Medical Transcription Errors That Can Cost Your Practice And Clients

Medical transcription is one of the most important aspects of the Canadian healthcare industry. From helping draft clinical notes to writing medico-legal reports, medical transcribers form a crucial part of the medical field. However, one wrong move on the part of the medical transcriber and you end up with a malpractice lawsuit for compromising on the health of your patients.

As a medical practitioner, it’s helpful for you to be aware of some of the common medical transcription errors that can occur. This way, you can prevent any grave consequences by nipping these medical errors in the bud.

Numerical Errors

Numbers are one of the most crucial details in the healthcare industry. Because, how else are you going to determine the correct quantity of the dosage as a practitioner without the availability of numbers?

As a medical practitioner, you might be aware of the onus that lies on determining the correct numeric values. Even the slightest mistake on the part of the transcriber from 30 ml to 3 ml and you end up with a lawsuit and a patient with worsening health! Therefore, make sure to repeat the numerical amount to the transcriber. This way any chances of numerical error occurring would be eliminated.

Similar Sounding Words

A proper medical treatment lies at the core of accurate diagnosis. This is because proper diagnosis enables you as a medical practitioner to prescribe the right course of treatment for your patients. But the accuracy of your diagnosis can easily be thrown out of the window, with similar sounding words.

Therefore, when words such as “appose/oppose” or “apophysis/epiphysis,” etc. are read out without clarification, there’s a possibility of them being recorded wrongly by the transcriber. And when that happens, you can end up with either a failed or delayed medical diagnosis on your part as a practitioner. To avoid inaccurate transcription, make sure to clarify which word you’re referring to the transcriber.

Grammatical and Spelling Errors

Grammatical and spelling errors are usually common when discussing medication and equipment brand names. Even small errors like incorrect hyphenation and capitalization can lead to major consequences for you as a practitioner.

So, for instance, even if you pronounce a word correctly, there’s a possibility that the transcriber might jot it down wrong. This usually happens if the transcriber’s medical knowledge is not as dependable.

This results in incorrect words being jot down regarding the medication’s brand names, etc. All of this can eventually lead to treatments that a patient doesn’t even need in the first place! You can avoid this by taking a moment to specify to the transcriber what you mean, so as to ensure you’re on the same page.

To avoid the consequences of incorrect medical transcription, get in touch with Spectra Scribe. We offer high-quality IME medical transcription services to clients in Canada and ensure no transcription error is taken lightly. For more details on our IME transcription services, contact us today.

What Role Do Medical Transcription Services Play In The Diagnosis Of Practitioners?

 

Doctors, surgeons, nurses, as well as other healthcare professionals have some of the most stressful and important occupations in the world. Furthermore, they are encouraged to continue their education and to study and grow on a continuous basis in order to ensure that they are equipped with the most up-to-date knowledge and equipment available. In addition to their regular duties, healthcare practitioners are required to maintain detailed records in accordance with record-keeping practices and compliance guidelines. Despite the fact that smaller providers employ an in-house transcriptionist to handle all tracked materials as well as record them to a compliance system, these professionals are few and few between – much alone, always capable of managing such a large input of data on a constant basis.

The Ability To Save Time Results In Increased Productivity.

Outsourcing Medical transcribing work contributes to increased productivity and efficiency by enabling more time to really be spent on tasks that are more urgent. When equipped with a recording device; a Dictaphone or a mobile phone physicians and nurses may quickly and efficiently collect critical information that can then be converted into extremely accurate text.

Insurance Settlements Reliability Is Important.

The importance of medical records cannot be overstated. This includes everything from ensuring that trustworthy, competent care is offered around a full medical team to protecting healthcare practitioners from legal problems and litigation. Medical transcriptionists are compensated well for their services. Not only it is essential to the management and upkeep of your healthcare institution, but it is also necessary for billing and coding personnel, who utilize transcribed medical data to submit claims to insurance companies. Because medical transcribed papers must be accurate in order to be used for rights and settlements, you will want skilled medical records transcriptionists in order to maintain the eminence.

Cost-Effective

An employee for in-house transcribing comes at a high price in terms of money and time invested. Hiring a new employee has an average cost of $4,129 in the United States. This cost covers the effort and cash spent advertising for just a position, the time spent examining resumes, and the time spent interviewing potential candidates for the post. To replace a vacant or new post, the typical organization takes more than 40 days to find a suitable candidate.

Once the transcriptionist has been hired, your firm is responsible for paying them even if there are no notes or documents to transcribe at that time. The fact that many medical offices use in-house transcriptionists and also have their transcribe team conduct other tasks is one of the reasons behind this.

Your practice will only be charged for the content that has been transcribed when it outsources transcribing, which is often done on a per-line basis. There is no need to worry about continuing to pay the wages of a person who is not working since your practice will not see patients for another week or two if it does not see people.