Thursday, December 14, 2006 Pinoy MTs are more competitive, exec says
AN OFFICIAL of a medical transcription school in the Philippines, the MTC Academy (MTCA), Tuesday said medical transcriptionists (MT) in the country are better than those in the US.
Ryan P. Herrera, marketing manager of the MTCA in Manila and operations manager of Innovaquest, told Sun.Star Davao that most of MTs in the country are college graduates.
"MTs here are more competitive than those in the US, we're at par because of the educational backgrounds, some MTs in the US are only high school graduates," Herrera said.
MTs are people who converted electronically stored voice data from medical professionals into written form.
Medical transcription, on the other hand, is the process of converting dictations by physicians and other healthcare professionals into an electric text document.
The US Federal Law, which is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), requires documentation of every physician-patient encounter.
MTs provide this documentation service and with more than 100,000 doctors in the US, the demand for MT professionals is strong and growing.
Herrera claimed that MTs are more advantageous than the call center agents.
He cited three reasons for this -- the schedule, compensation, and the stress levels.
"Call centers usually work on night shifts, samantalang pag MT ka, day shift talaga kasi ang mga doctors sa US nagtatrabaho pag gabi dito sa atin, pag umaga dito sa atin, ginagawa na ang pagta-transcribe, so ang mga doctors na naman ang tulog," Herrera said.
"In terms of compensation, you're more in control, kung marami kang lines na mata-transcribe, s'yempre malaki rin ang compensation mo, depende sayo kung gaano karami ang ma-transcribe mo. In terms of stress levels, of course di gaanong tedious ang work, through Internet ang trabaho and MTs don't get shouted at," Herrera explained.
Herrera roughly estimates that the hiring rate of MTs in the Philippines is 30 percent.
Herrera claimed that being an MT is not that easy, but it is doable through enough training.
"It's not that really easy because doctors in the US have speech patterns and they have a lot of medical terminologies, but, we see that the interest level of entrepreneurs in engaging in this business is very high," he said.
Herrera, who was invited by the MTCA-Davao for the first time Tuesday, conducted a seminar for Davao entrepreneurs and doctors about how to be engaged in business process outsourcing.
"This seminar is actually our response to curiosity of the public and entrepreneurs. MTCA have been receiving inquiries how to set up medical transcription business," he said.
There are about 33 MTCAs existing nationwide. Davao is the 30th and the first in Mindanao. Its founder and president is Eugenio Gonzalez.
Meanwhile, MTCA Davao president Lizabel Holganza said in a separate interview that there are about 100 students who are enrolled with MTCA.
The school opened on August 3 this year.
"What's good in here is that MTs don't necessarily need to go to the US to work, they will just submit their transcriptions through the Internet," Holganza said.
Holganza added that medical transcription companies in the US now are getting MTs outside their country -- one thing they consider is that it has lower operational costs because they will pay medical transcription service in dollars.
Holganza said medical transcription industry is estimated to be worth US $20 billion and grows at an annual rate of 20 percent. (JGRS)
