Medical Transcript Writer Speaks out!

I found this in my comments section from this post.

hangrt has left a new comment on your post "New Comment on "Turf Wars in Alphabet Soup Land"":

"A medical office assistant career requires the expert handling of billing codes and patient information without which, could result to errors: either the patient could be billed with the wrong, higher amount or, the doctor would be paid less than their due."

Medical transcript writers can only write what the medical people put down. My OWN transcripts are full of errors, omissions, and bald faced lies. These transcripts that I cite are from hospitals as far as I can tell. With hospital transcripts, not only are the above true, but also there is zero followup on out-patient services, followup surgery to correct bad outcomes etc... My own badly performed surgery isn't listed as a bad outcome! My surgeon will deny that I had a bad outcome to his dying breath regardless of proof. My anesthesia services weren't listed as a bad outcome. My CRNA and his supervisor consider forced drugging along with violations of "informed consent" laws to be well within range of "good outcome." My paradoxical reactions, PTSD, anxiety disorders and brain damage subsequent to their ministrations, have no bearing on what they consider a "Pt. tolerated procedure well" type statement! Want to bet on it? So how anybody can use their training in transcription as PROOF that errors aren't being swept under the rug is beyond me. Garbage in, Garbage out. Again, we are only talking about who gets paid from whom. This has NOTHING to do with patient safety.

I had to add this comment, also from hangrt; Hangrt, I am in no way denigrating the complicated job of medical transcription writers! I don't have any beef with you, nor do I think that you are in any way remiss in your job. What I AM saying is that reading a bunch of billing information IN NO WAY can be used to determine the OUTCOME of a particular surgery, nor can it be used to compare Dr's to nurses. I'm sorry, but that information just isn't there. We know who did what in order to get MONEY, we don't know how the patients feel about what happened. You don't know how many angry patients there are out there... You don't know how many were treated SUBSEQUENT to the billing event for bad treatment. You get to bill patients for services EVEN IF the patient was harmed by said "services." I suppose if the patient DIED from their anesthesia that THAT might be on the paperwork... Nobody at my hospital wrote anything down about the horrible anesthesia, the total lack of informed consent, the forced drugging with Versed, paradoxical reactions, OR the incident in the PACU! What "heading" would you put that under as a medical transcriber? It WASN'T SAFE FOR ME TO HAVE A CRNA! But I'll bet MONEY that my medical transcriber would assume that my anesthesia was just fine... How would they know it wasn't? It angers me to think that my DEBACLE with a CRNA is being counted as a plus for them because the jackass didn't kill me! You are talking about "FEES FOR SERVICES RENDERED" not how piss poor the services rendered were! I'm not sure how to get this message across...

hangrt has left a new comment on your post "Medical Transcript Writer Speaks out!":

"Some typical tasks include the registering of patient info, insurance verification and pre-authorization for patients, maintaining patient accounts, coding, and medical assistant insurance policy claims. assistant specialists can also collect payments from patients and perform collection pursuits to end out patient accounts. They compile the records of fees for services rendered to patients in a healthcare facility."