AAOS Now – August 2018
by Cheryl Toth, MBA
A 2017 Medscape survey indicated that nearly half (49 percent) of orthopaedic surgeons feel burned out. The top three causes cited?
- too many bureaucratic tasks
- increasing computerization of practice
- too many hours at work
If you’re looking to reduce the number of hours and tasks spent on bureaucracy and electronic data entry, as well as reclaim some quality of life at work, consider hiring a scribe. Scribes enable physicians to focus on patients and get out of the office sooner. The efficiencies they produce can increase the number of patients on the clinic and surgery schedule, covering the cost of the scribe and then some.
A life changer
“I started using a scribe about a year ago,” said Mark Floyd, MD, a sports medicine and general orthopaedic surgeon at the Harbin Clinic in Rome, Ga. “I built my practice to about 40 or more patients a day and was staying until 7 or 8 p.m. to finish notes. Several colleagues used scribes, and I didn’t see them staying late. That was enticing.”