At Julie's request, I am pasting into this message the text from our boilerplate contract. This will not work for everyone's situation, but it works very well for us. Forgive any formatting changes that occur here as a result of the cut, copy and paste method.
George.
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AGREEMENT
I. DEFINITION OF PARTIES. This document delineates the working relationship between Alert and Oriented, a medical transcription service based in San Francisco, California, and, ZZZ hereinafter referred to as "Client."
II. LENGTH OF CONTRACT. The terms of this contract will be in force beginning on the date signed by both parties with the following exception: The prices for services rendered are guaranteed for one year from the date this contract is signed by the Client. These prices are subject to renegotiation on each anniversary of the signing of this contract. This contract may be terminated by either party after giving 30 days' written notice of its intent to do so.
III. RESPONSIBILITIES OF EACH PARTY. Alert & Oriented will work with the Client to develop a set of templates in order to standardize report formats. Alert & Oriented will not be responsible for printing envelopes, providing extra copies of a document, or including graphics in a report. For standard delivery rates, transcribed documents will be transmitted electronically within 48 hours of the time of dictation. For priority delivery rates, transcribed documents will be transmitted electronically as soon as possible, but no later than 24 hours after the time of dictation. Alert & Oriented will train the Client in the proper procedures for using its dictation equipment, as necessary. Alert & Oriented will electronically archive all transcribed reports for a period of six (6) months. Alert & Oriented will respect the confidentiality of the material it transcribes with particular regard to the doctor-patient relationship. The Client will be responsible for correctly entering the proper ID codes and report codes into the dictation system. If the Client codes a document as a priority item, he will be responsible for paying the priority billing rate (see payment schedule) on the final transcribed document. In order to ensure a high-quality recorded dictation, thus reducing the amount of time spent on corrections, the Client will, whenever possible, organize his/her thoughts prior to commencing dictation; speak clearly into the telephone; carefully spell out all names of patients, doctors, new drugs, etc., and include all pertinent pieces of identification (dates, patient numbers, addresses, etc.) in his or her dictation. If the client is receiving documents via electronic transmission, the Client will make any and all corrections in-house.
IV. FEES AND PAYMENT SCHEDULE. Upon signature of this contract, the client will be pay Alert & Oriented a nonrefundable $GGG setup fee to cover programming costs. After 90 days of using Alert & Oriented’s digital dictation system, the client will receive a $GGG credit toward billing. Alert & Oriented will charge for transcription based on the length of recorded dictation time, rounded to the nearest 1/100th of a minute. The per-minute rate will be $XXX per minute of recorded dictation time for Standard Delivery and $YYY per minute of recorded dictation time for Priority Delivery. There will be a service charge of $10.00 per document for the retrieval and. delivery of any previously-transcribed document(s) which has been lost by the Client. Accounts which are delinquent beyond the 30-day payment deadline will be assessed a re-billing fee of an additional $15 per month above the dictation charges. If the Client is delinquent on payment 60 days or more, Alert & Oriented reserves the right to withhold transcribed material until payment is made in full. Billing will be handled in the following manner: Alert & Oriented will bill the Client on the 1st day of each month. Invoices will be mailed on the first day of the month. Terms are net 30 days. The Client is entitled to a "5% Early-Bird discount" if payment is received by 5 p.m. on the 10th day of the same month as the invoice date. However, it is the Client’s responsibility to determine the amount of the discount and submit a check corresponding to the discounted amount.
V. ERRORS AND OMISSIONS. Due to the many variables involved in the process of converting dictation from voice to text, there will be times when a patch of unclear dictation needs to be filled in or certain terms may need to be corrected. In such instances blank spaces will be left in the transcribed document. The dictator is ultimately responsible for proofreading each document. When information such as the patient's medical record number, the date of a procedure, etc., has not been provided by
the dictator, it will be the Client's responsibility to manually enter such data into the transcribed document. If the Client wishes Alert and Oriented to perform this task, there will be a $5.00 service charge per document. If a dictator wishes to make extensive editorial revisions to a document there will be a $15 service charge for word processing. The final responsibility for all text rests with the dictator. In the event of a malpractice claim or lawsuit, Alert & Oriented cannot and will not be held liable for any errors and/or omissions.