June 2, 2022 — Jersey Community Health (JCH), a 15-clinic hospital network in Jerseyville, IL, has increased revenue and cut countless hours of electronic medical record (EMR) charting per week that providers had been doing after hours, by utilizing real-time remote medical scribes provided by ScribeEMR.
For Jersey Community Health, utilizing remote medical scribes has been a solution to several problems.
Due to COVID-19 and staff burnout, JCH was having a particularly difficult time recruiting and keeping qualified support staff in their medical offices. When a staff scribe called in sick, it adversely impacted productivity and workflow.
Without trained staff to help document patient visits, JCH practitioners found themselves buried in a backlog of administrative work that leaves less time to see patients and delays reimbursements. JCH leadership turned to ScribeEMR for remote medical scribe services to supplement in-house staff and support their physicians who specialize in family practice, general surgery, internal medicine, orthopedics, pain management, psychiatry, and wound care.
Virtual scribe services provide many benefits for both patients and providers. When patients started coming back to their doctors for in-person exams again, COVID-19 social distancing protocols limited visits to just the doctor and patient – with no room for a scribe. Physicians soon began to observe that patients felt more comfortable, and could be more candid about sensitive health issues, when there was no one else in the room.
“Utilizing remote scribes revealed how intrusive a third party could be during an exam and paved the way for more comfortable discussions about mental health and other more intimate issues,” says John Giertz, JCH vice president of physician services. “Outsourcing scribe services is keeping our physicians, and their staff, super-efficient and we are seeing an increase in reimbursements due to better access to care, streamlined clinical workflow and optimized billing.”
Dedicated remote medical scribes, familiar with each healthcare provider’s systems and protocols, work within a patient’s EMR and can ask questions during a visit to make sure everything is accurate. Doctors can devote their full attention to each patient instead of typing notes, knowing that the charts will be ready for them to approve shortly after a visit.
Using remote medical scribes, JCH eliminated a 15 percent drop in practitioner productivity every time an in-person scribe was out sick. They also cut as many as 10 hours of charting per week for providers who were often completing administrative work after hours.
As JCH providers eliminated charting backlogs, they were able to see up to 26 percent more patients with fewer office hours, and spend less time on administrative work at home. Physician burnout decreased. Revenue and ROI increased.
"The potential for utilizing scribe services virtually is opening even more opportunities as doctors, and their patients, become more comfortable with telehealth and other remote technologies," says Terry Ciesla, ScribeEMR senior vice president. "Adding remote virtual assistants to fill in staffing gaps is also improving customer service and streamlining workflow. Well-trained remote medical office assistants can run insurance verifications, get pre-authorizations for medical treatments, schedule appointments, coordinate referrals, and more.
For more information: www.scribeemr.com
April 22, 2024 
