How Cardiology Practices Can Reduce Administrative Burden?

In the already complex healthcare landscape, cardiologists are perhaps at the greatest risk of burnout. The complexity of this medical specialty, the lack of cardiologists across the country, and the high prevalence of cardiac diseases and disorders increase the workload of heart specialists. On top of that, they must undertake administrative duties like medical billing. 

Administrative stress impacts the personal health of cardiologists, leading to a decline in the quality of patient care. It serves as a main factor contributing to cardiologists’ burnout. According to an American College of Cardiology study, burnout symptoms are present in roughly 26.8% of 2,274 cardiologists.

In this blog, we will discuss the impact of administrative burden on cardiologists’ well-being and what measures you can take to reduce physician burnout.

Administrative Burden

Let us first examine the nature of the administrative burden on cardiologists before delving into its consequences. The administrative burden is the time and effort that cardiologists devote to administrative clinical support tasks that disrupt their core job of providing direct patient care. 

According to one research, doctors spend twice as much time on paperwork as on patient care. Because they are overburdened with essential duties like documentation, billing, coding, and managing electronic health records (EHRs), this imbalance lowers the quality of patient care they can provide. 

Physician Burnout

Physician burnout is a growing problem in the medical industry. Although there are other contributing factors, research has found that administrative burden is the most frequently mentioned cause of physician burnout. According to a research by Medscape, burnout affected 47% of physicians, and 60% reported “an overload of bureaucratic tasks, such as charting and paperwork” as the main reason for burnout. 

Similarly, the added responsibility of completing administrative tasks puts an emotional and mental strain on cardiologists, which increases the chances of lost efficiency and productivity at work.  

Many cardiologists realized they were spending more time on the weekends and nights to finish paperwork. Additionally, this imbalance is the cause of other problems that have arisen, such as mental health concerns, a decline in job satisfaction, and a high turnover at hospitals and group practices. 

Staffing Shortages

The US healthcare sector is going through a severe shortage of doctors in every field. According to a survey by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), by 2033, there will be a shortfall of between 54,100 and 139,000 doctors in the US.

The underlying reason behind this shortage is “burnout” because employees are overworked due to the increasing demand and are leaving the profession. Cardiologists are expected to handle duties like encounter prep and patient intake. These tasks often consume a significant portion of the day, reducing the time available for appointments and frequently resulting in less time spent with each patient.

However, the additional cause of the staffing shortage is the failure to educate and train enough cardiologists and nurses to fulfill the rise in demand. Patients have fewer options, which puts pressure on the working physicians, jeopardizing their health and reducing the quality of care provided to each patient. 

Staff shortages are also a result of comparatively low income, demanding work, and training requirements of various healthcare professions, such as certified nursing assistants and registered nurse anesthetists. 

Handling EHR Systems

Although EHR was typically introduced to reduce work burdens for clinical and administrative support staff, most clinicians reported that EHR use increased their work burdens, primarily by increasing the effort required to maintain adequate clinical documentation. EHR systems are frequently unwieldy, challenging to use, and time-consuming for data entry. 

In addition to being at risk for burnout, cardiologists who spend a lot of time engaging with EHRs each day may also lose time. According to time-allocation research, doctors only spend 27% of their days caring for patients, whereas they spend 49.2% of their days in the EHR on average. Instead of spending long hours on EHRs, cardiologists should evaluate complicated cases, work with colleagues, or conduct research to further medical knowledge. 

How to Limit the Cardiologists’ Administrative Burden?

The volume of paperwork and administrative responsibilities that physicians must manage is a pressing issue that hinders their ability to provide patients with high-quality care. Cardiology practices need to find ways to reduce their workload. 

There are various automation software that provide a hand to cardiologists in managing administrative tasks. For example, AI automation decreases the time spent on data entry and documentation duties. Natural language processing (NLP) transforms unstructured data into structured formats by analyzing and extracting pertinent information from clinical notes. 

To further maximize efficiency, speech recognition software and transcription services can speed up the dictation and documentation of patient contacts. Automation frees up cardiologists’ time from manual inputs to focus more on providing direct patient care and less on administrative duties. 

On the other hand, telemedicine and telehealth are gaining popularity among healthcare practices. According to the Cleveland Clinic, telehealth helps reduce in-office administrative tasks by 30%. Telehealth covers a range of medical services, such as clinical, administrative, and instructional roles, by automating follow-ups, documentation, and patient intake. 

Outsource Administrative Tasks

Administrative duties demand significant time and resources. It reduces efficiency, promotes physician fatigue, impedes growth, and limits cardiologists’ capacity to concentrate on critical strategic decisions. 

If your cardiology practice does not have sufficient support to handle these tasks, it will eventually burden your physicians or other practice staff, compromising their productivity. To avoid this inefficiency, we advise contracting out administrative tasks to a third party. This third company will look after all your administrative duties, including data entry, paperwork, and cardiology billing services, allowing you to concentrate more on your core competencies. 

Outsourcing can increase productivity by 25%, and 80% of companies worldwide use outsourcing services. You won’t ever have to be concerned about suffering needless financial losses due to mistakes in the medical billing procedure when you have a capable outsourced partner on your side.

Conclusion

Administrative workloads have been rapidly rising, which has led to poor patient interaction and physician fatigue. You can include several solutions, such as AI automation, in your procedures to counter this. 

However, the ideal solution we highly recommend is to outsource medical billing services. It minimizes administrative load and handles billing concerns that call for extra care. This approach promotes flexibility, helping your business expand seamlessly and react swiftly to market demands.