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Andhra Scribe is a proficient company that provides training and MT home jobs for people interested in medical transcription (MT) and who would like to work from home. Join Us, now! :). Email to andhrascribe@yahoo.com for further details.

Work at home

Posted Mon, 09/28/2009 - 12:41 by admin

Office @ home


Fed up of endless traffic and the stress of a mundane job?

Nandita Ravi I TNN

A ten-to-six job can leave anyone feeling drained and zapped at the end of the day. More so if your day begins with an hour’s drive in peak-hour traffic, followed by having to read endless e-mails, and attending to thousands of phone calls. In the race to stay ahead of your game, you end up stressing yourself out completely. But you have a way out. You just have to consider the option of working from home.
Working from home is very popular among young working mothers, or moms who don’t want to miss out on the joys of motherhood by entrusting their little ones to child care or in the hands of an ageing grandparent. “I gave up working full-time for motherhood three years ago, and don’t regret it one bit,” says Rashmi Matthews, who used to work for an MNC. “Now that my daughter is grown up and going to pre-school, I have a lot more free time on hand. So, I am working as a blog manager for a social media marketing firm. I can work according to my convenience, which is great,” she adds. Working from home gives women like Rashmi the advantage of planning their day according to their comfort, setting realistic deadlines and being in control of their work. “Flexibility is the biggest plus,” insists Rashmi.
    However, it is not just young mothers who choose to work from home. Sandeep, a business development officer, gave up a job with a high profile company to work as a freelance editor for a business magazine. “The biggest plus, in addition to flexibility in timing, was cutting down on all the travel I was doing, which had taken a toll on my health,” says Sandeep. “It got to a point where I was close to a breakdown. That’s when the gravity of the situation hit me. I always had a flair for writing and working as an editor now, I have little reason to complain,” he adds.
    The long commute to office is one reason why people prefer working from home. “I used to travel over 30 km every day just to get to the office. Accommodation near my workplace was almost impossible to find and so we couldn’t even move. Finally, my husband suggested we convert the basement into an office, so that I could work from there. I now devote a substantial amount of my time to both home and work without worrying about having to rush back home to cook dinner,” says architect Pramila Jain, who now runs her own firm.
    Despite the many advantages that it holds, there is a downside to working from home too. “There is this perception that once you are a freelancer, you’ll always be one,” says Sandeep. “There are companies that don’t consider your working from home as experience. But that’s not often.” Also, says Rashmi, when working from home, you miss out on some of the benefits that you would enjoy if you were a full-time employee — like PF, gratuity, medical cover and other such perks. On the other hand, you actually get to take home what you make. *In medical transcription, companies are providing PF, medical cover to work from home (home transcriptionists) people.
    These days, though, several employers give their employees the option to work from home, while retaining all their benefit packages.
POPULAR WORK-FROM-HOME OPTIONS

• Medical Transcription

• Data entry


• Ad posting

Work@home by Vidya Srinivasa Rao

With several transcription companies setting up their base in India, medical transcription has become a lucrative and feasible option for those looking for home-based careers

Vatsala Bhatt, a nutritionist in a well-known health club in Bangalore, quit her job two years ago when she had a baby. Unable to move out, she started looking for a home-based career. She found the perfect option - medical transcription.

It worked out well for Vatsala, who now works for about six hours at home and makes Rs 10,000 per month or so. She also gets time to spend with her daughter.

Vatsala is one among the many who discovered the comfort of working from home and be independent. Until recently home-based medical transcription was popular only among US based home transcriptionists. Now it's slowly gaining a foothold in India. That's good news for people who are compelled to work from home, either for health or for family reasons, and also for people who are looking at a second job to supplement their income.

The system here works on two models. In some companies, which offer 'work-from-home' opportunities transcriptionists can opt to work out of home once they have reached the required level of proficiency.

What is medical transcription?

Medical transcription is the process where one accurately and swiftly transcribes medical records dictated by doctors and others, including history and physical reports, clinic notes, office notes, operative reports, consultation notes, discharge summaries, letters, psychiatric evaluations, laboratory reports, x-ray reports and pathology reports.

It involves receiving dictation by tape, digital system or voice file, and using earphones, a foot pedal for start-stop control and a word processing program. It sometimes includes the use of a printer and sometimes a modem. A variety of word-processing systems are used. It requires good listening and language skills, computer skills and knowledge of medical terms.

Read this FAQ for more information

It makes a lot of sense for companies to allow employees to work from home. According to Sreekumar, programme co-ordinator of Spryance, "Greater quality control is possible with home transcriptionists." Boston based Spryance set shop in India in 2000 with the prime intention of promoting home-based transcription.

Acusis is a Pittsburgh based medical transcription company and has recently opened three offices in Bangalore, Mysore and Chennai. They offer home-based transcription work and so far have hired more than 150 home transcriptionists (mostly women) in the three cities. According to the CEO of Acusis, David Iwenski, India was selected to set up their business because of the country's high literacy rate and excellent English language skills.

Acusis has their own software called Acusuite, which allows the candidate to access an encrypted platform to download the .wav files (audio files) and then upload Word files. The software also contains dictionary and glossary of medical terms along with an error-checking module.

Companies like Spryance (Mumbai) and iQ infotech (Chennai) also work in the same way. However, they have no company-specific software. Candidates are simply given user name and password that allows them to access files from the company site. A team of in-house transcriptionists monitors the work of home-based transcriptionists to weed out possible errors.

Home transcriptionists are allowed to retain files for a maximum of six hours from the time of download. The editing starts as soon as they upload the files. It is very important to stick to deadlines. In case of sudden problems, like power failure, most companies allow the transcriptionist to work from their offices.

Says Radha Sridhar, a medical transcriptionist in Bangalore, who opted to work from home after her marriage: "I download my files at about 7 am and start work at 8.30 am after my husband leaves for work. I upload the files by 3:00 pm."

Payment

Transcriptionists who work from home are paid on the basis of speed and accuracy. The pay ranges from 60 paisa to Rs.1.25 per line depending on the accuracy.

 

Radha says she now earns about Rs. 20,000 a month; more than what she used to earn earlier. "When I worked from office, I used to get a monthly salary. Now I am paid per line."

Once you have honed your listening skills to hit 99-100 per cent accuracy level, you can reach the editor stage, with higher pays and less tedious work. Companies like Spryance already employ home-based editors.

According to Nasscom, medical transcription is projected as the India's fourth largest foreign exchange earners in about five years. If the figures are to be believed, medical transcription will employ more than 50,000 people by 2008. Very good news for people looking out for flexible home-based careers.

Courtesy:  Rediff Guide To The Net

Medical Transcription business not affected by economic slowdown

In a US hospital, a patient in critical condition is wheeled into the emergency room. The doctor orders various tests and the report dictated by the physician is sent to Pune, to a Medical Transcription (MT) company. An hour later, back in the US, the doctor starts the surgery aided by the transcript from the Pune company.
 
After hitting a low in 2002, the MT industry in the country started showing signs of revival in 2006 and has now come of age with not even the global economic slowdown affecting the workflow from the US.

Many MT companies in Pune are in the expansion mode and are on a huge hiring spree.

“There has been no effect of the slowdown on our business. In fact the volume of business has reached a high and we are planning to recruit 100 hands soon to meet the growing volume. We acquired a US MT firm Medical Bazar in 2006 and are now finalising a joint venture with Lotus Logistic in the US. We will hold 75 per cent stake there,” said Sumanta Gupta, Managing Director, Crossover Medical Technology Inc that caters to over 80 clinics in the US. Crossover is also starting its centre in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Alappuzha in Kerala.

Another Pune-based MT firm, Sharp Hearing Technologies, is also in the hiring mode.

“We are finalising a contract with a big hospital in California with 1,200 doctors. As soon as the deal is done, we will recruit 100 more employees,” said Yogesh Bhosle, Managing Director, Sharp Hearing Technologies.

According to him, after it started reviving in 2006, the MT industry has matured and only truly healthy ones survived.

“MT training institutes were mushrooming before it hit a low. Many closed down or moved to other jobs. Now, the qualified workforce and industry maturity are some of the main reasons that draw greater amount of work from the US,” said Bhosle, who plans to employ 90 out of the fresh 100 it is recruiting as home-based transcriptioners.

According to A Chetan of Bangalore-based Lloyds Solutions Pvt Ltd, the scene is no different in Bangalore. “The work volume for MT firms in general has picked up. The reason attributed to it is the quality of delivery that the Indian firms offer. As for us we have 6 major hospitals and 4 clinics as clients. We have an employment strength of 200 and plan to hire more as per the increase in the volume of work,” he said.

As per a recent strategic report of NASSCOM, the MT segment in India that earns an annual revenue aggregate of approximately $ 220-240 million and the MT industry will be worth Rs 40 billion by 2010 and could employ as many as 50,000 people.

The work off-shored was expected to be in the region of $ 860 million in 2010, of which India is expected to capture $ 647 million.

Courtesy:  Indian Express

 


HEALTHCARE OUTSOURCING

THE ‘IN’THING?

The concept of outsourcing various services has become a highly popular one in several industries in recent times. It is indeed spreading its reach to many new and untouched sectors and the latest to join this league is healthcare


    Though outsourcing in the IT, ITeS, legal, HR and knowledge sectors has been a popular concept for quite sometime now, one sector which is now making headlines is the healthcare industry. Outsourcing in the healthcare sector has come a long way — from low-end claims processing and medical transcription to medical analytics and clinical processing. Outsourcing for the department of radio-diagnosis has been around for many years. However, outsourcing of therapeutic departments is a new concept and oncology outsourcing is an important part of this trend.
    Many healthcare organisations have observed that diverse functions can be outsourced without affecting the core competency of healthcare. So, why is the trend becoming so popular these days? According to Dr Arun Kumar Goel, director - oncology & head - surgical oncology, Galaxy Cancer Institute, Pushpanjali Crosslay Hospital, “Outsourcing in healthcare has definitely become a rising trend in recent years. The reason behind this rising trend is the rapid development of healthcare in the country. Increasing cost of high technology equipment is another reason too. In many fields, rapid developments have taken place in technology and the equipment has become very expensive. Many hospitals are outsourcing to reduce their capital expenditure. Secondly, evaluating the technological specifications of the latest equipment and getting competitive pricing are very complex exercises. By outsourcing the facility involving complex and costly equipments, the hospital owners are reducing their risk in terms of technology evaluation and other factors. Thirdly, very complex technology, rapid technological changes and rapid advances in healthcare mean that the concerned personnel (both doctors and other technical staff) need to be constantly updated about the latest changes.”
    Dr Harsh Mahajan, medical & managing director, Mahajan Imaging informs, “I agree that outsourcing in the healthcare sector has become a rising trend, especially in the fields of radiology and imaging, nuclear medicine, oncology, dental services and ophthalmology. This trend, which started about a decade ago, is because of several factors. Firstly, the capital costs for imaging and oncology services are very high and outsourcing helps to reduce initial capital costs that a new hospital has to incur. Secondly, with an increasing number of healthcare facilities being setup, it is becoming tougher to find competent medical specialists in various fields, especially for small- and mediumseized hospitals whose pockets may not be very deep. Good specialists are easily attracted to large multicentre organisations who concentrate on a specific field as chances of growth and development
appear to be better. Certain hospitals who have obsolete equipment and want to upgrade to the current level also find it much easier to outsource than to invent on their own.”
    (To read the full story, log on
    to www.timesascent.in/features)