Looking for ways to cut costs has become a way of life in most medical offices and institutions. One very efficient way to reduce expenditures has been found to be the outsourcing of medical transcription services. In the past medical and business transcription was performed by in house based employees. This means that the institution not only had to pay salaries, health care benefits, vacation and sick pay for their employees, they also had the expense of the physical space and equipment needs. Hospitals and other institutions have found that outsourcing of their transcription needs eliminates some of these internal management.

Most institutions pay on an average 28 to 36 percent more for their in house transcription then they would pay for the same if it was outsourced. Studies done in the past have found that a production based transcriptionist working in her or his home has a cost of nearly 37 percent less per character than an in house transcriptionist. Another consideration of outsourcing transcription is accuracy of work and turn around time. Even with on site transcriptionists many hospitals have physician complaints

regarding the quality and accuracy of the transcription and the turn around time of their dictations. Turn around time is directly related to the productivity of the worker.

It was found that on site transcriptionists have many more disruptions and a much lower production rate when compared to outsourced transcriptionists.