If you are representing a hospital that produces voice/dictation recordings which are outsourced / offshored outside your premises for medical transcription and conversion into typed text, then you must be very wary of the quality of your audio material recordings because it can directly affects the costs.

The main fact to remember is that taking care of your audio quality will greatly enhance the cost affectivity of your outsourcing campaign. How? Let me explain. Did you know that all transcription material that comes in for transcription is first assessed? The time taken and charges for transcription will depend on the quality of the recordings. Obviously with bad recording, transcription takes more time and so more work hours and higher charges of transcription. Some of the factors that affects the time /cost of transcribing that are considered while assessing a transcription /dictation recording include,

• Background noise level
• Clarity of recording
• Speed of speech
• Clarity of voice
• Number of speakers
• Accents of speakers
• Technical language used
• Content
• Collect essential details of the material transcribed
• Get details of all participants/leaders

So how does one go about creating good quality audio recordings for your transcription outsourcing provider? Well, essentially one has to make sure that the recording is done as perfectly as possible by,

• Making a test recording
• Minimize tape “hiss”
• Use digital recording
• Minimize background noise
• Use more microphones if more than two people
• Plan all breaks beforehand
• Avoid speakers from speaking among themselves
• Get all details of the speaker/participant (Gender/ title/ representation etc)
• Note Words/minute

Outsource Strategies International (OSI ) is an Oklahoma based medical transcription company that offers professional outsourced solutions in medical coding, medical billing and medical transcription service for clients globally.

Do you wish to be a certified medical coder? Are you confused about which coding certification exam is to be taken? It is true that the CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services) has recommended the physician offices and other healthcare facilities to employ certified coders. Only AAPC’s certifications are nationally recognized by employers seeking ethical, accurate and experienced coders.

Remember that today various employers, payers and government agencies including the Department of Labor, currently only recognize AAPC’s CPC for physician and outpatient coding, and AHIMA’s CCS for inpatient coding. Thus there are the following choices,

• Certified Procedural Coder – Hospital (CPC-H)
• Certified Procedural Coder (CPC)
• Certified Procedural Coder – Payer (CPC-P)
• Specialty Credentials

The CPC exam addresses physician billing and is suited for those working in any physician office, hospital associated physician’s office, health agency, physician billing service, auditor of physician claims, consultant or an educator.

Take the CPC (H) exam if you are working in areas of billing of Ambulatory Patient Categories (APC), hospital APC departments, ambulatory surgery centers, outpatient billing coding service, consultants, and educators.

The (CPC-P) exam concentrates on coding and billing after it has been submitted to the payer. So take this exam if you are a claims manager/auditor for a payer, a post-billing auditor for a physician group or in related facility billing service, an consultant, educator or a physician. Specialty credentials are to enable CPCs, CPC-Hs, CPC-Ps, CCSs, CCS-Ps, RHIT and MDs to demonstrate their superior levels of expertise in selected specialty disciplines.

Contact OSI (Outsource Strategies International) is a US based medical transcription company that offers outsourcing solutions in medical coding, medical billing, and medical transcription services to clients globally.

What is medical coding and who are medical coders? Well, everyone does know about the importance of medical data while providing quality healthcare service. The professional medical coders is one of the main person involved in the capturing of this critical and accurate medical data that needs to be delivered it in time.

During medical coding all verbal descriptions of diseases, injuries, and procedures are converted into numeric or alphanumeric designations. How did the medical coding originate? It was originally performed to classify mortality (cause of death) data on death certificates besides being used to classify morbidity and procedural data. Such type of coding is very useful especially as it helps us today to get easy access to medical records by diagnoses and procedures so that in can be used in,

• Hospitals/clinics etc
• Research work
• Education

The federal government introduced The Medicare Prospective Payment System (PPS) in October, 1983, for better management of medical care. Each patient was classified into a DRG (Diagnosis Related Group) depending on the information from the Medical Record that appears on the bill. Under PPS, hospitals are paid a pre-determined rate for each Medicare admission. Since then there has been a great deal more emphasis placed on medical coding.

At present assigning of medical codes is the backbone for reimbursement of claims for Medicare patients. Codes are given for diagnoses, services, and procedures provided. Thus healthcare providers today have to comply with different medical coding guidelines.

OSI (Outsource Strategies International) is a US based medical transcription company that offers outsourced services in medical coding, billing and medical transcription services to clients globally and also across USA.

The 2008 Radiology Coding & Reimbursement Conferenceconducted by the Coding Institute will be held from April 13-15, 2008 at Denver, Colorado. The list of topics for the conference is given below.

Pre-Conference Workshops (Sunday, April 13th)

Expert Strategies To Make You A Vascular IR Coding Superstar

Conference Day 1: Main Sessions (Monday, April 14th)

• Non-Vascular IR Coding: Stumble-Free Expert Tips To Get The Revenue You Deserve
• Expert Tactics To Get Every Penny In The Door
• Get Up To Speed On Computed Tomographic Angiography (CTA) and increase your bottom-line
• Get The Inside Scoop On Nuclear Medicine Revisions And Maximize Your Practice’s revenue
• Become A Mammogram Coding Guru With These Comprehensive, Expert Tips
• OIG Workplan: Is Your Practice Protected?
• Ace Your Radiological Guidance Coding With Fail-Safe Expert Tips

Conference Day 2: Main Sessions (Tuesday, April 15th)

• 5 Most common mistakes in Diagnostic Radiology and How to avoid them.
• Diagnostic Radiology Definitions: Are You Getting Every Dollar You Deserve?
• Proven techniques for ensuring complete Radiology Documentation

Post-Conference Workshop (Tuesday, April 15th)

• New STARK Rule: An In-Depth Look At Exactly What It Means For Radiology

Registration details are at http://www.codingconferences.com/radiology08r.htm Hotel reservations are available at http://www.codingconferences.com/radiology08h.htm

For outsourcing solutions in medical coding, medical billing and medical transcription services do call up the Oklahoma based premier medical transcription company OSI (Outsource Strategies International)

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) were enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1996. It consists of two different titles. These are,

Title I: Health Care Access, Portability, and Renewability
Title II: Preventing Health Care Fraud and Abuse

What is the HIPAA privacy law? Well, The (HIPAA) Privacy Rule is the first comprehensive Federal protection for the privacy of personal health information. This Rule that comes under Title II took effect on April 14, 2003, with a one-year extension for certain “small plans.” It is about regulations for the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI) that is about an individual’s information about his health status, provision of health care, payment for health care etc. (Take a look at the privacy rules after final modifications at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/privrulepd.pdf ) It forms a patient’s medical record or payment history. The other laws for preventing of health care fraud are,

• The Transactions and Code Sets Rule
• The Security Rule
• The Unique Identifiers Rule (National Provider Identifier)
• The Enforcement Rule

Besides the Fair Debt Collection Act and the HIPAA acts, one of the major laws that govern medical billing is the privacy law. The Privacy Rule allows individuals the right to request that a covered entity correct any inaccurate PHI. If a covered person feels that the Privacy Rule is not being upheld he can file a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

Outsource Strategies International (OSI) is a US based medical transcription company that offers professional medical billing, medical coding and medical transcription service to clients in all the US States.

There are certain basic rules that must be followed by all the professionals in the medical transcription industry. The American Association for Medical Transcription (AAMT) style guide is very popular and is in use around the globe. The style guide guides the medical transcription professional in all the different aspects of transcription that includes topics spacing during typing of text,numbering/ numerical typing, punctuation, hyphenation, drug terminology, capitalization rules, measurements, symbols to be used, classification rules, proofreading and more.

Let me now mention about some of the important rules that must be followed during the transcription/preparation of various medical reports.

• While writing the history of the present illness it is preferred to use the present tense or a mixed tense.
• Use past tense only while writing about a past medical history.
• Type all allergies in capital
• The Assessment/Diagnosis/Impression report must be entirely in capital letters without abbreviations for any medical terminology. However measurement units can be abbreviated.
• Use past tense in discharge summaries
• If no allergies found, type “No known drug allergies.”
• All major physical examination reports to be in the present tense
• Use the correct verb tense to communicate the appropriate time of the action.(even if the dictation is wrongly tensed)
• The title “Doctor” is to be written in full
• Capitalize brand name medications. One must not capitalize generic medications.
• Use Latin drug abbreviations.
• Arabic numerals must be use when referring to strength, dosage and directions in medication.

Take a look at the basic style guide with the Courtesy of Global Medical Transcription and MT Daily at http://www.mtdaily.com/style.html

If you are looking for a professional medical transcription company that can offer outsourced medical transcription service along with medical coding/billing, just call the Oklahoma based OSI (Outsource Strategies International).

Years back when I was in India, I knew a pharmacist who was the only one who could decipher everything our hospital’s only physician scribbled /prescribed on his pad. (Many rural Indian hospitals still follow the system). Believe it or not, whenever the pharmacist took a day off or was on leave, the pharmacy would give out wrong medications that turned up to be tragic. We later solved the problem by getting a mobile phone for our pharmacist friend whom we called up even on his “off days” and clarified what the physician prescribed. Surprisingly he could solve the problem even over the telephone.

Today it is not bad handwriting but bad dictation. It indeed makes the medical transcriptionist’s job more difficult and highly prone to mistakes. Further it causes waste of valuable time. So what can be the solution to this problem? Is it possible to have an exclusive transcription professional for each doctor so that he gets know the physician like the back of his hand?

Well here is a guide with tips to proper dictation that will be very useful for the physician to give good dictations and get error free transcripts. I recently came across a group of medical transcription from different specialty groups who all had similar types of requests/appeal for the dictating physicians /doctors.

• While dictating a difficult medical term it would be greatly appreciated if care is taken to see that the term gets well recorded via the microphone.
• Please start the dictation mentioning about the type/title of document that is been dictated instead of keeping the transcriptionist guessing about it till the end.
• Please avoid the tendency to summarize every thing/procedure and include everything in few long sentences. It would be ideal to present the facts in shorter and more communicative sentences if possible.
• Would appreciate if uncommon abbreviations are expanded and dictated when possible.
• Please move your face away for a moment from the microphone to sneeze/cough.
• Please finish your snack before beginning the dictation or keep it for afterwards.
• Never forget to mention the basic information like date/name/ summary etc
• Try and avoid talking fast/ yawns /hiccups while dictating.

Physicians/surgeons should be aware of the background sounds/ noise and how it can become a hindrance to listening to the dictation. Just a pause at such occasions would be greatly appreciated and can save a lot of time.

Outsource Strategies International(OSI) is a US based medical transcription company that offers outsourcing solutions in medical billing, medical coding and medical transcription service for clients globally.

The Coding Institute will conduct the Optometry Coding and Reimbursement Conference from February 24-26, 2008 in Las Vegas, NV. The conference is meant for practice managers, optometrists, coding and billing professionals, non-physician practitioners, billing companies, compliance professionals, coding consultants and anyone involved in optometry coding.

Here is a list of the topics:

Pre-Conference Workshop Topics (Sunday, February 24th)

Documentation Best-Practices
Presenter: Nina Watson, CMA (AAMA), CPC

2008 Modifier Essentials
Presenter: Raequell Duran, CPC

Conference Day 1: (Monday, February 25th)

Unlock the Reimbursement Secrets of Special Testing Services
Presenter: Raequell Duran, CPC

PQRI from A to Z: Making the Most of the Program
Presenter: David R. Gibson, O.D.

Narrow Your Focus: Eye Codes vs. E/M codes
Presenter: Jeffrey Restuccio, CPC, CPC-H

Get Post-Op Cataract Care Claims Paid the Very First Time
Presenter: Raequell Duran, CPC

Visual Fields: Spot the Differences and Avoid Losing Audits
Presenter: David R. Gibson, O.D.

Successfully Code Your Patients’ Conditions with Guaranteed Expert Tactics
Presenter: Mark Michael, MD

Billing Frames, Contact Lenses So Your Bottom line looks pretty

Conference Day 2: (Tuesday, February 26th)

Navigating Glaucoma Guidelines – Screenings and Beyond

Pitfalls in Optometry Coding and How to Avoid Them
Presenter: Alice Marie Reybitz, RN, BA, CPC, CPC-H

Master Optometry Documentation Essentials to Make Sure You Get Every Penny in the Door

Post-Conference Workshop (Tuesday, February 26th)

The Future of Eye Care: Making the System Generate More $ For You
Presenter: Mark Michael, MD

Registration for the conference is available at http://www.codingconferences.com/optometry08r.htm

Outsource Strategies International (OSI) is a US based company that offers outsourced solutions in medical coding, medical billing and medical transcription to clients globally and in all the US States.

Are you looking for easy online practical and accurate solutions and answers to your most urgent pediatric coding questions? Then here is a monthly newsletter that can be of great help. The American Academy of Pediatric has developed a pediatric coding newsletter which is very useful to the pediatric communities. This peer-reviewed newsletter has been developed with a careful review done by the AAP committee on coding and nomenclature. Here one can expect a wide coverage of both,

• Pediatric primary care
• Subspecialty services

In any allopathic medical practice, surgery is an important aspect. Surgery transcription involves converting all the surgeon’s voice tapes about a surgical procedure into neatly typed documents. And thus surgery transcription is an important specialty in medical transcription. Surgery transcriptions are used for settlement of insurance claims and legal matters.

Some of the different types of surgery transcription areas include,

• Dental surgery
• General Surgery
• Cardiovascular/thoracic surgery
• Abdominal/ gastrointestinal surgery
• Orthopedic surgery
• Obstetric and Gynecology surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Plastic surgery

The surgery transcription process can be very demanding from the medical transcriptionists as it requires a deep knowledge of various surgical procedures, surgical techniques and familiarity with the different medical and surgical equipment that is used during surgery. A good transcription professional will have a good knowledge of the anatomy of the human body and the various types of diseases that affect the various parts of the body. A good knowledge of the different procedures and surgery performed along with familiarity with all related terminology will go a long way in correctly transcribing the surgeon’s voice tapes without making mistakes. However in case of pending doubts it is always better for the medical transcription professional to check out directly with the surgeon who actually did the job. A lot of medical equipments are used by the surgeons that the medical surgery transcriptionist has to be familiar with. These can include knowledge of,

• Surgical instruments (Scissors / scalpels etc)
• Surgical Diathermy
• Endoscopic instruments
• Suction apparatus
• Anesthesia machine
• Pulseoximeter
• Plethysmographs
• Multi parameter patient monitors
• Defibrillators
• Autoclaves
• Infusion pumps
• Autoclaves

Outsource Strategies International (OSI) is a US based company that offers a wide range of medical transcription, medical billing and coding services to the clients across the US, Canada the UK and Australia.