As hospitals and labs in the United States find it cheaper to send some of their core and non-core medical processes overseas, the Philippines’ medical transcription sector is seen to be growing by the day, Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila said.

According to Favila, “With our huge pool of highly skilled, quality medical and technology professionals, the Philippines is the best destination for medical transcription services.”

A research conducted by Frost and Sullivan shows that, the Philippines will be among the largest markets for outsourced services in the Asia Pacific for the next five to seven years, with medical transcription driving the growth. The Philippines is also projected to fill in the 47 percent supply gap in the US transcription market in 2007.

Medical transcription is one of the five subsectors identified by the DTI in its campaign to sell the Philippines as a global hub for outsourced IT-enabled services. Medical transcription deals with interpreting and electronic encoding of patient assessment, therapeutic procedures among others from hospitals and other medical institutions abroad.

Philippine MT companies do mostly medical reports, discharge summaries, operative reports, therapy/rehabilitation notes, chart notes, and hospital and clinic reports using state-of-the-art software and equipment from the US. Each medical transcriber can transcribe up to 1,000 lines per day with 98% accuracy rate. Most of them offer 24x7 services and have an average turnaround time of 24 hours, with the ability to deliver output in 3 to 6 hours in emergency cases.

This year, 16 IT-enabled companies that are also members of the Medical Transcription Industry Association of the Philippines, Inc. (MTIAPI) will be joining the American Health and Information Management Association (AHIMA) Conference and Exhibition (15-20 October 2005) in San Diego, California. These are: Advanced MT Data Services Inc., DataMed Transcription Solutions Inc., eData Services Philippines, Inc., Global Data Processing, Inc., Ibiz Outsource Technology Inc., International Center for Medical Transcription, Medscribe Asia, Inc., MT Link Asia, Northern Transcriptionworks, Inc., Multi-Scribe Global Outsourcing Inc., MTC Academy, Text Switch Unlimited, Inc., Total Transcription Solutions, Inc., Touch Asia Contact Solutions Inc., Transkripsyo, Inc. and SPI Healthcare Documentation. The Private Enterprise Accelerated Resource Linkages (PEARL 2) sponsored the participation of Philippine MT companies to AHIMA.

MTIAPI is an association of medical transcription firms, which was established to provide services and assistance for the development of the medical transcription industry.

The Philippines graduates an average of 30, 000 medical professionals every year and Filipino doctors, nurses and healthcare providers are acknowledged worldwide for their keen sense for details, high degree of productivity and credibility assuring clients of safety of any medical information. Also, around 25, 000 college graduates from the total 380, 000 are said to be qualified to do BPO work, with starting salaries of US$1.00 to US$2.00 per hour.

At e-Services Philippines 2005 in February, the country’s major IT conference and exhibition, Peter Maquera, Vice President for Content Development of SPI Technologies Inc. said that the growing US medical transcription market is seen to benefit the Philippines as evidenced by the 2008 market sizes. These include billing at US$1.07 billion; coding at US$587 million and claims processing, US15.7 billion. This, along with opportunities created due to the implementation of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPA) standards in the US, has set the tone for potential brisk business for Philippine BPO firms.

Favila said, “Medical transcription is here to stay. With more companies improving their cost position and market share, plus newer technology adding value, this business is on a sound footing.”

For information about the Philippine participation in AHIMA, please call CITEM’s IT Services and Electronics Division at telephone nos. 832 5044; 831 2201-09 local 212, 251, or 278 or e-mail itservices@citem.com.ph

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