The Truth About Medical Scribe Companies

The Truth About Medical Scribe Companies 

Whether you are the managing partner of a small private practice or a faculty member at a large hospital, we’re willing to bet that you are no stranger to the burden of medical documentation. We’ll also wager a bet that you have at one time or another looked into medical scribe companies as a solution.

That’s because medical scribe companies have steadily become the status quo solution to documentation burden. The logic is simple: by employing an onsite medical scribe, doctors can spend more time on patient care and less time on administrative tasks and data entry. 

‍

How do Medical Scribes Help a Clinician?

Medical scribes help clinicians by absorbing a large percentage of their clerical responsibilities. Well trained scribes can observe a patient visit and extract and document the medically relevant information on behalf of the physician. They allow clinicians to step away from their computers or their notepads, be more engaged with their patient, and provide better care. Ideally, scribes ease the documentation burden for clinicians, ease their workload, and mitigate burnout, all while operation at low hourly wages.

The Reality

In practice, however, the logic behind hiring medical scribes doesn’t quite hold up. The truth is that medical scribe companies are plagued with their own set of unique challenges from time-consuming onboarding to high rates of scribe turnover. Here’s what you need to know before working with a medical scribe company.

What Are Medical Scribe Companies? 

A medical scribe company operates as a third-party staffing agency that places medical scribes with the practices and hospitals in need of them. Many of these companies train and onboard medical scribes themselves, acting as the scribe’s primary employer and contracting out their services for a standardized fee.

Many of these medical scribe companies also offer virtual scribe services, in which scribes join in on patient visits from a virtual location - taking notes in real-time to be sent back to the provider after the appointment for review.

How Do Medical Scribe Companies Compare to DeepScribe?

Dr. Chandramouli, a cardiologist based in California, brought on a medical scribe to help him reduce the over 3 hours a day he dedicated to note-taking. Yet, the expense of an additional hire eventually required Dr. Chandramouli to increase his patient volume in order to justify the cost: “I was digging myself deeper into this hole of insurmountable work - creating more work for myself and my scribe just to keep costs down.”

Dr. Chandramouli is not alone. In fact, many clinician find themselves in a downward spiral of endless work as they bring on more patients to justify the cost of a medical scribe. Add to that the historically high turnover rates amongst scribes - who are often awaiting medical school acceptance or credentials for a provider role – and the cost & time associated with training and onboarding scribes to a practice’s workplace and the inefficacy of medical scribe companies become crystal clear. 

At DeepScribe, we take on a different approach to alleviating documentation burden – by completely automating the note-taking process. Our AI-powered medical scribe captures the natural clinical conversation and transcribes it in real time, parsing out the small talk and filler words to include only the medically relevant information within your notes. Integrated with your EHR, it can map back your notes to the appropriate fields, so that all you need to do is review and sign off. 

Unlike medical scribe companies, DeepScribe’s AI-powered medical scribe allows you to:

• Focus On The Patient. Crowding another person into your exam room can feel invasive and overwhelming for your patient. With DeepScribe, you get the privacy and space you need for a successful patient-clinician. relationship.
• Decrease Overhead. By eliminating expenses associated with the hiring, training, and turnover of medical scribes, you’ll see an immediate return on your investment beyond documentation time-savings.
• Scale. Thanks to our cost-effective model, you can easily turn your initial success with DeepScribe into a systemic digital transformation initiative. 
  
  

Take it from Dr Chandramouli, who has first hand experience leveraging both human medical scribes and an AI medical scribe in his practice: “I needed to find a more cost-effective solution that could deliver the same results as my scribe. Bringing DeepScribe into my practice was an easy decision.” For a more affordable, effective, and scalable solution, make the switch to DeepScribe. 

Recommended Reading: Dr. Chandramouli reduces note-taking by 83% with DeepScribe, saving over 2.75 hr/day