The Evolution of Medical Scribe Industry and Transcription
SOAPsuds team
Published: 1/16/2025
SOAPsuds team
Published: 1/16/2025
In 2009, the Obama administration introduced the HITECH Act, which significantly increased the use of electronic health records (EHR), imposed stricter medical documentation rules, and raised the importance of data security in healthcare. The HITECH Act also launched the “Meaningful Use” program, which offered financial incentives to healthcare providers to adopt EHR systems and use them for more detailed documentation and billing codes. Though the goals of HITECH and Meaningful Use were to benefit both providers and patients, the administrative load they created has become a major challenge for healthcare providers in ways that lawmakers likely didn't foresee.
Almost 50% of physicians report feeling burned out, with 60% of them identifying bureaucratic tasks as the main cause. Why is this? The average doctor now spends more time documenting patient encounters than interacting with patients. Let’s explore some of the documentation tools available to providers who want to reduce the administrative burden.
After the HITECH Act, in-person scribes were one of the first solutions providers turned to in order to manage the overwhelming increase in data entry. Medical scribes were already an established profession and could quickly take over much of the documentation work, allowing physicians to focus on patient care. By 2010, the medical scribe industry was growing rapidly, offering a valuable entry point for those looking to enter the medical field.
However, physicians soon noticed some issues. At $2,500 to $5,000 per month, the cost of employing scribes became a significant concern, and their high turnover rate made them less effective for providers. Furthermore, some doctors relied on trusted scribes to handle more complex EHR tasks, which increased the risk of unintentional malpractice due to a phenomenon called "functional creep."
As the cost and security risks of in-person scribes became more apparent, many providers outsourced to virtual scribe companies, both in the U.S. and overseas. Virtual scribes offered lower costs and became a preferred option over in-person scribes. Today, virtual scribes offer a better sense of privacy during patient visits, are flexible, and have a lower risk of functional creep.
However, virtual scribes can cost up to $50,000 per year, and scaling them across an entire practice is often impractical. Additionally, issues like offshore data transmission risks and inconsistent training make virtual scribes a less reliable option for many providers.
As the limitations of both in-person and virtual scribes became clearer, some new solutions emerged to help physicians dealing with an overwhelming workload. One of the most common solutions is dictation tools.
Dictation tools eliminate the need for medical scribes but often replace them with transcriptionists. Traditionally, dictation involves a physician speaking the details of a patient encounter into a device, which is then sent to a transcription service to be converted into a written note. Physicians who use dictation tools avoid the costs, malpractice risks, and turnover issues associated with scribes. However, the fundamental issue—excessive documentation requirements—remains unresolved. Like scribes, dictation tools only replace one type of task (typing) with another (dictating), failing to ease the overall documentation burden.
In recent years, AI technology has advanced significantly, and some companies are using it to develop tools that better meet the needs of physicians. These devices work similarly to other voice-activated assistants like Apple’s “Siri” or Amazon’s “Alexa.” The tools serve as advanced dictation devices, allowing physicians to dictate their encounters in real time and perform tasks within their EHR systems using voice commands. By utilizing AI and speech recognition, these tools can carry out various tasks like documenting EHR entries, placing orders, and more, acting as workflow assistants that speed up certain processes.
Despite these advances, the reality is that these AI-powered tools are still primarily dictation devices. They share many of the same drawbacks as traditional dictation tools and scribes, as they are still heavily dependent on human dictation. The technology is limited in how much it can reduce the documentation burden, as physicians end up using a slightly improved version of older tools, which still require time-consuming tasks like dictating.
Unlike other transcription or documentation tools available, SOAPsuds is a true solution for healthcare providers who are struggling with medical documentation.
SOAPsuds is the only fully ambient AI-powered medical scribe available. It works by listening to the patient visit and automatically extracting relevant medical information from the conversation between the physician and patient. SOAPsuds then organizes this information into a standard medical note format and moves it into your system.
With SOAPsuds advanced AI technology, you can return to delivering patient care without being distracted by your computer or the pressure of completing documentation. Simply speak to your patient as usual, and SOAPsuds handles the rest.
To learn more about SOAPsuds, you can always sign up free to start your 14-day trial as we aim to make healthcare great again.
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