Dear Valued Partner
The spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) is impacting countless individuals, businesses, financial markets, health systems and, increasingly, our daily routines. During this time of uncertainty, we want to assure you that ScribeAmerica remains focused on protecting the health of our people while ensuring that we continue to strive to provide full service to our partners.
We are taking all necessary and reasonable steps to provide uninterrupted service to you as we collectively navigate this dynamic situation. We have prioritized above all else protecting the health of our 25,000+ scribes and managers across the United States, Canada and Australia. Our IT infrastructure and growing Telehealth platform allows us to provide seamless delivery of services on a remote basis, and we are working to enhance our already robust information security and cyber-security systems.
As we support our evolving healthcare partners’ needs, we recognize that we have a social responsibility to keep our people healthy but at the same time assist you to navigate COVID-19 amid an already strained healthcare system. To that end, here are some ways our partner health systems are making the most of their scribes:
- First, freeing your providers from administrative tasks so they can remain alert, focused, and work top of license as their workloads increase
- Improving system capacity by coordinating patient flow in conjunction with triage staff
- Alerting providers of COVID-19 Coding Guidelines from CMS to ensure appropriate billing and coding for all patients in the aftermath of the pandemic
- Assisting support staff with the monitoring and protection of supplies in the clinic or emergency department
Our staff is flexible and eager to help with the preparation and deployment of your emergency preparedness plans. While school closures have impacted availability of scribes in some areas, we are finding a larger number of students eager to open their schedules and work overtime to assist to your doctors and nurses.
We greatly appreciate the response of our partner health systems in providing our scribes with the appropriate PPE and treating them as valued members of the care team. The scribes have been advised not to enter the rooms of patients with respiratory symptoms and risk factors for COVID-19 unless PPE is available, but will be ready to take dictation from providers outside the room. Our goal in this directive is to protect the health of our scribes with minimal impact to workflow, and also to decrease the number quarantines, so we can continue to support your staff long-term.
Please let us know how our staff can help, and we will continue to keep you informed of any impact COVID-19 may have on the staffing and scheduling of scribes in your facility.
Within ScribeAmerica, we are, among other actions, prohibiting all non-essential business travel, holding meetings by videoconference whenever possible, postponing certain meetings and events, and asking members of our ScribeAmerica family to take whatever additional cautionary measures they need to maintain their health. We want our team to be safe but available to serve your needs whenever those needs arise.
We appreciate your trust and partnership as we navigate these unprecedented times together.
— The ScribeAmerica Executive Team