Healthcare Transcription: Billing Mode and Income Maximization

by Renee Kelly
Expert

The method of billing adopted by the medical transcription company may have a straight influence on the healthcare facility’s bottom-line

At the end of the day any hospital is availing specialist healthcare transcription services in anticipation of lowering expenses and increasing benefits. It is vital to choose a company, which has a transparent and straightforward way of costing.

How complicated can it be? As it happens costing could be as straightforward or as difficult as the method of billing used by the service provider. This is a subject that is worth examining completely. According to the principles of CDIA the pricing mode employed by a medical transcription company should be:

Easy to verify:The Billing Method used by a transcription company should be easy to verify

Definable:The components and parameters of the pricing mode used by the transcription company should be laid out in simple terms.

Measurable:The method used by a transcription company should allow for easy understanding.

Reliable:The method of billing should be constant for clear understanding and simplicity of usage. Any changes made in the method of pricing should be informed to the customer to avoid disparities

Fair and honest:The pricing mode employed by a medical transcription company should be fair and honest representation of charges for tasks carried out

There are numerous methods, utilized for billing, a few of which have been summed up below:

Page:Each page of transcribed material comprises a billable measure. The difficulty arises when there is a vast disparity in the content of pages. Healthcare facilities could end up disbursing the same amount for a page containing of 10 lines, as a page consisting of 45 lines. This would not be fair representation of correct compensation for services delivered.

Report:The number of pages of finished transcription in a report constitutes a billable element. The difficulty arises when there is an enormous disparity in the amount of pages in a record. A transcript could consist of anything between 1 page to 10 pages, which again is not a representation of fair payment for services delivered.

Minute:This means every minute of audio recording represents a billable unit. This method may seem like a fair one until the healthcare provider considers the different speeds of dictation, the impediments and diversions faced by physicians during this process. They would be billed for those too!

Gross lines:Simply put, this method consists of visually counting the number of lines. The problem with this mode is that it is dependent on the way of formatting used. The amount billed could be more when a medical transcriptionist uses tabs and indents excessively.

Character Lines:Character lines are normally defined by counting the characters in the completed medical record and dividing it by a fixed number, say 65. Space and returns are also included. This method is simple, fair and compliant with the rules. It has the benefit of being easily verifiable.

It would be pertinent to say that the billing Mode used by the transcription company would certainly define the cost of transcription. Otherwise the healthcare provider may end up paying charges that are do not coincide with the services provided and this would defeat the objective of outsourcing by affecting the bottom line adversely.

Article submitted Thursday, July 28, 2011 & read 31 times.

Renee Kelly has written numerous articles on medical transcription outsourcing http://www.transdyne.com/blog/ and has been posting several blogs on the topic of medical transcription http://www.transcription.pn/.

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