Growth of Medical Transcription in PHL

The growing and aging population worldwide is generating an increasing need for medical professionals. This is already evident in the increasing number of nurses migrating and working abroad. The elderly require a considerably greater number of medical tests, treatments, and procedures that all require documentation. There is also an increased awareness in the importance of preventative health care. This particular trend is opening up a new avenue for work prospects in the Philippines.

The country is currently benefiting from a total of PhP 1.63 billion investment in the IT sector, most of which come from outsource service providers. While the country is busy looking at call centers, there is a growing and untapped need for medical transcriptionists.

Medical Talk
Medical transcriptionists (MTs) interpret and transcribe dictated recordings by physicians and healthcare professionals into medical reports, correspondence, and administrative materials. These can include patient assess-ments, therapeutic procedures, clinical course, diagnosis, and prognosis. The technological processes differ but the intention is to convert electronically stored voice-dictation by medical professionals into written form.

A doctor based abroad can call a 1-800 number, key in a patient's ID number, and dictate his findings. The dictation will then be transcribed in the Philippines, stored in a database and e-mailed back to the doctor. Some institutions use speech recognition technology and the resulting document is then checked and edited to ensure accuracy and cohesion. It may require extensive editing depending on the capabilities of the speech recognition software and, of course, the habits of the professional dictating the text. It is also necessary to make corrections that relate to grammar, punctuation, and style.

Jobs in Transcription
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment for medical transcriptionists will grow faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2012. This growth is the result of the pressure for hospitals to convert their medical files to electronic formats in compliance with requirements for federal certification.

With the Internet becoming secure enough to handle transmission of confidential health information, there is an increased demand for overseas transcription. It is estimated that about 47 percent of the US medical transcription market is outsourced to countries like the Philippines.

Medical transcriptionists can earn a minimum of PhP 10,000 a month with additional incentives depending on production output. Those with their own US-based clients can earn in dollars while working at home (US labor statistics place the median hourly earnings of a transcriptionist at US$ 13.05).

The US medical transcription industry is estimated at US$ 10-20 billion dollars with an annual growth rate of 13 percent, which also translates to an additional 150,000 additional medical transcriptionists needed yearly. Cornering ten percent of the US market alone means a PhP 50 billion industry -- at a minimum -- in just a few years. With this figure, medical transcription has been identified as a priority area in the information and communications technology (ICT) development in the Philippines.

It is projected that the medical transcription industry might be the next employment generator in the country. The low labor cost and the English proficient, IT skilled workers which account for the popularity of the country as an outsourcing venue for call centers are the same factors that make the country viable for medical transcription.

More than Talk

However, there is big difference between call centers and medical transcription. While any additional training in a call center would be in small amounts and would be limited to the product that one is representing, medical transcription requires intensive and very specialized training. Unlike the common misconception which pegs medical transcription as purely a data entry job, being a medical transcriptionist requires certain skills unique to the field.

Transcribing medical records is a sensitive vocation because there is an absolute need for accuracy. A small mistake can literally be the difference between life and death. More than just the skill to understand the English language Ð its structure and nuances -- there is a need to understand the human anatomy. It requires extensive knowledge in medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, diagnostic procedures, pharmacology, and treatment assessments.

These requirements make the country more attractive than other outsourcing destinations. The Philippines has the advantage of having doctors and nurses who have studied and worked abroad. These professionals are familiar with foreign healthcare systems, particularly the United States' and have the edge of being already familiar with American English usage, accents, and idioms.

Another thing that makes the country particularly attractive for medical transcription is the advanced and comparatively cost-efficient telecommunications and business infrastructure. The time difference factor also plays a role in such instances where there is an immediate need for results.

Blossoming Industry

There are at least 17 companies in the Philippines that offer MT services to US-based clients. Several schools have already sprung to help train future transcriptionists. These schools, like MTC Academy, offer training that incorporates lectures with laboratory work before handling actual transcription work as their on-the-job training.

MTC Academy was established initially to supply the manpower demands of its sister company, Accutype Medical Services (AMS), an MT production facility and joint venture partner of a Kansas-based MT organization. The president and founder of the school, Eugenio G. Gonzalez, explains that their difficulty to find qualified medical transcriptionists who could deliver the quality standards required by Accutype was their key driver in putting up the school.

With the number of US-based transcriptionists decreasing at a rate of ten percent yearly, there is no doubt that the Philippines will continue to benefit from medical transcription outsourcing. But the country is still under-utilizing the potential of this IT-enabled service.

The Technical Education Skills Development Authority (TESDA) has already set the guidelines and requirements for certification in the medical transcription field. But more than just support in marketing the skills and product, there is a need to give full administrative and legislative support to these programs.

Due to the sensitivity of the business, the US government passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountancy Act (HIPAA) of 1996 that gives guidelines for safeguarding medical data. This arose from an incident where a transcriptionist threatened to disclose confidential information on the Internet because of problems with payment. This raised concerns in the US and threatened to slow down the outsourcing of transcription business. The Medical Transcription Industry Association of the Philippines (MTIAPI) calls for the government to help in providing corresponding legislation that will give assurance to clients that the privacy laws would also be held up in the country.