End of Year Write Offs

​Who needs a Dictation Machine?

The short answer: Lawyers, doctors, insurance agents & more

Dictation Machines: Get more work completed, in less time, and save money.

In the past, dictation and transcriber machines were used by lawyers and doctors. Now with the advent of voice to text apps, a new technology has merged with dictation recorders. Since insurance companies and courts require documents to be created, this is the perfect solution to use. Lawyers dictation machines have to record client meetings, memos, letters, and court notes. Often they will have a secretary type up the work by hand. The typist listen to the recordings on a standalone transcriber or computer and transcribe the dictations. Now professionals are using dictation machines and voice recognition solutions packages more and more.

dictation machine example

Definition of a dictation machine:

A dictation machine is a sound voice recording apparatus, most commonly used to record speech for later playback transcription or to be typed into print.

Dictation machine definition

Lawyers are discovering the efficiencies of Dictation Machines

A normal lawyer can talk 3x faster than they can dictate. In law firms, this means a savings of 66%. Billing hours and documenting are tied together, so getting the document done means we can bill clients quickly. Get more work finished, in less time, and save money. The ability to think creatively about your work without having to concentrate on typing a document is a freeing experience for attorneys. Using a dictation recorder to develop ideas in court cases opens new solutions for lawyers.

New Dictaphone dictation machines

New for this year is the dictation machines that mimic smartphones. Touchscreen dictation machine models are now available. They incorporate new tech like an email from Wi-Fi, built into the dictation machines. Wow.

If you would like to learn more about dictation machines, call us or visit this page. We are the dictation machine equipment experts for Attorneys and lawyers.

Things in the dictation world are not what they seem.

Buying a smartphone app for dictation seems like a cheap way to go for lawyers and professionals, but it costs you a lot more in the end. A more in-depth analysis shows surprising results when you compare a dedicated dictation machine to a smartphone app. Most lawyers have a large dependence on voice recordings. They create extensive documents such as court letters, notes and more. These demands quickly show the deficiencies of an android or iPhone app trying to run a dictation program. Here are the problems with dictation apps. I will list them in order below:

1. Battery life, recording voice quickly drains a smartphone.

2. Button controls, will not allow rewind, cue and review corrections of dictations.

3. Bad audio, the smartphone has a built-in compression codec for audio that is compressed and bad for dictation transcription. This bad audio really shows up in poor voice to text transcription, if you want to run Dragon voice recognition. Smartphone apps decrease voice to text document creation by 50% or more.

4. Smartphones have poor microphones that can pick up voice no more than 3 feet (0.91 m) or 1 meter. Use your smartphone to record interviews or clients and you will see how bad a smartphone's recording is. Accurate transcription depends on superior sound clarity that a dedicated dictation machine offers.

5. Smartphone storage problems, If you dictate on a smartphone app you will quickly fill up your phones reserve storage and have to rent space just to dictate. 23% of iPhone users run out of storage at least once a month, add cost to rent space. A dictation recorder offers up to 128 GB of SD card memory with can hold 4 years worth of dictation for a lawyer. If they run out, they can just buy another card or download the videos to a back up hard drive and continue on, cost free.

6. The smart phone dictation apps are missing crucial advanced features. Most professional dictation equipment go to sleep when you set them down and wake when you pick them up. You can set your hand held dictation machine to categorize, edit, and prioritize your dictation automation on the device. This saves a thousand of hours routing dictation voice recordings to a transcription service or legal secretary. The dedicated dictation machine comes with dictation management software that manages file creation, security, and a lot more.

7. Phones are notoriously insecure. If you are using your dictation app and you are in the health care system, you need 256 bit compliant encryption with AES for HIPPA patient confidentiality laws. A Hand held dedicated dictation machine has the 256 bit encryption built into the recorder. This is a guarantee that if the recorder is lost, and the card is removed the recordings will be encrypted and safe from prying eyes.

8. Smartphone can not be managed by IT departments. The smartphone dictation apps lack a central dictation management software. If you are in a large law firm and dictations are being created by numerous lawyers, the dictations are manged by the ODMS or central dictation equipment management software.

In conclusion, the dedicated dictation machine is superior to a smartphone dictation app because of the following problems, poor audio quality, low memory storage, poor security, and lack of Central dictation management software.

If you are a lawyer, you need a professional dictation machine that has the most advanced technology and productivity tools built into your recorder. If not, you are wasting a thousand of man-hours and tens of thousand of dollars struggling with dictation apps. Today there is a number of dedicated professional dictation machines designed exclusively to lawyers dictation needs. If you help, call us 1-800-553-5536 or visit us online. We are the world experts on dictation machines for lawyers. Helping attorneys get the work done efficiently to save money, time and stress is how we can help the legal field.

29th Mar 2023 Carl Williams

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