The following post is by Deb Nolan, who is one of our authors at MT Inner Circle. Deb has recently taken a new position working with scribes, and I find what she’s doing fascinating. She agreed to share it with us. Thanks, Deb!

I wasn’t really looking for a new job. But my husband, while looking at Craigslist for our son (who is only working 15 hours a week) spotted this ad:

AREA SCRIBE MANAGER
He asked me, “What’s a scribe?” I took a look at the ad; here’s part of it–
• Lead scribe recruitment, hiring and on-boarding efforts by establishing relationships with local universities & pre-med societies in local market.
• Train scribes in the areas of medical terminology, anatomy, billing, coding, documentation, charting and electronic medical records.

I was intrigued, and besides that, honestly I really was incredibly bored with my QA job. Day after day, filling in the same blanks for MTs too absorbed with lines to take the time to research (yes, I said it), getting dinged for leaving a blank myself, getting dinged for not using correct judgment and allowing 2 more people listen to that blank, while at the same time using my judgment and experience of 20 years to know that NO ONE is going to get this blank…this was a dead-end, thankless job.

I read the ad description again and wondered if I could even be considered. I do have management and training experience, but they wanted an advanced degree, such as an RN. I was an LVN in a former life (pre-MT, that is), but I let my license lapse when we moved to Oregon from California and the nursing board here told me I’d have to take the Oregon state boards; they would not transfer my license without it. At that point, it had been 10 years out of nursing school, and I was burnt out. In retrospect I should have gone ahead and taken the boards, but I moved on to MT instead and was making decent enough money that further education didn’t seem necessary.

I wrote what I thought was a killer cover letter. I changed my resume from “medical transcriptionist” to “healthcare documentation specialist.” I played up the fact that I had done some work with students and externs, was an expert in medical language, and was focused on quality. It didn’t hurt that I had completed the ONC’s program in EHR implementation/project management last year.
I got the job.

Now I have to be honest here and say that I have been totally against the idea of scribes from the get-go. This is a job that MTs can and should be doing. But we’ve let ourselves be boxed in, literally and figuratively. The scribes I will be training are fresh-faced college kiddies, usually juniors or seniors, getting their pre-med prereqs in place. In no way do I expect that in 6 months, these kids will have the critical thinking skills necessary to replace an MT. But after talking with my new employers, I understand that the difference between MTs and scribes is huge, because scribes are temporary workers at best who are paid minimum wage and should be grateful for the opportunity to even be in an ER, much less documenting the patient’s health story in the EHR. Their acceptance rate to med school is an astounding 90% if they obtain this clinical experience before applying. I’ve got my work cut out for me. The coolest thing is that during my interview, the CEO read my resume, and after talking with me said, “You know, your background is just perfectly suited to this position. We never thought about hiring someone with your qualifications.”

The scary thing is that beginning next week, I have to leave home a couple of days a week to drive to the hospital ER and manage/audit the scribes. Some days will be spent training them at the office. Other days, I still get to work at home in my bunny slippers. But I’ll get to see the world from outside my home office window, and that’s exciting. I’m also beginning my RHIA program in September, so I’ll be busy!

So stay tuned. I’ll post my adventures here regularly. And remember, there are opportunities out there for MTs, just like this one. We just need to be creative and sell our skills and knowledge. I’ll be looking at the scribe training procedures in a whole new light for this company, one which they’d never thought about using. I’ll get these “whippersnappers” into shape quickly and maybe, just maybe, they’ll remember and use this training when they become doctors. And maybe, just maybe, there is a place for healthcare documentation specialists outside the ER, as permanent, well-paid experts, to assist providers, as we always have, with telling an accurate health story for their patients. I will keep you posted!