What Makes a Successful Transcription Outsourcing Contract? A well-written contract is critical with regard to medical transcription outsourcing if you are looking to reduce costs and receive quality services. Many healthcare providers now depend on medical transcription outsourcing to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Moreover, with transcriptionists rising to the role of editors in this era of electronic medical records, healthcare entities are also looking for a closer working relationship with their transcription service provider and improved efficiency of functioning. While negotiating an agreement with a transcription service organization, the key lies in developing a well-written contract that explains all specific requirements and expectations. Though most organizations provide their contract version, it is better to review it with your legal department and build the contract accordingly, ensuring all the details are addressed along with what happens if things don’t go as specified.
All-inclusive Agreement A solid outsourcing agreement should include the following things:
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The most critical aspects of a solid agreement are stipulations regarding the turnaround time and quality. Depending on the type of work, turnaround time may vary. For example, there should be ideally a two- to four-hour turnaround time for radiology. Determine the turnaround time most suitable for your work and specify it clearly in the contract. High quality is a major requirement and the quality score the company provides should also be stated in the contract.
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You must have a clear definition of what you are actually paying for. For instance, you must know whether the price is based on visible black characters (VBC) or a 65 character line and specify that in the contract. If headers and footers are also included in that price, that must be specified very clearly. The agreed upon unit of measure is very critical. You should provide sample reports that would help the vendor determine the counts accurately and develop a fair pricing plan. Sometimes, the individual who negotiated the price may not be the one who is signing the contract.
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The contract should clearly state whose responsibility it is to maintain the equipment involved in the deal. You and the vendor should also define all the fees beyond the VBC or per line costs including interfaces, distribution, training, and project fees. You should also consider the costs that may be incurred for activities that occur later in the process such as interfacing with EMR, transferring records to another system and so on, and mention it very specifically in the contract.
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Obligations between you and the vendor such as whether the work will be performed onshore or offshore must be stated very clearly in the contract. If you prefer to select a percentage of offshore work, that should be specified in the contract since labor costs for offshore transcription services are cheaper and that impacts pricing.
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You should be well-aware of what course of action (for example, solve your problem within 30 days) is available if the vendor’s performance does not satisfy you and that should be specified very clearly in the contract.
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Fair Pricing
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You must have a clear understanding about your requirements to negotiate a fair price. You can make comparisons based on this knowledge, confirm you are getting better services at the right price and verify the agreement accordingly.
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You must also understand how the vendors count and price accordingly. VBC is becoming the widely accepted standard to determine the cost. It is easy to count VBC through eye or test reports that simply use a standard word processing program so that the client is able to verify whether they are being charged appropriately. When the reports comprising solid block paragraphs can lend themselves to gross line pricing, documents having numerous lines with only a few characters per line can become more expensive. Before the advent of the speech recognition system, transcriptionists utilized all keystrokes and a space was counted as a character necessary to properly format the document. With speech recognition, transcriptionists work more as editors and no longer need to perform keyboard functions as in the past. Hence, pricing using the VBC method is more viable to you than a per line basis. Whichever pricing method is selected, you should verify it from the beginning and include it in the contract.
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Some companies provide only transcription services while some provide technology that adds cost to you. You should verify it and specify what you need clearly in the contract.
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The vendor should provide a complete breakdown of what the entire service will cost.
No Hidden Costs Sometimes, the vendor may request an up-front cost and then charge additional fees which would be usually buried within a lengthy and difficult-to-read contract that you may not be aware of. These are called hidden costs. There should be a clear communication between you and the vendor to avoid such kind of situations. If the person who negotiated the price is not signing the
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contract, then it is very important to verify what was communicated earlier and what is written in the contract. Generally, there should not be any hidden costs with VBC. Recourse Clause In certain cases, you may not be able to get out of the contract if you are dissatisfied with the vendor’s performance as you may have to pay some fees. So there should be a recourse clause in the contract. The process for dissolving the contract must be clearly stated and an attempt should be made to tackle any issues. There should be notification for poor performance with a time period set for resolving the problem as a part of giving vendors an opportunity to correct the situation. The contract should state what terms are required to get the problem resolved. This may vary according to the vendor and you should know exactly what the vendor is agreeing to. In the case of offshore transcription, all confidential Protected Health Information (PHI) should be kept within the United States. This should be stated in the contract very clearly. No subcontracting should be allowed without your prior approval and knowledge. If approved, limit the ability to transmit PHI across the US border in the contract. Overall, the key is to carefully evaluate your potential transcription partner. Associate with a reputable transcription company having a good track record in the industry and make a successful contract with them to benefit from value-added services.
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