Maximizing Medical Scribes to Avoid Burnout
Burnout is a common problem for workers in all industries. However, it is most prevalent in the medical industry. A study by the National Academy of Medicine states that more than half of American Physicians admit that they feel burned out. With the recent medical challenges, burnout is only getting worse. It is the best time for physicians to take their burnout seriously and do something about it.
Virtual Medical Scribe – The Solution To Your Burnout
Are you a physician feeling emotionally exhausted, disconnected from your work and overwhelmed? Is burnout a concern for you? It can manifest itself in many ways, such as exhaustion and cynicism. It’s often triggered by long work hours, intense pressure and harsh expectations.
Physicians in rural areas are faced with greater responsibility due to fewer physicians, leading to overworking themselves. On the other hand, healthcare in urban settings can be competitive and require extra hard work to gain more patients. Both rural and urban settings present challenges that can prompt burnout – it’s dangerous for the physician and their patients.
A burned-out physician is less productive than usual, threatening patient care and quality of service, so they look for another professional who can guarantee this level of care. This leads to the new doctor taking on too much work and eventually burning out, too – perpetuating the cycle. Furthermore, burned-out physicians have higher chances of misdiagnosing patients, which puts lives at risk. Therefore, physicians need to take steps to prevent burnout from occurring, as it has grave consequences for those around them.
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Doctors Are In Danger!
Burnout is common in doctors and physicians, and they need to take the problem seriously and take the proper steps to prevent doctor burnout. The first and most crucial step is to take help! Hire a remote medical scribe to be your right hand and take the burden off your shoulders.
Why Should You Hire Virtual Medical Scribe Services?
Do you feel bogged down with administrative work in your medical practice? Let a virtual medical assistant help. Our trained experts are skilled in documenting and transcribing patient information quickly, accurately and remotely – giving you more time to focus on providing your patients with the best care possible.
We understand you may already have an in-house team – our virtual assistants can help here too! Hiring one of our virtual medical scribes will take the edge off most of your employees, enabling them to assign tasks more efficiently and reduce stress levels while boosting productivity. With Portiva, you know that all our staff are HIPAA compliant and highly experienced in the healthcare industry, so you get the assurance of professional support.
Hiring a virtual medical assistant from Portiva is a significant investment. Not only do our staff have the necessary skills and training, but they also possess the empathy and understanding needed to interact with patients. You can ensure your patients feel safe, respected and heard adequately through their assistance. As healthcare professionals, we all understand how important it is for each individual’s needs to be met – with a virtual scribe by your side, you can make sure no detail goes unnoticed, and everything runs as smoothly as possible.
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5 Ways Hiring A Virtual Medical Scribe Can Prevent Burnout
Delegate Your Work To Channel Your Focus On Your Patients
Healthcare workers spend most of their day on their feet and most of their lives helping patients get better. This can be a great challenge for them. They are humans and cannot work excessively without completely burning out. Such physicians have a lot on their plate, including paperwork, rectifying insurance, and documenting patient information.
This does not leave patients with a lot of time and they end up working more than their minds and bodies can accept. This leads them to be sleep deprived, overworked, and mentally exhausted. In such a condition, physicians cannot perform their best and will end up jeopardizing the patients’ lives.
As a healthcare professional, there are more important responsibilities for you to take care of rather than documenting patient information. Mundane tasks of collecting clinical notes and transcribing medical information can take a lot of mental and physical energy. You need to preserve that energy and spend it on things that are more important. Take on tasks only when you can easily delegate the work and get help from an expert.
Stay calm and hire a virtual medical scribe to help you. They can take over many tasks and work for you and the rest of your in-house team.
What Can Virtual Medical Scribes Do For You?
- Attend and make phone calls to patients and other people
- Taking appointments and confirming said appointments beforehand
- Responsible for reimbursements and receivables
- Using and modifying health information technology systems
- Documenting and scribing patient visits in real time
1. Increases Efficiency
A clinic needs to be efficient so it can cater to as many patients as possible. When you have someone to take over all the documentation for you, and everyone pulls their weight, then you do not have to worry about anything. This way, you will be able to effectively focus on things such as looking after the patients and ensuring that they get premium medical care.
Hiring a virtual scribe gives you the comfort of knowing that all your documentation will be error-free. You won’t have to go back and forth with the patient if any of the information is missing. Therefore, hiring a medical scribe will help you improve efficiency and increase the productivity levels of all your team members.
When you take too much on your plate, the chances of you missing out on key information increase. You may think that documentation is easy, but when you have to do several things simultaneously, you may make mistakes that can put patients’ lives at risk. Therefore, hire a medical scribe.
2. Helps With Operations
You must run your clinic systematically. There are several things you need to focus on daily, and it can be difficult for you to keep up with these daily tasks on your own. A medical scribe will first understand the protocols of your business, and then they will adhere to these protocols day in and day out. If you want everything to run as smoothly as possible, then you need to take help from a medical virtual assistant as they hold the fort for you by maintaining the pace of the work.
More importantly, the best part of hiring a medical scribe is that you can only take their help when you need it. If you do not need help for a certain time period, you can easily terminate your contract and resign it when you need help the next time.
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3. Reduces Stress Levels
Physicians are often under a lot of stress; this stress comes from multiple places. For instance, looking after patients and delivering quality healthcare can cause a great toll on the mental and physical health of a physician. Other than that, several extraneous factors, such as no-shows, late patients, and even last-moment appointments, can contribute to a lot of unwanted stress.
Other than dealing with the patients, many physicians who do not take help from medical scribes end up doing all the paperwork independently, which can be very stressful. Jumping from one task to the other and ensuring everything is done correctly can cause a lot of stress.
It is extremely easy to get rid of all the additional stress. All you need to do is connect with an online assistant, and they can work with you while you center your attention on things that matter the most.
4. Delegates Responsibilities
Running a clinic should not be a one-man show. You cannot do everything on your own, even if you want to. In order to ensure that everything goes smoothly and all tasks are completed on time, you need to let go of the responsibilities that a medical scribe can take over. It is best to let experts do what they do best. You may not be able to document things as well as a medical scribe and miss out on key information. Not only will this affect the treatment of the patient, but if things go wrong, it can also jeopardize their lives.
Moreover, when you delegate responsibilities, your clinic will run like a well-oiled machine, and all the tasks will be done on time and in the best ways.
5. Improves Practice Reputation
To get more and more patients to come to you for medical assistance, you need to ensure that you have a good reputation. There are several things that patients look for when they reach out to a doctor. For instance, they may call you beforehand and inquire about timings and such. In this case, if you have no one to attend these calls or if you end up giving them the wrong information, that can severely impact your practice’s reputation.
In this case, you need a virtual assistant who is always available to attend calls and take any appointments. This will show the patients that you are a responsible practice and that you care about your patients.
6. Saves Money
Hiring a virtual assistant can help you save a lot of money. It is a very cost-effective way to get all the help you need. These virtual assistants come trained, so you do not have to teach them anything new. You can easily hire an expert with prior experience in the field who can help you effectively. Ideally, when you hire an in-house assistant, you will need to teach them how your company works and its responsibilities. This can take up a lot of your time, and you can best spend it somewhere else that is more productive.
Virtual assistants do not need to be retained; you do not have to make any effort to retain a virtual assistant. Moreover, you will not have to pay them any bonuses or other facilities that you would an in-house employee. If you are a small practice and do not make a lot of money, then this can be problematic as you will not have enough funds to pay the in-house assistant. Moreover, you can hire a virtual scribe for a season and then pause their services when you do not need them any longer.
Other employees may give out and suffer from burnout if they do more than their capacity. The loss of employees is the loss of business. To ensure they stay with you, you need to take away some of their load and hire a virtual assistant.
7. Improves Workplace Environment
When all employees are overworked, they will not be able to be as productive as they should. In this case, you need to give your employees a better workplace environment, so they do not have to work under immense pressure and workload.
Hire a virtual scribe, and they will share some of the load, so your employees do not have to overwork themselves and have a stress-free environment.
8. Promotes Work-life Balance
It is very important for physicians and their employees to have a good work-life balance. These professionals often forget their personal lives in their efforts to ensure their patients are doing well. Constantly working in the clinic and taking on more than what you can do can severely affect your work-life balance.
In this case, it is best to have enough hands on deck so the workload is shared and all the responsibilities are delegated. This way, all employees and physicians will be able to have a good balance between work and life.
9. Gives Time For Leisure Activities
Most physicians forget what it is like to take some time out for themselves and do things they like. Working long hours in the clinic leaves them little to no time to spend alone or doing something that they used to enjoy some eons ago.
If you are a physician who wants to break free of the mundane routine and get some time to do things that you like, then the best bet is to hire a virtual medical scribe. Here are all the activities you can do when you finally decide to take help:
- Read your favorite book. Catch up on all the new publications you have been too busy to read.
- Take a walk. It may feel like a very simple thing to do, but most physicians do not get enough time to even go on a walk. Going on a walk is great for the mental and physical health of patients.
- Watch a movie. How many years has it been since you last watched a film? Physicians often have to give up on their entertainment and work round the clock, so they can take care of their patients.
- Spend quality time with your loved ones. You neglect your family the most when you spend all your day in the clinic and documenting information. It is important for you to spend some time with them and give them your undivided attention.
Conclusion
If you want to run a clinic without overworking yourself and your employees, then you must hire a virtual medical scribe and let them take over the administrative work so you can take care of all the things that are more important. Portiva offers you the best-trained virtual assistants from medical backgrounds so you can get the best help you need.
Portiva also caters medical transcription dictation services and virtual health care assistant.