Eliminating Transcription Can Hurt Bottom Line

Physicians use one of three methods for documenting care: dictation, structured data entry (keyboard, touch screen, mouse), or front-end speech recognition.  In our experience and that of many EMR vendors, dictation is the preferred choice of 80% of doctors.  Why?

Dictation is the most efficient way to document patient care.  Take the example of a typical outpatient visit to an internist.  It takes about one minute to dictate a note for an established patient and about $4.30 in direct and indirect costs.

By contrast, many EMRs use structured data entry as the primary method for entering clinical notes, in which physicians point and click their way through screens of drop down menus.  Physicians find it takes 5 to 10 minutes on average to complete a note this way, meaning the indirect cost is anywhere from $13.50 to $27.00. 

Yet many EMR vendors tout their products as a way to eliminate transcription. Indeed, physicians may “save” $1.60 in transcription expense, but at what cost for their valuable time?  Physicians report working an extra 1 to 2 hours or seeing 2 to 3 fewer patients per day using direct data entry.  In reality, work has just shifted from a lower cost resource to a practice’s most valuable resource, its physician.

In our experience, this loss of productivity is the single biggest barrier to physician adoption of EMRs.  By contrast, transcription customers are delighted to learn they can continue to dictate, have notes exported directly to their EMR, and preserve time for patient care.