The administrative load on doctors has always been heavier. Between patient care and endless documentation, it can be difficult for physicians to find time to balance their professional and personal lives while providing high-quality patient care. Now, virtual medical scribe services offer a new and effective approach to overcoming the challenges of traditional medical care.
In this blog, we will discuss the primary benefits of remote scribe services, how they make a difference to physicians, and how they benefit patients as well. And by the end, you will see why healthcare providers such as Doctor Management Services (DoctorMGT) are leading the way in this evolution.
What Are Remote Medical Scribe Services?
Virtual medical scribes are remote staff—often trained in medical terminology and HIPAA compliance—who help doctors by recording patient visits in real time. Further, they participate in consultations through secure audio or video calls. They also perform tasks such as record-keeping, maintaining patient charts, and entering data into electronic health record (EHR) systems. That frees physicians to do what they do best: deliver quality care.
Gaining more popularity with advances in technology and pandemic-driven changes to remote work, streamlining practices through the use of medical scribe services has become both a necessity in the world of practice management. And the demand is increasing.
So now, a report from Research and Markets in 2022 finds that the projected growth rate for remote scribe services in the US between 2023 and 2028 will have a CAGR of over 17%. Why are so many healthcare providers joining this trend? Without further ado, let’s look at the five benefits!
Benefit 1: Improved Physician Efficiency and Productivity
Time is a precious resource in medicine. However, most physicians are putting in significant hours outside their shifts for documentation. How about this one: the average doctor spends almost one-third of their workday engaging with EHRs? That’s about 5.9 hours a day, according to a report published in Family Medicine.
By utilizing scribe services, physicians can get that time back. Virtual scribes take care of note-taking and administrative tasks in real time so practitioners can pack more value into their day—seeing more patients, doing more research, or just getting home on time.
The faster doctors work, the smaller the bottleneck at their appointments. And with less time buried in documentation, practices can see patients sooner, increasing throughput without sacrificing care.
Benefit 2: Enhanced Patient Care and Satisfaction
A patient visits the doctor for a consultation while seeing their physician typing intensely on a tablet screen throughout the appointment. This has become a common medical experience, creating patient perceptions of deliberate neglect. Doctors who work with virtual medical scribes no longer need to rely on screens, which enables them to maintain full attention on their patients throughout sessions.
Patient satisfaction skyrockets when physicians can listen without distractions and make eye contact with patients. The Annals of Family Medicine published research showing patients value direct doctor attention during visits rather than doctor keyboard usage.
This also benefits diagnostic accuracy. Complete physician attention towards the patient enables better assessment of its medical conditions. This results in improved patient care outcomes. Virtual scribes efficiently manage clerical tasks in the background, which indirectly improves this equation.
Benefit 3: Reduced Administrative Burden
Medical professionals suffer from severe burnout at unprecedented rates during the current year. In 2022, a survey by the American Medical Association (AMA) reported that over 63% of physicians suffered from symptoms of burnout, and administrative tasks were one of the top causes.
Scribe services ease doctor stress by transferring the responsibility of documentation from physicians to the scribes. Physicians can allocate their time away from creating new patient documents or battling complex EHR interfaces because virtual scribes have already taken on those responsibilities.
Practice-wide improvements include less burden on healthcare professionals and other practice members. The use of virtual scribes frees healthcare staff from routine paperwork duties, which redirects their attention to essential patient care and clinical administration work.
DoctorMGT knows about these realities. They have virtual scribes who are adept at managing complicated medical charts and ensuring that all necessary documentation is complete, up-to-date, and compliant.
Benefit 4: Better Documentation and Accuracy
Documentation is indeed more than paperwork; it is the skeleton of quality care. It affects continuity of care, legal compliance, and the entire billing process. Documentation errors or omissions can have serious consequences on their own. This can lead to misdiagnosis or lack of treatment.
While generic documentation processes do not always include a layer of professionalism and precision, virtual scribes provide this. Trained to pick up on nuanced details, speak using consistent medical terminology, and maintain standards, they are trained to adhere to regulatory terms (HIPAA), among others.
According to The Journal of AHIMA review from 2019, practices using scribe services had fewer coding errors in their records, which resulted in less complex insurance claims processing and fewer denials. It also illustrates the immediate financial as well as operational advantages of dealing with experienced scribes.
Services like DoctorMGT help healthcare providers. They do this by ensuring documentation meets high standards and integrates with current EHR systems.
Benefit 5: Cost Savings for Healthcare Practices
Hiring an in-house scribe sounds like a great deal, but those costs are prohibitive. Additionally, building an internal team can be costly for smaller or mid-sized practices. This is due to expenses related to recruitment, onboarding, salary, benefits, and PTO. A cost-effective alternative is virtual scribe services.
Outsourcing such tasks to professional virtual medical scribes can help practices avoid the overhead of full-time hires. On top of that, for virtual services, they have pricing models that are flexible—they scale up or down as per requirements.
Policies aside, direct labor savings have financial impacts too, such as quicker documentation (shortening appointment turnaround time) and improved billing accuracy (getting quicker claim approvals).
DoctorMGT provides realistic financial return figures along with exceptional service quality for practices that want real return on their investment.
How Virtual Medical Scribe Solutions Are Reshaping Healthcare
It is no longer just a convenience to adopt medical scribe services; it has become necessary. These services help relieve some of the burden of the administrative needs of a physician’s practice, improve documentation, enhance patient care, and optimize workflow, allowing a physician to simply work smarter, not harder.
With the ever-changing face of healthcare, practices can count on DoctorMGT’s help to seamlessly change with the times. It is very focused on excellence as physicians and patients reap tangible benefits when healthcare becomes more efficient and patient-focused.
Discover DoctorMGT’s set of virtual scribe solutions and begin your practice’s transformation to productivity power. Your patience and sanity will thank you.