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20 Dec 2003
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An ally?

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Dear Friends,

Continuing the interview with Ms. Pfahning. Please note the
interview is over 4 years old and some information
may be outdated.
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Q: India does have its drawbacks. Could you quote from your
experience of what ought to be improved in this country?

As I mentioned previously, I feel that the level of English as
regards to American English vs British English should be utilized
more. Not that I think the American English is better, it is more
universal and accepted in all countries around the world. It is a
very complicated language and difficult to understand.

I see a weak area in using common sense in solving a problem or
situation. The ability to use ones imagination is not encouraged
here as well along with a broader knowledge of general subjects.
I often ask students to tell me about themselves so I can get to
know them better and they are stumped as to what to write. They
cannot write a short story about a subject when asked to do so as
well. Reading is also an essential part of life, but I do not see
a lot of that here nor do I hear anybody discussing what books they
have read, etc. In a bookstore one day I asked the young sales girl
working If she had read a certain book and her reply was, "I am
not allowed to read books." I think this is very sad, because we
can learn so much from them and I am a strong advocate of reading.
It also helps build English skill levels in sentence structure,
etc.

India is very strong as far as nurturing education of all kinds.
This is admirable as I see many of the young people going on to
college and getting some type of degree. We do not see this as
strongly in the US since mostly only the affluent can afford
colleges.

Q: What do you visualize as the future of MT in India - as a career
prospect?

There is much controversy in this regard as well. There are many
varying opinions on this subject for those who have ventured into
this field. Myself, I feel that MT will be here for a long time.
I feel the strong companies will prevail and flourish. I also
foresee that these same tanscriptionists will one day be working
for Indian physicians with the insurance industry coming into
being.

Q: There has been a lot of resentment amongst MTs in USA about jobs
going abroad. Seeing the magnitude of work available and
considering scalability of this industry in India, do you consider
that there is a threat to MTs in US. Can US and Indian MTs
symbiotically coexist?

Right now there is a lot of controversy over this topic. There
are a lot of heated words flying in both directions. There is no
doubt that there is a huge volume of work in the US and there are
approximately 350,000 MTs in the US that are not able to meet the
demand of the hospitals. With the insurance industry demanding
more and more from medical reports, more details are being
dictated, making reports longer thus taking more time to
transcribe. Terminology is also changing from the few basic terms
previously used by physicians. That is why training of MTs with
remedial training when new information comes out is essential.
Continuing education and updating oneself in the profession on an
ongoing basis is also essential to become and remain a good MT. I
hope one day that the US can look at Indian MTs not as an enemy
but as an ally in the same profession.

...concluded...........

A Merry Christmas to all!!

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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NEWS AND VIEWS :
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1) Doctors also ship work overseas

In health care, transcription continues to be done mostly in the
United States, but a growing percentage is being done in India.
Three key factors are the shortage of qualified U.S. transcribers,
the availability of lower-cost English-speaking transcribers
elsewhere and a quicker turnaround time, observers say.

The American medical transcription industry is a $15 billion to $20
billion market, said Amy Buckmaster, president of the American
Assn. for Medical Transcription, Modesto, Calif. About 4% of that
goes to India, she estimates. Others think the figure is as high as
10%.

"I saw at least a dozen transcription companies exhibiting," at the
Medical Group Management Assn.'s annual meeting last month in
Philadelphia, said Stuart Patty, administrator of Peoria (Ill.)
Surgical Group. "Many are using offshore labor. I'd say four or
five are run by Indians, and the rest probably have that in the
background though it's not obvious, and a couple were owned by
Americans." Patty's 12-doctor practice has outsourced most of its
transcription needs to India.

Richard C. Anderson, MD, a thoracic surgeon with the Illinois
group, sympathizes with workers who have lost their jobs. But
doctors have no choice but to use offshore services if they can get
the same quality service for less than it would cost in America, he
said.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2003/11/10/bisb1110.htm

2) Local medical transcription firms seek help from gov't

LOCAL companies involved in offshore medical transcription work
have urged both government and industry to help fight a pending US
legislation banning the outsourcing of jobs to other countries like
the Philippines.

In a petition, the Medical Transcription Industry Association of
the Philippines Inc. (MTIAPI), urged government and the
Filipino-American business groups to lobby against the measure.

The petition was presented during the launching of the
organization, which was established by nine Philippine-based
medical transcription service providers.

http://www.inq7.net/inf/2003/dec/13/inf_1-1.htm

3) Privacy Without Borders

Companies that outsource the processing of sensitive financial or
medical data know they need to overcome customer concerns about
protection against inadvertent disclosures. In the coming year,
they could face additional legal obstacles as well.

In the first week of January, California state Sen. Liz Figueroa
plans to introduce legislation to prohibit confidential medical
information and tax returns from being sent abroad, says Elizabeth
Fenton, the senator's chief of staff. The proposal stems from an
incident in October when a woman doing medical transcriptions in
Pakistan threatened to post on the Web data related to patients of
the University of California's San Francisco Medical Center. She
claimed a subcontractor hadn't paid her for her work.

Molly Malone, executive director of the Medical Transcription
Industry Alliance, a professional association for the industry,
says about 45% of hospitals it has surveyed subcontract these jobs.
Only 4% say they send work overseas themselves, though those who
don't send the work overseas could be working with U.S. outsourcers
that subcontract the work abroad.

Kaiser Permanente, a large health-care provider with a major
California presence, contracts with Covansys, HCL Technologies,
Infosys, and Tata Consultancy Services for offshore IT services.
The outsourcers have at least a decade of experience with
international companies, including U.S. health-care organizations,
a Kaiser spokesman says. They do employee background and criminal
checks and daily verifications of employee badges and personal
belongings.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cmp/20031209/tc_cmp/
16506477

4) Poor infrastructure plagues ITES sector

Poor infrastructure could result in a loss of $21 billion of
investment to other competing countries in Asia and this is a major
threat to the realisation of India's projected IT vision for 2008,
according to a CII paper on IT.

India needs to enable the creation of adequate infrastructure in
the form of national backbone, integrate telecom policies to roll
out data transmission and rationalise tariff structure for
bandwidth, the CII paper on 'IT-empowering growth' stated.
While the costs of serving the customers is indeed lower, customer
satisfaction levels have tended to be rather low in call centres
and medical transcription services, the paper said.

Medical transcription, among the earliest ITES opportunities in
India, proliferate around US insurance regulations.
"A 24-hour turnaround time and high quality of transcription are
critical to the service and require deployment of sufficiently
trained staff with good transcription skills and familiarity with
medical technical terminology", the CII paper said.
Certification and training are two important requirements to build
a competitive transcription business in India.
A closer analysis reveals that India needs to gear up on several
fronts considering that ITES involves real-time,
manned-transactions with immediate business consequences, it said.

The global ITES market is currently estimated at $10 billion and
McKinsey projects the same to grow to $140 billion by 2008. India
has a business potential of $21-$24 billion in ITES segment by
2008, as per Nasscom-McKinsey projections.

http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=13335295

5) Godrej Group Ups Stake in CBay

The Godrej group has hiked its stake in Compas Connections of the
UK and the US-based CBay Systems Ltd - firms involved with Business
Process Outsourcing (BPO) - to 20 per cent and 10 per cent,
respectively. About two years ago, the group had picked up a stake
of around five per cent in each of these firms.

Adi Godrej, chairman, Godrej group, told FE that the group would
like to opt for a further hike in stake in the two firms in the
future. "BPO is an area in which we will continue to invest, and
Godrej Industries will be the vehicle for pursuing this interest,"
Mr Godrej added.

CBay, which is the leader in supplying Indian medical transcription
to the US healthcare industry, is the largest provider of
transcription and information services to the Indo-US healthcare
services arena. The Godrej group's role is seen as that of a
venture capitalist, even as it is playing an active role in these
ventures.

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=47880

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The MTIndia Team
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