Main image courtesy of Therapy Brands.

Physical therapists are an essential part of the healthcare profession. These providers ensure that folks who have injuries, disabilities, or other chronic health concerns get the care they need to keep their mobility and improve how their body functions. A lot of the time physical therapists are working one on one with their patients—listening to their concerns, what their physical limitations are, and what their goals for improvement look like. It’s crucial that all this information gets transcribed and added to their electronic health record so that treatment and diagnoses are noted and can be adjusted as needed.

Instead of writing all this information in during the encounter, or inputting it in at the end of the day, lots of physical therapists are turning to ambient medical scribes. These AI applications allow them more time to focus on the wellbeing of their patients, and spend less time doing administrative tasks.

Can an AI scribe help your PT facility? This article will discuss:

• What AI medical scribes are (including PT focused AI scribes)
• How an AI scribe can help your practice
• The best AI scribes for physical therapists

What is an AI medical scribe? 

How AI scribes help providers

AI medical scribes are an alternative to human medical scribes, who are trained to assist providers with documentation, transcription, and assisting in the patient’s journey. Not all clinicians use human scribes, and instead are responsible for transcribing their own notes and updating the patients’ files with important information. This can be very time consuming for providers who may already have tight schedules, and require them to add on extra time at the end of the day to ensure the accurate entry of medical information.

Ambient medical scribes are an affordable alternative to human scribes that can help clinicians in all kinds of healthcare specialties—from physical therapists to primary care physicians. AI scribes are applications that can be downloaded to any smartphone or tablet, and require little training to get started. You just need to gain the patient’s consent, then open the application and tell it to start listening. AI scribes use the power of speech recognition and natural language processing in order to recognize words in a conversation and transcribe and organize them correctly. 

Using an AI scribe to capture the conversation between doctor and patient is a great way to ensure nothing important is missed, the provider can focus their full attention on the patient, and that the EHR is updated seamlessly with the new note and new information.

The AI scribe can use the transcription to populate the format of a note, which will then need to be reviewed by the clinician before it is added to the patient’s EHR. AI scribes work in tandem with EHR systems and can also help with scheduling, follow ups, coding, and billing.

It’s important to note that AI scribes are not designed to work in a vacuum with no oversight—they still require a human provider to review the information to ensure accuracy. They are meant to assist clinicians and take away some of their time-consuming administrative tasks so they can focus on clinical care instead. 

What is the best AI scribe for physical therapists? 

Can an ambient scribe help your physical therapy practice?

An AI scribe can help out providers of all different kinds of disciplines, including those in the physical therapy sphere. These specialists are very hands-on in their approach to helping patients, and oftentimes assist with exercises or physical motions that can benefit their patient’s progress. This requires their full attention and having their hands free to guide limbs or support a patient. An ambient scribe would be very useful as the doctor and patient progress through the session, catching all the conversation and important details that a physical therapist might miss or not remember when it’s time to enter data into the note. 

What are the benefits of using an AI scribe for PT?

There are many advantages of employing an AI scribe for your PT practice including:

• Keeps the focus on the patient. Like all clinicians, you want to make sure your attention is entirely on the patient and their current concerns. Physical therapists in particular may be required to move around to different machines or be next to the patient assisting with physical stretches or exercises. While you may not spend the entire time speaking about how their treatment is going, when you know that an ambient scribe is picking up all the details, it keeps the focus on the patient.

Having to enter information as the session goes on can be very distracting, and it limits the amount that a provider can interact with their patient. Worrying about missing something or forgetting to note information will become a thing of the past.

• Increases the accuracy of documentation. Not only will a PT focused AI scribe help you spend more interactive time with your patients, but they can increase the accuracy of the medical documentation in the session notes. When physical therapists input data during the encounter or afterwards, oftentimes crucial information is either missed or documented incorrectly due to human error. 

Having an AI scribe that’s able to transcribe all the information that passes between doctor and patient ensures there’s less of a chance that something is put in wrong, or missed entirely. 

• Reduces the burden of provider documentation. Clinicians of all kinds are responsible for proper documentation of each encounter with their patients. This ensures there is a timeline of treatment and a record of diagnoses, plans, procedures, and any medication that is prescribed. Each note can be added to the patient’s EHR giving physical therapists all the existing information about the patient that they could need. 

All of this, however, depends on the accurate entry of this information by a physical therapist or an assistant. We’ve discussed that it’s sometimes difficult for these kinds of providers to input information as they go because a lot of the time they’re using their hands to assist, and are staying focused on the patient. This means notes may not get entered until after the encounter or at the end of the day, creating more administrative work and potentially extended hours. 

AI scribes can reduce this burden, allowing physical therapists to spend their time listening to and helping patients, and reducing the chance of burnout due to longer hours and additional work. 

• Very easy to use. AI scribes are designed to be very easy to use, and require little training on behalf of clinicians. They are an application that can be downloaded to any smartphone or tablet, and turned on by opening them, or using voice instruction. You’ll need to confirm consent with the patient, and then allow the ambient scribe to listen and transcribe!

• Easily integrated with existing EHR systems. Most ambient AI scribes can be aligned with your current EHR system, making it easy to upload notes and other documentation. Once the note is reviewed by the clinician, they can choose to send it to the EHR, add more information, or even share it with another provider. Having everything organized and in one place ensures that the most up to date patient information is available across all devices and systems. 

How much does an AI medical scribe cost? 

There are a lot of AI scribes available to try, so if you’re interested in learning more and trying out a few, check out options that offer a free trial or that have a free version of the service. While the free tier may not give you access to everything, it can give you a general feel of how a particular ambient AI scribe will function. There are good AI scribes available for all kinds of budgets and for PT practices both large and small. Most ambient scribes are a subscription service, and can cost anywhere from $100-$150 per year, which you can pay monthly. If you find that the free version works best for your facility, that’s great, but don’t be afraid to try out the higher paid tiers that will come with additional features.

Best ambient AI scribe for PT

No matter what AI scribe you want to try, there are a few things to consider:

• Make sure the price fits with your budget and team members, and gives you access to features you’ll actually use.
• The AI scribe should be HIPAA compliant.
• It should easily integrate into your existing EMR system, such as Meditech, Epic, Cerner, etc.

Playback Health

If you’re looking for an AI scribe that can do it all for your physical therapy practice, consider looking into Playback Health. This ambient scribe takes care of: automating any type of note to save you time, transcribing the entire patient encounter so that you can focus on patient progress, automating the patient journey (including check ins and follow ups), and syncs up easily with many EHR systems. Automatic updates, customization, and the ability to share are seamless, and you can rest assured this AI scribe is encrypted and is both HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant. 

Will you try out a PT focused AI scribe for your practice?

If you’re ready to take the leap and start using an AI scribe at your physical therapy practice, consider checking out what Playback Health has to offer. Our ambient listening scribes can help you save time and money when it comes to transcribing notes and assisting the patient’s journey. Spend more time with your patients and less at the computer with the assistance of an ambient medical scribe.