Medical Transcription Outsourcing in the Philippines
Philippines has proven its outstanding capabilities in outsourcing call center operations and is expected to surpass more countries in this area of outsourcing. Also, it competes with the world’s dominant players in business process and animation outsourcing. Now that the tremendous growth of different outsourcing industries in the Philippines is overwhelming, it is now ready to seize the crown in the world’s top markets for another field of outsourcing: medical transcription outsourcing.
Medical transcription is the practice of converting dictation of healthcare professionals into structured documents. The documents containing the treatment records can be stored electronically. This allows physicians and medical professionals to gain access of the records without asking the transcribers to provide printed documents. Because documents are sent electronically, transcribers can perform their work regardless of location. Hence, medical transcription has become a favorable area for offshore outsourcing.
Philippines, with its skilled labor pool and low labor costs, is found by many as a desirable destination for medical transcription outsourcing. Market analysts have high hopes for the medical transcription industry to follow the victory of call center operations in the country. Currently, $40 million out of the $15-billion industry of medical transcription in the US is outsourced to more than 20 service providers in the Philippines. Many believe that Philippines is a competitive market for medical transcription because its workforce takes pride in their English proficiency and capability to discern other accents.
Many private sectors have opened schools specializing in medical transcription, in order to enhance the country’s knowledge of its basic operations. The industry also acquires strong governmental support, partly because of the employment benefits the industry can offer to Filipinos. In four years, the country is expected to have about 122 000 capable medical transcribers.
The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines encourages graduates of medical courses like pharmacy and nursing to consider medical transcription while reviewing for their licensure examinations or pending an overseas job contract. Though many graduates of medical courses go abroad, as long as the medical transcription industry has a stable supply of medical transcribers, the emerging industry in the country is likely to grow further.
In 2005, the country brought $70 million in revenues and is anticipated to increase up to 80% in the following years. From 2007 to 2010, revenues are expected to reach $238 million, $476 million, $952 million and $1.71 billion, respectively. This statistics confirms the rapid growth of the medical transcription outsourcing industry in the Philippines in the next years, based on the present developments the country is experiencing.
In order to keep a few steps ahead of its Asian rivals, the Philippines strives to be part of the continuous modifications of the current practices and operations in the medical transcription industry today. With ample attention and appropriate actions by the local market, the Philippines could probably the future medical transcription ground in Asia.
Sources:
* http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/
* http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/