If you have a practice, emergency room, or hospital that you need to run, you need to make sure you have the right tools at your disposal. Your ultimate goal is to provide the best care possible for your patients. That means that you need to spend as much time as possible focusing on your patients and less time dealing with clerical work. Two of the most important tasks that you have to complete if you want to run an efficient medical practice include medical transcription and coding. Both are important for keeping the lights on, but they also take you away from your patients.
What are the differences between medical transcription and coding, and how can you get the most out of both of these areas? Learn more below, and make sure you put your company in a position to be successful.
An Overview of Medical Transcription
So, what are we talking about when we mention medical transcription? Medical transcription is the process of taking recorded or written notes and translating them into text that you can read in the medical record. For example, when you finish completing a surgical procedure, you will want to add all of the details from the procedure into the medical record. What if you don’t have time to get your notes into the system? In some cases it may be easier to record your notes and have someone else transcribe your recording into the medical record for you. Because most people speak faster than they type, this could be a better use of your time.
There are several other ways medical transcription can be useful. For example, if your practice is very busy or understaffed, you may have patients or referring offices leaving you voicemails. A medical transcriptionist can take those voicemails and transcribe them into the chart for you. In addition, beyond entering the notes into your EHR from the voicemails, DataMatrix Medical’s highly trained transcriptionists can also help identify next steps and create actionable tasks from voicemails into your EHR.
Even a virtual live or offline scribe is a type of medical transcription service. For example, a virtual scribe may work directly with the physician on a remote meeting session to listen in during the patient’s visit . Then, they will take the information from the visit, type it into the EHR for you. This in return can save you a lot of time down the road. If you want to spend less time doing clerical work and more time visiting your patients, you may want to work with a medical transcription service like DataMatrix Medical.
An Overview of Coding
There are a lot of people who get medical transcription and coding confused. They are very different tasks. Even though both have to do with patient visits, coding refers to how you label a patient’s visit when it is complete.
Once you are done with a patient, you will need to apply a medical code to that visit. The medical code specifically refers to how you bill the health insurance company. For example, if you order an X-ray for a patient, there is a code that will be applied to it. The code will vary depending on whether you are ordering a head x-ray, an arm x-ray, a chest x-ray, or some other type of x-ray. Then, based on the information from that x-ray, you may decide the patient requires surgery to fix a broken bone. There is a specific code that applies to that surgical procedure, and you need to apply it accurately to the procedure to ensure insurance pay accurately. Keep in mind there are different codes when compared from the code you might apply to a primary care visit. This is why it is important to have an experienced and trained professional entering your codes.
Don’t forget DataMatrix Medical offers coding services. We specialize in providing accurate and efficient medical coding for faster reimbursements. Contact us today if you are ready to get started.
The Differences Between Them
Even though medical transcription and coding are both important practices, they are also very different things. The biggest difference between medical transcription and coding is that medical coding has to do with the label you give the visit, while a medical transcription service is responsible for taking spoken text and typing it into the medical record.
While both practices are very different, both are important. You need to make sure you have a reliable medical transcription and coding service that can help you appropriately label each patient visit. To get the right label on the visit, you need a reliable transcription service to put the text in the visit accurately. If you want to spend more time seeing patients, you need to work with a professional service that can handle both of these tasks on your behalf. That is where we can help you.
Work With the Team From DataMatrix Medical
If you are looking for a team that can help you save time, look no further than DataMatrix Medical. We are proud to provide medical coding and medical transcription services, and we can help you save time. We understand that you are tired of doing clerical work, and that is why we can take that off of your hands. Our experienced team will make sure that all of your information is transcribed accurately into the medical record. We will also make sure that we use the right medical codes to ensure you are paid appropriately. Contact us today to speak to our team!
