You would probably agree that sometimes it is easier to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, than to understand the way some medical transcription providers make up their bills. Some counting systems are so complicated, that it seems like there is an award for most confusing medical transcription pricing model. The thing is that, in different billing options different amount of text is taken as the basis for price measurement. This amount of text is called billable unit. And the price you pay for medical transcription is counted by multiplying the tariff by the number of billable units contained in your text.

1. Understanding
medical transcription
pricing
You would probably agree that sometimes it is easier to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, than to
understand the way some medical transcription providers make up their bills. Some counting systems are
so complicated, that it seems like there is an award for most confusing medical transcription pricing model.
The thing is that, in different billing options different amount of text is taken as the basis for price
measurement. This amount of text is called billable unit. And the price you pay for medical transcription
is counted by multiplying the tariff by the number of billable units contained in your text.
Most commonly used billable units are the following:
Recorded minute – each 60 seconds of the recording, regardless of speech tempo and amount of pauses
in the speaking.
Gross page – any page of the document no matter how much text it contains. So, according to this model
you will pay the same price for a page full of text and for a page that has only small amount of text on it.
Gross line – each line of text, regardless of the amount of text in it and the font size. With one standard
line of about 70-80 characters long, clients pay for each line even if there is only one short word in it.
Net character – billing methods based on this billable unit count every printed or visible character,
including spaces.
Visible Black Character (VBC) – any black character that can be seen by the eye. Spaces are not
included.
Patient: Gerhard Eggerd Gross page 1 page
Age: 67 Gross line 5 lines
Doctor: Tristan Kunz Net character 125 characters
Specialty: cardiology VBC 115 characters
Examination appointed: ECG Recorded minute 1 minute

2. According to a research carried out between the leaders in the industry of outsourced
medical transcription services, pricing per line is the most popular model in medical
transcription billing. It makes the billing process easy to understand by the client and
offers considerable accuracy in counting.
Unfortunately there is no universal standard in medical transcription and service
providers are free to choose any from the existing billing options or even create a unique
one, most beneficial for them.
In attempt to avoid all this confusion, AsterOffice elaborated a transparent pricing model.
We offer three simple options (per page, per line or per character) so that you can choose
the one that fits your needs best. Taking into account the specifics of medical reports, we
however encourage you to choose billing models based on smaller billable units (like ‘per
line’ or ‘per character’ models) as more beneficial and reasonable.
AsterOffice considers Visible Black Character, as the unit for medical transcription billing,
to be most transparent and accurate solution. It guarantees that you will not overpay for
blank spaces in your reports. VBC billing model will help you optimize your costs and
invest more in your core processes.
We want you to invest your money reasonably and to understand perfectly well what
you pay for.
Contact us now to learn more: +41 22 751 94 98
Or visit our website: AsterOffice.com