A Scribe Costs a Few Extra Outpatient Visits a Day

The rigors of the electronic medical record begat the medical scribe, an employee charged with fulfilling documentation requirements so clinicians can pay attention to patients instead of screens. The effect of the scribe industry on the bottom line will be of concern to those who employ or consider scribes. Researchers modeled the costs and revenues of a medical scribe working one-on-one with an outpatient clinician in various medical specialties. The model assumed the scribe was hired from a third-party agency that is responsible for costs of training and management.

Estimated mean cost of a scribe's first year was about US$48,000. The number of additional fee-for-service visits required to recover that cost varied by specialty and nature …