5 Ways a Medical Scribe Can Benefit Physician Practice Bottom Line by increasing physician productivity, proper documentation and patient satisfaction. Like most providers, your number one goal is to provide the very best care for your patients. But maintaining profitability for your practice is undoubtedly a close second. After all, you can’t care for patients if you’re out of business. Nowadays, physicians are pressured to see more patients in less time, and that means less face-time with patients and even more documentation in the EHR. So what’s a stretched-thin physician to do?
One solution that more and more practices are implementing—one that’s allowing them to benefit from increased patient volume and higher quality patient interactions—is hiring a medical scribe. Scribes can assist physicians in being more productive, taking on the documentation duties during the exam and allowing physicians to focus on their highest and best use—interfacing with patients.
Increase Provider Productivity with a Scribe
There are multiple ways that a practice can incorporate a Medical scribe, but they all have one thing in common: Scribes specialize in what is often the most frustrating part of the patient visit—documentation. And by lifting that burden from physicians, practices can increase patient volume, patient satisfaction, and ultimately, that can lead to a stronger, more profitable practice. Below, a few more reasons why scribes can benefit your practice’s bottom line.
- Documentation will be more accurate. When a physician is documenting during the patient visit, the potential for errors increases simply because their attention is divided between the patient and the patient record. With a scribe fully focusing on documentation, accuracy will increase.
- Physicians can take back even more of their time. Scribe duties aren’t limited to just documentation. Scribes can also research information as requested by the physicians, location information for review (like lab results), assist patients in understanding physician instructions, respond to messages (like queries from coders) and more. All of this frees up the physicians billable time so they can see more patients.
- A scribe can improve compliance. By focusing on the patient record, scribes can have a positive effect on a practices clinical documentation improvement (CDI) program. Better documentation means more complete charge capture and more accurate coding and billing. Plus, if well-trained, a scribe can also be alert to any potential documentation errors. This means you can catch documentation mistakes before they become a systemic problem, avoiding potential audits and costly penalties.
- Scribes can earn their keep. Adding a scribe to your practice can be surprisingly affordable, considering the positive impact a scribe can have on your practices revenue. The average salary for a scribe is about $33,000, varying by geographic location. IN order to determine if a scribe is a good investment for your practice, you’ll need to look closely at your financials and consider the potential return on investment over time.
- Scribes increase patient satisfaction. By enabling the physician to focus fully on the patient, the scribe removes the major barrier between physicians and their patients today—the computer. In turn, the quality of the physician-patient interaction will improve, and patient satisfaction will increase. This can lead to more long term patients, better word of mouth, better online reviews, and ultimately, more patients for the practice.
With a scribe, physicians can give the patient their full attention, and scribes can give documentation their full attention. That’s a win-win for your patients and your practice.
