High-deductible Insurance Policies:

Let us see what high-deductible insurance policies are that are leading to collection challenges. For insurance plans, one needs to pay premiums. A high-deductible insurance plan is one that has a higher deductible than a traditional insurance plan. In such a plan, the monthly premium one has to pay is generally low; however, the policyholder has to bear more health costs (deductible) before the insurance provider starts to pay its share. Here, it’s necessary to understand what a deductible is. It is that portion of an insurance claim that the insured has to pay out of pocket and only upon paying this amount the insurance company will pay the other portion. So, from the healthcare facility’s point of view, when a patient with a high-deductible insurance policy is treated, the onus is on the billing department to collect the deductible from the patient.

High-deductible health plans are the only way to qualify for a ‘Health Savings Account’ that gives tax benefits. These plans are usually suitable for young and healthy people who generally don’t need health coverage with the exception of a severe health emergency. These can be opted for by wealthy people as well who are capable of paying the high deductible but want the benefits of the health savings account.

The rising popularity of high-deductible insurance plans is forcing some patients to delay paying their medical bills. In these difficult times of the pandemic when people are battling with not just health issues but employment and financial crises as well, collecting from patients has become a great challenge. This may result in an increase in money owed to healthcare facilities by patients and lead to bad debts over time.

In these tough situations, healthcare facilities must be careful in dealing with their account receivables and even consider sending their patients to collection agencies more quickly if they doubt them to be neglecting or trying to evade their out-of-pocket payments. It is even noticed that many healthcare facilities have started asking for payment before the service is provided to avoid collection issues later on.

Other aspects like claim denials are also adding to the burden of medical billers. Avoiding and managing claim denials effectively is essential to improve the efficiency of the revenue cycle of healthcare facilities. It is commonly observed that insurance companies can deny medical claims citing minute data errors and discrepancies. Sending accurate medical claims is of great importance because a denied claim costs both money and time for the medical billing department to resolve the issue. Submitting error-free claims is the best way to minimize denials and get your timely reimbursements, thereby improving your revenues. For this to happen, it is imperative to have a robust revenue cycle management process in place with adequately trained staff and cross-verification procedures in place, before submitting claims.

To achieve a healthy revenue cycle, healthcare facilities must either hire experienced and well-trained medical coders and billers or outsource their revenue cycle process to medical billing companies like Avontix, which offers exceptional medical billing services and help facilities focus on their core operations without worrying about their collections.

In such a scenario, clinics offer excellent small business opportunity to doctors but, management of clinics is a big thing because although the number of doctors available in a clinic would be low, there would be a steady stream of patients walking in making it challenging to handle the clinic tasks efficiently. Maintaining clinic premises, equipment, and very crucial patient records gets difficult for the clinic owner or management. Moreover, there are certain legal and statutory compliance issues that need to be met in order to avoid any kind of legal issues. To ensure that all clinical establishments provide certain minimum standard facilities and services, the central government has introduced The Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, of 2010.

As per the Clinical Establishments Act, various standards are prescribed for different types of allopathic clinics which include –

1. Standards for clinic/polyclinic only consultation
2. Standards for clinic/polyclinic with observation/short stay
3. Standards for clinic/polyclinic with dispensary
4. Standards for clinic/polyclinic with diagnostic support
5. Standards for dietary counselling centre
6. Standards for the hospital (level 1, level 2, and level 3)
7. Standards for mobile clinic-only consultation
8. Standards for mobile clinic with the procedure
9. Standards for mobile dental van
10. Standards for dental lab
11. Standards for physiotherapy centre
12. Standards for wellness centre – executive health check-up
13. Standards for integrated counselling and testing centre
14. Standards for speciality/super-speciality specific

Apart from these standards, the government has prescribed standards, some of which are in the draft stage yet, for the clinical establishments of –

1. Ayurveda
2. Homeopathy
3. Naturopathy
4. Siddha
5. Sowa-Rigpa
6. Unani
7. Yoga

The Clinical Establishment Act (CEA) is applicable in a majority of the states and union territories. The states and union territories where CEA is not applicable have their own Act. Doctors or people who wish to establish any kind of healthcare establishment have to follow the standards or guidelines as prescribed by the central government or the respective state government.

Many people took up the profession of medical transcription as it offered lucrative salaries along with the scope for working from home when it was nearly unheard of in other industries. If you are passionate about working in the healthcare industry and learning medical terminology, medical transcription is a great career choice for you. Possessing exceptional listening, English and typing skills is the prerequisite for healthcare documentation jobs and if you have these skills, you can take up medical transcription as your career without any hesitation.

The main criterion that is seen by healthcare documentation companies while selecting their employees is that the candidates should be able to meet the highest quality standards set by the industry. Since the transcribed documents serve as the basis for a healthcare provider’s decision-making regarding a patient’s treatment course and the slightest error can result in grave consequences, it is highly critical that the transcription reports are accurate to the highest levels and at the same time, are submitted within the turnaround time specified by the healthcare provider so that quality healthcare is provided to all the patients.

Although the work of a medical transcriptionist is serious enough, it provides ample opportunities for growth for which you have to own certain virtues such as:

• High quality: As discussed above, medical transcription is all about accuracy and error-free documentation. Only those people who are extremely passionate about their work and have an eye for detail can excel in this field.
• Team spirit: Although a healthcare documentation specialist can work from home, he/she needs to be a great team member as well. Every transcribed document needs to be cross-checked, proofread and edited appropriately so that accurate reports are submitted to the healthcare provider. This requires that all the healthcare documentation specialists and other team members work as a unit.
• Data confidentiality: Every medical transcriptionist must understand that he/she is working with confidential data of patients that including their demographic details and health status. Such confidential data must be handled with caution and the transcriptionist must ensure that the data is not misused or shared with unauthorized people at any cost.
• Continuous learning: Healthcare industry is a dynamic industry that sees new ailments, new equipment and new treatments over time. If you want to work in the healthcare documentation field, you must be ready to equip yourself with the latest updates with continuous learning. This is one of the reasons, a healthcare documentation specialist’s job is never monotonous keeping you engaged and motivated at all times.

Make a great career by choosing the right healthcare documentation company that helps your career growth with on-the-job training before joining the production team and then periodical training sessions for the latest updates in the industry. Another awesome aspect of medical transcription that you can consider to opt for this profession is the amazing work-life balance opportunity it provides to individuals.

You must know that the healthcare documentation process works at three levels that include dictation by healthcare professionals, recording of the voice of healthcare professionals and then transcribing these recorded documents by the medical transcriptionists. This is a simple process, yet requires a high level of quality check to ensure that the transcribed reports are accurate and provide the right information to the people using them. For high-quality medical transcription records, the first two steps should be as flawless as the third step, wherein physicians and other healthcare professionals must speak clearly and use a high-quality digital recording device to capture clear and easy-to-transcribe audio records. Further, to offer the quick and the best transcription reports of high accuracy levels, healthcare documentation specialists must follow these guidelines.

• Set the right tools: You must ensure that all the necessary tools and equipment are set and are handy for use. These include –
  • Comfortable workstation: If you work in a healthcare facility or healthcare documentation companies at the office, you need not worry about the workstation because the office provides you with that. However, if you work from home, medical transcription can be either taken up as a full-time job or freelancing work, you must make sure that you have a comfortable chair and table to set up your workstation. Without a good chair that supports your lower back and a desk to place your computer and other peripherals that help you maintain a good posture, you won’t be able to work for long hours, affecting your productivity and performance.
  • Quality headphones: The job of a healthcare documentation specialist starts with listening to the audio files sent by physicians and healthcare providers. If you don’t have good-quality headphones, you may get distracted by surrounding noises that interfere with your listening and comprehending skills which eventually affect your transcription skills.
  • Foot pedal: To further facilitate your listening skills, you must have a foot pedal that helps you in controlling dictation playback with your toes.
  • Reference material: Keep the dictionaries and other physical manuals given by your employer handy for reference. Further, you must also bookmark all the essential websites online, in case you need help in searching for unfamiliar words.
• Type the text: Listen to the audio files that have been assigned to you or uploaded to the secure server and type whatever you hear and comprehend in the first instance after listening to the entire file once. For any unclear or incomplete files, you must communicate with your seniors or directly with the healthcare professionals who dictated the file to complete the transcription report.
• Edit the transcript: Once you are done with the transcription totally, proofread and edit the report to rectify any errors or inconsistencies and ensure the highest levels of accuracy and make the report shareable.

If you follow the above guidelines and focus on giving accurate transcription reports, you can certainly complete healthcare documentation quickly and share the reports with healthcare providers. To get the best training and support from seniors for a flourishing medical transcription career, join the best healthcare documentation company.

• Get clear audio: The basic requirement of the healthcare documentation process is transcribing audio files into prescribed-format documents. So, the first step to improve your healthcare documentation skills is to get clear audio recordings to work. Once you get clear audio, listen to the whole audio once before starting transcribing. Although this may seem to be a time-consuming process, it will help you get a clear and complete picture of the file making it easier for you to transcribe it later. This will also help you to get a hold of the context and content of the audio file if the accent in the audio file differs from what you are accustomed to. This is all the more significant if you are working for clients with various accents.
• Transcribe sentence by sentence: Experienced healthcare documentation specialists suggest listening to the whole sentence before transcribing it rather than transcribing after listening to a few words or phrases. This will improve clarity on context thereby reducing the scope for grammatical and contextual errors which otherwise need to be corrected later on increasing the time taken to proofread and edit the document.
• Maintain accuracy: It’s agreed that speed is critical for people in healthcare documentation jobs; however, you must work at accuracy on priority. Focusing on only speed will delay your task completion as correction of typos and other errors will consume more time than needed. Further, health information documented erroneously, if sent to the client without making corrections, can ruin your reputation and also impact the quality of healthcare provided based on this erroneous document which can be detrimental to the patient.
• Upgrade editing skills: If you want to become an expert medical transcriptionist, it’s not enough if you have typing skills and medical terminology knowledge to transcribe a document; you must have excellent editing skills to rectify errors right away and send a flawless document to the client. You must ensure that your document is error-free regarding spellings, grammar, medical terms, patient information and the medical condition.
• Increase speed: Once you are confident about your accuracy, you must focus on speed as well. Keep practicing whenever you get the time and improve your typing speed to meet the deadlines and send your reports to the client within the turnaround time.
• Update medical terminology: Acquiring knowledge should be a continuous process for people working in healthcare documentation companies because the healthcare industry is ever-evolving and you need to keep yourself updated with the latest news in the healthcare industry, trends in treatment methods and new medicines or diagnostic methods. Keep expanding your knowledge to comprehend the audio files with ease and transcribe effortlessly.

Practice these tips and master healthcare documentation skills to become an expert medical transcriptionist. Passion to work in the healthcare industry, a flair for writing and documenting, an eye for detail, good grammar skills, excellent typing speed and impeccable accuracy can help you in becoming the most sought after in the healthcare documentation jobs.

Telemedicine allows the patients to consult their physicians or healthcare providers through audio or video calls from the comfort of their homes minimizing the crowd at the healthcare provider’s facilities. However, this doesn’t eliminate the need for documenting the services provided by the healthcare facilities and they have to ensure that all the consultations are documented appropriately and well-trained healthcare documentation specialists are needed to do this job accurately.

There is a growing use of virtual doctor visits from patients because of the following benefits:

• Increased access: Telemedicine has enabled people even in far-off locations to avail quality healthcare because people can get access to a doctor if they just have a smartphone and internet connectivity. Not just people far away from healthcare facilities, but people who cannot visit the facility due to work commitments or any disabilities, can also utilize telemedicine to consult a doctor. Thus, telemedicine has increased access to quality healthcare for a large number of people. And this increases the need for having a robust healthcare documentation process in place to record all telemedicine consultations before being added to the patient’s electronic health records, just like an in-person visit.
• Preventive care: When telemedicine was not popular, people had to visit healthcare facilities for every minor health issue thereby wasting their precious time and money. This prompted many to skip or delay their hospital visits leading to developing complications or making a condition severe. But, with telemedicine, patients with minor conditions can get healthcare right from the comfort of their homes encouraging them to get timely treatment thereby preventing serious complications.

Although telemedicine is beneficial to both healthcare providers and patients, it comes with drawbacks as well. One of the major disadvantages of opting for telemedicine is that some insurance companies do not cover telemedicine. The next issue that troubles many patients and healthcare providers alike is patient privacy. There’s always a risk of being hacked and confidential patient data being accessed by cybercriminals owing to security vulnerability over the internet. The next and most critical drawback of virtual doctor visits is the fact that the physician cannot examine a patient thoroughly as needed or could be done in an in-person visit.

Healthcare facilities can provide good quality healthcare to patients by addressing the cyber-security issues and ensuring that they get maximum information from the patients regarding their ailments. Further, healthcare facilities must ensure that both telemedicine and healthcare documentation companies are HIPAA compliant to maintain patient data privacy. By outsourcing the documentation process to the best healthcare documentation companies, healthcare facilities can stay assured that their data is accurate and safe, to help them make the right healthcare decisions.

As a part of providing healthcare, doctors and facilities are turning towards telehealth and remote patient monitoring. Telehealth and remote patient monitoring are relatively new terms that have evolved in recent years, thanks to the ever-growing information technology and its use in various industries. Healthcare documentation specialists must understand what these terms mean and how they are contributing to people’s health.

Telehealth: This is a broad category that refers to the total industry, methodology and various technologies that facilitate providing health care to patients in the comfort of their homes. Telehealth makes optimal use of technology through telephones, video conferences using the internet and may include the use of IVR systems as well. In other words, telehealth involves a wide spectrum of services including medical care by a physician, provider and patient education, health information services, and receiving instructions for self-care through the telephone and internet technologies. A few examples of telehealth include video conferencing, health apps on mobile phones, electronic storing and transmission of health data, remote patient monitoring, etc. This makes it clear, that telehealth encapsulates a broader range of activities and services rather than mere administering healthcare to geographically remote patients that is termed as telemedicine. Healthcare documentation professionals should be able to understand these various terms to better understand their work and avoid the scope of ambiguity if at all they come across these terms as a part of their work.

Remote Patient Monitoring: Also referred to as remote patient management, this is a part of telehealth where it is done using the latest and advanced information technology systems to collect patient data from the patient’s location outside of a traditional healthcare setting. It uses technologies to bridge the gap between a traditional healthcare setting and the place people actually live. This is possible with the help of sleek, consumer-friendly personal technology products that resemble smartphones and tablets. Such technology systems not only increase the comfort level of patients but also increase their engagement levels, thereby helping to improve the quality of health care.

With the help of remote patient monitoring models, doctors and other healthcare professionals are better equipped to comprehend and manage their patients’ health with sufficient and relevant data handy. The remote patient management models facilitate the physicians to understand their patients’ condition early and take the timely and appropriate course of action that can eliminate the risk of deterioration of the condition while the evaluation of the problem.

Professionals in the healthcare industry, especially the healthcare documentation companies, must know that although both the terms telehealth and remote patient monitoring are used interchangeably, they are not the same. What is important for healthcare documentation specialists is that they should ensure to make a correct entry in their medical transcription reports. Hiring the right healthcare documentation companies is the key to creating the right reports to provide accurate health care.

Today, in the midst of the pandemic, there is a greater need for reliable data that can help various players in the healthcare industry in identifying the problem areas and discovering methods to diagnose and prevent the disease. These healthcare industry players benefit from the healthcare documentation records that are created meticulously incorporating lab reports, medical charts, etc. Healthcare documentation is a profession where prime importance is given to accuracy which facilitates analysis to be done with accurate data.

In such demanding times, maintaining accurate medical records of patients has been a possibility for many healthcare facilities due to the healthcare documentation companies that are working for them round the clock and providing them with accurate reports within TAT.

How does healthcare documentation help?

Healthcare documentation or medical transcription is the healthcare-allied profession wherein the transcriptionists work with dedication focusing on medical science with a great understanding of the tough medical terminology. Medical transcriptionists deal with transcribing the audio records given by physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. The audio records are given in the form of dictations over the phone or uploaded digitally by the healthcare professionals that are transcribed into prescribed formats by the transcriptionists.

Whenever a patient visits a doctor, the doctor discusses the problem, suggests medication or diagnostic tests, or prescribes a treatment course. All this information is recorded by the doctor and sent to the healthcare documentation companies that have trained medical transcriptionists with them. The medical transcriptionists get access to the voice record which they listen to and interpret carefully to transcribe it into a required format as suggested by the healthcare facility or doctor who sent the voice record.

It is critical for all healthcare facilities and doctors to get properly formatted and edited medical transcription documents because the accuracy of these reports is the key to providing appropriate treatment and deciding the future course of action. To ensure this, both doctors and transcriptionists should work in good coordination where the doctor should speak clearly and concisely specifying all the required details and the transcriptionist should listen carefully to each word said by the doctors. It is equally important for transcriptionists to have an eye for detail to comprehend the record accurately and doctors to review the transcription reports before they validate the reports.

Healthcare documentation companies in Hyderabad, such as Avontix have a big pool of highly skilled and trained healthcare documentation specialists with experience of many years and uncompromising commitment towards accuracy that help the healthcare facilities to provide reliable healthcare services to several patients in need of medical care in these pandemic times as well.

A blessing that can be counted in this situation is the prediction that the global medical transcription market has the potential to grow by around sixteen billion US dollars during the period of 2020-2024. Here are a couple of the factors that are driving the healthcare documentation growth:

• The medical transcription market size is expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 5% during the period of 2020-2024 which is an optimistic sign for the people in healthcare documentation jobs.
• The healthcare sector is using data analytics to improve efficiency and increase revenue and for this, it relies on accurate data that needs to be given by the healthcare documentation specialists.

Although the COVID-19 crisis has impacted numerous patients and healthcare providers and people are delaying their elective surgeries, it is not a permanent thing. The first thing in this scenario is that healthcare documentation companies that deal with the emergency care services will have a good scope of work because of the sudden surge of COVID-19 patients. The second thing in this scenario is about the healthcare providers who offer surgical services and that too, elective surgeries. Let us first understand what elective surgery is.

Elective surgery:

Elective surgery or elective procedure is a surgery that is planned and does not involve a medical emergency. Elective surgery is a procedure that is required to be performed but need not be done immediately. Elective surgeries are scheduled in such a manner that they suit the timings of the patient, surgeon, and hospital. Most of the surgeries performed for medical reasons are elective and they include hip replacements, ligament repairs, cataract extraction, etc. Cosmetic surgeries also fall into the category of elective surgeries.

What is in store?

Numerous leading healthcare organizations and ambulatory surgery centers are postponing the elective surgeries so as to conserve resources to tackle the COVID-19 crisis effectively. However, this is a temporary situation and surgeries would be performed normally when the situation gets controlled. Hence, the people in healthcare documentation jobs specializing in elective surgical procedures need not get anxious. They will resume normal work as and when the situation gets to normalcy.

The healthcare industry is one of those industries that are recession-free. Irrespective of economic conditions, people tend to face healthcare issues that need either immediate or elective procedures/ services. Let’s be optimistic that the world gets through this crisis situation strongly and all economies get to normalcy as early as possible.

Healthcare documentation is one of those healthcare professions that affect the health of people indirectly. Even a minute error in the transcription reports sent to the healthcare provider can impact the decision making of the physicians and the treatment offered to the patient. Hence, it is vital that the healthcare documentation specialists prepare accurate and flawless transcription reports which facilitate providing appropriate treatment to the patients. To get the job done accurately and in time, it is essential that healthcare documentation companies and medical transcriptionists have the right set of tools. It should be noted that the quality of equipment or tools used will show an exceptional impact on a transcriptionist’s efficiency and performance. Here are some of the important tools that you would need as a medical transcriptionist.

• Computer system: Every medical transcriptionist, whether working from the office of healthcare providers, healthcare documentation companies or from home; will require a computer system to work on.
• Transcription software: The basic work of a medical transcriptionist involves listening to the audio files dictated by the physicians. The audio files consist of patient data including their demographic details, complaints, diagnosis, and treatment offered. To be able to access the audio files of the physicians, it is essential that the healthcare documentation specialists have transcription software installed on their computers. The transcription software provides transcriptionists dictation capabilities, voice and speech recognition applications, interactive directories; spell checkers and other relevant tools that play a critical role in transcribing an audio file into a complete and accurate transcription report. Many software applications have in-built word and abbreviation expanders that can more than double your typing speed. Word expanders help in reducing the number of keystrokes which increases productivity and saves a lot of time as well.
• Foot pedals: For many transcriptionists, a foot pedal is an indispensable tool that enables hands-free handling of dictated reports facilitating the adjustment of the speed of the dictated report, and forward or backward movement of the report.
• Headsets: Medical transcriptionists can work peacefully and create flawless reports with the help of headsets that increase privacy and confidentiality along with amplified control and reduced noise levels.
• Line counters: Line counters aid the medical transcriptionists in keeping a track of lines transcribed. The line counters help in assessing output goals and generating invoices.
• Flash drives: Various devices like flash drives/memory sticks help the transcriptionists to store their data and create a back up of their work.
• Medical dictionaries: Medical transcription is all about the healthcare industry and hence, transcriptionists may need to refer to medical dictionaries whenever necessary. It is worthy to keep a few medical dictionaries handy and also use online medical dictionaries if required. Along with medical dictionaries, transcriptionists should have access to drug/pharmaceutical books and books that deal with medical speciality if they work on a specific speciality.
• Printer: Having a printer and fax machine along with all these tools will help healthcare documentation specialists improve their communication with the healthcare providers or other parties concerned and help in putting up a better performance.

Transcription tools can be selected depending on the workload and comfort levels transcriptionists need or healthcare documentation companies offer. If you are a transcriptionist working from home and you need to choose your tools, choose the ones with high quality that will pay off in the long run although they may be on the higher side of the investment initially.