07/22/2019
The Real Costs of Physician Documentation
Healthcare providers continue to spend 49.2% of their time each day working in EHRs and other desk work, according to a study from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health System and only 27% of their day face to face with patients.
Physicians use a variety of methods for EHR documentation, including voice recognition (Dragon), templating, point-and-click, manual entry, medical scribes, and dictation/transcription. With providers continuing to express burnout, and on average spending an additional 1-2 hours per day at home doing data entry, what are the real costs for each form of documentation?
According to a recent study, Voice Recognition is 3 times faster than typing (allowing for error corrections), and dictation is 7 times faster than typing. The mean salary for a provider in the US is approximately $150/hour. Using this data, we can draw some rather stark comparisons of cost.
An average page of text takes about 2 minutes to dictate, 5 minutes to voice recognize and edit, and 14 minutes to type. As such, here are the actual costs for producing a one-page document:
Dictation/Transcription: $9.00 ($5.00 physician’s time + $4.00 transcription/editing)
Voice Recognition: $12.50
Typing/Point and Click: $35.00
Not only is Dictation/Transcription more economical, it saves physician’s time and effort. How many more patients could your providers see each day, and how much revenue could they produce if they saved 3-9 minutes per patient!?
Having worked in the medical records and dictation/transcription industry for over 24 years with thousands of providers, MedRec Partners has found that a blended approach is typically the most productive for providers. Templating certain areas of the patient record and dictating narratives saves time and money, increases physician productivity, and produces a truly complete medical record.
Clinics, hospitals, and private practices can greatly increase revenue, cut costs, improve physician satisfaction, and generate a more cohesive patient record utilizing dictation/transcription. To find out more, visit us at www.medrecpartners.com or call 480-407-6112 for a FREE documentation consultation and evaluation.
MedRec Partners, LLC is a Proudly 100% US Based, Staffed, and Operated Company.
