Medical Transcription and Medical Coding New Technology for Medical Transcriptionists

This probably was never taught in medical transcription training school or medical billing and coding specialist training, but a new encoding technology is now getting the attention of professional medical transcriptionists and those who are studying to be medical transcriptionists. Called the “HTML Editor,” the fully integrated hypertext markup language (HTML) editor was recently released by Scribe Healthcare Technologies, Inc., a healthcare technology company. 

The evolutionary transcription and editing platform, according to Scribe, significantly expands document creation and management options for medical transcriptionists, who have heretofore used Microsoft Word or some other text editor to transcribe and proofread dictated medical reports.

In addition, says Scribe, with HTML Editor physicians can access (using a password) and review their documents from virtually any spot in the world through a web browser, a mobile device, or a laptop with Internet connection. "Transcriptionists can create structured documents without reliance on MS Word," said John Weiss, Scribe vice president. "Saving companies from expending resources on software installation and upgrades lowers operating costs and lessens support frustration." 

Because HTML Editor has a feature called SmartText, it is able to count template and macro content differently from content that is actually typed in by the transcriptionist. Template and macro content are predefined text, often common terms, that physicians can indicate during dictation to reduce text that will be manually transcribed. This relieves physicians from the burden of dictating entire paragraphs or extensive, confusing medical jargon.

This technology not only is expected to deliver savings to medical professionals and medical facilities that use the services of medical transcriptionists, but actually also boosts an already booming industry. Meditec.com, a top provider of online training courses, offers medical transcription training and medical billing and coding training for those who want to take advantage of a career field that is stable and in high demand.

But what is the difference between medical transcription and medical coding? They seem the same and on a certain level, they are. In fact, medical transcription training and medical coding training are often mainstays in schools that offer allied health education.

Medical coding is the transformation of descriptions of diagnoses, diseases, injuries, and procedures into alphanumeric codes which are actually universal medical codes. These codes enable accurate recordkeeping of diagnoses and procedures, and offer a way to track diseases and other health conditions over time. Coding makes it easier to access health records according to definite categories such as diagnosis and procedures.

On the other hand, medical transcription is the transformation of voice recordings of diagnoses, medications, and procedures as dictated by physicians or other healthcare professionals into editable text files. Transcribed data are verbatim copies of doctors’ reports.

Medical coding is usually done in a medical or semi-medical setting, often in a physician’s office. On the other hand, medical transcription is often done outside the hospital. Both require a strong familiarity with medical terminology.

A career in medical transcription or in medical coding is financially rewarding. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the medical transcriptionist’s average salary is about $40K, while the medical coder can expect to earn between $22,420 and $35,990.

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Medical Transcription and Medical Transcriptionist’s Technologies

The Pacman of the medical transcription (MT) world has done it again. For those of you who are just beginning their medical transcription professional career but like to keep close tabs on the industry news, here’s an update: Major medical-transcription firm iMedX Inc., of Shelton, Conn., has gobbled up yet another MT organization; this time it’s the National Medical Transcription LLC (NMT) of Port Washington, N.Y.

The New York firm said that it will soon incorporate its customers into iMedX following the buyout. iMedX, for its part, explained that the buyout will increase its customer base, especially in the Mid-Atlantic region. NMT, which specializes in medical transcription systems, becomes the tenth firm (at least) in the medical software field to be assimilated by iMedX since March 2008.

iMedX is privately held, and is backed by New Canaan, Conn.-based RFE Investment Partners. The company makes the TurboScribe, TurboRecord, TurboRx and TurboFlow medical transcription software products.

The rapid expansion of iMedX reflects the robust health of the medical-transcription industry in the U.S., belying fears that outsourcing is hurting the industry.  It also reflects the industry’s ever-growing reliance on new technology.

One such technology, however, is causing concern among medical transcriptionist. It doesn’t need any medical transcription training, it doesn’t need any coffee breaks, and it sure doesn’t need to get paid. It’s called speech recognition transcription (SRT) software and it’s giving newly-fledged and veteran medical transcriptionists alike an inferiority complex. But should it?

SRT is a child of the computer age we live in. It enables the translation of a voice file into an editable text file in much the same manner that your scanner’s OCR (optical character recognition) magically transforms a page of your book into, say, a .doc file. SRT completely cuts out the traditional middleman, the transcriptionist, from the process. Theoretically, it can make the transcriptionist completely unnecessary, obsolete. But that time has not yet come because the technology to do it is definitely not yet here.

The two main stumbling blocks of SRT in medical transcription are transcription accuracy and medical terminology. To put it simply, it cannot yet transcribe well enough for the job, especially if that job is loaded with medical jargon. SRT, at this stage, simply makes too many mistakes to be considered reliable. In one recent study, in fact, over 600 radiology reports were transcribed, half by a medical transcriptionist, half by SRT. The SRT reports returned an error rate 800 percent higher than the transcriptionist’s report.

At Meditec.com, a premier provider of many online courses (including pharmacy technician courses, medical billing and coding training, and medical office management training), reliability and accuracy are focus points of its medical transcription training program. They will serve well the aspirant medical transcriptionist in a future that will see SRT attempt to make inroads in the medical transcription world.

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