A substantial gap glares between a doctor’s demand for hiring a medical scribe and the sheer difficulty of finding of medical scribe job today, – why?

Simple, the medical scribe market is suffering from the law of huge demand, and low supply

Let Us Explain the Demand

Hiring a medical scribe at a hospital workplace has made leaps and bounds worth of difference by:-

• Improving productivity
• Increasing efficiency
• Reducing burnout

Introducing a revolutionary concept in modern medicine, scribes are the primary solution to the glaring problem of physician burnout, clinical burden and documentation quality all at the same time.

When scribes tackle the bulk of administrative tasks, providers get more time to engage with patients and focus on their core competencies.

Scribes tackle the most burdensome documentation tasks, starting from:-

• Verifying audio for mistakes and reporting when required
• Interpreting and translating medical phrases jargon, and abbreviations onto a simplified, clear documentation
• Modifying medical records following the needs and preferences of the employer Inputting physician notes into medical records through specialised instruments and equipment observing the rules and laws regarding confidentiality

“The physicians ALL prefer working with scribes,” says Dr. Sharon R, Medical Director of an Emergency Department. Since the deployment of medical scribes in their workplace, the emergency department has experienced a 19% increase in patients per hour and an improvement in RVU/hr.

Now the Supply to this Demand –

The law of supply and demand states that the price will increase if a product has a high demand and low supply. In healthcare, physicians contribute to the demand for hiring a medical scribes who can meet their needs. Unfortunately, meeting these needs requires an expert medical scribe with a specific set of skill-set, whose supply is just as low. Why?

The competitive edge behind a medical scribe job salary has increased ever since medical departments have announced medical scribing as a mandatory extracurricular among premeds. All premed students, therefore, are vying for a medical scribe position in their primary years, making the job market extremely cutthroat for aspiring non-premed medical scribes.

What hospitals are looking for are highly trained and experienced professionals who must meet the following pre-requisites:

• Specialization in medical terminology, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations.
• Adaptability in medical written communication, clinical operations and appropriate technology.
• Prior experience in fast-paced clinical environments.

The minimum expertise and training required for a professional scribe to be hired directly correlates with their ROI. With at least two years of experience with the technology, acquaintance with the speciality and high communication skills within the staff, skilled medical scribes are getting costlier to hire by the day.

Let us break down the cost of hiring a medical scribe at a physician’s workplace:-

The Cost of Hiring a Medical Scribe

Average Salary:

• For hiring a medical Scribe, the average salary in the United States is $38,344 as of December 27, 2023, depending on factors like–
• Education
• Certifications
• Additional Soft Skills
• Number of years in the profession
• All the above factors contribute to the expertise of hiring a medical scribe.

Skill Enhancement:

Untrained scribes require an individual to go through 40 hours of online training, combined with 200 hours of work in practice. Looking at this significant amount of time and money needed to train these scribes, hospitals are unlikely to invest in good skill enhancement.

Yet, hospitals cannot afford to skip out on this training. This very lack of training commits costly errors like:-

• Inconsistency of scribes’ documentation output
• Lack of knowledge in operating with EHR
• Wrong interpretation of doctor-patient conversation due to lack of enough medical knowledge.

Instead of decreasing clinician burnout, untrained scribes aggravate it, being an extra burden to physicians in the process.

Cost of Physician Burnout

To address this unreachable budget cost of hiring and training, coupled with increasing labour shortage, physicians opt out of hiring a medical scribe for them.

Unfortunately, such an option is impossible for physicians today, who are on the edge of giving up on their professional lives, not being able to take the burden of clinical and administration burden that comes with patient care.

To showcase the misery of hospital places without a dedicated medical scribe, ScribeAmerica observed a Pittsburgh Hospital facility, which was slapped with consistently higher admission rates and seasonal surges from 20 to 35 patients every day. This :-Medical Scribe

• Worsened the providers’ work/life balance, causing stress and burnout.
• Affected the rising Patient flow.
• Decreased all forms of profitability in the emergency department

The Digitised Solution: Medical Scribe AI

It does not take a technology expert to know that we live in the age of rapid and thriving AI. Keeping up with this revolution was healthcare’s way of embracing the most cutting-edge technology in the field of medical transcription; Automatic Speech Recognition. Powering every modernised hospital administration today, ASR together with machine learning is empowering physicians to opt for efficient, healthy, and fully reimbursed patient care, over thousands of dollars worth of losses.

● ASR in Healthcare: ASR technology is the primary option for automating clinical documentation, thereby diminishing 90% of the administrative burden on clinicians who can now dedicate their time to patient care.

● Text-to-speech (TTS) Software provides additional applications right from voice interfaces to building custom applications for physicians. This technology, trained on natural language understanding (NLU) helps in legal, clinical and billing documentation in healthcare, thereby mitigating physician burnout,

● NLP in Healthcare: By 2030, the global market for NLP in the life sciences and healthcare is projected to reach a peak of $32.14 billion. Electronic health records and clinical documentation both employ NLP in tasks surrounding medical documentation, automated coding and medical billing for patient care.

Medical coding AI quickens operations to help healthcare workers find information easily. NLP algorithms do this through precise prediction analytics of healthcare medical codes, thereby reducing administrative effort.

AWS revealed that the cost of opting for a digital scribe service is “substantially less” than hiring a personal scribe for emergency rooms. The range of difference in costs is almost $30,000 to $50,000 per year.

Bigger tech companies such as Microsoft are also pouring their coins into this technology, collaborating with healthcare to initiate billion-dollar acquisitions behind developing medical transcription and medical coding AI.

So, it is no shock that healthcare was the quickest industry to implement this technology.

Saying NO to unwanted costs, YES to profitability

The costlier it gets of hiring a medical scribe, the easier it becomes for the medical staff to adopt to this technology.

Here is some evidence of how precisely There is less need for these positions as AI medical scribes can complete jobs faster and cheaper than human workers:-

Cost Effectiveness

AI-powered medical scribes and coding software present a significantly more cost-effective alternative when compared to traditional positions in the healthcare industry. By implementing these advanced technologies, organizations can effectively reduce their operational costs and avoid the recurring expenses associated with constantly hiring and training new employees.

Accuracy

AI and machine learning technologies can greatly enhance the accuracy of medical documentation, leading to a decrease in errors and ultimately improving the quality of patient care. Additionally, these advanced technologies can significantly increase the efficiency of medical documentation processes by handling large amounts of work and operating continuously, thereby freeing up healthcare providers to dedicate more time and attention to patient care.

Flexibility

AI-powered solutions can easily adapt and expand to meet the ever-growing needs of healthcare organisations. This flexibility allows for a more efficient and effective approach to managing medical documentation.

Data Security

Data security is a critical aspect of any organization’s operations, as it helps safeguard sensitive information and ensures compliance with regulations such as HIPAA. However, human workers, no matter how diligent, are susceptible to errors such as overlooking important security protocols that could potentially result in data breaches or non-compliance. These systems can be programmed to adhere to strict security guidelines, ensuring that data is handled and stored securely. This is where automated systems come into play, offering a solution that can be specifically designed with built-in data protection measures.

Data Handling

In addition to their proactive security capabilities, automated systems also offer enhanced efficiency and accuracy in data handling. Human workers may inadvertently mishandle data or make errors during data entry or transfer processes. Conversely, automated systems streamline these tasks, reducing the chances of human error and ensuring a higher level of accuracy. Moreover, automated systems provide organizations with the ability to implement strict access controls and user permissions.

This ensures that only authorized individuals have access to sensitive data, mitigating the risk of unauthorized data breaches. By centralizing data access and control, organizations can establish a comprehensive data governance framework that aligns with industry best practices and regulatory requirements.

Monitoring and Detection of Threats

Furthermore, automated systems possess the advantage of being able to continuously monitor and detect potential threats or vulnerabilities. By leveraging advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, these systems can identify patterns or anomalies that might indicate a security breach. This allows organizations to take immediate action and mitigate any potential risks before they escalate into significant incidents.

Collaboration

It is worth noting that while automated systems offer significant advantages in data security, they should not completely replace human workers. Human oversight and expertise are still crucial in managing and maintaining these systems effectively.

Organizations should strike a balance between automated solutions and skilled human intervention to ensure optimal data security.

Scalability

Scalability is a crucial aspect to consider when comparing human-based services to AI-based solutions in the healthcare industry. While human-based services may encounter limitations in terms of scalability, AI-based solutions offer the advantage of easily being able to adjust and accommodate the changing demands of healthcare organizations.

How to Choose the Optimal AI Medical Scribe Solution For You?

The healthcare market is saturated with various software specialising in medical coding, transcription technology, voice assistance, etc. However, browsing to choose the right AI medical scribe software only adds to the burden of hospital administration. So, RevMaxx has an answer for all the burnt-out, exhausted, and demotivated physicians; a pocket-friendly AI assistance, accessible 24/7.

How?

RevMaxx is powered by a reinforced AI algorithm that delivers all-in-one assistance to physicians through the simple interface of an app. Bringing efficiency to medical documentation was the top priority for physicians. RevMaxx assures a 97% accuracy on that, leveraging the power of speech-text processing, NLP, and machine learning.

Choice is Yours

Physicians can either choose to purchase multiple software for each use case, going through the hassle of integrating one with the other,

OR

Invest in an AI medical scribe assistant that AT ONCE, delivers:-
● medical transcription of conversations,
● extraction of information and transformation into relevant documentation, assignment of appropriate medical code,
● integration with EHR With this all-in-one delivery of service, RevMaxx promises:-
● clinical ROI to doctors for patient care
● financial ROI by guaranteeing maximized productivity

On That Note…
We learnt how physicians’ lives have gotten significantly better with the integration of medical scribes into their workforce. Hence, the projection of growth in the medical scribe and transcription software market, recorded to reach USD 4.89 billion by 2027, isn’t surprising.

This very growth shoots down to overloading loss with the added hiring costs, training and medical errors that scribes unfortunately make. Our proposition for medical teams across the country is clear: Choose the path that promises you efficiency under budget. The administrative burden is an alarming concern in hospital teams. It’s time physicians finally take control by trusting innovation and see the power of medical scribe AI work wonders for their goal: patient care.

Conclusion

The demand for medical scribes is high due to the burden of administrative tasks on physicians. However, the supply of qualified scribes is low. This is because hospitals are looking for highly trained and experienced professionals, and the training required is significant. As a result, hospitals are increasingly turning to AI-powered medical scribes as a more cost-effective and accurate solution. AI medical scribes can automate many of the tasks that are currently performed by human scribes, such as transcription, coding, and data entry. This can free up physicians to spend more time on patient care.

See how AI medical scribes can benefit your practice. Request a demo to learn more about the features and functionalities. You can also try AI medical scribing for free to experience the difference firsthand.