ScribeAmerica Failed to Pay Medical Scribes for Off-the-Clock Training, Class Action Claims

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ScribeAmerica faces a proposed class and collective action in which a former medical scribe claims she and other similarly situated employees were unlawfully required to complete unpaid, off-the-clock work as part of their training.

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The 17-page case says ScribeAmerica provides medical scribes to hospitals and medical practices but first requires these hourly, non-exempt employees to complete a four- to six-week training program that involves 15-20 hours of classroom instruction, a comprehensive final exam and five days of live clinical training. Although ScribeAmerica paid medical scribes an hourly rate of $10 for the time spent in live classroom training sessions, the plaintiff claims she and other medical scribes were not compensated for the 10-20 hours they spent each week studying or completing assignments outside of class.

According to the complaint, ScribeAmerica “knowingly” failed to pay its workers in accordance with state and federal labor laws. In fact, the suit alleges the company “intentionally recruits and markets itself to college students and aspiring medical students, who are used to extensive study requirements and are unlikely to challenge ScribeAmerica’s policy of unpaid study time during its training program.”

The plaintiff, a New Hampshire resident who ScribeAmerica employed as a remote medical scribe at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center from March to May 2022, says she was instructed to clock in when classes began and clock out when they ended.

However, the lawsuit says, the minimal hours of paid classroom instruction did not allow the medical scribes enough time to properly learn the required material they needed to know to pass unit quizzes and the comprehensive exam. Rather, medical scribes were required to spend extensive time outside of class reading, reviewing and studying the class materials, the filing states, especially since failure to pass the quizzes could ultimately lead to termination.

Also outside of class, medical scribes were expected to read, watch online videos of mock patient encounters, complete patient encounter notes and take 10 medical speed typing tests per day, the case says. Per the suit, the typing tests had to be submitted with 100-percent accuracy and took between 20 to 90 minutes to complete each day.

The lawsuit looks to represent all current or former employees of ScribeAmerica who were employed as medical scribes in the United States and were not paid for all compensable time throughout the company’s training program during the past three years.

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