Ask a physician what they'd change about their workday, and documentation comes up almost immediately. Not the complexity of a difficult case. Not the uncertainty of a challenging diagnosis. The notes.
According to the American Medical Association, physicians spend nearly two hours on administrative tasks for every hour of direct patient care. That ratio has shifted in recent years, but not enough. For many clinicians, charting still bleeds into evenings and weekends.
The documentation problem isn't a skills gap. Physicians know how to write a SOAP note. The problem is volume, repetition, and the structural mismatch between how clinicians think and how EHRs require them to document.
The administrative burden is a patient care problem too
When documentation takes over, something else gives. Physicians report spending more of each encounter managing a keyboard than making eye contact. The note becomes the primary output of the visit rather than a record of it.
Research published in JAMA Network Open found that after 30 days of using an AI scribe, the proportion of physicians experiencing burnout dropped from 51.9% to 38.8%. That's not a marginal improvement. It reflects what happens when a meaningful portion of cognitive load gets redistributed.
Why this moment is different
AI documentation tools have existed in various forms for years. What's changed is accuracy, portability, and fit. Earlier tools required rigid templates or generated output that needed more editing than it saved. Doximity Scribe takes a different approach: it listens in the background during a patient visit, captures the clinical conversation, and generates a structured note automatically. There's no extra software to install, no hardware to set up, and it works on the same phone and desktop most clinicians already use. Scribe is free for all verified U.S. physicians, NPs, PAs, and medical students with a Doximity account. Comparable tools can cost hundreds of dollars per user per month. Doximity's position is that tools this useful shouldn't require a budget negotiation to access.
Where to start
If you haven't used Scribe yet, the best first step is one straightforward follow-up encounter. Generate the note, read it against what you remember from the visit, and notice what landed and what you'd change. Most physicians find the first note is closer than they expected. From there, Scribe improves as you work with it. The gap between its draft and the note you'd write yourself closes quickly. It also integrates directly with Doximity Dialer, so if you're already using Dialer for virtual visits, documentation is already in the same place.
