT/BPO center close to the tsunami wave was Chennai.
Although a handful of employees and family members appear to have
been lost, no operations were affected.

Client feedback has so far been on the supportive side. We assume
it will add another factor as offshore users evaluate
diversification and disaster recovery issues.

http://www.nasscom.org/artdisplay.asp?Art_id=3873

4) Etransmedia ventures into billing for docs with 2nd acquisition

Medical transcription company Etransmedia Technologies Inc. has
purchased Advanced Medical Billing, a Belmar, N.J., medical billing
company. Advanced Medical is a 13-year-old company that handles
billing for 13 practices with 125 physicians. Etransmedia CEO
Vikram Agrawal said he will keep Advance Medical in New Jersey.

"We've been trying to expand into the medical billing business for
the last two years," Agrawal said. "That's as big a business as
transcription--$25 billion in the U.S."

Practices spend 8 to 10 percent of their realized revenues on
medical billing fees, compared with 0.5 to 0.7 percent on
transcription, which makes the billing market enticing. The
barriers to entering this market, Agrawal said, include
understanding the rules of insurance companies, submitting claims
and conforming to the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act, or HIPAA, which requires patient
confidentiality.

The payoffs are greater, too. "The same customer becomes 10 times
more valuable to us if we sell billing to them instead of just
transcription," Agrawal said. "We're moving up the value chain."

After purchasing Transkrit, Etransmedia added two products to its
offerings--one for medical billing, and the other helps law firms
and medical practices index and arrange documents in a database so
they can retrieve and research information.

Agrawal plans to release another product in late 2005--an
electronic medical records software that integrates billing and
transcription as well as other records kept by physicians and puts
them online.

Etransmedia now has 39 employees in the United States--18 in North
Greenbush--and 430 employees in India who are on the medical
transcription side of the business.

Agrawal expects to add 21 employees in the United States by the end
of 2005. Seven of them will be programmers to work on the medical
records software.

"We're still on a very explosive expansion phase," said Agrawal,
29. "Our business grew 300 percent this year."

Etransmedia was founded in 2000 at the Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute incubator when Agrawal was an RPI graduate student. The
company expanded within the incubator until it finally ran out of
space and moved into the Rensselaer Technology Park in North
Greenbush last year.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6757782/

5) A talking computer for the visually-impaired, and MT

Saravanan logs on to yahoo.com independently! So what's the news in
it? Don't millions of us do it without assistance? But Saravanan's
case is different. He is visually impaired. However, he does not
need a Braille keyboard to operate computers. Saravanan and others
with sight problems have to thank Access With Speech (JAWS), a
specially-designed screen reading software made available to them
by Ability Foundation, to enable them to access the Internet.

Speech synthesis in computers has begun to make word-processing
programs, typing, editing, modifying, cutting, copying, pasting and
printing documents of any size; receiving, and sending e-mail,
visiting websites, and surfing the Internet more accessible to
blind people. It reads out everything that appears on the screen in
human voice. It has opened up a new world to the visually-impaired.

'We have initiated classes in National Center for Information and
Communication Technology (NCICT), a pilot association with UNESCO,
and cafés for the visually-impaired with the help of Job access
with Speech (JAWS) for windows software and the service of a
Braille printing unit,' said Jayshree Raveendran, Founder, Ability
Foundation.

'It reads whatever key I press. With the help of JAWS I was able
learn medical transcription', said 24-year-old Saravanan, who is
currently doing his B.Ed and has two years experience in medical
transcription.

http://newstodaynet.com/06jan/rf1.htm

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The MTIndia Team
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