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Sep 24, 2005

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Billing to Quality Principles

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Dear Friends,

In a recent addition of "For The Record" David Iwinski, Jr comments
on the M&As that have been frequenting the MT Industry lately.
"Without naming names" writes David, " there is considerable
anecdotal evidence that in many of the merged companies there are
ongoing struggles with integration and quality resulting in some
loss of customers, market share, and profit margins. Other bits of
evidence come from firms that have announced new customers (or
newly "bought" customers), who then find that those customers are
back on the street in less than a year looking for new suppliers to
fill their needs." In reality, if thorough and thoughtful
integration is not performed, the result is a long-term reduction
in overall customer and company value, he warns.

He goes on to add: The medical transcription industry is plagued
with numerous companies employing questionable billing practices,
which casts a dark shadow on all legitimately run operations. That
is one reason why there are enthusiastic supporters of the Medical
Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) BMP (Billing Method
Principles) Committee's Beacon Award program. MTIA, working with
the AAMT and others, should take the next logical step and carry
out the same rigorous analysis and support the establishment of QMP
(Quality Method Principles). This may be quite a challenge-the
definition of quality isn't as objective as billing
methodologies-but it would be well worth the effort.

The formal establishment of procedures, measures, and practices
that define the industry gold standard for that elusive goal of
"quality" would finally usher in an era when the performance of
medical transcription service organizations can be evaluated by a
strong, independent panel of objective experts. This would provide
clear and validated guidance to customers and suppliers alike and
help establish a benchmark for performance that could be used for
practical comparisons among various internal and external service
providers. Such a program would also firmly establish MTIA, the
AAMT, and others as the most credible and reliable industry
representative organizations in the transcription business. We
should all strongly support this effort, says David.

To read the entire feature, go to:
http://www.fortherecordmag.com/archives/ftr_082905p12.shtml

Ciao!

Maj (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) Productivity, Productivity, Productivity

The battle lines have been drawn. The weapons are being chosen. We
are in the early days of the Transcription Productivity War. Like
it or not, the industry's focus is turning almost entirely toward
getting maximum productivity out of transcriptionists. And that's
not a peaceful mission.

Most of you are probably thinking, "Why do you say we're in the
early days of the War? It's been going on for decades." And, in one
sense, that's true. There's been a battle over productivity
forever. But now there's a new adversary. Or at least there's a new
weapon, which we'll get to in a little bit. Those who manage
transcriptionists have always pushed for higher productivity. And
that push has invariably resonated with the souls of MTs who were
being paid by the line or otherwise incented for greater output.
The weapon of choice for those MTs became expanders, which can save
many keystrokes, leading to substantial increases in productivity
and income.

But now, the times they are a changin'. The employers have their
own weapon. Back-end speech recognition produces a draft of the
report. This draft, along with the synchronized voice dictation, is
provided to an editor who corrects any mistakes. We are beginning
to see implementations of this technology where they are
approaching a doubling of productivity. That's a good thing. But
how does it impact the financial outcome for employers and for
those who edit the text?

If an MT on straight salary is converted to being an editor, the
employer can get the same output from about half the original
number of MTs. That's a good thing . for the employer. But lots of
MTs will eventually be looking for another job. On the other hand,
if an MT being paid by the line is converted to editing, it gets
really interesting. This technology is not inexpensive. For
example, the employer might be paying 3 cents per line (cpl) to a
technology provider to produce the drafts. Let's say that the MTs
were previously being paid 9 cpl to transcribe. For the employer to
save 2 cpl from introducing this solution, the editors would have
to accept 4 cpl. Unless the editors more than double productivity,
they would then be making less money. That is not a good thing.

Choose your weapon!

http://health-information.advanceweb.com/Common/editorial/editorial.aspx?CC=5924\
8

2) Godrej to invest further in CBay

Godrej Industries said it will invest another Rs 20 crore in CBay
Systems Ltd, USA.

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=77447

3) Memorial Hermann Healthcare System Selects Dictaphone
PowerScribe(R) Workstation for Enterprise-wide Radiology Dictation
and Speech Recognition

Memorial Hermann Healthcare System of Houston has selected
Dictaphone's PowerScribe Workstation speech recognition application
for extensive deployment covering all nine of its acute care
facilities and supporting up to 200 radiology and other medical
professionals. This installation will become one of the company's
largest radiology speech recognition deployments.

"As we began to evaluate dictation solutions, PowerScribe
Workstation stood out for its exceptional benchmarks in report
turnaround time and reductions in transcription costs," said Emily
Handwerk, AVP Business Systems, Information Systems Division for
Memorial Hermann. "Dictaphone built PowerScribe Workstation from
the ground up for radiology, and nothing else we looked at came
close to its functional maturity."

PowerScribe Workstation brings together highly accurate speech
recognition software and powerful physician self-editing tools to
help healthcare organizations realize substantial productivity
gains in the radiological reporting and transcription process.
Physicians can dictate, self-complete recognized text and
electronically sign reports from any Internet-connected PC, giving
them "once-and-done" control over the report creation process and
dramatically reducing report turnaround times in even the most
demanding environments. PowerScribe also accommodates more
traditional report editing if desired.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&ne\
wsId=20050919005118&newsLang=en

4) Company could bring 200 jobs to city

Training and jobs for more than 200 people could come to Carlsbad
within the next few months.

DTS America, a company based out of Nashville, Tenn., is nailing
down formalities before making a final decision to locate in
Carlsbad, said Carlsbad Department of Development Executive
Director Robert Detweiler Thursday.

Some of those formalities include incentives the company would
receive for locating in Carlsbad and providing new jobs.

I think were confident that were moving forward in Carlsbad, said
Dana Olson, president of ECODEV LLC and consultant to DTS America,
on Thursday.

DTS America is a 10-year-old company specializing in providing
medical transcriptions, and Olson said the demand for medical
transcriptions is so high at this time that many such jobs have
gone to other countries.

Olson said DTS America will provide the training at its own
expense, and those hired could expect to make $25,000 to $28,000 in
their first year. In their second year, employees could expect to
make up to $35,000 annually.

www.currentargus.com/artman/publish/article_14827.shtml

5) Putting patient histories in writing

The technology has sure changed since Diane Short began her career
as a medical transcriptionist in 1967. Back then, workers pounded
on manual typewriters and transcribed dictation recorded by
physicians on reel-to-reel tapes.

Today, everything is digital, from the dictation saved on telephone
systems to the networked computer systems where the transcribed
reports are stored. What hasn't changed in those 38 years is the
need for fast, accurate, written documentation of medical records.

On any given day, she and her staff of six medical on-staff
transcriptionists may each transcribe 100 minutes of physician
dictation, taken from doctors who pick up the telephone in their
office and record their patients' ailments, health histories and
medical treatments. By the end of the day, each may have generated
25 to 30 patient reports.

Short also works with five contract transcriptionists, some from as
far away as West Virginia and Maine, who access the hospital's
dictation program, transcribe the data on their computers and send
the information back to the hospital via the Internet.

It's a lot of work to transcribe the estimated 18,000 minutes of
dictation generated each month by the hospital's 100 doctors. Just
as fast as the transcriptionists put the physicians' words to the
paper, there's more to transcribe. The phone system holds 3,000
minutes of dictation -- 50 hours' worth -- but it fills quickly.

Although their job is to make a written record, transcriptionists
are more than stenographers. They also edit physician reports and
correct grammatical errors and redundancies. But it's the ultimate
responsibility of the physician to ensure the transcribed report is
accurate. A transcribed medical record can run from one to three
pages or even a dozen depending on the information included, Short
said. And there's often a deadline -- patient histories in the
hospital need to go in their chart within 24 hours.

Speed is good, but accuracy is just as important. Mistakes can be
deadly. Transcriptionists need to know their left coronary artery
from their left pulmonary artery, as well as the difference between
Demerol (for pain) and Donnatal (for stomach problems).
Understandably, a working knowledge of anatomy and pharmacology is
a requirement for the job, as are strong typing and English skills.

Reference materials like prescription drug books and medical
dictionaries are must-haves for any medical transcriptionist. "It's
really a detailed profession," said Short, who teaches medical
transcription at Delaware Technical & Community College. "You've
got to be prepared."

After working nearly 40 years in six states, Short hasn't tired of
the deadlines or her ever-expanding collection of medical terms.
"We learn something new every day," she said.

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050913/HEALTH/5091303\
09/1113/NEWS
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Thank you for your interest in MT India!

The MTIndia Team
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