Gains from Specialization with Medical Scribes: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment

This paper estimates the impact of medical scribes on various measures of physician productivity. Scribes are charting specialists who prepare patient charts in the physician’s stead, potentially creating efficiency gains in productivity via specialization of labor. The scribe industry has grown rapidly in recent years, but relatively little is known about its effects. I use data from a randomized experiment in which scribes were assigned to some, but not all, physician shifts in three emergency rooms over nine months. I find that scribes significantly decrease physician overtime usage and increase the number of relative value units per shift.