(To read Part 2, click on the �Previous Article� link, on the left)

MTIndia: Do you think that organizations like NASSCOM have furthered the cause of MT in India? Do you feel that some Industry Standards should be defined and accreditation implemented? Do you think quality protocols like TQM, Six Sigma etc, can increase quality and productivity?

RKT: Nasscom is mainly concentrating on software industry and IT services. They are not really bothered about medical transcription; somehow everybody lost focus on the MT industry even though initially there was a lot of hype. TQM and Six Sigma will definitely help all the companies, especially with the new HIPAA regulations, but in this business there are two levels of quality management, one is the management of the process and the other is the product. Established quality systems will no doubt help in the management of the process, but for the product, the understanding of quality differs from customer to customer, so customer definition is different from standards. Most of the times, for the transcript, we at WORLDTECH talk about customer acceptable quality. There was much talk initially about 98% accurate transcription, but that number is open to interpretation. Moreover, there are clients who will expect 100% accuracy. Then again, customers who come to you only for a cost benefit may not mind accepting 95% accuracy. I feel it depends on the customer, and at the end of the day, you have to deliver quality that is acceptable to the customer.

MTIndia: What remuneration should an average should MT expect? What are the career and growth prospects at WORLDTECH?

RKT: Initially in the industry there was a lot of difference in pay packets offered by different companies. Startups offered large salaries to attract experienced people. But people have realized that that is not sustainable and now we are seeing uniform salaries, and this is visible nationally. I can tell you now in our company today, a minimum salary an MT is getting is about 6,000 rupees, but there are some MTs getting even 23,000 rupees. 30% of our people are taking home more than 10,000 rupees. Our salaries are linked totally to the productivity and we want to see that all our MTs earn about 25,000 rupees in next two to three years, that is our growth plan for our MTs.

MTIndia: How does Worldtech see the future of Medical Transcription with continuous speech recognition and formatted electronic records coming in?

RKT: I still believe for next 10 years there will not be any threat to Indian MT industry, because of speech recognizing software or other formatted electronic records. Now I believe that next 10 years this business is going to be there. There may be a growing merging of technologies to enhance productivity but the need for core human input in medical transcription is going to be there for a long time.

MTIndia: Can we now declare that the hype associated with MT is truly dead like the dotcoms? Is diversifying into medical billing & coding mandatory, to reap adequate profits?

RKT: Yeah, it is true the hype that was associated initially has died now in 2003, I am sure the MT industry is going to come back with a bang. If somebody wants to survive just on MT, they can, but there seems to be a lot of scope for other services that are a spin-off from transcription services that the doctor needs like medical billing, coding, electronic document management and retrieval systems. I am sure there is a lot of scope and we can give lots of services to the doctors. The same doctor can be our customer in various other areas. But the MT industry is going to flourish again.

We have already started electronic records management as an extra service we are giving to our existing doctors. We are developing some software for the doctors, we are trying to understand doctor�s requirement in toto and trying to become a sort of one-stop shop for doctors. Our pitch for our clients is that they can concentrate on diagnosing and treating the patient and we will do the rest; enabling the physicians to focus on their work, while we take care of the remaining back office tasks.


By our Special Editor,
Hyderabad,
22nd Mar 2003