Dive Brief:
- Medical scribes permit doctors to spend more time treating patients and less on burdensome administrative tasks.
- Scribes, usually medical students, take on a long list of tasks once performed by skilled clinicians. These include reviewing patients' medical records, summarizing the patients' previous clinic visits and hospitalizations, finding and copying relevant test results, documenting physicians and treatment recommendations, entering billing codes and scheduling future visits, according to a piece in the Wall Street Journal.
- In one example cited by the Journal, Alan Bank, M.D., director of research at the United Heart & Vascular Clinic of Allina Health in St. Paul, Minn., started using scribes two years ago. Now he stays on schedule and sees 30% more patients a day than colleagues without scribes.
Dive Insight:
While scribes might be worth hiring even if they were highly-paid, the truth is they're also a major bargain, with salaries ranging from the $8 to $15 level according employment site Glassdoor.com. Plus, given that scribes are typically premeds with a vested interest in what's going on, you're not going to be getting the dead-eyed stare of someone who resents being paid modestly and doesn't like what they're doing. It will take a while for some doctors get used to being shadowed by someone in the scribe role, but they'll probably be grateful for the support once the shock of change wears off.