Documentation tasks still a significant burden for physicians

Despite recent efforts to reduce the documentation burden in medicine — including the "Patients Over Paperwork" initiative and the 2021 changes to the documentation guidelines for E/M services — a large majority of doctors say they’re still spending too much time and effort on documentation.

The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) conducted a survey of health care professionals earlier this year to capture their perceptions about documentation burden. Of the 1,253 responses, 452 were from physicians.

Survey findings

• 75% of physicians said they had not seen a noticeable recent decrease in the time or effort it takes them to complete documentation tasks,
• 83% said they did not believe the amount of time and effort they spent documenting patient care was appropriate,
• 84% said they finish work later than desired or have to do additional work at home because of excessive documentation tasks,
• 81% said the time and effort required to complete documentation tasks impedes patient care,
• 22% said they found it easy to document patient care using their EHR.

The AMIA plans to conduct the "pulse survey" twice each year — in the spring and fall. The deadline to take the next survey is Sept. 26.

For strategies to help address documentation burden, visit the "Coding & EHR Documentation" section of FPM's "Administrative Simplification" topic collection.

Posted on Sept. 11, 2024 by FPM Editors