Main image courtesy of M Health Fairview.

If you are a part of a primary care practice, chances are you see patients at all stages of life, and provide care for a variety of conditions and illnesses. You can see a primary care provider (PCP) for regular check ups, as well as when you’re feeling sick and under the weather. They have been trained to care for lots of issues that can pop up as we age, and often are our first point of contact when we have a health concern. Seeing these clinicians on a regular basis is also one of the best ways to prevent a small issue from turning into a severe health problem further down the road.

• Today’s article is covering:
  
  • Why an AI scribe is used by primary care physicians
  • The benefits of AI scribes for PCPs
  • Our picks for an AI scribe for primary care notes

Because they tend to see a variety of patients throughout the day, PCPs are typically very busy, moving from patient to patient with little time in between encounters. In order to complete their patient notes, primary care physicians can enlist the help of AI medical scribes to help lift the burden of doing it during an encounter, or after hours. 

How are AI scribes helpful to primary care doctors?

Primary care providers can get lots of use out of AI scribes

There’s a lot of talk going around about the inclusion of more in AI in the medical field, and you’ll find that a lot of clinicians in a variety of fields are already incorporating it into their daily schedule. AI is very good at taking repetitive tasks off the plates of providers, allowing them instead to focus on clinical care. Although doing the administrative portion of their job (like creating notes) might not be their favorite, it’s still important medical information that needs to be documented. Automating processes is a great way to improve upon the efficiency of a primary care physician’s office, and there are all kinds of ways this technology is making itself useful.

• AI to create notes. One of the first ways clinicians may be exposed to AI is as an application that they can use to assist with their notes. During an encounter, it’s essential that a provider collect information, including the patient’s medical history, and what their cause for concern is. The note should contain all the pertinent information, such as prior treatments, family history, and any prescriptions they’re using. In order to create a complete note, often practitioners must divert their attention from the patient to focus on including all the information, distracting them from being fully present with the patient.

They don’t want to miss any information, so this can cause them to feel distracted, and unable to look patients in the eye or offer insight as they speak. With an AI application, providers can just turn the application on, and it will start to listen to the conversation and transcribe what’s taking place. It will then use this information and summarize it into a note format that’s more accurate and complete than most clinicians have time for. Not worrying about leaving out information, taking time to talk to the patient, and having notes done in minutes can really help out PCPs.

• Improving diagnostics. Another way in which AI can assist providers is with improved data analysis and diagnostic detection. AI is much faster to find anomalies or issues with an x-ray or an MRI, improving the speed of which treatment can start. It digests loads of diagnostic data, making it aware of outliers that should be flagged. Faster, more accurate diagnosis means that patients can start treatment sooner, giving them the best chance of recovery or improved outcomes. 

Clinicians can also harness the power of AI to review suggestions for potential treatments or insights that might be beneficial to the patient, based on their history and data. The provider can weigh what the AI suggests and determine whether or not that would be the best course of action. 

• Increasing the efficiency of processes. There are a lot of ways the flow of a primary care facility can be improved with automation and AI. One of the major benefits of having an AI scribe create notes is that it can also code the procedures, plans, and treatments outlined in the note. That way when it’s sent over to billing, the codes are accurate and there’s a greater chance the claim will be accepted. In addition to improving the revenue cycle, AI automation can enhance the patient experience with automatic check in/check out as well as reminders for appointments or followups.

• Keeping patients engaged in their health. Keeping patients knowledgeable and engaged with their own health decisions is a great way to enhance patient satisfaction. Having access to medical information for their treatment plan, getting reminders about appointments or prescriptions, and even checking in remotely are all ways to ensure patients feel like they are a part of the team caring for themselves.

What are the major advantages of including these AI scribes?

Including an AI scribe in your primary care practice could provide a lot of benefits

There are a variety of benefits to choosing to include AI scribes in your primary care practice. And once you find an ambient medical scribe that works well with your team, you’ll wonder why you didn’t use it sooner!

• Prevent additional burnout. Provider burnout is a very real problem that affects clinicians of all kinds of specialties. Having a lot of work to do can cause stress for anyone, but putting that on top of potentially being understaffed with too many patients to see is just a recipe for eventual burnout. Instead of creating a note every time they see a patient, practitioners can instead focus on their patients’ needs and let the AI scribe transcribe the encounter and create the note for them. While it may just save a few minutes per patient, that really adds up. Not to mention that it gives providers a chance to really sit and listen to the patient, giving them their full attention.

• Organizes workflows. Every facility operates differently, but information still needs to be synced and shared among healthcare team members. Having an application that can sync up information and provide instant access to additional patient information is priceless in a busy primary care facility. When the AI scribe creates the note, it often also includes the billing codes, ensuring that the revenue cycle doesn’t get delayed. Having everyone on the same page with access to updated patient information ensures that the workflow can seamlessly move along.

• Improves patient care. When providers no longer need to divide their attention between notes and the patient, the patient feels more comfortable. The AI created notes also tend to be more accurate and these assistants can also provide real-time insight and suggestions to PCPs as they listen to the patient and make their assessment and decisions on treatment.

An AI scribe for primary care notes

Which AI scribe should you try for your primary care practice?

If you’ve weighed all the benefits and think that having an AI scribe would be helpful to your primary care practice, that’s great news. You’re going to join the thousands of doctors who are seeing more time in their day, and a reduction of cognitive load—decreasing the chance of burnout. Although physician burnout is below 50% for the first time since 2020, there are still a lot of overworked providers out there who need help. That’s why including an AI scribe into your practice makes sense, but which one should you choose?

What to consider before getting an ambient medical scribe

There are a wide variety of AI scribes out there to choose from, and we recommend trying out a few before you commit to one. That’s the only way you’ll be able to determine if it works right for your facility, and it actually helps make tasks easier, and not more complicated. Additionally, there are a few things to keep in mind as you try out some AI scribes for your primary care establishment.

1. Make sure that it is HIPAA compliant.
2. The data should always be encrypted whether at rest or during transfer.
3. Ensure that the AI scribe can be synced with your EHR system. If it’s not, you at least want to make sure the note can be copy/pasted into it.
4. The application should be easy to use and customizable according to your needs.
5. It should be within your budget and offer enough seats and tools to make it useful.
6. There is technical support available.

Keeping those things in mind, we have a few AI scribe recommendations for you to consider.

Playback Health

Playback Health is an AI scribe perfect for primary care offices. It can be your complete solution to solving the problem of notes and giving more time back to PCPs so they can spend more time caring for their patients. You can expect to see 90% transcription accuracy as well as an average of three hours per day saved per clinician. This is the AI scribe you want creating accurate notes during the encounter, so you as the clinician can focus on your patient. Playback offers:

• Is HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant
• Always synced
• Over 50 integrations
• Highly customizable
• Translations
• Templates
• 2 week free trial

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Freed AI

Another viable option for primary care physicians is Freed AI, which was designed to help free providers from constantly being behind on their notes—leading to a lot of burnout. This AI scribe can save clinicians hours a day on their notes, as they’re ready in real time so you can see another patient and get on with your day.

Freed AI offers:

• EHR-ready notes
• HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant
• Free week trial
• Customizable
• Offers templates and formats

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DeepScribe AI

You could also try out DeepScribe AI for your primary care practice and see how their application works with your facility. Their AI assistant can offer real-time insights and suggestions during the encounter, as well as transcribe accurate notes that save providers hours a day. It’s much easier to organize notes and improve the efficiency of office processes, since all the information is immediately synced and updated, giving all members of the team the information they need to perform their jobs. In addition, you can expect from DeepScribe AI:

• Easy to use application
• Accurate notes at the point of care
• Multiple languages and translations
• Personalized
• Templates and built-in formats
• HIPAA compliant
• End to end encryption

Will you include an AI scribe to assist with primary care notes?

AI scribes can make a real difference in the lives of primary care providers. Whether they’re looking for assistance with their notes, having more organized administrative processes, or they simply want to reduce the chances of burnout, AI scribes can assist with all of that. Automating some tasks is a great way to lighten their cognitive load, ensuring their full attention is focused on their patients, and providing the best care possible.