PDA Reduces Costs and Turnaround Time with Emdat Suite
When Professional Dictation Associates (PDA) president and co-owner Judy Rini founded
the business, she provided transcription services for
a single cardiology group and experienced many of
the frustrations common to those in the medical
transcription industry. Although the cardiology group
spent $30 a day in courier charges to send audiotapes
via FedEx and UPS, turnaround time for transcription remained slow and was
frequently marked by hold-ups. At one point during a UPS strike, Judy even had to
cross a picket line at the distribution center just to pick up her packages.
THE EMDAT SOLUTION
Five years ago, the cardiology group contacted Emdat and
informed PDA of the unique web-based capabilities that the
company had to offer. After consulting with Emdat CEO
Steven Palmisano, Judy recognized that by implementing
the Emdat suite of applications and improving her
company’s turnaround time, she was “sitting on gold.”
It took only a few days for PDA’s employees to adapt to
the new routines and interface of the Emdat software.
The company
successfully
capitalized on its
improved capabilities
and gradually
increased its client-base
and capacity. Judy recalls,
“We were hesitant to increase our client
caseload at first because we didn’t want
to bite off more than we could chew, but
our company has blossomed.” Today, the
company is still expanding and new
clients continue to hear about PDA from
existing clients that are very satisfied with
their results.
Decreased Turnaround Time
Much of PDA’s growth can be attributed to its
decreased turnaround time, which is a major concern
among doctors. Using a courier service, PDA required
a minimum of two days to fulfill urgent orders. With
Emdat’s web-based delivery, the client can call PDA
from wherever they are and the report can be done in
as little as twenty minutes.
Recently, PDA acquired a new client that was accustomed
to waiting three weeks for dictation. Judy’s
company surprised the physician when they sent him
the finished document within three hours.
With Emdat’s software, PDA has a lot more maneuverability
when it comes to the order of job completion.
Emdat can track and prioritize assignments that are
more urgent than others so PDA can complete those
more quickly.
Satisfied Clients
In addition to decreasing turnaround
times, the implementation of the AAMT
65 character line has made the service
cheaper for PDA’s clients because they
are paying for what is actually typed,
not blank lines or lines with only a few
words on them.
Customer demographics, names, dates,
signature lines and envelope text are all
characters that a traditional transcriptionist
would charge clients for but
because Emdat offers these lines free of
charge, clients avoid paying for recurring
characters.
Judy was impressed that Emdat’s software
also included free, built-in services
like auto-text and templates that greatly
decrease transcription error and cost.
“Our clients are happy and that is
because it comes down to quality.”
Other Benefits
PDA has found
ways to implement
features
that are built into
Emdat’s software
to improve the
company’s productivity.
One particular feature that Judy finds beneficial
is the capability of automatically assigning jobs to
transcriptionists based on their experience with certain
branches or specialties of the medical field. If one
transcriptionist has a lot of expertise in cardiology,
Emdat can automatically route the job sent from the
cardiologist to that specific transcriptionist.
After five years of working with Emdat, PDA considers
Emdat to be not only a vendor but also a partner.
“Over time it has just become easier for us. If we ever
do have an issue, Emdat is easily available to us for
support. They help us right away.
PDA is
a medical transcription company based in
Mentor, Ohio. Its customers include key
medical clinics in the region as well as
specialists.