Top 10 Reasons to Hire a Scribe

The one finite resource we have is time, and for physicians in the modern healthcare industry, there seems to never be enough. A medical scribe will help you stay on top of all of the administrative tasks your practice requires of you:

1. Scribes pay for themselves. The amount physicians bill for patient care far outweighs what they pay for a medical scribe. Scribes complete medical documentation, freeing up valuable time to see more patients. Our estimates indicate that seeing two additional patients in a full day more than pays for a scribe.
2. Spend more time on your patients. Regulations and record keeping requirements consume a large chunk of a physician’s time. The biennial Physicians Foundation study found that 71 percent of physicians say “patient relationships” are the most fulfilling part of their jobs. Using a medical scribe means you have more face time with patients where you can give them your undivided attention.
3. Spend less time on administration. The same study found that 58 percent of physicians point to “regulatory/paperwork burdens” as the least satisfying part of their job. A medical scribe can take over the duties of capturing patient care information and entering it into your Electronic Medical Record (EMR), freeing you up to do the work you want to do.
4. Eliminate Burnout. Physician burnout is one of the greatest challenges to our health care system. In fact, Medscape estimates 49 percent of physicians (must login for free access to that link) were “burned out: out in 2016. Medical scribes offer a physician some relief from administrative burnout.
5. Increase Accuracy. When a physician must interact with a patient and be responsible for tracking information into an EMR, they are being forced to multitask. Distracted from their patient by administrative tasks, or, distracted by their patient while attempting to track information in an EMR, a physician can never focus 100 percent of their attention on either. Often, accuracy pays the price. A scribe allows you that focus you are missing, and ensures that one person is entirely focused on accurately tracking information.
6. Get paid faster. One of the most common delays to being paid for services is mistakes in information entered into your EMR, leading to mistakes in billing and therefore, a delay in payment. What’s more, many doctors don’t close their charts same day. A medical scribe, 100 percent focused on their task of accurately entering information into an EMR, will make fewer mistakes, getting you paid more quickly with fewer headaches.
7. Reduce patient wait time in the waiting room. A medical scribe handles many of the duties that get physicians bogged down in between patient visits, freeing up the physician to move quickly from patient to patient, keeping everyone on schedule, and reducing that time they sit in the waiting room getting frustrated.
8. Increase billable volume. Every hour a physician spends doing administrative tasks, they are not seeing patients and billing for their time. A scribe can free up precious physician time and allow the administrative end of your practice to run more efficiently, giving you time to see more patients and earn more for your practice.
9. Increase coding levels and case-mix index (CMI). Poor documentation leads to under-coding. When this is eliminated, CMI levels increase.
10. Increased patient satisfaction. Physicians want nothing more than to have happy patients. The fact that this is a metric they are scored on for “quality,” makes it even more important. The bottom line is this: Reduced burnout means happier, more efficient physicians and better patient satisfaction.

As the uncertainty surrounding our healthcare system continues, there is one thing we can all be certain of: Regulations will ensure record keeping continues to be time-consuming and challenging. One of the smartest ways to ease that burden on physicians is to considering using a medical scribe company whose services will free up time and increase accuracy.

Photo attribution: photo credit: Pimthida déjà vu via photopin (license)