Tips for Researching Your MTSO
By Stephen Denick
With health care's ongoing challenges of limited transcription resources and management's constant examination of costs, health care managers are being asked to look for alternatives that balance the dichotomy. While there are several options to control and lower costs of transcription, with the right partner, you can affect a positive impact with an international labor pool. Offshore transcription represents opportunities with these and other key attributes. For those who have been asked to seek out lower cost alternatives and add value to your current transcription process, your own due diligence will provide the peace of mind you desire. Concerns such as quality, security and connectivity are valid, while having a "nationalistic approach" to your labor needs, can make the research process a bit overwhelming. As a member of an organization that produces both in the U.S. and abroad, the following are some important questions to consider when exploring non-domestic production.
Economies of Scale?
At the end of the day, one has to ask themselves if the perceived risks are worth the obvious economic benefit to going "offshore." Many facilities have justified this decision based on dollars alone. Today there is more substance to the international delivery process than ever before. These fears can be overcome with good technology, ample resources, proper quality assurance (QA) procedures and good communication with your vendor's account management personnel than ever before.
How can the production process help me?
A "silver lining" in this, especially with Indian labor, is that their days are our nights, and our nights are their days. With this time difference, a global workforce assists in meeting your turnaround (TAT) objectives. The workflow can be addressed quicker each day. Also, technologies such as speech recognition (SR) can greatly ease the language barrier. As we collectively become more comfortable with SR technologies and SR technologies improve this will bridge many gaps that existed in the past.
What are their security safeguards?
Signing a business associate agreement (BAA) with your medical transcription service organization (MTSO) in regard to privacy and security standards of HIPAA is merely a preliminary step. The MTSO in turn should have the same understanding with their offshore team. Best practices should encompass confidentiality agreements for offshore contractors and their employees, where employees are bound by those agreements. This includes eliminating the MT's ability to download patient information for any purpose. Also, Internet access should be limited to client Web sites, passwords should be reset at consistent intervals, computers should be protected with anti-virus standards, and if possible, also ask if they do workstation audits. At first glance, these may seem like standard procedures, but when sending work offshore you need to ensure privacy and security measures are in place.
Will the work be done out of a central facility or via home-based transcription?
Having a centralized workforce is a good indication of an organization's commitment to its international workflow. The culture of the home-based worker is not the same as it is here in the states. Without a central facility, it is safe to assume that control may be lost during the process. It's imperative to learn about the physical location of where the work is going, the infrastructure of the facility, and the security of the PCs.
Does the company sub-contract work out?
Understanding the relationship between the "mother-ship" with whom you have contracted and its international labor pool is key. It is important to know whether you're working with one or more companies in the process. Ask questions regarding all parties involved, the chain of command and how many eyes see the reports before they are returned to you. You should require that your vendor not subcontract your work without your written permission.
What is their technical competency?
Your IT team may step in for this portion of your research, but it can serve you well and give you piece of mind to know what kind of IT practices are in place. Determine whether the vendor has the capacity and bandwidth for a secure virtual private network (VPN). Learn about their redundancy, connectivity, power and backups to each. In the case of an emergency, redundancy is even more crucial. Incorporate your partner to your disaster recovery initiatives for further piece of mind.
What is the QA process?
Ask how the MTSO connects through secure VPNs vs. re-recording voice from your server to their server. Determine whether the offshore vendor logs into the system vs. exporting files. QA can be another added benefit as this can occur prior to receiving it at your facility. In some cases, QA can be done domestically after the work has been checked offshore. You should have a clear vision of what the audit trail looks like.
How's your communication with your vendor?
For anyone who has called a customer service help desk and whose call has been routed overseas can attest, a potential language barrier may occur. Understanding who is going to handle calls in the future, on your behalf, is critical to your success. For example, who will communicate with the international production team as challenges occur? How often do they communicate? Who's "on-call" when our nights and days do not coincide? An open line of communication with your partner and offshore contractor will help. Their administrative and QA staff should be proficient English speaking representatives to ensure accurate transfer of information.
Stephen Denick, national director of sales for Outsourcing Solutions Inc., has 22 years of experience in health care sales and sales management. He has background in delivering high quality document management and speech recognition solutions from two of the largest providers. Denick has also been invited to speak at various industry meetings on the topics of speech recognition technologies and outsourcing solutions to regional groups of HIMSS, AHIMA and AHDI.
source: health-information.advanceweb.com
