Benefits of AI Medical Scribes for Podiatrists

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Hi. I'm Tyson Franklin, and welcome back to this week's episode of the podiatry marketing podcast. With me, as usual, is my cohost and friend, Big Jim Mac. How are doing today, Jim?

Things are going great, Tyson. No complaints here.

No complaints. Nothing at all. Okay. That's good. I was just thinking with the being big Jim, I reckon you're you're gonna become one of the one a world famous Jim.

It's not a lot of them.

Not a lot of gyms. There's so many gyms in the world. Hey. What are you talking about?

Give me five. Give me five famous gyms.

Jim Abbott, Jimmy Carter. Who else is there?

Okay. Who's Jim Abbott?

He's a pitcher for the California Angel Anaheim Angels. He is a guy that had one arm Yeah.

Okay.

Or one hand. Not well Jim Tome, Jim Harbaugh, Jim there's a lot. I mean, that's just a few gyms.

Out of that list, Jimmy Carter is the only one that I've heard of. I know there's some sport

athletes there. Jimmy cricket, true. Jimmy Crackcorn, Jimmy Mac

Oh, yeah.

From the Jimmy Buffett. Okay. About all I got.

See, now now you're talking about ones that were Jimmy see, you're up there with Jiminy cricket, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Bucket.

Oh, it makes me feel good.

Yeah. It makes me feel good. Yeah. And then we have big Jim Mac. There we go.

Okay. So so famous Jim. What what are we talking about today?

So a while back we started like kind of a general conversation, had a little bit of a talk about AI. And we kind of talked about all the different things that you know, there's a lot of hype about it, obviously even still, know, you chat GPT, you've got Facebook releasing their own llama AI. There's all kinds of different AI products out there, Perplexity, just a lot of different ones. And, you you know, the first show, we kinda talked about some generalities about some different potential use cases that you could use AI in the clinic, you know, whether it be writing some, you know, preliminary parts of your blog posts or your website content. And we kind of talked about those, but today I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into probably the use case that's most useful right now or is most kind of modern enough for people to utilize in their practice, and that's the use of AI medical scribes in your clinical office when you're you're seeing patients.

Yeah. That's that is becoming really popular. And the last time we got here with a group of people in July when we did the reboot, they a lot of them were talking about that what programs were they using to have running in the background that were recording the conversation. But I also do exactly the same thing when I'm on Zoom and I'm doing a coaching call with a client. We'll have AI in the background, and it gives us a summary at the end, takes notes.

It's it's amazing what it can do. And even after a few months of using it, I can notice how more accurate it's becoming.

No. It's becoming amazingly accurate. You know, it's over the last even the last year, just the kind of the different models that in updates that have been released really, know, whether it's voice to text or, you know, especially in the case of these AI scribes where, you know, there's a little sometimes there's little mistakes here and there. But I would say, you know, from my experience, it's some of the software I'm using, you know, it's upwards of like 90 to 98 maybe effective as far as getting the exact words that I said. And there's different ways to train them on different medical terminology.

But like you mentioned, there's a couple of different ways that people can introduce this into their clinic. You know, the most common way is sometimes it's a an extension in the web browser that basically you know, you just obviously notifying the patient you know, before they come to the clinic or even when they're in the room that you're gonna be you're kind of recording this this kind of interaction you're having is gonna help you take more accurate notes and help better diagnose them and kind of create a more accurate medical record. But you know, it's it can be that or sometimes people are using you know, maybe like an an iPad or a a mobile phone that has an app in it where basically it's gonna record all that, transcribe that entire encounter, and you can then copy paste it into your medical record if it doesn't have an integration already built in. So that's that's the kind of gist about what we're talking about here for those folks that, you know, are totally new to the AI kind of metals Medical Scribe idea, but we'll get into a little bit later about what the benefits are.

But you know I've heard a couple different names being thrown around, the ones that I'm most familiar with are is something called Heidi AI and there's also one called Nabla that I'm aware of that are kind of popular these days. There's a lot of other ones out there, you know, I don't really have any relationship with either any of these these softwares currently, but that that's those those are kind of the two popular ones. Were there any specific types you were hearing about Tyson from the people you talked with?

They weren't they hardly came up. There were a couple hours, can't remember what the names were now, because it was so long ago. Sure. That but I keep seeing ones popping up on Facebook that other people are developing. But I think the interesting part we said just before, when you've gotta let the patient know that this is actually happening.

Yeah. You can't have it happening, I think, without telling a patient that this thing is recording. And because some patients might say, no. I prefer you didn't because they they might go, okay. They might be with the notes, but what other conversations are actually happening that they don't want recorded?

And this happened to me the other night. I had I was messing around with Zoom and I've got it set up so the AI automatically records. I forgot that I had Zoom on, and then I went in the kitchen. I was talking to my wife because I had my laptop there. Then I came back and went, oh, it's good to turn Zoom off.

I turned it off, and then a couple of minutes later, I get an email, and here was an overview of the conversation I just had with my wife. And I went, oh, I I can see where there could be problems with patients, which is why it's important to let patients know that it's there, what's happening.

I think it's all it's also to let them know that, like, you know, why you're saying you're gonna be obviously, it'll kind of structure the conversation you have with the patient a little bit more, you know, a little bit differently when you're going through the physical exam and you're saying things. So you just need to kinda, like, you know, if you're checking pedal pulses, right, instead of writing it down, you're gonna be maybe speaking it. So there's just some different things. It's gonna be maybe a little bit different type of an encounter than they've had before. So giving them, you know, kind of a fair warning and just a heads up is, you know, and getting their permission is definitely really really important.

Yeah. I suppose we want those things too. You'd say the patient, I'm recording this on AI. So as you're doing your evaluation, you're talking so AI can record it asking the patient specific questions. But if you were doing routine full care, once you're down into the conversation, you could probably turn that off because you don't need to hear the latest recipe that was in women's day or whatever whatever is happening with the grandchildren.

It's totally irrelevant to the treatment that you did. And then turn it back on again if you need to have any closing notes that's required for the file.

Yeah. There's definitely different options like that.

Where should people get more information or what what should they start doing first?

Yeah. So like just kinda going over we'll talk a little bit about the benefits now. We kinda talked about, you know, how that kind of the workflow happens. Obviously, like I said, you kind of record the encounter and then you're able to kind of copy paste it into your patient record. Obviously, you make that your final record, you'll want to scan the document like we talked about in the past.

You know, these these are not fully fledged yet where they can just do everything perfectly, so you wanna make sure that you are the editor and editing that document before it goes into the medical record permanently. So but then you know we'll talk a little bit about the benefits. So the first benefit I would say you know it can really increase your efficiency and your productivity. A lot of folks you know, either they had a bad experience previously with different transcription services. You know, there was Dragon was kind of a very popular one for a period of time that

was Oh, yeah.

A bit a bit clunky. You know, maybe you're now you're transcribing like, you know, on a recording and then you have a person that's doing the transcription for you either in your office or outside your office that can get, you know, very expensive. But, you know, the time savings by having that AI transcribe it in real time is that by the time the patient is leaving the office is that you know, it's our your note is prime you know, once you do that review of it, it's done, it's in the record and it's not something that's you know, I remember when I was in practice and you would see that stack of charts at the end of the day and it would be kind of this dread of like, yeah you took notes during it but you had all the like final notes to dictate at the end of the day and you know there's some people that are even dictating notes you know on the weekends. I hear that from some people that are in practice and that just kind of blows my mind that it be you know forty eight or seventy two hours after they've seen a patient they're trying to dictate an accurate note.

So you know really can streamline that workflow by having that automatic transcription that allows you to focus more on your patient care as well. Like I said there might be a little bit different as far as what you're talking to about the patient, you can obviously turn it off and become something more personal, but you know you're you don't have to worry about as much, you can spend other time doing administrative tasks you know tasks and improving the overall kind of efficiency of your clinic by getting that note done kind of at that time instead of putting it off until later.

Oh, I can really see how it speeds the process up. Because like you said, it's recording everything. All you've gotta do is just review it. And and then from there, once you've got that accurate information, like you said, it becomes part of the permanent file that you can then draw upon for anything else later.

No. Absolutely. Like and that kinda leads into the next one and when you have that that record that was transcribed in real time is that you have that enhanced accuracy and consistency. You want to reduce errors right? Like we don't want to have medical errors, you don't want to have documentation errors and by having that in real time and by doing it when the patient is still in the room and then maybe reviewing it right after they leave, it's fresh in your mind, you're gonna be you're never gonna be more accurate than you know when the patient is in the room or right when they've left.

And just from that that perspective you're gonna reduce medical errors and just be more consistent and it's gonna kinda help you standardize, you know, by by utilizing these tools, you can kind of standardize your records. It can be uniform across and you know, when you can be more standardized, especially in the litigious environment of The United States, you know, when you when there's high standards and consistency and if, you know, lawyers have to or any kind of legal entity reviews your chart, maybe it's insurances reviewing your chart, you have these detailed highly accurate notes, it makes you less likely to kinda run into potential issues whether it be legally or from a malpractice perspective in the future.

Yeah. And and like I mentioned earlier on too, even with Zoom, the more that I'm using it, it's I think it's starting to work me out, and it's it's becoming more accurate as I go. So I assume even this the accuracy and consistency, the more you use the program, the more you make changes to some some of the errors that have made. It it should be learning as it goes and getting better each time.

No. Absolutely. That's a great point. A lot of these, you know, along with AI, there's kinda something called machine learning and it's like you said, if you have made the same, you know, correction, you know, if you see an AI error, you know, in the transcription, the more times you do it, the the software should be smart enough. So you wanna make sure using a vendor where, you know, when you ask them, like, hey.

If it will I keep seeing the same errors or mistakes? Or do you have some software in there that's actually making it function better and learn, you know, the things I like to say so I don't have to keep deleting or rewriting that that word or sentence? That's definitely something worth sussing out with some of these different vendors.

Yeah. I remember I think first few times I used AI with anything, you would have sworn the thing was on crack. It just yeah. Yeah. Obviously, we did have that conversation, but what you heard and what we said, we could do completely different things.

And this is going back some time ago, but now, just recently, a bit of summary of one of their calls. And I read through it and I went, that it was so accurate with what we spoke about and who is going to do what that and then and then sometimes we joke around because, yeah, you say things that you probably shouldn't say. You make a comment about an American president, ex president, and you sort of wanna, oh, I I hope hope AI isn't sharing this with anyone else.

No. That's funny. I think another type of software that I've seen a huge growth in that as well, and maybe it's somewhat AI related, is things like Google Google Translate. So me being Yeah. A American English speaker in a French Canadian province, you know, ten years ago when I was trying to use Google Translate to talk to people in French, you know, through text messaging or through Internet, you know, messaging, People used to kind of chuckle and laugh and they could pick it out right away and say, hey Jim, you must be utilizing kind of a Google Translate or something because some of the the things you're telling me is really kind of funny because it wasn't, you know, the words might have been similar to what I was trying to say but you know, I didn't dig myself into too much trouble utilizing it.

You know, now for example my I use some either Apple or Google Translate and my mother-in-law thinks I'm fully fluent in written French because my French is so good. She hasn't really caught on to the fact that I'm still utilizing some of these AI and translation tools to appear to be better than I am when it comes to my French writing. But yeah. These these tools are evolving over time and you wanna make sure that when you do spend some money on a vendor that that they are gonna kind of adapt and evolve over time to really give you as accurate information in your patient record as possible.

Yeah. And it's like anything. If if nobody's used this before, it's something you you have to use it to get better at it. Yeah. If you're sitting there thinking, oh, I just wanna learn a lot more about it before I actually introduce it.

I think you have to introduce it. You've gotta use it to get better. It's no different to any other program or anything you're doing. Nothing beats the hands on doing it, making mistakes, learning from it, and you're learning as well as it's learning at the same time.

No. Absolutely. And I think a lot of these different softwares will have, you know, some free trials and stuff. So maybe it's, you know, during your lunch break, if you wanna kind of have a mock patient and kinda try some of these things out to see how accurate it is. I know things like Heidi AI, like they have some free stuff that you can you have some free trials you can and do things like that.

So definitely is definitely worth checking out. I would say the third benefit kind of moving along is that this can really lead to kind of improved patient communication and care. When you have this kind of detailed accurate transcriptions, you know, there's there's gonna be less miscommunication between the conversation you had with the patient, whether it be what you told them their diagnosis was or what the treatment plan was. Also since it is kind of being made in real time if they call back fifteen minutes later because they forgot something about what you said, it'll all be there you know once you reviewed it and put it into the medical record that your staff can have stuff that's almost more real time to provide them better information, better kind of medical advice over the the phone or through text message these days. So it is really really important and you know it can improve patient engagement because when you have clear and comprehensive records, it's gonna help you know educate your patients about their conditions like I said, it's gonna it's gonna make them feel, more trustworthy of you when you're really accurately having these notes to kind of reference not only during this visit but in future visits as well when you have these super detailed accurate notes and you glance at them before you go walk into that treatment room, it's gonna build more rapport and your patients will kind of know that you care and you're not just kind of running in spending five minutes reading through it.

You're gonna appear to be more prepared and you will be more prepared to address their concerns or whatever their you know issues they're having or if they're showing improvement, you can kind of relay, you know, what things were like at that last visit.

Yeah. Especially like the documentation side of things, because I think every podiatrist would have had at some stage in the career when a podiatrist when a patient says to them, oh, but you told me this. Yeah. We both

have there.

Said that because that would be wrong. And they go, oh, no. But that's exactly what you told me. I go, I wouldn't have told you that because that would be wrong. But, hey, let's go back and have a look because it will be an accurate documentation of of the conversation that took place.

And and even though you, yeah, you could edit out something if you had said the wrong thing, but I think it would make patients realize too that they know things are being recorded and documented really well. They're not gonna try and pull the wall over your eyes and say, oh, you told me this when they probably know they know deep down that you didn't tell them that, but they're trying to make an excuse for maybe not following the right treatment.

No. Think that's a great point, and you know, we don't we don't have those patients all the time, but there are those patients that come in that are

like Oh, yeah.

Remember in practice having that, and yeah, when it's when it's clear that this is a you know, recorded you know, interaction, there is a level of you know safety and protection that provides not only the patient but also the provider where it's kind of a level it kind of levels the playing field a little bit in a way that you know can lead to you know good faith interactions and good faith communication between both the doctor and the patient.

Yeah. Well, know, but I've had a conversation with people. It might just be say, even on a podcast. And somebody will listen to the podcast go, oh, you know, on the podcast when you said this, this, and this, and I can't remember saying it. But I won't argue with them over it.

I'll go, oh, well, if you're saying that's what I said, I know I can go back and listen to it to find out if that's exactly what I said. So I won't because sometimes you don't always say the right thing. You might have meant something else when you but you said the wrong thing. Yeah.

In the moment. Yeah.

Yeah. In the moment, you say something and all of a sudden you realize, remember, we've been talking about something once, and our facts were completely wrong. It was bears. Was it certain bears?

Remember we were talking about Running zigzags.

Running in Yeah. With bears. And you were, like, adamant that that was right. But you can get back to the recording. We can figure out where that conversation took place.

This is where I think this type of stuff with documenting, it it actually keeps you in check as well. Think as a podiatrist Yeah. You have to you can't bullshit. You can't just make stuff up because it sounds good, because it's being recorded, it's being documented. So I think it it elevates communication in both ways and the information that's being shared.

Yeah. I think it lead to process improvements like you're talking about that. Right? Like if you did, you know, do something not catastrophic or it is something that like, you know, there was a miscommunication, go back to that and say, hey. You're right.

I was wrong. So that those miscommunications can happen. You know, I'm I'm sure 999999 of the information we provide here is accurate, but occasionally a zigzagging bear tactic will kind of fall through the cracks. Yeah. We apologize.

If if, you know, if their person If you were eating. Was listening. Yeah. Because if they were eating, we apologize, but you're not around to to get back at us.

So Yeah. We apologize. So what about cost savings? That They'd have to save a lot of since it's saving time, time is money. So there's gotta be some cost savings to this.

Yeah. So what I found is that a lot of these softwares are really, inexpensive, whether it's a standalone software or it's something that's baked into an EMR or integrated into an EMR, these are not these are very inexpensive. AI is not that expensive. Like ChatGPT for example, the pro version

They are cheap, aren't they?

$20 a month. Right? But obviously utilizing something that has HIPAA compliance, compliance whether it be a like I said a Heidi or an Abla or one of these other HIPAA compliant AI scribes is really really important to utilize but it can save a significant amount of money, know, there's no longer kind of a human in the link you know obviously like I said you know maybe you have a transcription person in your office or maybe you're outsourcing it to a transcription service or maybe you've utilized kind of expensive transcription software in the past that you weren't really happy with. There can be some significant cost savings, you know, whether it be a reduced administrative cost within your office or, know, you can utilize you can be more efficient and resource the allocation, you know, people to do other stuff in the office besides doing transcriptions or you know having to track down you know medical records or you know get on your case because you didn't transcribe that thing yesterday that the patient's calling back about you know the prescription or the amount of the prescription or some type of treatment you provided so it's really really important that allows you to kind of redirect your efforts towards enhancing patient care and other kind of areas that are critical to the clinic's operations as opposed to something like transcription.

Like I said previously you know, you want to be the editor, know, there is could be significant cost savings here, but you also want to make sure that it's not like I said, it's not fully baked yet, it's still it's the software is getting better all the time, but you can save a significant amount of money by switching to more of an AI based medical scribe for your clinic.

And I suppose the difference too with these AI programs compared to say ChatGTP, is drawing information from the Internet. So it's making stuff up sometimes. Whereas these Exactly. AI programs are really only documented what is being said in the room.

Yeah. And there's also based on like certain medical models as opposed to like ChatGPT is trained on like everything in the world, but these medical models are much more strictly focused on, you know, having better knowledge about treatment pro you know, treatment protocols or words or medical terminology as opposed to like the billions of other things that are out there in the world.

Yeah. And what about security, compliance

Yeah. So that's really important

all this.

Yeah. That's a really important component like making sure that whatever software you're utilizing is HIPAA compliant. But you know, when it comes to, you know, storage, obviously, a lot of people are using a lot of electronic medical records. So, you know, I've also heard of people using like actual like scribes like in The Philippines or something where they have, you know, a cell phone where there there's a third third party, a human that's transcribing the interaction, you know, kind of and by having that kind of open line or that information going somewhere else outside of the clinic, yeah there might be a HIPAA contract in place but you know there are some concerns if it if it leaves the office that you know this data could be used in ways and we've seen whether whether it's on purpose or by someone getting hacked, you know large corporations these days are getting hacked and giving away you know millions of pieces of kind of personal information. And by having an AI system keep that is local that's not sharing things across the internet and just copy paste it into the medical record, you're better able to keep your patient's data and medical records safe.

So like I said these tools can help clinics really stay compliant with healthcare regulations like HIPAA in The US ensuring that your patient information is handled properly and the maximum amount of safety is considered instead of, like I said, different ways where different transcription services might, you know, kind of increase the amount of risk that your patients have or you have by utilizing different, you know, non local internet based transcription or phone based transcription services that could get hacked or the information could be stolen from.

Yeah. I think the security side of things super important. And I think it's also whatever your security protocol is, I think it's important that you share that with your patient too. Give the patient confidence that you're not just using this program and not thinking about repercussions of what could go wrong. You've already thought this all through.

You know their information's safe. They know the information's safe because, yeah, everyone gets concerned about, you know, people hacking computers and hacking other stuff. So I think if as long as you share the information with the patients as well that you've given this thought, it's very safe, everything's secure, I think that'll give them peace of mind as well.

Absolutely. Having that conversation is critical to like building trust, and I think these are things these AI medical scribes are gonna get more and more prevalent. So it's kind of a trend that I don't think it's gonna go away. It feels like something that has kind of product market fit as you say. And, you know, by kind of, you know, kind of testing out a few of these different forms of AI medical scribes could be beneficial to your clinic.

I highly recommend that anyone that's listened this far in the podcast, know, trying some of these different ones. I definitely I might add a referral link to Heidi in in kind of the show notes of this podcast just for a complete, you know, disclosure. They would give a small basically, small finder's fee if you sign up through our our code and this would maybe help Tyson and I continue to run the podcast and continue to bring you episodes, but you know look for the little promo code that will be in the show notes here but I think it's definitely a topic that's like I said not going away, it's only getting bigger so the sooner people can kind of understand how to use these tools the better and if you have questions about them or like I said, I do have that referral code but I'm not employed by any of these haven't received large sums of money from any of these software companies and I don't think Tyson has either unless he's got something to disclose, but definitely try them out and see if they could be a benefit to you and your patients.

No, so you're not gonna be picking me up in your private jet Jim.

Not anytime soon. Not anytime soon.

No. But I do think it's like you go back ten years ago when people were talking about online bookings. And a few people were doing it, a few weren't, and now that's just the norm. And I think using AI with the ascribing notes, some people are doing it, some aren't. I think ten years time, it will just become the norm.

It will just be normal. Absolutely. Which which program we're all using, it may may not have even been developed yet. There'll be something that podiatrists around the world will be using. And I know there's some smaller ones like in Australia that are starting, but that are from some other companies that I just wouldn't touch them yet until they've been around a little bit longer.

Absolutely. Just my okay, Jim. Nothing else to say on this or you're you're done?

No. I think we're good for the week, Tyson.

Okay. So I look forward to talking to you next week.

Sounds great.

Okay. See you. Bye now.

Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDonnell. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.