Virtual medical transcription services are nothing new. In fact for decades, physicians and clinicians relied upon them to help with day-to-day clerical tasks including updating patient records. It allowed doctors to spend most of their time talking with patients while documentation professionals took care of the clerical work for them.
But when electronic medical records (EMRs) came along, one of the big benefits touted was that doctors no longer “had to” rely on transcriptionists to update their records. This sounded appealing to hospital and clinic administrators from a cost perspective. But eliminating in-house and virtual medical transcription services meant that doctors were left to fend for themselves. To make matters worse, it turned out that maintaining EMRs is not nearly as fast and as easy as advertised.
Luckily, technology also helped make virtual medical transcription services easier than ever. This article will explore how doctors and clinicians can use transcription to save hours in their day and improve patient care. It provides a clear pathway for clinicians overworked and overburdened with maintaining patient records without the clerical support they need.
Technology is a Double-edged Scalpel
In many ways, technology has made it harder on physicians and clinicians to keep their patient records up to date. It’s not that they don’t see the benefits of electronic medical records (EMRs) – they absolutely do. But the system is far from perfect. Complaints include taking way too much time to manage patient records, EMR integration issues, and needless inefficiencies that come with EHR management.
Perhaps most importantly, technology has steered doctors and clinicians away from the clerical help they need – including virtual medical transcription.
Technology has been the driver of medical transcription changes in the last 40 years. Some of us remember the days of microcassettes, typewritten transcription, and couriers shuttling information back and forth. It sounds slow and inefficient by today’s standards. But in many ways, it was actually a better, more efficient system – at least from a patient care perspective. Doctors spent much less time maintaining records. They would:
- Dictate their notes
- Send the recordings to a virtual medical transcription professional or in-house transcriptionist
- Review the returned pages
- Give to staff to file
Today though, many hospitals and clinics have tried to eliminate transcription. In other words, they’ve eliminated the clerical support services that allowed doctors to spend so much time caring for patients. That means that physicians must, in no particular order:
- Hunt for and click check boxes in the EMR
- Type their own notes into the EMR
- Review their own notes, which means fewer eyes on the file to pick up on errors
- Spend extra hours before and after patient visits catching up on patient records
The result is increased workloads, increased stress, and increased burnout. This untenable workload also increases the potential for errors and decreases the face-to-face time with patients. That’s not good for the patient or the health care system.
How Virtual Medical Transcription Can Reduce Physician Burnout
In this case, physicians and clinicians do have an easy fix: hire a virtual medical transcription company to take a huge amount of the work load away.
Using virtual medical transcription services is easier than ever. No more microcassettes, no more couriers, no more waiting for a week or more to get your transcription back. Today, you can simply:
- Record your notes using a digital recorder or your cellphone
- Upload the audio files to your virtual medical transcription service
- Download and review the transcription
- Send the digital file to the system where it auto-populates the EMR
Plus, virtual medical transcription services can save you money in the long run. Not only do physicians get paid a lot more for doing the same work, they are often slower so it takes them more time. So how much money are you really saving by eliminating transcription?
Hybrid Systems Work No Problem
It’s important to note here that virtual medical transcription services are not “all or nothing” propositions. Many physicians are quite comfortable with certain aspects of maintaining EMRs, but find other aspects burdensome. Today’s documentation services are highly flexible and can provide only the areas of the EMR that clinicians need help with. This doesn’t affect how your EMR auto-populates either. It will simply update the areas with the new data as it comes in from your transcription team.
That’s what makes companies such as iMedat so popular with physicians – their flexibility. It’s amazing how much less stressful it is for doctors. Doctors and clinicians are able to create their own workflows and get the support when and where they need it. That reduces stress and burnout. Most importantly, it increases the quantity and the quality of the time they can spend actually talking with their patients.
Contact iMedat to Learn More About How Virtual Medical Transcription Can Be Your Easy Fix
Every hospital and clinic – every clinician – does things slightly differently. iMedat has a solution for them all. Contact iMedat to find out how our staff of U.S.-based virtual medical transcription professionals can take over clerical tasks to free up doctors to care for patients. Call 1 888-779-5888 or email us using this form today.