A medical scribe handles clinical documentation so physicians don’t have to, capturing visit notes in the EHR in real time. A virtual medical scribe does the same job remotely, under HIPAA-compliant processes.
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A medical scribe is a trained documentation specialist who records the details of a patient encounter in real time, entering notes, histories, and orders into the electronic health record (EHR) on the provider’s behalf. Practices short on documentation help often hire a virtual medical scribe to get notes done without adding a body to the office.
What Are a Medical Scribe’s Duties?
A medical scribe documents the patient visit so the physician doesn’t have to. During or right after the encounter, the scribe writes up the clinical note, records the history and exam findings, updates the chart, and enters orders and referrals into the EHR. The physician reviews and signs. That review is the accuracy check, so the note isn’t final until the physician has read it and signed off.
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Why Hire a Medical Scribe?
In short, a scribe helps claw back time for smaller practices that would normally be spent on charting and documenting work.
The average physician works about 57.8 hours a week, and roughly 1 in 5 spend more than 8 hours a week finishing notes after clinic hours, the “pajama-time charting” that eats into evenings (American Medical Association, 2024). That load is a contributor to a physician burnout rate that sat at 43.2% in 2024, still high even after coming down from its pandemic peak.
What’s the Difference Between an In-Person and Virtual Medical Scribe?
An in-person scribe is physically in the exam room; a virtual medical scribe does the same work from offsite, listening through a secure connection and writing into your EHR in real time, or working from the visit recording right after.
For a small practice, a remote medical scribe is usually the easier model. You’re not finding desk space or adding another body to the office.
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How Do Practices Hire a Medical Scribe?
Most practices pick one of three routes: an in-house employee, a freelancer, or a managed scribe service. An in-house scribe works on your payroll and in your office, so you handle the hiring, training, and desk space. A freelancer is flexible and can work remotely, but vetting, backup coverage, and HIPAA paperwork all fall on you.
A managed service handles the vetting, training, and replacements, so you work with a dedicated scribe without running the process yourself. Whichever route you take, the scribe should sign a BAA before seeing a chart.
Is a Virtual Medical Scribe HIPAA Compliant?
A scribe handles protected health information (PHI) constantly, so any medical scribe service you use should be HIPAA compliant and should sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) before touching a single chart. A BAA is the contract that makes a scribe service responsible for protecting your patients’ information, so ask for it before anything else. If a service hesitates to provide one, that answers the question.
Past that, independent certifications signify a medical scribe service that cares about security in general beyond just acting within the law. Look for ISO 27001 or SOC 2 Type I or II. ISO 27001 compliance covers information security, and SOC 2 certification covers how an outside provider handles sensitive data.
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How Does a Virtual Medical Scribe Compare to an AI Scribe?
An AI scribe hands you a draft you still have to read and correct, while a human scribe hands you a finished, reviewed note and catches what a model misses. In clinical documentation, a wrong note isn’t a typo, it’s a record. Which option fits depends on your specialty, your volume, and how much editing you’re willing to do after hours. That comparison deserves its own breakdown, and a dedicated post covering it is on the way.
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Hire a Virtual Medical Scribe With Wing
Wing matches your practice with a dedicated virtual medical scribe, trained in AI tools and matched to your specialty and EHR, who documents your visits and has your notes done before you leave the office. The notes were done before you got home. Pricing starts at $1,099/month part-time (80 hours) and $1,799/month full-time (160 hours).
Wing’s medical scribes work under a signed BAA, and Wing is HIPAA compliant, ISO 27001 compliant, and SOC 2 certified. For a practice trusting an outside person with patient records, that’s the difference between a documentation partner who takes PHI seriously and one who’s hoping you don’t ask.
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Frequently Asked Questions
A medical scribe is a trained documentation specialist who records a patient encounter in real time, entering notes, histories, and orders into the EHR on the provider’s behalf. The work happens during or right after the visit, and the provider reviews and signs the final note.
With any scribe, the provider stays responsible for the final note, so the physician should review and sign it before it becomes part of the record. At Wing, that review sits alongside quality control and supervision, and every account comes with a Customer Success Manager.
Any scribe service handles patient information constantly, so it should be HIPAA compliant and sign a BAA before touching a chart. Wing’s medical scribes work under a signed BAA, and Wing is HIPAA compliant, ISO 27001 compliant, and SOC 2 certified.
Costs vary by model and hours. Wing’s virtual medical scribe pricing starts at $1,099/month part-time (80 hours) and $1,799/month full-time (160 hours).
