This document discusses the importance of proofreading medical transcripts to eliminate errors. It notes that even small errors in medical records can endanger patient safety or affect a physician's integrity. It recommends using a checklist during proofreading to catch common mistakes like errors in terminology, omitted or added words, wrong patient details, misspellings, typographical errors, grammatical mistakes, punctuation errors, and incorrect verbiage. The checklist ensures error-free clinical documentation. Associating with an experienced medical transcription company can provide accurate notes and reports through stringent quality checks by editors and proofreaders.

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Importance of a Proofreading Checklist
for Medical Transcripts
Transcribing medical notes should be done with
accuracy as even a small error can endanger patient
safety, affect the physician's integrity.
MTS Transcription Services
United States

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The information in patient medical records is crucial for clinical decision-making, quality
management and clinical reporting. However, errors can creep into medical transcripts and
endanger patient safety, even resulting in serious consequences. Proofreading the transcripts is
crucial to eliminate errors and correct oversights. Using a checklist during the proofreading
process is the key to avoiding common errors.
Noting Errors to Avoid in the Checklist
Physicians are really busy people and sometimes cognitive biases, stress, and distractions can
lead to outright errors. That’s why in professional medical transcription companies, the QA
department uses checklists to ensure error-free clinical documentation. Here are some of the
things that proofreaders should check for:
• Errors in Terminology – Errors in medical terminology can lead to inaccurate diagnosis,
incorrect medical decisions, and inaccurate medical billing.
• Omitted or Added words – These can compromise patient safety.
• Wrong Patient Demographics – Patient encounter information such as date of service,
date of consultation, medical record number, date of operation, and author
identification number must be checked for mistakes.
• Misspellings – Such errors may not directly affect patient care and safety but can affect
the integrity of the document. All spellings need to be verified using a proper resource
such as Stedman’s Electronic Medical Dictionary.
• Typographical Errors – These are caused by striking the wrong key or by striking two or
more wrong keys because of finger misalignment with respect to the keyboard.
• Grammatical Mistakes – These are hard to identify while transcribing and must be
identified through careful proofreading.
• Punctuation Mistakes – Errors in punctuation can actually change the medical meaning
of a sentence.
• Incorrect Verbiage – These are errors caused by inappropriate or excessive editing that
do not have significant impact on the meaning of the document, but affect the quality of
documentation.
Reports that need clarification should be flagged. It is also necessary to review the account
specifics against the final report to see if the physician’s requirements have been met. Reading
the report without listening to the audio to check for medical and logistical sense is also a
helpful proofreading technique.
Associating with a HIPAA compliant medical transcription company with a team of trained and
experienced transcriptionists can ensure accuracy in medical notes and reports. They have
experienced quality assurance professionals consisting of editors and proofreaders who

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perform stringent three-level quality checks, ensuring accuracy rates of 99% within prescribed
turnaround time. Moreover, these superior medical transcription solutions come at highly
competitive rates.