Bits and Pieces
Here are some of the happenings in the world of medical transcription as of late:
MedQuist/AHDI Settlement Update
According to the AHDI website, the free program offerings for eligible members of the MedQuist settlement class are anticipated to become available in mid-July 2009. Eligible participants will receive a notification letter by mail from AHDI when the program goes live.
Medical Transcription & Career Step Featured on Designing Spaces
A recent episode of the WE Network program Designing Spaces featured interviews with Career Step founder Andrea Anaya and with a recent CS graduate. Overall I thought the piece did a decent job of informing viewers about the medical transcription profession and CS's training program, but I was bothered by a couple of statements, one from Anaya regarding the use of speech recognition technology in the MT industry. She said, "We ARE seeing application of voice recognition, but it's the transcriptionist who's applying it, not from the other end." Also, the CS graduate featured in the piece stated that "medical transcription isn't going anywhere."
In the interest of full disclosure, I've had a marketing affiliation with Career Step for some time because I believe the program is a good MT training option for individuals on a budget. (Note to readers: please don't try to drag me into a "school wars" discussion!) Even so, I don't feel the above statements by Anaya and the CS graduate accurately reflect the state of the MT industry today. Clearly, back-end speech recognition technology is having a MAJOR impact on our profession, while to my knowledge there are only a relatively few MTs who are using front-end SRT to "re-dictate." As to whether or not MT is "going anywhere," while I'm among those who believe MT as we know it will indeed be around for the foreseeable future, there's no question that the industry is undergoing some fairly dramatic changes even as we speak. Furthermore, if you define "going anywhere" as the movement of MT jobs away from the U.S. to other countries, Career Step itself is involved in training programs in a number of offshore locations.
Having said all that, I don't believe the purpose of the Designing Spaces piece was to deliberately deceive viewers who are looking for potential home-based careers. I can tell you from personal experience that being interviewed on camera for broadcast isn't exactly the most comfortable experience, and not everything comes out of your mouth exactly the way you'd prefer. It's easy to pick apart an interview after the fact and focus only on the negatives, and I don't want to do that in this case. Still, I do believe it's important to make every effort to accurately represent the medical transcription field as it exists today and is likely to exist in the near future.
CBay Aggressively Marketing Subcontracting Services
CBay Systems recently unveiled its CBayScribe MTSO Partnership Program in an apparent attempt to expand its market reach by subcontracting to other MT service owners. Basically the program allows MTSOs to bring on new clients using CBay's technology and human resource infrastructure with no up-front costs and a fixed per-line rate. The website provides a toll-free number, 866-295-4600, to contact CBay Systems president Chris Foley for more information about this program.
As a means of possibly recouping some of the money it has invested in its technology infrastructure while further expanding its market reach, this new strategy seems to offer CBay a lot of upside without much risk. Whether or not it would be financially feasible for MTSOs to go this route is another matter, since I don't know what kind of line rate CBay is charging for its services. I also think CBay will have to convince potential MTSO customers that they don't have to worry about CBay trying to steal their clients, a common concern in our business whenever you deal with subcontractors. In any case, it'll be interesting to see how this all pans out.