Organizations in industries such as healthcare, legal, and education discovering the many benefits of outsourcing their transcription needs to third-party transcription service providers. Technological advancements such as digital recording and technology has made outsourcing transcription projects easier than ever while helping companies streamline their costs.

At first glance, it might appear that outsourcing would actually increase rather than reduce transcription costs. But in reality, there are a number of ways in which outsourcing can make a business or practice much more cost-effective while also providing the high-quality speech to text services you demand.

Pay for Services Only When You Need Them
If you only use transcription services sporadically, it probably doesn’t make financial sense to have an in-house employee or staff handle these duties. When you weigh the costs of paying employee salaries and benefits versus paying for outsourced transcription services on an as-needed basis, you might find the latter option is actually less costly in the long run.

However, even if you need transcription service on a frequent basis, a top-quality transcription service provider can still help you reduce your costs. Consider that a professional transcription provider with proven quality assurance procedures in place can significantly reduce speech to text errors. All too often, these errors can lead to expensive mistakes in the form of lost business or costly litigation.

Comparing Transcription Service Rates
An important factor when considering a transcription service is the transcription rate. Typical transcription rates are by the character, line, page or minute. A per-character or per-line transcription rate tends to be more cost-effective for most buyers. Per-minute rates are generally recommended only if you need to know what the exact cost of the project will be before it is transcribed.

The Cheapest Isn’t Necessarily the Best
That old saying “you get what you pay for” definitely applies to the transcription business. A low transcription rate can also equate to poor quality. In addition to evaluating transcription rates, take a close look at the quality procedures and polices implemented by the transcription service company. The best service providers offer a stringent multi-level quality assurance process to keep the number of errors to a minimum. They also offer some sort of error correction policy: Many will correct mistakes found by clients in completed documents at no additional charge.