MT India Newsletter

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06 Dec 2003
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Offshore MTSOs' meet ...

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Dear Friends,

As you all know, there has been a recent spate of negative
publicity in the newspapers about outsourced medical transcription
work sent overseas. It has resulted in a California Senator
announcing she will introduce a bill in the California legislature
this upcoming January, restricting California residents' medical
data from being sent overseas. Concerned Indian MT companies are
meeting to discuss means to proactively address this. Affected
MTSOs based in the US will be attending and spearheading the
agenda, as well as meeting up with government officials who can
help.

The main points for discussion at these meetings are:

1) Potential threat of harmful legislative action
2) What could be done to ensure this bill is not introduced
3) Forming local & national associations

Below is the meeting schedule and contacts of the coordinators at
each location. Feel free to mail them directly for the venue and
time.

As usual, feel free to mail me for any clarification.
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1) Mumbai:

Mon - Dec 8th - Amlan Singha as@...
Tues - Dec 9th - Manoj Kshirsagar manoj@...

2) Nagpur:

Tues - Dec 9th - Arun Upadhayaya arun@...
Rattan Pathak Rattan@...

3) Delhi

Wed - Dec 10th - Dr. S.K. Chatterjee
skchatterjee@...
Thurs - Dec 11th - Deepak dk_iiml@...
Fri - Dec 12th

4) Hyderabad

Sun - Dec 14th - Subhorup Dasgupta subho65@...
Mon - Dec 15th

5) Bangalore

Dec 16th Tues - V. Narayanasamy vns@...
Dec 17th

6) Chennai

Dec 18th - Thurs - Venkat Laxmanan venkat@...
S. Meganathan smeganathan@...

7) Trivandrum

Fri - Dec 19th - R.P. Lalaji lalaji@...
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As a parting note, I congratulate and support all those who have
elected to act decisively rather than procrastinate in this
situation, and we pledge all further support, within the
constraints of an online organization.

Cheers!

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

"It takes years to become an overnight success! Inch by inch, it's
a cinch."

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ADVERTISEMENT
-------------------------------------
BetaSoft immediately requires at Mumbai:
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* Medical Transcriptionists (MTs) (500 lines/shift) and Quality
Analysts (QAs) (1500 lines/shift).

* Remuneration will be the best in the industry.

* Interested candidates can contact us at 91-22-28524291/99 for an
appointment or send in their resumes to info.mt@....

***********************************************************
NEWS AND VIEWS :
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1) Known Around the World: Private Records May Be at Risk

"They started off sending American jobs overseas," said U.S. Rep.
Edward Markey (D-Malden), co-chair of the congressional Privacy
Task Force. "Now Americans get to lose their jobs and their privacy
at the same time." The hot-button issue has risen to the level of
presidential politics, with U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)
proposing a "Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act," designed to
protect the jobs and privacy of Americans.

Defenders of outsourcing say a combination of U.S. laws and strict
security measures by corporations will protect Americans' privacy.
But critics say privacy laws in the United States -- unlike those
in the European Union -- have too many legal loopholes that permit
the outsourcing of both jobs and data with little built-in
protections.

Chris Hoofnagle, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information
Center in Washington says "Most American privacy laws don't deal
with the exporting of data- processing jobs and information." The
privacy of patients' health records is supposed to be covered by
the U.S. Health Information Portability and Accountability Act,
which prevents health-care companies from selling information to,
for instance, telemarketing firms. A similar law applies to
financial information.

But Hoofnagle and others say companies can legally transfer that
information -- as opposed to selling it to a third-party -- to
overseas firms if those companies are providing direct vendor
services for U.S. corporations. That was the type of work the
Pakistani woman was doing.

Massachusetts General Hospital is one of many regional hospitals
that outsources work to India and elsewhere, from X-ray development
to transcription services. Deborah Adair, MGH's chief privacy
officer, said the California incident is an aberration -- and MGH
has much more strict contracts and guidelines to protect patients'
records. "It's all about good,
solid contracting," said Adair.

http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/32284.html

2) Lason to invest $ 100 mn in Indian operations

Lason India, part of the global BPO giant Lason, plans to invest up
to $ 100 million in its Indian operations in the next few years.
Lason India, which is now based in Chennai, plans to expand to
smaller towns by setting up 400-seater call centres in Pondicherry
and Kanchipuram.

The company also plans to add medical transcription, billing and
call centre facilities to its range of services, which includes
processing of insurance claims.

http://in.biz.yahoo.com/031127/103/29twa.html

3) Infotech Network ties up with Quovadx

Quovadx, a US firm into e-governance projects, has entered into a
tie-up with Infotech Network Group (ING), to provide networking
solutions in the healthcare, media and entertainment, government
and financial services sectors in India.

At present Quovadx outsources 80-90 per cent of its jobs from
India. The Colarado-headquartered company has a development
facility in California. "Healthcare in the US accounts for 16 per
cent of the country's gross domestic product. Around two per cent
of the turnover from healthcare is spend on the information
technology solutions sector," Nesvisky said. "With over 1,000
health insurance companies, 6,000 hospitals and over five lakh
doctors, the network to be connected is absolutely huge in the US.
Even if one per cent of those jobs is done in India, it would mean
a lot to us," he said.

As far as India is concerned, the major areas for outsourcing are
medical transcription, billing and coding and processing of claims,
Quovadx officials said.

http://in.biz.yahoo.com/031114/26/29gl6.html

4) Outsourcing anxiety..

Add to this the uncertainty over the future of medical
transcription business (where India accounts for almost half the
work outsourced from the US ), following reports that a Pakistani
woman transcriber threatened to post confidential medical reports
on the internet. And suddenly, the outlook for BPO business no
longer looks so rosy.

Nasscom, the apex association of software manufacturers, has been
trying its best to limit the damage. It need not worry unduly. For
one, the noise and fury over outsourcing is essentially a political
gimmick. Companies know there are very real gains to be had from
outsourcing. And as with manufacturing outsourcing in the '70s and
'80s, will strongly resist efforts by governments to cramp their
efforts at cost-cutting. Outsourcing, moreover, is a win-win
situation. According to a McKinsey study, every $1 invested in
outsourcing results in a return flow of $1.25 to the US economy.
Consequently, the present troubles facing the sector are likely to
be transient. But there is also no getting away from the fact that
the scorching pace of growth - close to 50% annually - cannot be
maintained indefinitely.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/328248.cms

5) Weekend ruminations...

While the headlines overseas focus on Indiana and the growing to-do
over job losses because of business process outsourcing, and while
domestic attention is focused on the big-ticket Indian companies
and how they are continuing to grow, the story that is even more
important in some ways is that global giants are locating their
research facilities in India, not just because of the cost
advantages but also because of the quality of work that is done
here.

In other words, this is the services equivalent of what China
achieved in manufacturing: the global giants moved in to create the
Chinese manufacturing story, it wasn't just local Chinese
enterprise; and now the global giants are moving into India to take
advantage of research capabilities.

In other words, this goes beyond call-centres and medical
transcription, it goes beyond payroll accounting, it goes beyond
the banking software products developed by I-flex and Infosys; it
is high-end work that no one would have thought of locating in
Bangalore five years ago.

http://in.biz.yahoo.com/031205/26/2a7aq.html
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Thank you for your interest in MT India!

The MTIndia Team
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