Remote Medical Scribes Save Time and Increase Productivity.

As remote medical scribes in the USA are taking over EMR documentation from healthcare providers, the management at medical facilities is looking over supporting claims that validate the use of remote medical scribing to enhance clinical productivity and eliminate clinical burnout. It helps them analyze and confirm whether remote medical scribes have improved healthcare revenue earned by a facility. This article highlights a few of the many longitudinal and real-life case studies proving that virtual medical scribing has met the expectations and delivered on the promises of improving healthcare productivity and revenue – the reason why the industry came into existence.

Virtual medical scribes have been empowering physicians in the USA to:

• Focus entirely on the patients without taking botheration about entering data into the EMR;
• Have comprehensive clinical information of the patient within minutes after the clinical visit; 
• Save 5-10 minutes for every patient, and hence, see more patients in a day; and
• Have improved clinical engagement with the patients
• Finish all the clerical work, sending all the prescriptions, referrals, and lab orders

As a medical scribe completes the chart within a couple of minutes after the visit is complete, it significantly eliminates the forced reduction in patient load. Reduced workload allows the provider to see the patients in a relaxed state of mind, showcasing increased productivity.

Let’s look at what studies indicate

1. A study in 2013 reported the positive impact of medical scribes on four cardiologists over 65-working hours. It found that the providers could see 81 more patients using scribe services. A few reports have indicated that a physician using remote medical scribe services can gain patient access by 20%-50% per day while offering quality care by saving the time he would have otherwise spent on EMR documentation. 

2. Another retrospective study in 2013 compared the productivity of 10-cardiologists having remote medical scribes with 15-cardiologists without scribe services. Physicians using remote medical scribing saw approximately 10% more patients per hour. This resulted in seeing them extra 84 new and 423 follow-up patients. Further, 3,029 additional work relative value units (wRVUs) were generated.

The study concluded that physicians using virtual medical scribing service generated additional revenue of $1,348,437, directly contributed by seeing more patients. Virtual medical scribes also helped them generate additional revenue worth $24,257 by creating medical notes that were optimally coded at a higher billing amount. Total additional revenue generated was $1,372,694 at a cost of $98,588 for the scribes.

3. When Brockton Neighborhood Health Center (BNHC) in Massachusetts wanted to add more patients to its system, it found clinicians’ struggle with EMR documentation to be the main reason for practice inefficiency. Hence, it decided to outsource clinical documentation to ScribeEMR. Upon initial request, ScribeEMR quickly appointed a team of operation manager, on-site project manager, and IT technician to establish contact and start implementation.

Proficient remote medical scribes were trained specifically to work according to the requirements of the client. Within a couple of weeks, ScribeEMR helped BNHC physicians in closing and signing off the chart within a few minutes of the visit. The implementation for the first few providers happened within 10-business days. Upon seeing initial results, other providers also requested to avail ScribeEMR remote medical scribing services. 

The Butterfly Effect of time saved

• ScribeEMR’s medical scribe helped a provider save 5-10 minutes for every patient seen, which transpired into saving close to 2 hours in an entire day.
• The time provider saved in charting and typing culminated into seeing more patients, boosting healthcare revenue for the facility.
• ScribeEMR’s remote medical scribes helped an individual provider incorporate up to 40% more patients per day, thereby contributing up to $200,000 yearly for BNHC.
• For instance, Dr. Janemarie Dolan, a staff pediatrician, used to see 10 patients per day on average before being teamed with a scribe. With ScribeEMR remote medical scribe services, Dr. Dolan began seeing an average of 16 patients a day while reducing her average working days per month from 15 to 9, showing more than 50% increase in productivity.

4. When the COVID pandemic hit, Jersey Community Health (JCH) Center in Jerseyville, IL, had to resort to remote medical scribing as having an in-person scribe in the room presented new but obvious challenges for patients, doctors, and the facility. JCH then turned to ScribeEMR for what became a fortuitous development concerning the manner in which it offered healthcare.

Constant availability of ScribeEMR remote medical scribes eliminated the 15% drop in practitioner productivity that occurred every time an in-person scribe called in sick. Utilizing remote scribe services addressed social distancing issues and allowed physicians to have mask-less visits with asymptomatic patients. Hence, practitioners began adding more patients per day without adding working hours, thus increasing productivity and healthcare revenue. Remote medical scribing helped physicians at JCH to create an environment in the clinical room where patients could comfortably discuss their mental health issues. Quick and astonishing results saw a senior-level administrator at JCH testify on records praising ScribeEMR remote medical scribes for making JCH physicians “super-efficient.”

All the data presented above indicates one fact – An individual provider using remote medical scribing can easily gain patient access by up to 25-50% and contribute an extra $125,000-$200,000 in annual revenue for its healthcare facility.

About ScribeEMR

ScribeEMR provides real-time, remote, HIPAA-compliant EMR charting, medical coding, and ancillary support that improves practice efficiency, maximizes revenue, and reduces physician burnout. Extensively trained, remote medical scribes log in to document patient visits in real time, with quick turnaround and exceptional chart quality. Dedicated, certified medical coders assign the right codes to each diagnosis and treatment to reduce errors and optimize medical billing and reimbursement. Additional services include referral coordination, insurance eligibility verification, preauthorization management, and additional administrative, clerical, and customer support provided by trained virtual assistants. For more information visit www.scribeemr.com.