Documentation is a critical part of today’s healthcare system. Not only does it obviously impact the quality of patient care, but it can alter provider revenue, as well as expose medical staff to potential reprimands and fines or even lawsuits. Unfortunately, taking good notes and entering them into an electronic health record (EHR) requires effort and a good amount of time. Indeed, research shows that nearly 50% of a physician’s day is devoted to clerical work and EHR data entry. A great resource for healthcare practitioners wanting to safeguard their patients, their staff, and their budgets, then, is a company supplying on-site and virtual scribe services. Clinical scribes take over many of the clerical duties that doctors face (such as documentation), which often results in better notes in less time. This allows doctors to do what they do best: take care of patients! Take a look at how scribe services improve medical documentation:
Improved Scope of Records
Growing pressure to keep to a schedule is one of the most common issues facing modern healthcare providers. A quickly increasing and aging population, coupled with a continuing surge of retiring physicians, mean there simply aren’t enough healthcare providers to address everyone’s medical needs. Thus, the ones who are available must work more quickly, seeing more patients so that no one person’s needs are left unattended. It’s a chaotic schedule that frequently results in doctors complaining about having too little time for the tasks at hand. Hiring out scribe services allows doctors to hand off some of the administrative tasks of their job. As documentation is a scribe’s main responsibility, he or she is able to enter more comprehensive notes than those written by time-crunched doctors!
Improved Accuracy of Records
Providers of scribe services spend a good deal of time training their scribes. They put a lot of emphasis on accuracy, teaching their students not only about the importance of accurate charting but also about proper billing codes and procedures. An estimated 80% of medical bills have errors. These errors, even when unintentional, often decrease revenue. They can also precipitate audits, fines, and even litigation depending on the type and frequency of the mistake. Scribes are frequently better informed on the proper use of medical billing codes, ensuring that providers and their practices are not inadvertently over- or underbilling or at risk of legal ramifications in response to their billing processes.
Improved Expediency of Records
Finally, hiring out scribe services improves the speed of medical documentation. Too often caregivers and other medical staff members must wait until the end of the day to upload their notes. A clinical scribe, however, is present during each patient visit, transcribing notes in real-time so that records are up-to-date and accessible immediately following every encounter. In this way, important patient information is always available when needed without delay!
Want to Learn More?
Scribe services offer providers the opportunity to improve the quality and speed of their EHR documentation, thereby simultaneously improving the quality of care they provide to their patients. To learn more about using scribe services as an asset for your facility’s own needs, please contact Provider’s Choice Scribe Services.
