What is an Orthopedic Scribe And How Do They Benefit Your Practice

Orthopedic medical scribes play a crucial role within the healthcare system, facilitating documentation and optimizing patient care. An orthopedic scribe is a professional who is specially trained to provide documentation assistance for orthopedic surgeons and other healthcare providers who specialize in the diagnosis, treatment, and surgical management of musculoskeletal conditions and injuries. By leveraging the expertise of medical scribes orthopedic practices can thrive in today’s competitive landscape.

What experience does an orthopedic scribe need?

In order to become an orthopedic scribe one must have at least a high school diploma or equivalent. A minimum of 1 year or above experience in medical scribing is a mandatory requirement. Having a medical scribe certification, EHR training certification and specialty experience in EHR documentation would be an added advantage.

The role of an orthopedic scribe

• Review a patient’s medical records prior to their appointment and organize the information in a way that is easy to access at the time of the patient’s visit.
• Document the chief complaint, history of present illness, past medical, surgical, family, and social history, current medications, allergies, review of systems, physical examination findings, assessments, treatment plans, procedures, interventions and other patient information pertinent to the visit in real-time.
• Document radiology reports, imaging results, and their interpretations as they are a permanent part of the patient’s medical records.
• Capture the diagnosis, discharge and follow up instructions.
• Assign, ICD and CPT codes for optimized billing and quicker reimbursements.
• Upload the prescriptions so that the provider can check them and send them to the pharmacy.
• Assist during surgical procedures by documenting the details of the surgery, surgical techniques used, and any complications or observations.
• Organize and send all documentation to the provider for review.
• Provide patients with information about their musculoskeletal conditions, treatment options and post-operative care instructions.
• Perform documentation for meaningful use of EHR for better quality of care, more accurate patient information, increased efficiency, scalability, accessibility, and interoperability.
• Maintain HIPAA compliance and a commitment to protecting sensitive patient information.

How orthopedic scribes can help your practice

Orthopedic medical scribes are becoming increasingly popular as they are consistently being associated with numerous benefits. We know that orthopedic surgeons spend a substantial amount of time documenting within the EHR. By offloading documentation tasks to orthopedic scribes, orthopedic surgeons can focus on providing quality care to patients. By spending less time on documentation, they can see more patients in a day leading to increased revenue for the practice. Overall, orthopedic scribes play a crucial role in improving the efficiency and quality of orthopedic care by ensuring that patient records are complete, accurate, and up-to-date.

In conclusion, orthopedic scribes improve the dynamics of your orthopedic practice by transforming the way patient care is provided. Embracing the power of orthopedic medical scribes, can alleviate administrative burdens, improve efficiency, reduce burnout and provide better patient experiences. If you are an orthopedic surgeon struggling with overwhelming amounts of paperwork look no further than Scribe4Me. They have an experienced team of scribes trained specifically for orthopedics who provide real-time documentation support. To learn more on how our orthopedic scribes can help your practice, give us a call at (908)736-4180.