For college students, gaining valuable experience during undergrad that benefits future career aspirations can sometimes be a bit of a catch-22. Students can seek out short term internships or shadowing positions, but many times those experience-rich opportunities don’t offer compensation. Experience is often required to be accepted into graduate school or for many entry-level positions after graduation, but students still need to earn money.
For students or graduates seeking a career in medicine, the choice is a little easier. Working as a Medical Scribe allows you to obtain the clinical experience needed for medical school, while earning a paycheck at the same time.
What do Medical Scribes do?
Medical scribes are trained in medical documentation and assist medical providers (doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners) during their patient rounds. While treating a patient, a medical provider asks a series of questions and receives a large amount of medical information from the patient. Traditionally, the medical provider was tasked with documenting all of this information during the patient visit. But with the assistance of a medical scribe, the medical provider can focus all of their attention and energy on patients, instead of a computer.
Medical scribes bring tremendous value to the hospitals and clinics they work in by relieving the medical provider from some clerical responsibilities. In addition to documenting patient encounters, medical scribes also help out with the task flow of the facility and various other roles such as contacting other medical providers to collect patient information and monitoring labs and imaging results.
Do Medical Scribes Get Paid?
Medical scribes are compensated for their work, though pay may vary slightly depending on the location or company that employs them. In Minnesota, with the EPPA Scribe Program, our scribes start at $10.50/hour during their 2 week training period. After the completion of training, all EPPA Scribes are paid $12.00/hour. Industry standards typically range from local minimum wage to $12-13.00/hour. EPPA scribes may also be eligible for wage increases during their employment. For full time scribes, health benefits and paid time off are also offered.
All medical scribes at EPPA are eligible for overtime, and are also paid during new employee training and ongoing educational lectures. Scribes that excel in their position may be promoted to become trainers of future scribes, which also comes with elevated monetary benefits.
Non-Monetary Rewards of Working as a Medical Scribe
It’s great to get compensated for your work as a medical scribe, but the non-monetary benefits that you will receive will far outweigh your paycheck. Working as a medical scribe is a fast-paced experience where you’re constantly learning new information. The knowledge garnered as a medical scribe pays dividends as your begin you career in medicine.
When applying to medical or graduate school applicants need to impress programs with their education, intelligence, and experience. Your undergraduate G.P.A and test scores are big factors into your admittance in a professional school program, but having clinical work experience is too. If you work as a medical scribe, you’ll have directly relatable clinical experience that is sure to impresses every program you apply to.
Additionally, serving as a medical scribe will help you discover your fields of interest within medicine. As you progress through medical school, you’ll be asked to begin narrowing down your list of potential specialties to pursue. Choosing can seem impossible at first, especially if you have yet to be exposed to entire disciplines of medicine. Serving as a medical scribe allows pre-med students to gain exposure to a number of different disciplines. This exposure could provide students with insight into which fields they want to explore further, and which they know they’re not as interested in.
Apply to Become a Medical Scribe Today
Are you ready to begin your exciting journey as a medical scribe? EPPA is a physician owned and operated company with a Medical Scribe Program that includes 18 different locations throughout the Twin-Cities metro and St. Cloud. Medical scribes that work with us get exposure to emergency medicine, trauma, primary care, oncology, dermatology, orthopedics, and more.
Learn more about working as a medical scribe and let us know if you have any further questions. If you’re ready to apply, discover some of our current job listings.