Engaging Patients in their Own Care can Reduce Primary Care Workload, says HBR Report

23-November-2017 MTS TEAM Medical Transcription

Engaging Patients Primary care is in trouble, according to recent reports. The workload of primary care physicians (PCPs) is increasing and there is a provider shortage. Many of the new healthcare models are focused on connecting patients more closely to their PCP. However, studies show that providers are overwhelmed trying to cope with their workload and managing long hours and on-call schedules. The growing amount of paperwork that physicians have to handle has led to their spending more time at work and less time with patients, according to a study by locumstory.com. Medical transcription services can provide the solution to this. A recent Harvard Business Review (HBR) report suggests that another way to reduce PCP workload would be to remove the barriers that stand in the way of separating care from location and empowering patients to take on more of their own care.

According to the HBR report, telemedicine can transform health care delivery. However, telemedicine has not achieved its potential in this respect due to three factors: the excess workload created for the care provider, the likely change in patients’ health-care-use behavior, and the economics of reimbursement.

Excessive PCP workload: The efforts of policy makers to increase access to primary care are not working because PCPs cannot handle more work than they are already doing. Low reimbursement is discouraging medical students from opting for a career in primary care, further exacerbating the PCP shortage.
Patients’ health-care-use behavior: Studies showed that the introduction of an e-mail system that allowed patients to email their health concerns to their care team instead of visiting the physician’s office did not have the intended effect. Email made it easier for them to report even their concerns along with photographs. Physicians found it difficult to ignore reported concerns. The result: instead of reducing face-to-face visits, the email system in the portal actually encouraged patients to visit the office more often.
Reimbursement conditions: Third party payer reimbursement policies are also responsible for limiting innovation in care delivery methods. In many cases, a health care problem can be addressed through a phone call. To get paid, providers need to provide clear evidence that care was medically necessary. As explained earlier, in the new nonvisit care models even minor ailments get reported and create a reimbursable insurance claim. However, the policy of insurers is to tie reimbursement to face-to-face visits in the belief that it will prevent overuse of health care. This requirement can actually have adverse effects and restrict the use of the most efficient methods of care delivery. Remote eye exams for patients with diabetes are an example of convenient, high-quality, low-cost care, says the report. It increases screening rates and preserves vision. However, the paradox is that reimbursement for this service is much lower than an in-office eye exam.

The researchers conclude that care models that increase the connections between patient and provider added to the load of the already-taxed primary care system. The solution, according to them, would be to engage patients in their own monitoring and care. This can be achieved in the following ways:

Design apps that provide information to the patient rather than the care team
Encourage patients to monitor their conditions and make treatment adjustments on their own
Allow technicians and physician extenders such as PAs and nurses to handle baseline care
Restrict care by the PCP to emergencies and chronic and serious conditions
In addition to making it easy for patients to understand and act on medical information, guide them on using the information to make decisions to improve their health
Use financial incentives to encourage medication adherence
Involve patients’ friends and family members in their care

Reducing patients’ demands on primary care providers is the key to reducing PCP workload, say the researchers.

A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2012 that was led by Mayo Clinic physicians reported that “invisible tasks” linked to non-face-to-face patient care as the reason for the unsustainable workload of primary care physicians (PCPs). The study identified these invisible tasks as those which physicians don’t get reimbursed for such as

writing prescriptions
ordering laboratory tests
dictating notes
reviewing notes in electronic health records (EHR) systems, and
communicating with patients on the phone or email

The researchers noted that increased and uncompensated workload could cause several problems including physician burnout and career dissatisfaction and exacerbation of PCP shortage, besides compromising quality of care and access to care. They concluded that compensating PCPs for these nonvisit tasks and implementing new value based reimbursement models could be the key to ensuring access to primary care in the future.

When it comes to managing electronic health record (EHR) related documentation tasks, outsourcing medical transcription is a proven strategy to reduce stress and improve the work/life balance of PCPs.

Cost of Shortened Consultation Times and its Impact on Primary Care

20-November-2017 Julie Clements Medical Transcription Outsourcing

The duration of consultation time has a notable impact on physicians’ healthcare delivery as well as patient satisfaction. There is a wide belief that longer consultations are better and that primary care physicians should give more time to patients. While outsourcing medical transcription and other documentation tasks such as billing and coding are great options for physicians who want to focus on quality patient care, short consultation time is yet another concern.

As the demand for primary healthcare increases worldwide, the duration of the consultation is also increasingly under pressure and there are concerns about the impact of less time with the physician. Several reports have proven earlier that shorter consultation time can reduce the range of services provided in primary care. A large international analysis report published recently in the medical journal BMJ Open has found that primary care consultations last less than five minutes for half of the world’s population. Such short consultations are likely to adversely affect patient healthcare and satisfaction.

While average consultation length is used in the primary care monitoring tool as an outcome indicator, WHO and the International Network for the Rational Use of Drugs (INRUD) consider this as a quality indicator to promote the safe and cost-effective use of drugs around the world.

Primary care physicians include general practitioners (GPs), family doctors, family practitioners and other physicians working in primary healthcare settings and who perform primary healthcare tasks.

The report highlights that

Average consultation times in countries assessed ranged from 22.5 minutes in Sweden to just 48 seconds in Bangladesh
Shorter consultation time has also been linked to multiple drugs prescribed to a patient (polypharmacy), overuse of antibiotics and poor relationship with the doctor.
It is vital to address this limitation if patients with complex needs and multimorbidity are to be effectively managed within primary care.
Increasing the number of doctors in primary care is the best way to improve the length of the consultation.

According to the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), General Practitioners need more than 10 minutes per appointment as they have to manage increasingly complex patients. It has been reported that even the standard 10-minute appointment is simply inadequate for patients living with multiple, long-term chronic conditions, both physical and psychological.

Primary Care

EHR Documentation Concern

High workload, particularly with administrative tasks can also be a reason that reduces consultation time. EHR documentation during patient visits can also negatively impact proper patient care. According to a study published in Health Affairs, approximately half of the time physicians spend on electronic health record (EHR) tasks each day occurs during patient visits and the other half of their EHR time is taken up by non-patient desk tasks. The report finds that on an average, physicians used their EHRs for around 3.08 hours for office visits each day and 3.17 hours for “desktop medicine” activities, such as typing progress notes, logging telephone encounters, messaging online with patients, refilling prescriptions, ordering tests, reviewing test results, and making referrals. However, having more years of experience using the EHR was associated with slightly less time spent on desktop medicine. EHR-integrated medical transcription services can help family practices with timely documentation of various medical diagnoses and procedures.

How the Internet Impacts the Patient-Physician Relationship

16-November-2017 Rajeev Rajagopal Medical Transcription

Internet Impacts The internet has transformed the way we live, and how we work and interact with others. The internet of things has revolutionized the practice of medicine. Interregional and global communications, methods of practice and practice management have all been impacted. The Internet facilitated outsourcing. Today, the internet benefits healthcare providers by allowing them to outsource medical transcription, medical coding and billing, document conversion, and much more. However, one of the most significant changes that the internet has brought about is in the patient-physician relationship. As an article published by www.macleans.ca notes, “patient-based medicine” and doctor-patient “shared decision making” are the new buzzwords that reflect the current medical moment.

Patients have more control over their health care: The internet is a storehouse of medical information and provides access to online medical advice, computer-based home-monitoring systems, and online support groups. Patients use Dr Google to decipher symptoms, diseases and possible treatments for illnesses. Many patients do extensive research online about their medical condition before their office visit. This has made them more proactive about their health care.
Acknowledging patients’ efforts can contribute to a positive physician-patient relationship: Physicians can improve their interactions with patients by acknowledging their efforts to learn more about their condition via online research. It will be easier to have a positive conversation when the patient’s efforts are validated and acknowledged. Physicians will tend to be more receptive to information presented by a patient with whom they have a standing relationship than by a new patient.
The ‘informed’ patient can be a detriment: Educated patients tend to have more practical discussions with their providers. However, not all of the medical information available online is reliable. Patients who are not discerning may be misled by websites that are focused on selling their product or service rather than providing genuine information about a medical condition or treatment.
Physicians as curators of web-acquired medical information: The traditional role of the physicians as the receptacle of medical knowledge has changed to a curator of web-acquired medical information. As an expert points out in a recent Medscape report, “The relationship that the patient has with a physician now is for the physician to curate the information and customize it for the patient’s particular circumstance”. Physicians now have the duty to explain or authenticate the information that the patient has obtained online. They need to provide patients with reliable websites from which to they can get information.
Cost-effective, time-saving telemedicine consults: One of the most significant ways that the Internet has transformed the physician-patient relationship is through telemedicine. Forbes reported that with expanding health insurance coverage, the number of virtual video consultations between primary health care providers and their patients in the U.S. will double by 2020. Virtual consults are touted as saving time and money for the physician and patient alike.
Patient engagement through social media: The internet and social media have connected previously isolated people. They can share a diagnosis and use social media platforms to exchange information and even mobilize. Studies show that it is younger patients who use social media to discuss health care and that usage is lagging among people over 65 years of age, and those with multiple chronic conditions.

Medical News Bulletin recently reported on a study that Flemish researchers conducted to investigate the link between Dr. Google and doctor-patient interactions. The team found that: Internet

Patients generally search online for medical information to help guide their decisions
In most cases, this behavior does not cause heightened anxiety in patients
Physicians considered information-seeking behaviors may be beneficial to their relationships with patients.
Patients’ use of the internet has made consultations more of an exchange of information, which helps physicians in diagnosis and development of the treatment plan and encourages patient involvement in health outcomes.
Information exchange at the consultation can be a good starting point for physicians to provide their patients with reliable references for health information, so that they do not consult unreliable sources and cause themselves anxiety.

The physician-patient relationship is central to the practice of medicine. Any strategy that enhances this bond is vital to improving the delivery of care. The electronic health record (EHR) may have improved practice efficiency and workflow, but studies show that it has affected physician-patient communication. Medical transcription companies play a key role in bridging the gap by providing EHR-integrated medical documentation solutions.

Human Dx – Harnessing Global Medical Expertise to Validate Diagnosis and Improve Care

13-November-2017 MTS TEAM Medical Transcription

Machine learning in health care has reached new heights with the Human Diagnosis (Human DX) project. As a medical transcription company that provides documentation solutions for a wide range of specialties, we laud the objective of this international collaboration that aims to make quality healthcare available and affordable for underserved and uninsured populations. Importantly, it is expected to reduce the incidence of inaccurate or delayed diagnosis.

The Human DX project seeks to harness global medical expertise to provide electronic consults to patients without reliable access to specialists, including patients who do not have insurance. It combines the “collective intelligence” of machines and human clinicians to improve our fundamental understanding of diagnosis, a crucial early step in assessing, treating, managing and ultimately curing disease. The project is supported by major organizations including the American Medical Association, American College of Physicians, and American Board of Internal Medicine.

Here are the key features of the Human DX project:

It is a nonprofit and a public benefit corporation
It aims to reach out to those without access to care and those without insurance
This global effort is aimed at creating an online system that leverages joint knowledge and machine learning to provide each patient with customized, focused care
Over 6,000 physicians from more than 70 countries have contribute their intelligence and information to the project
The goal over the next five years is for 100,000 volunteer medical specialists to provide electronic consultations to three million patients, thereby avoiding long waits or out-of-pocket costs.

When a treating physician gets a complex case, they record the patient’s background, medical history, and presenting symptoms including physical exams, medical history, medical imaging results, and diagnostic and laboratory tests. The system’s natural language processing algorithms will mine each case entry for keywords to route it to specialists so that they can review them and record recommended tests and diagnosis. The data of patients who receive consultations through the project will be stored in an open software system.

Research teams from Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins, and UCSF will investigate how to best combine the expertise of human physicians with the big data processing power of the artificial intelligence (AI) doctor to provide meaningful clinical decision support to future participants. In other words, the insights gained for one patient is expected to help many future patients.

This collaborative approach is expected to:

Reduce medical errors
Enable physicians to get a second opinion and accurately diagnose rare or perplexing cases
Help educate physicians
Allow populations that often go without specialist interventions to get top-quality care

Human Dx Providers can access the system from any connected device. Members of the public can visit the homepage to access information on specific diseases and anonymized case data. Keeping timely, accurate and clear medical records, such as enabled by medical transcription outsourcing, is clearly essential to the success of the Human Dx initiative. Medical records represent the patient’s medical, health or social history, diagnosis, condition, treatment or assessment, created or maintained by a physician or other healthcare professional, or a hospital or other health facility. Good quality medical records are essential to proper sustained care of the patient and are vital for effective communication between healthcare professionals and their patients. And it is this information that specialists on the Human Dx system will need to access to recommend a treatment or diagnosis.

Physicians participating in this innovative project can rely on the support of experienced medical transcription companies to maintain accurate electronic health records (EHRs) along with clinical notes, scanned records, consent forms, text messages, verbal correspondence between health professionals, medico-legal reports, referral letters, investigation and lab reports. X-ray films, photographs, video and audio recording and any printouts from monitoring equipment also form part of the medical record.

Partnering with a reliable medical transcription service provider will ensure that patients’ medical records are continuously updated in chronological order so as to demonstrate continuity of care and response to treatment. The information should be all-inclusive to allow another provider to carry on where the previous clinician left off. This is paramount for the success of the Human Dx project which aims at closing the gaps in specialty care.

Can Recording Patient Appointments Improve the Quality of Care?

09-November-2017 Julie Clements Medical Transcription

Recording Patient Appointments With the availability of smartphones and other advanced recording solutions, recording conversations and sharing them is quite easy. What about recording a patient-doctor conversation? How can it help patients and their treating physicians? Patients, especially elderly patients, may not recall everything the physician says during the consultation. With the health conditions they face, patients are at risk of forgetting even important medical information. While patients started recording their medical visits long back to counter these issues, doctors have also started recording appointments with their patients, after obtaining consent from them. By outsourcing medical transcription, physicians get these recordings documented accurately.

Patients often use a digital audio recorder or their smartphone to record consultation details. A report in CBS News says that at least 1 in 10 U.S. patients now records discussions at medical appointments.

Check out this example that clearly reveals the advantage patients gain with such recordings.

The New York Times recently reported the instance of a family practitioner in Ludington, Mich. who routinely records appointments with his patients’ approval and then uploads the audio to a secure web platform so that patients can listen whenever they need to recall their discussions. They can also choose to give family members access to the recordings.

The news item also discussed the benefits a 63-year-old patient whom this doctor treats, gets with those audio uploads. This patient has a host of medical problems such as gout, high blood pressure, hypothyroidism, anxiety and depression. Her memory is also affected with extended round of hospitalizations and operations, which makes it difficult for her to remember what was discussed during her appointments with the doctor. She turns to the recording for clarification.

According to the doctor, “At some point, it will become a normal thing, recording these encounters.” This alternative is helpful, especially for older patients, who are struggling with several health conditions.

Patient Appointments According to a recent study published in JAMA Network that reviewed 33 studies of patient use of audio-recorded clinic-visit information, audio recordings are highly valued. While 72% of patients listened to their recordings, 68% shared them with a caregiver, and individuals receiving recordings reported greater understanding and recalling of medical information.

However, obtaining consent from both physician and patient in states including Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Pennsylvania is a concern. But in 39 states and the District of Columbia, the law requires just one party’s consent. Only in these states patients can legally record an office visit without their doctor’s consent and vice versa.

When it comes to the legal side, physicians are a bit worried about the usage of these recordings. There are several cases where such recordings are submitted as evidences in court.

There are also hospitals like the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix that prefer videos to record appointments. With the patient’s permission, the neurosurgeon here records the session on an iPad, then offers the video to patients to watch later on a web platform. A study has proven that more than half the patients have watched their videos more than once.

Such recordings are likely to increase among healthcare providers, and doctors and other healthcare professionals making tape recordings can rely on medical transcription services to transcribe the appointment details.

“Webside Manner” – The Skill that a Telemedicine Physician Must Have

06-November-2017 Rajeev Rajagopal Medical Transcription

Telemedicine is one of the advances that can have a significant impact on American healthcare. Our medical transcription company recently reported on how telemedicine plays a critical role in helping victims of natural disasters to obtain access to the healthcare services they badly need. Market research reports indicate that factors such as an aging population, the rising incidence of chronic diseases and the need to curb escalating health care costs are driving the growth of telemedicine sector. Many elements go to determine the success of telemedicine and one of the most important, according to industry experts, is the clinician’s communication skills when managing patient encounters on this platform or “webside manner”.

Wiktionary defines webside manner as the way in which a healthcare professional interacts with patients remotely in telehealth or telemedicine. Unlike the traditional face-to-face where the physician is in direct contact with the patient, telemedicine requires effective communication and interaction in digital mode. Therefore, much of the success of the virtual care model depends on the physician’s ability to relate with a patient online and convey the desire to help. The debate has veered away from “bedside manner” to “webside manner”.

Forbes reports that the matter of improving webside manner was recently discussed at a session on telemedicine during the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting. The ACAAI position paper discusses the need for allergists and other practicing physicians to deliver quality care for patients remotely as technology transforms the traditional doctor-patient relationship. This brings us to the question – what are the skills that define good webside manner?

Communicating via telepresence is vastly different from communicating in person. The most important need is for all people involved to become more digitally competent. A 2014 article in CURVE, the Institutional Repository for Coventry University, U.K., suggests that staff providing telehealth services need to have the following basic skills sets:

Basic Information Technology (IT): This includes digital literacy (including how to use mobile phones) and awareness of user benefits of IT.
Personal Information: Clinicians should be aware about the importance of privacy and confidentiality (including the risk of breaches to the same and how these risks can be addressed), protocols that define how information sharing can take place and procedures for obtaining informed consent.
Telehealth Technologies/Equipment: knowledge about the types of technologies available, and how they can be obtained
Assessment/Self Assessment: Recognizing the place of telehealth within the range of services within which assessment / self-assessment can take place, and undertaking or supporting assessment.
Installation, Removal and Disposal of Telehealth Equipment: This includes knowledge of basic safety procedures, links to power sources and Broadband networks and fault finding and testing, removal and disposal of equipment.
Telehealth Services: Role and purpose of services in relation to health and well-being, fit with home care and ‘hospital at home’, and how calls are made and handled.

Along with these ‘basics’, physicians will need a range of more specific skills to become experts in virtual care, that is, they must develop a good webside manner.

The University of Arizona is one of the first schools in the U.S. to incorporate telemedicine instruction into its medical school curricula. Forbes reports experimental psychologist Elizabeth Krupinski, associate director of evaluation for the telemedicine program at the U of A as saying that physicians need to think about managing the technology bit, what they are wearing, and most important, monitor their behavior. Some physicians may be great in person, but are camera shy. Telemedicine students are often instructed to disable their video chat’s picture-in-picture feature and look like they are making direct eye contract with the patient by looking directly into their system’s webcam. Physicians also need to control mannerisms like slouching, fidgeting, or gesticulating, which can be distracting or off-putting on a webcam, says Krupinski.

At its 2016 Annual Meeting, the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted policy to help medical students and residents become more familiar with using telehealth in clinical practice. The policy recommends that accrediting bodies for undergraduate and graduate medical education include programming which supports core competencies for telehealth. It also reaffirms existing AMA policy, which supports reducing barriers to incorporating the appropriate use of telehealth into the education of physicians.

Telemedicine includes multiple medical subspecialties, such as telepediatrics, teleradiology, telepsychiatry, teleneurology, and telecardiology, though there are still barriers in delivering these services to the people that need them most. Further, studies have found that cooperation was often missing from physician-patient interactions. Wired.com reported that a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine last year found a huge range in quality of care and webside manner. The researchers also found that in telemedicine, clinicians did not refer their first-time patients to specialists in their area as frequently as they would in an emergency room (ER).

Developing empathetic and compassionate rapport with patients is an important part of the healing process in face-to-face visits. In telemedicine encounters, easy-to-use video technology can help physicians project good webside manners. As conscientious providers of virtual care look to improve, HIPAA-compliant medical transcription companies can help them maintain relevant patient-related electronic communications related to telemedicine encounters in the medical record along with relevant patient-physician e-mail, prescriptions, laboratory and test results, evaluations and consultations, records of past care and instructions.

Speech Recognition for Medical Transcription – Benefits and Challenges

02-November-2017 MTS TEAM Medical Transcription

This is an update on the January 8, 2014 blog “Advantages and Disadvantages Of Using Speech Recognition Software For Medical Transcription“

Speech recognition (SR) or voice recognition has had a deep impact in the field of healthcare, with the HIMSS identifying SR as an aggressively expanding market with a 20% growth rate per year. Using this technology for medical transcription has been extensively explored since the 1980s. BCC Research shows that the world market for SR is set to increase from $104.4 billion in 2016 to $184.9 billion in 2021. It helps to identify words in spoken language and convert them into a machine-readable format. Though this technology comes with advantages, there are disadvantages too which make some providers to continue relying on medical transcription outsourcing to complete their documentation tasks. However, SR technology has evolved for the better and now they have modules dedicated to medical documentation. This has in turn inspired many hospitals to use medical transcription software technology to input patient information.

The front-end type of this technology is now actively used in hospitals to convert words into a text in real time, obviating the need for a transcriptionist. A KLAS survey reports that in spite of 50% physicians’ resistance to adopt the technology, 9 out of 10 hospitals plan to expand SR use.

The SR market is showing great growth in the future. Based on a report from Markets and Markets, the speech and voice recognition market that was valued at USD 5.15 Billion in 2016 is expected to reach USD 18.30 Billion by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 19.80%. The market growth will be driven by factors such as increased demand for speech-based biometric systems for multifactor authentication and growing impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the accuracy of speech and voice recognition.

Advantages

SR is reported to improve hospital productivity with advantages such as the following.

Less paperwork – With a recording system at hand, doctors and nursing staff can avoid writing or typing numerous patient records, including diagnosis and treatment notes. Integration of voice recognition technology with the existing EHR software will provide the chance to dictate directly to the PC-based EHR system, avoiding manual processing and handling of the obtained data.
Save time on dictation and documentation – With this technology, documents can be created faster because the software generally produces words as fast as they are spoken, which is generally much faster than a person can type. Faster patient reports help in timely decision making.
Improved workflow – Workflow can be enhanced, with these SR solutions providing automatic queuing of dictations from several users to predefined assistants and selectively routing dictation files. Front-end types are also trained to recognize users, their accents, and previous corrections, thus “learning” common speech patterns.

Challenges Involved and Solutions

Medical Transcription There are some challenges involved with SR that can be efficiently addressed with back end assistance.

Considerable time investment – Setting up and running the software need a significant investment of time. Actually, recording your voice commands is quite complex and the software also may require some time to understand what you said.
Quality check, a burden for physicians – Front-end SR is reported to impact physicians’ work, as they will be in charge of assuring the quality of records. At times, errors created by the SR tool can be very difficult to identify. Therefore many professionals recommend back-end SR, which means relying on medical transcription companies.
Not all accents will be recognized – Some studies report that varying accents and words with more than one meaning are still problematic for SR. However, back-end systems will increase the chances to easily work with a certain accent.

If you have decided to benefit from a back end or front end system, make sure that the speech recognition tool you have chosen is HIPAA-compliant. The technology will help streamlining the entire process of patient documentation and report generation. It will also enable doctors to devote more time to taking care of the patient, once the documentation tasks are reduced.

How well are U.S. Physicians managing their Work-Life Balance?

30-October-2017 Julie Clements Medical Transcription Company

Work-Life Balance

Although every generation of physicians values both their medical career and personal life, a 2017 American Medical Association (AMA) survey revealed that 92 percent of millennial physicians consider work-life balance a top priority. As a reliable medical transcription company in the US, we understand the importance of work-life balance and strive to contribute by reducing physicians’ workload with accurate and timely medical documentation. With increasing digital accessibility in healthcare, the role of transcription in reducing physician workload has become even more vital, streamlining documentation and freeing up time for patient-focused care. However, despite these efforts, physician burnout rates and job dissatisfaction remain alarmingly high.

Free up your time and reduce stress—let our expert medical transcriptionists handle your documentation!

Call (800) 670-2809 today!

Recent data shows that physician job satisfaction dropped to 68% between 2021 and 2022. Additionally, the average workweek increased to 56.7 hours—an additional two hours compared to previous years, according to an exclusive AMA physician satisfaction survey. These extra hours often encroach on personal time, significantly increasing the risk of burnout. This raises an important question: How can physicians effectively manage their work-life balance and improve their overall career satisfaction?

New Generation of Physicians Prioritizes Lifestyle Demands as Much as Work

In the past, it was widely accepted that physicians were expected to work long hours, often at the expense of personal time. However, changing demographics are reshaping this perspective. The new generation of healthcare providers is taking a more thoughtful approach to work-life balance. Millennial doctors are prioritizing lifestyle over work, according to an article in Medical News Today.

Maryam Lustberg, MD, MPH, director of the Breast Center at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven and chief of breast medical oncology at the Yale Cancer Center, highlighted this shift in a Healio Rheumatology article: “The expectation and acceptance that doctors should work all day and all week with no time for themselves and their families has definitely changed. There is a definite recognition of the risk for burnout and that no job is worth the sacrifice of family and health,” she said.

Fewer lifestyle demands may be a key reason why rheumatology is becoming more popular among younger physicians. One major advantage of the specialty is that while physicians may be on call, they can typically handle calls remotely without being required to perform procedures at odd hours.

Research from the AMA and other organizations reveals that more young physicians are opting for employment rather than practice ownership. Many are choosing shift-based emergency medicine and hospitalist roles offering better work-life balance and clearer boundaries between work and personal time.

Additionally, locum tenens positions offer similar benefits, granting physicians greater control over their schedules and freeing them from the administrative burdens of running their own practices.

Factors impacting Physician Work-Life Balance

Physician well-being is influenced by both organizational and individual factors. The burnout epidemic among this generation of physicians often associated with system inefficiencies, administrative burdens and increased regulation and technology requirements. Here are the factors listed by the AMA as causes of physician burnout:

Conflicting Priorities – Standardization, cost controls, and productivity targets can create conflicts between physicians’ values and expectations, leading to reduced control, flexibility, and autonomy.

Digital Accessibility Demands – Electronic connectivity has expanded patient communication beyond calls, texts, and emails, with EMR systems enabling direct messaging. Physicians often spend two to three hours or more daily responding to these communications, adding to their workload and physician fatigue of the job.

Administrative Burdens – The impact of administrative tasks on physician burnout is a critical factor when it comes to work-life balance. Increasing paperwork and regulatory requirements interfere with patient care and drain time and morale from physicians. Many physicians are turning to clinical documentation support solutions to streamline paperwork and regain control of their schedules.

Work-Life Interference Due to Digitalization – Advances in digital technology have blurred the boundaries between work and personal life, increasing the intrusion of work into nonwork domains.

Complex Payment Systems – Managing multiple payment models with evolving rules, processes, and incentives adds to physicians’ workload. Expanding risk-sharing contracts in private insurance further increases the burden.

Medical Record Documentation and Coding Requirements – Compliance with federal and state documentation regulations results in duplicative and time-consuming tasks for physicians.

Quality Measurement and Reporting – While improving transparency and accountability, the sheer volume of performance measures can be duplicative and not always clinically relevant, increasing the burden on physicians.

Regulatory Compliance – Meeting HIPAA security requirements for electronic health information protection adds another layer of administrative burden.

Burnout affects physicians across all specialties and practice settings, and it can have a substantial impact on organizational productivity and morale. Increased administrative tasks reduce the time physicians can spend on direct patient care. Furthermore, sleep deprivation among physicians can negatively affect cognitive function, emotional well-being, and overall performance, which has serious consequences.

What Doctors Want

Physicians value meaningful workplace connections and a culture that respects their autonomy and input in decisions affecting their practice. Aline Charabaty, MD, associate professor of clinical medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and clinical director of the IBD Center at Johns Hopkins-Sibley Memorial Hospital, emphasizes that healthcare organizations should provide comprehensive administrative and staff support, allowing physicians to focus on delivering high-quality patient care (Healio Rheumatology).

Physician Satisfaction

By addressing these needs, healthcare organizations can create a more supportive and fulfilling work environment for physicians, enhancing their work-life balance.

The Way Forward

Addressing work-life balance is crucial to retaining physicians in the profession. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, 45% of U.S. physicians are over the age of 55. With varying estimates, the U.S. is projected to face a shortage of more than 100,000 physicians by 2030. Some reports suggest this figure could be an underestimate, as thousands of physicians left the profession in 2023. The AMA is dedicated to eliminating physician burnout by identifying its causes and addressing the challenges physicians face, aiming to create a healthier and more sustainable work environment.

To address this growing concern, it is essential to implement strategies that reduce physicians’ workload. The role of medical transcription in reducing physician workload is significant, as it allows doctors to focus more on patient care by clinicaling time-consuming documentation tasks. While accurate and reliable outsourced medical transcription can alleviate the clerical burden, practicing mindfulness and adopting a team-based care model can further reduce burnout by promoting well-being and optimizing workload distribution. Shift-based roles can improve physician work-life harmony. Locum tenens flexibility allows physicians to choose when and where they work, reduce burnout, and explore different practice settings without long-term commitments.

While outsourcing medical transcription can alleviate the clerical burden, practicing mindfulness and adopting a team-based care model can further reduce burnout by promoting well-being and optimizing workload distribution.

Spend more time with patients, not paperwork! Outsource your medical transcription tasks to us and streamline your workflow!

Crucial Role of Telemedicine during Natural Disasters

26-October-2017 Rajeev Rajagopal Medical Transcription

Telemedicine, the practice of delivering medical care remotely, has become more sophisticated with advancements like videoconferencing. Medical transcription companies help physicians providing these services maintain timely and accurate patient records. Recent reports indicate that telemedicine plays a significant role during natural disasters when people need access to quality healthcare but are constrained by extreme geographical and environmental conditions. Also, telehealth is a boon when natural disasters lead to the collapse of local hospitals and care facilities that were not designed to cope with the large influx in demand, making it impossible for those affected to get the care they need.

Fierce Health recently reported that Houston residents affected by Hurricane Harvey got free telehealth services from technology vendors and hospitals across the country. This was made possible by new regulations that expanded access to telehealth services by allowing physicians to treat patients via video conferencing without a prior in-person visit. According to the report, the aftermath of Harvey will emphasize the benefits of mobile health technology as a disaster response strategy and that it could play a larger role in hospital and state disaster planning in the future.

While acute emergency care requires in-person management for critical injuries or illnesses, there are many ways telemedicine services help during natural disasters:

Virtual providers are well-positioned to help victims avoid the time needed to be transported to another affected area.
Telemedicine services reduce the risk of untreated injuries and exacerbated illnesses.
Providers can treat non-emergency conditions such as bee stings, insect bites, and wounds or rashes which could become infected by floodwaters.
They may be able to help people refill medications that may have been lost due to flooding.
Telemedicine can help with triaging and consultations with specialists. A study published in the Journal of Medical Systems reported that a telemedicine hub set up at a central command center after a natural disaster that connects with a network of specialists could help decrease mortality rates associated with natural disasters and improve survival rates.
The public can get advice on whether they need to see a physician or emergency care provider, or whether they can go to an urgent care center or to a clinic in a local shelter.

Deborah Mulligan, MD, chief medical affairs officer at MDLive, a Fla.-based provider of remote nonemergency general and behavioral care, told Beckers Hospital Review that after Hurricane Harvey, they got patients who already had an ongoing mental condition as well as those who were emotionally disturbed by the disaster and had headaches and other problems.

According to a recent Forbes article, the factors responsible for the popularity of telemedicine are: faster Internet connections, the widespread use of smartphones and tablets as personal devices, and the development of commercial software platforms that support real-time scheduling and billing of provider-patient video conferences. Moreover, patients find virtual consults a convenient option. The benefits of telemedicine services include:

Care in minutes without having to wait for a physical appointment. This is especially important for patients who need time-sensitive care such as stroke patients
reduced costs compared to a routine doctor’s office visit
convenient – can be accessed anywhere anytime
improved consultations among physicians which helps with patient referrals, continuing education, and consults with specialists
improved follow-up

Telemedicine Telehealth is also useful in urban settings in a non-emergency situation such as when a patient is injured after hours. Connecting to a provider that offers virtual services can help keep the patient stable until their physician’s office opens.

One study showed that 74% of patients would choose a telemedicine service if it is available. In a survey by the American Academy of Physicians, 78 percent of respondents (physicians) said they believed that telehealth improved access to care, though only 15% said they had used telehealth technology. This means it’s time to bridge the gap between the supply and demand for telehealth services.

To make telemedicine work for routine needs and as a disaster response strategy, physicians need to adopt technology with videoconferencing capabilities and have a reliable high-speed network for file sharing, cloud storage, and teleconferencing. They must also secure electronic health record (EHR) systems so that sensitive health data can be captured, stored and shared in a safe manner. Outsourcing medical transcription can help with their clinical documentation requirements. Finally, physicians should be able to get reimbursement for the virtual healthcare services they provide. It’s heartening to note that more insurance providers are now paying for telehealth services.

Simple but Effective Tips for Improving Patient Flow

23-October-2017 MTS TEAM EHR Transcription

The Electronic Health Record (EHR) has completely changed the way physicians treat their patients and it was believed that with the introduction of EHR, medical transcription services will come to an end. But with the EHR system, physicians are forced to spend more time on their computers capturing patients’ medical information rather than focusing on patients. Physicians also tend to miss out on opportunities to engage with patients while using the EHR. Many studies have shown that physicians spend one third of their time in the exam room looking at computer screens. A study conducted by the University of South Carolina found that primary care doctors cut their patients off just 12 seconds after entering the examination room. Some other studies have shown that the average doctor visit lasts just 13 to 16 minutes, during which patients get an average of 23 seconds to speak. Documenting medical details is a time-consuming task and with so little time to listen, one cannot blame the doctors if they are unable to spend more time with their patients. However, improving patient flow and reducing patient waiting period is essential for increasing the efficiency of healthcare providers. So here are some tips to ensure better patient flow:

Ensuring steady and robust patient flow is not just the duty of the doctors; it requires full office alignment on goals and is definitely a team effort. You can help campaign for improving patients flow by sharing the benefits it brings for patients as well as the staff as well, such as getting back home earlier and generating more income. Make your office staff realize the tangible benefits of improving patient flow.
Identify the blockages in your patient care process.
- For this you must carefully document the entire patient visit; you can request volunteers to do the same for you. It should be ensured that each minute detail of the appointment is recorded as well as any observations and impressions.
- Measure and document how much time each segment of a patient visit takes and pay attention to waiting times. Record the total time right from a patient’s arrival time until departure. Continue these tracking timings to get a clear understanding of the dynamics of your practice.
Streamline patient check-in by having patients fill out any forms or paperwork your office staff needs prior to their appointment. Also ask patients to bring a short list of relevant health information. Prevent cancelling of an appointment, determine if all necessary information is available in patient charts the day before and reschedule it to the next day if needed. EHRs can help by providing real time updates of lab and imaging results. Also, review the schedule of work.

When trying to improve patient flow, test small changes at a time. Another alternative is quick processing of medical documentation. Today, many healthcare organizations hire EHR-integrated medical transcription services to reduce the documentation burden significantly. Medical transcription companies offer customized solutions at affordable rates and also help physicians and other healthcare professionals focus more on providing quality patient care and service.