What training do medical scribes get? What are the qualifications for medical scribes? Find out in this blog.
Medical scribes are medical professionals, who provide quality documentation services and support providers with numerous clerical and administrative tasks as a means to reduce provider burnout and promote cost-effective solutions to healthcare practices. Medical scribes often shadow one or a few providers during real-time patient encounters and document past medical and family history, social history, physical examination, results, diagnosis, and discharge processes. Along with documentation services, medical scribes may also assist with numerous clerical tasks that providers are often burdened with, such as sending call-outs, coordinating care with other providers, and even tracking patient results.
Although becoming a medical scribe does not require a specific certification or degree, most medical scribes are equipped with several hundreds of hours of on-site training. In conjunction with the training, medical scribes typically earn or are working toward a professional level of education in a healthcare career.
Gaining Qualifications for Medical Scribes
Application and Hiring Phase:
When prospective medical scribes apply for a position initially, they are met with uniquely tailored questions to ensure they are able to commit to providing documentation services for at least two years. Not only does the two-year commitment provide continuity in scribing services, but it also develops a culture of excellence, where more tenured scribes are able to provide high-quality documentation services, and even act as a mentor to newer and incoming medical scribes. Attaining first-hand training from medical scribes provides an important advantage. The two-year commitment also assists with hiring employees who are truly dedicated to the healthcare career track and are willing to develop professionally over time.
Pre-Didactic Training:
Upon the interview phase commencing, medical scribes are then required to study various materials regarding anatomy and physiology, medical terminology, medical billing and coding, and reviewing other general FAQs developed by medical scribes over time. Along with the guidance materials provided, prospective employees are also required to take at-home tests to gauge their general understanding. This allows candidates to understand what type of baseline of medical knowledge is required to be a successful medical scribe. Also during this time, medical scribes are encouraged to research the various opportunities that being a medical scribe entails and ask any pertinent questions prior to their didactic training.
Didactic training:
After the initial prepping of an array of subjects, medical scribes are invited to attend a multi-day didactic, which serves as a classroom setting for prospective employees. These didactic courses are essentially a crash course to the medical world and contain numerous courses that all support the prospective scribe in their journey of being a fully trained professional. The courses encompass a wide variety of topics from general typing speed exercises to documenting in mock trials.
Compliance Training:
Once the medical scribe graduates from their didactic training program, they are required to take a few courses surrounding HIPAA and other general compliance courses to ensure they are prepared to work as a vendor for their respective client or healthcare organization.
Training:
Upon completion of compliance training, medical scribes have now gone through a full cycle of training and are fully prepared to attend a minimum of 120 hours of guided training, by shadowing a specialized medical scribe trainer or healthcare provider within the healthcare organization. Medical scribes are not allowed to scribe on their own until they receive validation from their trainers, lead training instructor and at least one medical professional from the healthcare organization.
The qualifications for medical scribes may seem straightforward at first, however when truly examining all the training opportunities, knowledge checkpoints, and verification audits, it is understood that these standards cultivate a culture of accurate documentation and excellent services.