BANGALORE: US-based medical transcription company Spheris, which recently acquired HealthScribe, is looking to expand in a tier-II cities in India, preferably in the South by 2006. Spheris India (formerly HealthScribe), based in Bangalore, recently opened an additional 300-seat center in Coimbatore this month.

The company has over 2000 employees in India at present, and plans to ramp up the headcount to 3000, next year.

“We feel that large cities are very competitive while smaller cities have a lot more candidates who are serious in taking up medical transcription as a full-fledged career,” said Suresh Nair, CEO and MD, Spheris India.

Elaborating this aspect, he said that unlike BPOs or call centers, which require good spoken English skills, medical transcription is more knowledge-oriented and needs good grammatical skills.

Commenting on the merger with Spheris- the second biggest medical transcription company globally, he said that the move had made HealthScribe a truly global company with access to bigger funds and support for growth.

The company has already added 15 new accounts from the Spheris' stable. Nair said that next year, he plans to start a technology development team that would build solutions based on their delivery platform and sell them commercially.

Nair also revealed that by end of 2006, Spheris India would look at new areas like medical coding and billing. Spheris' revenues globally are in the region of $200 million. He expects Spheris India to grow at 60% this year. “The medical transcription industry has made a comeback in India and US customers are sending more and more work to us,” he said.