So many medical professionals have mixed feelings about the use of electronic health records. On one hand, it improves access to care and offers financial incentives by Medicare and Medicaid. On the other, it can also cause financial issues, changes in workflow, potential privacy and security issues, and loss of productivity and efficiency. While you can enlist a medical scribe to help, you may wonder, “How does a medical scribe help a physician?”
Medical scribes first started in the emergency rooms to have the most efficient workflow due to the emergency standpoint but over the past 10 years it has accelerated to all medical specialties directly due to the EHR implementation. There are 3 main points as to how a medical scribe can help a physician — from monetary to non-monetary values.
How does a medical scribe help a physician?
#1: Lower Stress & Burnout Rates
The number one way that medical scribes help a physician is by reducing the stress that cumbersome tasks bring, mainly those associated with completing medical documentation. Due to the implementation of electronic health records (EHR), which was formulated more as a billing tool, physicians now are spending 2/3 of their day documenting rather than seeing patients. With the documentation burden, plus the recent increases in requirements for outcome-based reimbursement and overall changes, there is a greater pressure on physicians to spend more time documenting over seeing patients.
Physician burnout is caused and fueled by time constraints, technology and new everchanging regulations. Medical scribes can help alleviate these constraints by completing real-time documentation for the physician as they are seeing the patient, which gives them more patient-physician interaction, additional time to see more patients, and a better work-life balance. They can get home on time without needing to complete charts at home.
#2: Better Patient Interactions
This is one of the most important answers to the question, “How does a medical scribe help a physician?” Let’s be honest – the patient care and interaction is what really matters to physicians. It is why they decided to be a doctor in the first place.
Over the years, more studies consistently show the positive impacts that medical scribes have on patient experience. With the assistance of medical scribes, physicians have more free time to spend, listen and speak to each patient, giving a greater quality of care as a result.
The average physician, without a medical scribe, spends 30% to 50% of a patient encounter looking directly at the EHR. (https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/how-use-scribes-get-computer-and-front-patients ) Implementing a medical scribe will ensure that the physician will be able to have direct eye contact with the patient during the visit and allow for higher overall satisfaction by the patients.
#3: High Returns on Investment
How does a medical scribe help a physician in a financially viable way? Adding a medical scribe to a physician’s practice will remove most of the documentation time that normally clouds a physician’s workday. This free time can allow physicians to see more patients, which will pay for the scribe service and possibly increase overall revenue.
In a 2016 JAMA Dermatology study, dermatologists found they had a 7.7% increase in overall revenue by adding a medical scribe to their practice. The authors noted that it only took roughly 1 additional patient per day to cover the scribe’s cost. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5833578/#:~:text=Of%2019%20respondents%2C%2015%20(79,the%20cost%20of%20the%20scribes.)
Another 2018 study from the ABFM noted that physicians in a primary care office increased their work RVUs per hour by 10.5% and increased patients seen per hour by 8.8%. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29986987/)
Add to this increase the ability to retain physicians, and you can avoid recurring recruitment costs and leadership time spent addressing physician burnout. In turn, you’ve more than recouped your investment in a scribe service.
Physicians need to focus on their patients to ensure the best care possible but also find a way to reduce the stress from all the added burden the EHR documentation is causing. Medical scribes will help to improve that problem and the end result is happier physicians, increasing retention and overall satisfaction!
Written by: Nicole Bramblett, MHA