As a vice president with the multinational medical transcription company Cameo Corporate Services, Ashok “Ash” Bagdy heads its health care outsourcing division from offices in Tampa, Florida. Since 2018, Ashok Bagdy’s employer has been providing virtual scribing services to American physicians and medical organizations. Whether virtual or in person, the primary difference between medical transcription and medical scribing is in the depth of service provided. A medical transcriptionist simply listens carefully to a physician-patient interaction or a physician’s note dictation and then types that interaction/dictation exactly as it happened. A medical scribe, by contrast, is tasked with interpreting physician-patient conversations and crafting documents with pertinent information that contains coding information for billing purposes. Unlike transcription, which requires careful attention to detail but limited medical knowledge, scribing requires a thorough understanding of health care terminology and codes, as well as medical anatomy and physiology. In addition to recording general physician-patient interaction, a scribe must also document all performed medical procedures and all laboratory study results.
1 Comment
The use of speech-recognition programs in medical transcription has dramatically changed the industry. Ashok Bagdy of Tampa, Florida, notes that medical transcriptionists must focus more attention on the editing process. Today's programs are very advanced, but they are not perfect. They require humans to go back and edit out grammar mistakes and misheard words. In sum, only about 80 to 90 percent of a report might be correct after using voice-recognition software to transcribe it. Ashok Bagdy recommends several different programs to automate the medical transcription process. Programs like iChart, eScription, and M*Modal are high on his list of favorites. These platforms provide flexibility for the physicians dictating and editing their notes while striving to reduce quality assurance costs and accommodating all types of recording devices with accuracy, including smartphones. These platforms are favorites among busy physicians who like to use their smartphones to take oral notes. A successful healthcare executive and current vice president of outsourcing services with Cameo Corporate Services, Ashok Bagdy oversees areas such as client relations, business development, service delivery, and P&L. Ashok Bagdy also plays a central role in the outsourcing of medical transcription (MT) to India, which has emerged as a popular option for US companies in recent years.
Outsourcing MT to India provides a number of advantages to US health care providers. First, India has developed a large workforce of English speakers familiar with American English over the past several decades. Medical transcriptionists are fluent in English and have typically studied science at the university level. Because India is in a different time zone than the US, workers can get tasks accomplished on a convenient schedule overnight. Finally, the cost savings of using an India-based MT company can be considerable. Thanks to significantly lower wage standards in India, Indian companies can offer high-quality MT services at competitive prices. By Ashok Bagdy
Medical documentation is often an involved and time-consuming aspect of the healthcare industry. Though it can be viewed as an inconvenience, it is critical to the operation of any medical facility, from private practices to large-scale hospitals. In the past, practitioners have documented routines and procedures by dictating to an electronic device, such as a handheld tape recorder or telephone, whose audio content would later be translated to text by a transcriptionist. Technology emerging as early as the 1980s gave medical practitioners another option for transcription: voice-recognition software. These computer applications are designed to recognize human speech and convert it to text, abolishing the need for a human transcriber. This appears to be a cost-effective option, and with continuing software improvements such as increased accuracy, expanded vocabularies, and cross-technology integration, has grown more viable. A major drawback for practitioners transcribing in this manner, however, is its time-consuming nature. Even with improvements in accuracy, users of voice-recognition software still must account for a margin of error; the editing time required to ensure accuracy, frequently offsets the practitioners’ initial savings of time and money. With the reduced labor cost of offshore companies, outsourced medical transcription has become an increasingly popular alternative. These companies provide accurate, quick, and secure transcription and editing services, making for a cost-effective option. About the author: Ashok Bagdy successfully integrated speech recognition software into the practices of business solutions outsourcer Cameo Corporate Services Limited, where he serves as Vice President of the Healthcare Outsourcing Division. |
AuthorAshok Bagdy - Cameo Corporate Services Limited Archives
May 2017
Categories
All
|