Many healthcare facilities don't have the appropriate number of transcriptionsts, sometimes too many and sometimes not enough. This is especially the case if the facility has a schedule with 1-2 shifts over five or six days per week. In today's economy, it is very hard to "right staff". The seasonal, weekly vacation, FMLA, and economic fluctuations that occur make it very difficult to staff properly. Without proper staffing, turnaround times are inconsistent, at best.

With SOAP, there isn't overstaffing or overtime costs; turnaround times are consistent; in some cases, our company has even impacted DNFB's (i.e., one client saw a 1/2 day reduction.) While specifics will vary for the individual healthcare facility, a cost savings of 10-20% in the transcription cost is possible. In some cases, co-sourcing is a possibility.

Many healthcare facilities have old dictation and transcription systems. It is very expensive to upgrade dictation and transcription systems or to maintain the need for technology refreshes. Once these systems are in-house, the ongoing maintenance and support costs can be a big burden on a healthcare facility's budget. With an in-house system, the hidden costs of maintaining the daily operations of the dictation/transcription system are surprising.

Since a good transcription service prices their services on a utility model, the healthcare facility uses the systems and support of the transcripiton service on an as-needed basis. We have seen cost avoidance in the 10-20% range, and some cases, the savings in this range are annual.

With the demands for better patient care, continuous improvement to provide faster turnaround times while maintaining or improving quality on documentation is a must. For example, today's healthcare is demanding 1-2 hour turnaround on radiology and 2-4 hours on op notes, cardiology, consults, history & physicals, and emergency departments. These demands are compounded by the constraints to reduce costs and staff while extending hours of service (even for rural facilities) to seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

To help meet these increasing demands, SOAP has worked closely with its clients to address current needs and have projected, proactively, to meet future requirements. In some cases, SOAP has taken on entire facilities with the goals to reduce costs, sustain or improve on quality, and to reduce total turnaround times (TATs) (i.e., the complete document capture process from dictation, to transcription, and to distribution of reports via fax, network printers, or integration). In some cases, by the reduction of TAT from 24-48 hours to 2-4 hours, SOAP has helped impact patient care and cash flow (e.g., one client has indicated an impact on AR days as part of the ongoing justification to use our services).

Having transcribed reports for viewing is important; but the pressing need to have the right information at the right place at the right time are pushing automation to have reports automatically routed to printers, faxes, and the appropriate clinical information systems. Workflow and interfaces have positive impact on costs and patient care and achieve dramatic efficiencies for clinical and non-clinical personnel alike.

With the volume of reports at a healthcare facility, the annual savings in time and supplies can be in the $50-90,000 range. And because of the impact on quicker access to these reports, better patient care is recognized.