Medical Scribes
The push for healthcare providers to adopt electronic health records (EHRs) has fostered the growth of medical scribes as a supporting profession to relieve doctors of the time-consuming task of entering the comprehensive medical documentation EHRs require. Essentially handling data management tasks, a medical scribe charts the doctor’s patient encounters throughout his or her work day.
Medical Coders
A leading company in that realm, ScribeAmerica, is also addressing another time-consuming task: medical coding. CLEAR Summit, recently launched as a collaboration between leading medical coding and compliance company Edelberg & Associates and ScribeAmerica, is the healthcare industry’s first integrated software solution that uses real-time interaction to link scribes, medical coders and clinical personnel. It leverages advancements that have occurred from the implementation of EHRs to facilitate instant live feedback and workflow between the scribe and coder as the medical record develops in real-time to address issues immediately.
Time and Money
Reducing the amount of time doctors must spend on paperwork gives them more time for patients. Plus, from an office standpoint, there is improved reimbursement. “Previously, the time gap that existed between providing clinical care to the final bill being submitted was between six to ten days or often longer, depending on the availability of providers to complete records,” says Caral Edelberg, CEO of Edelberg & Associates, noting such inefficiency costs healthcare systems millions of dollars annually.
