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The Challenge
For more than ten years, the Tacoma Digestive
Disease Center (TDDC) has been delivering comprehensive,
state-of-the art diagnostic and therapeutic
services to evaluate and treat digestive
disorders. The nationally-accredited practice has
three offices throughout Tacoma, Washington and
a team of more than 60 staff members, including
11 practitioners.
Every month, the TDDC practitioners meet with
hundreds of patients in the office or hospital
setting, resulting in numerous patient files and
transcription reports. At one time, the practice
had two full-time, on-site transcriptionists and
a part-time, off-site transcriptionist handling all
dictations. However, the organization still found
its medical transcription costs increasing while
the turnaround time was lagging. The practice
also faced the challenge of moving toward a
paperless office to address HIPAA regulations
and improve operational efficiencies.
“Our top priority was to implement an electronic
medical record system, which led us to evaluate
all of our operational processes,” said Susan
Valley Rogers, RN CGRN, Nurse Manager. “When
we reviewed our budget, we found that there was
a huge portion dedicated to medical transcription,
and one of the most obvious solutions
would be to outsource this function.”
“Although outsourcing our medical transcription made sense financially, we were skeptical because
when we attempted to do this in the past, it was
a disaster,” Rogers added. “The vendor delivered
poor quality transcription reports that were
extremely inaccurate, and, in less than three
months, we brought the function back in-house.”
Outsourcing the medical transcription
function still appeared to be the best
solution, so the TDDC team of practitioners
decided that they should screen
other providers and, thus, developed a
set of criteria for evaluating the diverse
medical transcription solutions in the marketplace,
including use of technology, quality and
accuracy of reports, fast turnaround time, ease of
implementation, and ability to integrate with the
TDDC’s electronic medical record system.
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The Solution
After carefully reviewing and meeting with
several vendors, the TDDC engaged Acusis®
in September 2002. Acusis was able to satisfy
all the criteria, mainly by handling the
entire transcription lifecycle—dictation
capture, report transcribing, quality
assurance checks, and delivery of
final transcription reports through
a proprietary software system
called AcuSuite®.
“We selected Acusis
because they have a
proven track record of
delivering accurate
reports within a 24-
hour turnaround,” Rogers said.
“Another key
differentiator
of Acusis was
its quality
control
process.
Acusis’
The Benefits
Acusis’ transcription solution immediately
provided the TDDC with a return on
investment through reduced transcription
costs, consistent and fast turnaround time,
and 98 percent or better accuracy. Within
six months of outsourcing its medical
transcription to Acusis, the TDDC already
saved nearly $18,000 and had approximately
6,000 patient files transcribed. The
specialty practice anticipates that it will
save an additional $15,000—$20,000
this year.
“It was a big step for us to outsource our
medical transcription again, but we are
really happy with Acusis,” Rogers said.
“Our practitioners have a renewed confidence
in outsourcing because the
AcuSuite solution is far superior compared
to our previous vendor.” The AcuSuite solution addresses current
HIPAA regulations and ensures patient
confidentiality through security safeguards
and encryption. Additionally, because
Acusis delivers transcription reports in an
electronic format, the TDDC can easily
integrate them into its electronic medical
records system to keep
patient files continually
up-to-date and HIPAA
compliant.
“As we continue to
grow our practice
and increase our
patient base, we
know that we can
depend upon
Acusis to provide
quality transcription
reports in a consistent,
quick turnaround time,”
Rogers said. “Acusis provides us
with a strong return on investment, and
we expect to reap a savings of nearly
$200,000 over the next five years.”
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