The Joy of Boilerplate Text

Many doctors develop standard pieces of text which they like to insert in their reports. A good example might be a routine paragraph stating that the patient signed an informed consent and all questions were answered. Or text used to indicate that follow-up instructions have been given to a patient.

If you work closely with a transcription service, you can develop certain code words that are used to indicate a piece of boilerplate text. Then, whether the transcriptionist is using macros or a word expander like Shorthand for Windows or InstantText , you can dictate the proper code words to generate the corresponding text.

How does this work? Suppose that, throughout the year, you have to dictate a steady flow of letters to this third-party insurance carrier:

State Compensation Insurance Fund
Post Office Box 7455
San Francisco, CA 94120-7455

Obviously, you don't want to keep dictating this same address ad nauseam any more than the transcriptionist wants to perform each keystroke necessary to type the address. Dictating that mouthful of information time after time, report after report, is wasted energy.

However, by giving that piece of boilerplate text a code word -- let's say S45 -- you could simply say "Use the S45 code" whenever you wanted that address to appear.

Next: Bravo For Boilerplate!

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