Transcend Services: Spheris Bid Attempt To Cost Additional $400K-$500K
According to a transcript of medical transcription service provider Transcend Services' first quarter earnings call, the total cost of the company's unsuccessful bid to purchase bankrupt rival Spheris will be at least $1.1 million. Transcend CFO Lance Cornell told investors to expect an additional $400,000 to $500,000 of Spheris-related expenses in the second quarter, on top of the $678,000 already on the books. President and COO Sue McGrogan explained that "most of the legal work had to be done in advance just to be qualified to participate in the auction. We decided to take the risk and incur the cost because the opportunity was too compelling to ignore."
McGrogan also stated that with the Spheris bid behind them, Transcend would be "actively pursuing other acquisition opportunities," and that the company hoped to complete "one or more acquisitions in the second half of 2010." She also reiterated Transcend's intention to increase the volume of work performed offshore.
On the technology front, CEO Larry Gerdes reported that the company is in the process of rolling out Beyond Alerts, a structured text data-mining application that searches transcribed reports for information which hospital clients can use to report core measures. Gerdes also told investors that the company is making "significant progress" on the development of a "next-generation, yet-to-be-named transcription workflow platform" to be marketed directly to hospitals who want to license their own transcription system. Gerdes said the new platform will provide access to "operating efficiencies offered by M*Modal speech recognition technology that we have integrated into the platform. We expect to finish core development and enter beta testing in the fourth quarter of this year."
Jay Vance, CMT
AHDI Lounge Administrator/Moderator
Too bad Transcend did not get Spheris instead of Medquist. I may actually have a job then.
I do not know about having a job if Transcend took over instead of Medquist. The article clearly points out that Transcend's intention is to offshore more of the work. That does not sound too rosy for the US domestic MT workforce at least for careers with their company.
which is also Medquist's intention as well.
Correct, both CBay/MedQuist and Transcend have been up front about their intention to increase the volume of work done overseas.
But, to be clear, any MTSO cannot just move work offshore at their whim. The healthcare facility must agree to it, and does so to save money. CBay, Medquist, Transcend and others can all state their lofty goals of moving work offshore, but if their customers don't agree, they can't.
It is shameful that transcription companies do not care more about the U.S. than to pay people in other countries who work almost in "slave labor." This takes tax money from our country as transcriptionists out of work do not pay income taxes or buy goods.
Actually, was just told last week that we had to take paycuts at Transcend so that they would not have to send so much work offshore. Knew they were pulling the wool over my eyes.