Scope of Service Policy

Owned by Sam Tipton
Last updated: Oct 09, 2023
5 min read

SpeakWrite provides our clients with information on the kinds of services we perform, and how we perform them.  Despite this information, we do have clients who ask us to provide services that are outside of our current offerings. 

It is vital that you follow these guidelines on every job.  Even if you think you can do what the client is requesting, it is important that our published policies match our performance.  

Help Ticket

If you are ever in doubt as to whether a client’s request falls within our scope of service policies, you must open a Help Ticket, providing as much information as possible, to receive assistance on how to proceed with the job.  Always follow the instructions given by the Help Desk, even if you do not agree with them. 

Please note, it is NOT out of scope for a client to request that you only transcribe certain timestamps/portions of the audio.  If there is an instruction to only transcribe a portion of the audio, please follow this instruction.  A help ticket is NOT required. 

What is Out of Scope
  1. Alphabetizing, Chronological and Other Ordering

  2. Replace Formats
    • Example out of scope requests:
      • Type all dates in numeric format, regardless of how dictated.
      • Replace certain words or phrases with acronyms or initials or vice versa (e.g. use SW whenever “social worker” is dictated.)
      • Use abbreviations for all state names.  

  3. Music Transcription
    • Client submits a song to have the lyrics transcribed.

  4. Recreating Complex Forms (on PDF/Fax jobs)

  5. Legal Jobs submitted on General Accounts 
    • Client submits a pleading or a job with legal case citations on a general account. 
    • (This does not apply to letters or memos with legal subject matter.)

  6. Excessive Medical Terminology
    • Client submits a document that is entirely medical in nature.  (e.g. a doctor dictating notes for a client's chart)
    • This does not apply to legal letters/memos which contain some medical terminology, unless it is excessive and the client does not provide spellings for many or all medical terms.

  7. Spreadsheets 
    • We do not create Excel spreadsheets. 


What to Do...
  1. Alphabetizing, Chronological and Other Ordering
    • Type as dictated.
    • Type client's instruction as an Instruction to Staff.
    • Clients may occasionally ask you to go back to different parts of a document to add something.  Please follow those requests.  However, if the client repeatedly jumps all over during a dictation asking you to go back and add to different parts of the dictation, leave an Instruction to Staff on where to place the text. (Example:  Client says "add this to the middle of the last paragraph".  Type this as an instruction to staff and include the text the client wants inserted.) 
    • Please leave a comment to proof if there are things like this that the proofreader should be aware of.

  2. Replace Formats 
  3. Music Transcription
    • Open a Help Ticket for permission to reject.

  4. Recreating Complex Forms
    • See section below on PDFs.

  5. Legal Jobs submitted on General Accounts
    • Open a Help Ticket to request to have the job requeued to a legal typist.  Include specific information about why you believe the job requires a legal typist.
    • Letters/memos/notes containing legal terminology do NOT qualify as legal jobs.  General typists should complete them. 

  6. Excessive Medical Terminology
    • Open a Help Ticket for permission to reject. 
    • If the Help Desk asks you to type the job, spell medical terms phonetically or use **** if a phonetic spelling is not possible.
       
  7. Spreadsheets
    • If the client requests a spreadsheet or submits a spreadsheet as a PDF to be recreated, if it contains only a few columns, create a table in Word. Never use Excel. 
    • If you are unsure of what to do, open a Help Ticket for clarification. 

Explicit Content

Sensitive Material is not considered outside the Scope of Service.  SpeakWrite does a large volume of dictation submitted by various state child protective and law enforcement agencies.  Because the workers/officers in these agencies must accurately document meetings and conversations which are often highly emotional and/or confrontational, and because our transcriptions can end up being part of the official legal record of the case, they rely on us to provide them with accurate transcriptions.  If a job contains excessive explicit material that makes you personally feel uncomfortable, you may request that the job be requeued.  However, please do not abuse this.  Our clients rely on us to get their jobs done, and requeuing a job often delays it. 

If a job contains management instructions (either in the client instruction box or via help ticket) that are contrary to our normal scope of service policies, please follow the management instructions.  If they appear as a written client instruction, they will be identified as being "FROM SW MANAGEMENT". 


PDF Scope of Service

NOTE:  Please also see PDFs for general policies for typing PDFs/faxes.  

CONVERSION SOFTWARE

It is strictly prohibited to use conversion software (i.e., such as Adobe's PDF to Word conversion software) on PDF/fax jobs.  All PDFs/faxes must be transcribed by hand.  Failure to follow this policy can jeopardize a typist's contract.

Do Not Recreate Complex Forms

SpeakWrite does not recreate complex forms for our clients.  Examples of complex forms or out-of-scope objects on a PDF would be: 

  • Images/pictures
  • Complex charts/tables (that cannot be recreated easily using Word options)
  • Graphs
  • Blank forms which contain:
    • Checkboxes
    • Tables
    • Merged or split cells
    • Any automatic formatting
    • Pleading paper (numbers down the side margins) 
      • For pleading paper documents, you would transcribe the text of the document, just not the numbered left margin. 


Help Ticket

If you receive a job that contains solely the above-noted formatting, open a Help Ticket to have the Help Desk review for rejection.  (For example, you receive a PDF which is entirely made up of drawn pictures.)

Otherwise, if the out-of-scope formatting/images is intermittent among regular text, simply replace the out-of-scope portions with the following language:

[This page contains an image/chart/graph/picture that is not within SpeakWrite's scope of service policies.]


Spanish/Foreign Language Scope of Service


Job is Mostly or Completely in Spanish (or other language) 


Help Ticket

If you receive an audio or PDF that is mostly or completely in Spanish or another foreign language (and there is not an interpreter involved), please open a Help Ticket for further instructions. 

If you can tell that the foreign language is not Spanish, please note this in your ticket. 

It is important that you follow the instructions given by the Help Desk regarding a Spanish job.  Depending on the client and the job type, you may receive different instructions.  Therefore, you cannot assume what will be required of you.


Rejecting a job for Spanish without a Help Ticket is unacceptable and will result in a disciplinary warning on your record.  If it is after hours, follow the usual procedure for rejecting jobs after hours, by submitting the job as a partial to have a PR make the final decision on whether to reject. 


Limited Phrases or Single Words in Spanish scattered throughout an Audio or PDF

If, while doing a job, you encounter short phrases or single Spanish words scattered throughout, please use asterisks (****) to replace the foreign language phrases.  For more information on using asterisks, see Spelling and Difficult Words. 


Help Ticket

If you notice that you are gradually hearing a larger number of foreign language phrases, open a Help Ticket and get the opinion of the Help Desk before continuing.  Please follow their instructions exactly.  As noted above, they may ask you to follow different procedures based on the client and job type.


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