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The Role of the Healthcare Documentation

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The Role of the Healthcare Documentation Specialist
By: Quala Jones

There were times when some of us have always thought of healthcare specialists as typists, and some of us have always know healthcare documentation specialists to be more than typists. But they have always done more than one thing. Their coworkers have always thought that they sat a desk all day and type what they heard. What their coworkers didn’t realize was that they were also proofreading, analyzing, and etc. Formally known as medical transcriptionists or a medical documentation editor, their roles are to listen to voice recording made by doctors or other health professionals. They also either transcribe the information, or they review or edit a version produced by a speech recognition technology software program for the record.
When proofreading, they review and make corrections while listening to the voice recordings, which are of the doctor’s or other healthcare professionals. They have to make sure they have all the words spell correctly, the diagnoses are written out correctly/neatly. Mostly they have to make sure that the report matches the doctor’s voice recordings. Again, proofreading while listening to the voice recordings is not very easy to do.
Analyzing is another role of the healthcare documentation specialist. They are known to analyze the reports by examining the reports carefully in detail to identify causes, key factors, possible results, and so forth. Analyzing is important because they have to make sure the medical reports are in detail and are readable for other doctors and or other healthcare professionals. Analyzing medical reports is not as hard as proofreading reports.
Editing or transcribing medical reports is yet another role that is highly detailed work that requires patience, focus, and attention to detail. When editing a medical report it is very important that you pay close attention to all the details while you are editing and transcribing the report. Medical transcriptionists have to transcribe dictation by physicians and other healthcare providers, in order to document patient care. This means that they have to translate recordings they get from doctors or other medical specialists into written reports, correspondence, and other documents. They have to be able to focus and have patience to transcribe patients’ medical records. Some of the medical transcriptionists have additional clerical duties also.
These are just a few of the roles of the medical transcriptionists. However, there are other roles that they have to take on. Like I already mention, editing and transcribing are probably two of the most important roles of the medical transcriptionists. Proofreading and analyzing are also some of the roles of the medical transcriptionists. It very important that they proofread and analyze the medical reports to make sure the reports have the correct information and is readable. While these are just a few of the important roles, they also look for inconsistencies and errors in reports and check with the physician or healthcare professional in order to correct them. After dictating, translating, proofreading, analyzing, and transcribing the medical transcriptionists have to return transcribed documents to the physicians or other healthcare providers. Like I said before these are just several of the roles of the medical transcriptionists and there are many more roles of the medical transcriptionist aren’t talked about and explained in the above paragraphs. Now we know that medical transcriptionists do more than just type and listen to voice recordings.
Resources
Careerplanning.about.com/od/occupations/p/med_trans.htm explorehealthcareers.org › Careers › Allied Health Professions
www.ahdionline.org/Default.a..

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