Does Turmoil at the Top of the Medical Transcription Industry Signal a Decrease in Patient Care on the Front Lines?

The recent news coming out of the largest providers of medical transcription services to U.S. hospitals paints a clear picture of the turmoil going on behind the scenes at these organizations.

M*Modal Shakes Up Leadership, Names New CEO

Moody’s Downgrades M*Modal; Outlook Negative

Carl Icahn Increases Nuance Stake, May Seek Board Seat

But what does this mean to the individual healthcare provider or the 5,500 hospitals scattered across the U.S and most importantly, the patients they serve? If these two organizations are responsible for creating a significant portion of the healthcare documentation created today, could turmoil at the top be a precursor to:

• An increase in poor quality healthcare documentation on the front lines?
• Non-compliance with desired/needed turnaround times?
• Reduced customer service and responsiveness to client inquiries?
• Increased physician re-work at a time physicians are already being pulled in multiple directions?
• Decrease in physician productivity and satisfaction?
• And ultimately, increased legal exposure for physicians and hospitals?

How could this not ultimately impact the level of patient care being provided in our hospitals nationwide?

At a time when the healthcare industry is spending billions of dollars to implement electronic medical records, move to a new coding system (transitioning from ICD-9 to ICD-10) and otherwise position themselves for the launch of ObamaCare (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), maybe, just maybe, it’s time to get back to basics?

In the not too distant past many healthcare entities leveraged the services of a contingent of medium sized medical transcription services organizations who pride themselves on providing:

• Premium level clinical documentation services;
• Leveraging well-trained U.S. based labor resources;
• With flexible, scalable solutions and/or the flexibility to use the hospitals internal systems;
• Functioning on a variety of platforms including 3M, MModal, Nuance/Dictaphone/eScription, Dolbey, Infraware, Arrendale, McKesson, Meditech, Epic, etc.
• With a single point of contact between the client and those able to effectively respond to client inquiries/needs without having to navigate multiple layers of an organization;
• A well-defined and documented Quality Assurance program;
• A proven proved track record with reference-able client sites; and
• A commitment to pricing transparency and pricing competitiveness.

With turmoil at the top and patient care hanging in the balance…maybe it’s time to consider moving your business back to a medium-sized provider of medical transcription services.

For a list of medium-sized service providers leveraging strictly U.S.based labor resources, please feel free to contact us at 1.800.407.1186, extension 803 or email us at sales@ahdpg.com.