NOTE: When purchasing this turnkey website, you can choose to use my content. You can revise it. You can personalize the section at the bottom. Or you can provide your own information for this page.
Dictation errors happen more frequently than dictators would like to admit.
With all the portable dictation technology available today, doctors can dictate from just anywhere. The dictation quality is often lower than it used to be. The dictator may be distracted by the environment and is more likely to make mistakes. Many dictations have background noises ranging from traffic to public places to nature sounds. This makes it harder for MTs to distinguish some words and they often need to make judgment calls.
Do you want the transcriptionist to transcribe word for word? Or would you like them to correct your mistakes?
There are advantages and disadvantages of the verbatim vs. the edited approach. It's important that you, the dictator, communicates and specifies your preferences.
If you request verbatim transcription, MTs will transcribe exactly as dictated, word-for-word. For legal transcription, transcriptionists use verbatim transcription to the extreme. They will even transcribe 'uh,' 'ah,' 'oh' and 'um', mention when someone coughs or laughs.
Do you really want verbatim transcription? Do you want MTs to withhold all judgment? Do you want MTs to keep contradiction in your dictation? Do you want them to overlook your grammatical errors? Or would you want them to correct punctuation, misspellings and dictation errors at their discretion? Do you want the MTs to type sentences you dictate that run on and on? Or do you want them to split them up into readable sentences? Do you want the MTs to misspell drugs or other medical terms if you misspell them?
A skilled MT that's allowed a little bit of flexibility
can detect and correct your mistakes.
MTs have extensive training in diseases, diagnoses, treatments, medical terminology, grammar and punctuation. A good transcriptionist uses good judgment and logic.
If something is contradictory in a dictation, a sharp transcriptionist will notice it. For example, a good MT will notice if the doctor mentions a problem with a "right" arm five times and then mistakenly mentions a "left" arm later by mistake. |
