Medical transcription assignments are jobs most widely outsourced by healthcare firms, and are aimed at having faster processing of medical records in a much cost-effective and time-saving manner. With developed countries such as the US, UK and Australia outsourcing their medical transcription (MT) jobs, the workload of staffs working in hospitals, clinics, long term care facilities, and acute healthcare centers in these countries has been reduced immensely. Today, utilizing the medium of the internet, medical transcription outsourcing plays a key role in the speedy processing of medical records for both patient care and insurance claim processing. With medical transcription services being catered in accordance with the standards prescribed by the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) enacted by the US Congress in 1996, healthcare providers who are outsourcing the medical transcription jobs are now ensuring the required privacy and security for data regarding their patient's health.

The factors which work in favor of outsourcing transcription jobs are the availability of cheap labor and qualified graduates in developing countries such as India and the Philippines. The turnaround time for submitting finished jobs is also minimal in these countries. Most of the graduates working in these MT firms are science and medical graduates who are fluent in handling both US and UK English. Using state-of-the-art technologies, the medical transcription facilities working in these countries can greatly help healthcare providers to have great savings in terms of money and time.

Outsourcing medical transcription services has the following main benefits:

• Healthcare firms will have more time to concentrate on their core healthcare services
• Less investment in costly infrastructure
• Documentation of medical records with high quality and accuracy
• 24 hour uninterrupted service availability
• Faster processing of medical records

To be competitive in the field, most medical transcription service providers have employed highly skilled and experienced medical transcriptionists. To have faster workflow, high speed internet facilities with backups for equipments, technicians and transcriptionists are also being made available at these firms. For ensuring the accuracy of medical records, most MT service providers have proofreaders, quality analysts and editors who can ensure almost 98-99% accuracy in the processed medical records.

As part of covering every sector in the healthcare industry, most HIPAA compliant medical transcription service providers also have related services such as medical billing and coding. With customized medical solutions available at most MT service providers, every requirement of healthcare firms for cost-effective, time bound and quality services can now be fulfilled.