Overview
For decades, transcription services have been used in several industries, including healthcare, legal, and law enforcement. Insurance companies have used them as well. But for some reason, they have not taken advantage of these professional, clerical services as much as other industries. What’s particularly surprising is that insurance claims often involve all three of these industries: healthcare for medical reports and legal and law enforcement for various reasons, including contested and fraudulent claims. The recent rise of transcription services for insurance companies reflects the fact that more and more firms are realizing there are economic and work environment advantages to be had. These services can help firms:
- Save Time
- Document Meetings and Interviews
- Prepare for Legal Proceedings
- Streamline the Claims Process for Better Customer Retention
- Improve Work/Life Balance for Better Staff Retention
Five Ways Transcription Services for Insurance Companies Can Help
Nobody knows the value of specialization like an insurance professional. We see every day the advantages of having knowledgeable experts in any given position – and what can go wrong when an expert isn’t in charge. Doesn’t it also make sense to adopt this expert-led philosophy in the insurance industry?
The rise of transcription services for insurance companies proves that more and more firms are realizing the benefits of clerical support in their offices. Professional transcription services for insurance companies help improve office workflows in at least five different ways.
1. Save Time
Two little words, but a deceptively huge concept. The insurance companies that thrive most are those that get rid of the waste. And there is no more precious commodity than time. Saving your insurance experts time leads to better customer service and lower rates of burnout, allows them to focus on the things they do best, and saves the company money in the long run. In an industry where the bottom line is the bottom line, that’s perhaps the biggest takeaway.
The following four points fall under this central umbrella idea. But to encapsulate: giving your team clerical support in the form of professional insurance transcription frees them up to focus more on client service and less on the tedious parts of their day, such as report writing.
2. Document Meetings and Interviews
Using transcription services for insurance companies to document meetings and interviews is probably the most obvious use. Any recorded encounters, including statements, doctors’ notes, telephone calls, legal proceedings, and police interviews, are much more useful in written form. That’s because written transcripts are much easier to file, find, and search by keyword, allowing you to key in on certain sections of the text much faster than going back to the original audio. Plus, complete and verbatim transcripts can contain and convey information that simple meeting/interview notes cannot.
These benefits also make decision support easier and more effective, not to mention QA and auditing tasks within offices and/or company-wide.
3. Prepare for Legal Proceedings
Written documentation is especially important during legal proceedings. Audio and video sources can be used in certain situations. Still, generally, legal teams prefer to have full transcripts of recorded events that they can quickly skim and pull out important points. Pre-trial and mediation hearings, in particular, rely on written documents more than the original source audio and video.
It’s these situations where accuracy and completeness really count. The better prepared the legal team is with their documentation, the more likely they will be to get a favorable result, whether negotiating a settlement, entering mediation or arbitration, or going to trial.
4. Streamline the Claims Process for Better Customer Retention
As we’ve written about before, iMedat’s insurance transcription services can speed up claims processing. That’s because it helps solve a huge bottleneck in the process: report writing. Adjusters can spend 25 hours per week writing reports. This task is tedious for most (which we expand on below) and reduces office efficiencies. For one thing, submitting reports takes longer, which slows down the claims process. That, in turn, can have a negative effect on customer retention. It’s also important to point out that time taken writing reports is time not spent catering to clients and investigating claims.
There is an easy fix for this: dictation. Most people find it faster and easier to speak their notes than to write them. Using any digital recorder or even a recording app on their phones, team members, including adjusters, can record their notes or dictate a letter, upload it to iMedat’s secure servers, and then download the completed transcript, usually within 24 hours. Then, they just review and rework as necessary, cutting report-writing to a fraction of the time it took before.
The result: faster service for clients, faster claims processing, and ultimately better customer service, all of which lead to better customer retention.
But there’s another important retention factor that is worth underlining…
5. Improve Work/Life Balance for Better Staff Retention
Staff retention is top of mind for all businesses these days. Not only is it harder to hire qualified staff, but those who you do employ are also more likely than ever to leave the company for new opportunities. It pays to provide staff with a great work environment, which in part includes providing opportunities for good work/life balance. One thing employers can do is provide more clerical support to team members so that they can focus on the parts of the job they enjoy.
Report writing, as mentioned above, is again the perfect example. Adjusters can take notes using a recorder when doing assessments. Claims processors can record interviews and their own notes, then craft reports from the completed transcripts much faster and easier than writing from scratch. And anything that makes an employee’s job faster and easier will, by default, improve job satisfaction and, in turn, retention.
iMedat’s transcription services for insurance companies make it easy with fast audio uploads and 24-hour turnaround times in most situations. As many companies are finding during the rise of insurance transcription services, you’ll wonder how you ever did without the extra help…
Not All Transcription Services for Insurance Companies Are Alike
As you might expect, not all transcription services for insurance companies are alike. Accuracy, completeness, speed, and customer service – are all important considerations. iMedat has you covered.
iMedat’s professional insurance transcriptionists are all well-versed in both medical and legal terms. That means fewer errors and blanks for you to fill in later. It also means you get another set of eyes on your report. We routinely flag possible errors such as medication mispronunciations so that your team can go back and adjust reports as necessary.
Most importantly, we make it easy to work with us. Call us right now (888-779-5888) to find out how responsive we can be – we’re available when you need us. Plus, all of our transcriptionists are 100% living and working in the U.S., so you know your sensitive data is not being sent overseas.
Contact iMedat right now for a free consultation. Let us show you how we can make life easier for your team, streamline your office workflows, and improve your customer retention and satisfaction.