According to the Transparency Market Research study, the global medical transcription services market expects a soaring growth from 2013 to 2019 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.6%. The study says the market valued at USD 41.4 million in 2012 will reach an estimated value of USD 60.6 million in 2019. The medical transcription (MT) industry is facing intense transformation owing to a number of factors including the infrastructural initiatives taken by various governments, electronic health record (EHR) implementation in developed nations, automation of healthcare operations and increasing concerns for providing better, safe and quick healthcare services to the patients; and the net result turns out to be the growing demand for accurate documentation.
The global MT landscape is segmented on the basis of service types and how such kinds of services are procured. If we consider service type, MT services are categorized into History and Physical Report (H&P), Discharge Summary (DS), Operative Note or Report (OP), Consultation Report (CONSULTS) and other reports depending upon the specialty including pathology report, radiology report (x rays or radiographs) market. Here are the key findings of the study based on these categories.
- The market share for consultation report is found to be the largest amongst all reports. It is because these reports need to be prepared repeatedly for patients under treatment when they visit the specialist each time. It is estimated that the global market for consultation report will reach USD 21.1 million with the market growing at a CAGR of 3.3% from 2013 to 2019.
- The global market share for H&P report has also increased as they are now made for both inpatients and outpatients to reduce reimbursement issues, instead of focusing on only hospitalized patients and patients undergoing treatment that involves many visits to specific clinics or hospitals.
Based on the modes of procuring MT services, the global market can be classified into two main categories, domestic outsourcing and off-shoring. The more preferred mode is found to be outsourcing the transcription job to a domestic third party organization. The market share for this mode of service procurement was 62.2% in 2012. However, large internationally operating healthcare organizations opt for both modes of service procurement due to the following reasons.
- Ease of operations
- Rapid turnaround times
- Easy to allocate monetary resources according to the nature of reports
Asian countries including India and the Philippines capture most of the off-shored business as they get the support of government incentives and subsidies to set up new businesses as well as expand existing business units. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Latin America are other emerging markets in the world followed by Qatar.
North America dominates the MT service market and is expected to continue its reign in the future. The market was valued at USD 18 million and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of more than 5% from 2013 to 2019. The most important factors that impel significant growth in the North American market include aging population and the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act, 2013.
Though the research predicts massive gains for the MT industry, proliferation of technologies including speech recognition and Google Glass are really challenging for the practice of transcribing text from the dictation recorded using audio recorders. However, the strict HIPAA compliance rules and demand for accurate clinical documentation pave way for a comprehensive approach involving trained medical transcriptionists and the latest technologies.
