The Future of Medical Scribe Jobs
Medical scribes have a long history in healthcare, from documenting medical findings hundreds of years ago, to exam rooms in the 20th century, and now, to playing an essential role in relieving the medical documentation burden that healthcare providers face on a daily basis. But as COVID-19 and advancing technology continue to impact the healthcare industry, how are medical scribe jobs evolving and what is their future?
Want to be part of the future of medical scribe jobs? Learn more here.
The Changing Healthcare Landscape
In March of 2020, when in-person visits with primary care providers became nearly impossible, telemedicine visits boomed. With a general telemedicine infrastructure already in place and loosened regulations, virtual encounters increased by 78x across all specialties. And while things have stabilized in the almost 2 years since, telemedicine encounters are still 38x higher than they were before the pandemic began. And while there is a possibility things may eventually return to normal whenever the pandemic ends, most experts agree that telemedicine and virtual healthcare are here to stay.
This massive change in care delivery is already having a trickle down effect on the entire industry, specifically in relation to medical scribe jobs. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Medical Transcriptionist positions — an umbrella term used to describe more traditional medical scribe roles — are on pace to decline significantly over the next 10 years.
But, just because care is changing doesn’t mean opportunities are shrinking, it just means the roles are shifting. There is now likely more opportunity in healthcare than ever before. Labor experts are predicting massive spikes in roles that focus on organizational efficiency, time-savings, cost-savings, and provider support. Indeed.com, the number one job site in the world, cites Occupational Therapy Aide, Medical Secretary, Physical Therapy Aide, and Medical Services Manager as four of the top 10 fastest growing roles in healthcare. Additionally, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts significant growth in other provider support roles like Medical Assistants (expected 18% increase), Medical Record Specialists (expected 9% increase), Operations and Research Analysts (expected 25% increase) and Medical and Health Service Managers (expected 32% increase).
But why is everything changing all of a sudden? Follow the money.
Digital Health Boom
Investors across the world are banking on new opportunities arising from a rapidly shifting healthcare landscape, and are in part responsible for designing the care of the future thanks to their deep pockets and understanding of opportunity.
Just ten years after raising a relatively meager $1.1 billion in total funding, digital health as an industry is on pace to receive nearly $30 billion in new funding in 2021, which would more than double the $14 billion total raised in 2020. This huge influx of money is divided between more than 500 young companies who are reimagining care as it relates to disease prevention, on-demand care, and medical documentation solutions among others. Specifically, changing telehealth regulations have opened a door for emerging companies to lean into advanced technology and artificial intelligence more than ever before.
Recommended Reading: The Future of Ambient Intelligence in Healthcare
All this to say, care is changing. The jobs in care are changing. And if you’re looking for a medical scribe job, well, that’s changing, too. Aspiring medical students and healthcare professionals should take a page out of the innovator playbook by separating from the present and reimagining the future, theirs included.
Shifting Medical Scribe Jobs
At DeepScribe, we’re reimagining the future by using AI to automate the medical documentation process. This means our medical scribe jobs are a bit different from standard. Our scribes work on the backend, in the space between the AI and the finished note, producing comprehensive charts and monitoring and training our AI models so that they can keep getting better. This process helps us eliminate 80-90% of the documentation time that plagues physicians, and allows them to get back to doing what they do best: delivering quality care.
At DeepScribe, our medical scribes jobs operate more like the medical record specialists and data analysts of the future, rather than the traditional scribes of the past. Medical scribes at DeepScribe are exposed to more than 15 medical specialties and have used us to complete their clinical hours and gain acceptance into some of the best medical schools in the country. We seek to develop our medical scribes into valued technical experts who can deliver quality work on a consistent basis and we offer in-house training and professional development opportunities.
We offer full-time and part-time positions, are 100% remote, and offer our scribes flexible scheduling within reason. Interested in working with us? Learn more about our open medical scribe jobs or apply today!
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