Frequently Asked Questions

It all depends upon how many people are on our start-up list at the time, but usually, it takes 4-6 weeks to get started.

Nope! Our prices start at $16 per hour, and that’s it!

We charge anywhere from $250 - $500 to set up IT, and there is the cost of the microphone which we use to listen to the encounter which usually costs around $100.

Physicians Angels are the oldest and most trusted Virtual Scribe service. We started in 2007, and continue to lead the market.

We do not use video for our service; we only use audio. Video takes up unnecessary bandwidth and does not provide any additional benefits. Video is intrusive to patients, and if you think about it, you do not want your scribe making decisions on what they think they see; instead, the decision about what should go in the note must be verbalized by the provider.

Our Virtual Scribe Service works for any provider you want in the office.

Physicians Angels offers a Medical Transcription Service -- with 24-hour turn-around time, or less; Insurance Verification; Document management; and other Virtual “back office” services.

Of course, we are! We would not be in business for so long, if we were not. We follow all requirements to ensure we adhere to HIPAA and your unique security protocols.

Our scribes are located at 5 separate office locations that Physicians Angels owns and operates throughout India.

No. Physicians Angels Inc. is privately held and owned by doctors, so we uniquely understand the challenges and opportunities that a medical office provides.

To date, we have not had a data breach. One of the main reasons is that we do not store any data – so there is nothing to steal. We log directly into your EMR via the cloud or server and utilize our HIPAA secure VOIP to listen into the encounter and complete it in real-time.

In a word, YES! Many companies say they provide Virtual Scribe services, but they are not. These “so-called” virtual scribe companies are nothing more than companies using the words Virtual Scribe when all they do is record your encounter (or dictation) and then get your notes back to you in 24-48 hours. This is not Real-Time scribing this is just a Dictation/Transcription company masquerading as a Virtual Scribe Company.

We ask that you purchase a microphone we recommend that costs between $100-$150.

We do not offer a free trial.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes! All you have to do is ask.

Research has not supported this at all. A July 2018 study in The Journal of the American Medical Association, entitled “Analysis of Errors in Dictated Clinical Documents Assisted by Speech Recognition Software and Professional Transcriptionists,” found an error rate of more than 7% in clinical documents charted using speech recognition software. The study concluded that a human touch to edit and review was vital to error-free clinical documentation. In sum, charts completed using speech recognition software tools still require hours of editing and correcting.

Many of Physicians Angels’ Virtual Scribe clients are former users of VR software. Their feedback is consistent: VR tools result in too many errors that providers need to correct later. Plus, a provider still has to manually enter orders, prescriptions, and manage their templates.

A physician is better off in hiring a Virtual Scribe to do the charting in real-time, which results in less documentation errors, better quality charts, and saving much more time in the long run.

Our physicians are burned out with their EMR. They feel like they have paid too much on technology, with no results. So, why should we have to pay more money for a Virtual Scribe?”

As you probably realize, solving IT burn-out with more IT – speech recognition; even more EMR training; improved templates or EMR user interfaces, etc. – will not work. These IT fixes only layer more technology and multitasking on top of a providers’ already busy day.

Moreover, independent research in the past few years, as published by groups like the AMA, show that what is needed is a human touch to input, review, and edit clinical data efficiently and error-free into patient charts. Virtual Scribes provide this for you by serving as trained and certified EMR data managers.

Another way to think about the cost of a Virtual Scribe is as follows: Physicians Angels’ services cost $12-16 per hour. Assume an 8- or 9-hour clinic day. On average then, our Virtual Scribes will cost you $100-$150 per day. Now, asking a provider who earns your clinic $300-400 per hour seeing patients to, instead, chart for 1-2 hours minimum each day will cost you much more – closer to $1,000 per day in lost productivity, plus the costs related to provider burn-out and stress.

So, if you are not paying for a Virtual Scribe, then you are paying with a provider’s time – and risking physician burn-out. So, which is the better deal for your clinic?