Virtual Medical Scribes

Virtual medical scribes offer many advantages over in-person medical scribes. Scribes are a valuable tool that clinicians are adopting to streamline patient visits, reduce stress, boost billings, and improve patient care.

Virtual Medical Scribe Services for Doctors, Nurse Practitioners, and Other Medical Professionals

More and more clinicians are trying to work with in-office medical scribes to help them manage their medical records. In theory, the in-person scribe model works well – the physician, specialist, nurse practitioner, or other health care provider works with the patient as the medical scribes work and record the patient encounter.

But the system isn’t perfect:

• An in-person scribe is another person in what may be a small exam room
• Having another person in the room can give some patients a certain level of discomfort

Virtual scribing solves those problems. Virtual scribes perform the exact same tasks as in-person scribes, taking your recorded notes and turning them into usable medical records. The main difference is that virtual scribes are invisible to the patient and not in anyone’s way. That means clinicians get the same support as they would from an in-person medical scribe without feeling cramped in the office. At the same time, patients are less likely to feel hesitant or uncomfortable discussing health issues.

iMedat’s Virtual Scribe Services Give You Many Advantages

iMedat’s virtual medical scribes give you:

• An easy way to record notes, populate EMRs, and manage patient records, including paper-based records and EMRs or any hybrid model you’re using
• Services when you need them without adding staff member(s)
• More precise notes
• More pertinent information captured properly in structured data instead of unstructured
• A more private and comfortable environment for patients

We can also help you populate your EMRs automatically with your completed notes.

iMedat’s virtual medical scribe services help your practice save money versus in-person scribes since you don’t have to hire extra staff members with their associated salaries, benefits, workstations, and vacation time.

Plus, our services are secure. All of our virtual scribing services are HIPAA compliant. In addition, our virtual medical scribes are all 100% U.S. workers, so your patients’ PHI never leaves the U.S. to countries where HIPAA and privacy laws may not apply. (That’s not always the case with other virtual scribing services, so it’s worth investigating.)

Virtual Medical Scribes Improve Documentation

In many cases, a virtual scribe will improve the quality of patient record documentation. But unfortunately, clinicians are not always the best note-takers for various reasons. Not least, their attention is often where it should be – on the patient. This multi-tasking between conducting the patient encounter and recording it can lead to missed facts, misfiled information, and incomplete documents. For example, one study found that care providers didn’t note the cancer stage in structured patient notes 40% of the time.

On the other hand, a dedicated scribe is there to provide clerical support and ensure medical documentation is completed properly. That includes:

• Ensuring every aspect of the patient encounter that should be documented is documented
• Entering structured and non-structured data appropriately, resulting in more data being captured in structured data
• Flagging possible inconsistencies and errors for review

In many cases, the scribe is better at capturing patient encounters in useable ways. Yet scribing services cost much less per minute than the clinician’s time doing the same data entry tasks.

Keep reading to see how that can help clinics, offices, and independent practices in the long run, or contact us right now to find out how a virtual scribe can help your office.

The Time and Cost Savings Can Be Immense

The strongest argument for virtual scribing is the time and cost savings. Asking highly paid clinicians to take much of their precious time recording patient interactions and encounters is inefficient. Instead, they should be documenting patient encounters using the fastest method possible so that they are not wasting their time – or patients’ time – entering codes into a computer or hunting and pecking notes.

Virtual medical scribes will:

• Document the encounter faster
• Free up the clinician’s time
• Reduce or eliminate the need for clinicians to “catch up” on clinical documentation after hours
• Enable the clinician to see more patients (which means higher billings and better patient care)
• Reduce clinician burnout
• Reduce the stress on HIM managers who need to review and edit clinician notes
• Increase overall office morale

Another Set of Eyes

Another great benefit of using iMedat is that we give you another set of professional eyes on your patient notes and records. Our highly trained medical scribes can flag possible inconsistencies, common medication name mistakes (such as sound-alike drugs, for example), and other errors. They can also follow up on missed medical codes and ask for clarifications, saving time and hassle later. And as mentioned above, scribes can reduce the workload for HIMs who routinely have to audit, edit, and amend patient files.

With iMedat’s virtual scribing services, it’s like having another set of medical eyes to ensure all patient documentation is complete, accurate, and organized.

Virtual Scribing Services for Medical Professionals Like You

Contact iMedat today, and find out how an iMedat virtual medical scribe can help you improve clinical documentation, reduce clinician and HIM stress, and save your practice time and money.