I've been working for ScribeAmerica for the last year and a half. You'll hear a lot of negative opinions about it on this website, but my experience has, overall, been positive.
The pay isn't great, but I scribe full time and I've always been able to cover my bills each month. You'll start out at minimum wage, then get a pay bump to $10/hr when you hit 300 solo hours. After that you can get a raise to $11/hr if you're promoted to trainer. Higher promotions, like Chief Scribe, exist, but require that someone leave before they're available. In a year and a half only one of these positions has opened up at my location, and only within the last few weeks.
The training itself is very "sink or swim." I found that it was a lot easier for me than for other scribes since I had already finished my degree when I started working and had taken courses like medical terminology and medical pathophysiology as an undergrad. It'll be rough at first, but once you get the hang of charting you'll be able to do them in your sleep.
Some of the pros:
You'll see a lot and learn a ton. This job has been invaluable for the experience alone. Depending on where you are, you may have a number of different specialties open to you for exposure. My location has contracts in the ED, pediatric emergency, primary care, pulmonology, gastroenterology, cardiology, internal medicine, and geriatrics.
You'll build close relationships with physicians. I have great relationships with several doctors that I work with regularly, and they are more than happy to give you the run down on an interesting case that comes in and write glowing LORs. You'll also be able to put on your med school app that you've worked alongside MDs, DOs, PAs, and NPs.
Flexibility. One of the benefits of working for a large scribe company with a big employee base is that you almost never have to work when you don't want to. It's super easy to take off a week if you need to or make sure you have a night off for some event you want to go to. As long as you're working your minimum required shifts each week, you can almost always ensure that shifts will be fitted around your schedule. Part of the job is that you are GUARANTEED to have time off for MCAT test dates and medical school interviews. It's been a big relief to be eligible for emergency coverage when an interview gets scheduled last minute after the work shifts have already been assigned.
Some of the cons:
If you're like me and are planning to scribe full time after graduation, you'll notice that most of your coworkers treat this like a campus job. You'll get a fairly large quantity of "Please take my shift! I forgot to schedule my self appropriately for my other commitments!" emails. It gets a little annoying. Especially around exam and holiday times.
Disorganized management. Your managers only make a dollar or two more per hour than you do. And it shows sometimes. There will be times when you get frustrated by chief scribes or your regional manager not doing things in a timely fashion or making mistakes that inconvenience you.
No PTO and poor benefits. If I was doing this as a career this would be a deal breaker, but since I'm only doing it temporarily as a way to get experience and pay the bills until I go to medical school, I can put up with it. On the one hand, it sucks that if you take a 1 week vacation you just don't get paid, but also means that taking off a week or weekend is really easy and there's no hard limit. The benefits are minimal, but not much of an issue if you are able to stay on your parents' (or spouse's) insurance.
