Medical Transcription is a structured Healthcare BPO business thatis prominently found in the USA, Canada, Philippines and India.
As per the U.S.Bureau of Labor statistics reports, the MT industry was projected to growaround 11% providing for approximately 105,200 to 116,900 jobs between 2008 and2018 in spite of the gloomy and weak global economy.
In India, the MTmarket has evolved and it is estimated that there are now around 12,000 to13,000 experienced Medical Transcriptionists. MT companies with good businessfundamentals, finance, and technology and production practices are the onlyones that have survived and grown in the present market conditions. The qualityand turnaround time expectation in the MT industry is currently around 99% and12 hours respectively. Companies that produce consistent international qualityand deliveries are expected to sustain and grow their operations in the MT business.
Till 2009, theannual attrition rate in the MT industry was around 30% and many MT companieswent out of business between the years 2006 to 2008. This was due to strong competition forrecruitment of experienced medical transcriptionists with rampant poaching ofemployees being a common recruitment strategy followed by most of therecruiters during that time. It was also very unfortunate that there were notmany MT companies and training institutes in India that were into qualityMedical Transcription training.
In the year2007, Azimuth addressed the shortfall of quality MT training and became one ofthe first companies in India to launch a complete and comprehensive online MTtraining course. The course’s strict adherence to the MT industry’s qualitynorms and training methodologies makes it very popular even to this very day.
Technicallyspeaking, there has been a dramatic change in the way the medical transcriptionwork has been processed since 2009. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act(2009) mandated the embrace of voice recognition technology by all thehealthcare service providers, and also emphasized the standardization ofmedical transcription reports. In India, between the years 2009 to 2010, the inabilityto adapt to technological changes in terms of voice recognition and delivergood quality to clients forced mediocre and small MT companies out of the MTbusiness.
Since 2011, theIndian MT industry has consolidated into a niche creamy sector with the majorityof experienced and seasoned MT players who have sustained and adapted tochanging MT technology, quality norms and market trends. The news is that the Indian MT industry isexpected to grow at a minimum rate of 10% every year given that the foreignexchange rate between the US dollar and the Indian Rupee stay above Rs.50 perdollar, the inflation rate is less than 7%, and the US economy grows at a minimumrate of 2% t0 3% annually.
The futureoutlook of the MT industry in India looks bright in the wake of medicalinsurance gaining prominence in India. Corporate hospitals in India will alsobe recruiting approximately thousand medical transcriptionists every year fortheir in-house transcription and medical record management purposes. Entry level and experienced MedicalTranscriptionists will also be wanted in other Healthcare services like Medicalcoding, Medical billing, and Medical record management based on their medicallanguage skill sets.
The bottom line is that there will becontinuous demand for Medical Transcription services in India and elsewhere aslong as quality, turnaround time & pricing are matched with the industry orlocal job market standards.
This Blog is written by Mr. Anand who has 12 years ofexperience in the Medical Transcription business. He is currently theVice-President of Azimuth. He can be contacted at anand@azisoft.com
