Healthcare is evolving: there is a growing need to find less costly staff while offering patients high-quality service. In addition, there are issues of extra space to contend with; therefore, many companies are looking to hire a medical virtual assistant.
What do virtual medical assistants do?
A remote medical assistant can support various healthcare professionals with multiple tasks. These tasks are often clerical and may also involve accounting. The practice owner’s marketing efforts can also be supported. Virtual medical assistant services fall under a broad umbrella. However, even though their skill sets might differ, as do their tasks, remote assistants have one thing in common: they all work remotely, offering services to the selected practice. Below is a breakdown of the critical tasks a medical virtual assistant can accomplish.
Admin tasks
When the medical practice opens, any doctor will acknowledge the need for assistance managing the administrative work. Their core onsite staff member may start to manage the billing; later, someone may need to help this employee with further daily admin tasks. Hiring another staff member can be a problem – besides the lack of space, the costs of a recruit can be high. However, a virtual assistant can help with these administrative tasks at a price you can easily afford.
The various administrative tasks
These will include the recording of new patients and also referrals. Then there is:
- In other words, an appointment setting involves managing the scheduling, dealing with cancellations, and sending out reminders to patients.
- Calendar management — The assistant will create a schedule that reflects patients’ appointments and notes other obligations, such as acts or meetings. The assistant can organize the patient files in your database.
- With supply management, the assistant can track supplies and order additional stock when needed.
- Medical coding and billing are tasks for the assistant. The assistant will also perform patient follow-ups as the doctor requests.
- Prescription repeats must be managed.
- Then there is email management — replying to emails to keep the inbox organized.
Remote receptionist
A virtual medical assistant can answer your telephones exactly as an on-site receptionist would. Your virtual medical assistant can deal with issues, take memos for you to reply to at a later stage, and transfer any urgent calls to you. A virtual assistant can work on additional responsibilities between incoming calls.
The benefit of such a system
Here, the benefit is that your phone is always answered. Moreover, having the same person answering the calls provides consistency. Lastly, the assistant can screen your calls so you do not waste time dealing with medical reps. Additionally, the virtual assistant is not limited to answering your phone. The assistant can also attend to clients via email or live chat.
Bookkeeping
A virtual medical assistant can pay bills, dispatch invoices, and manage the payroll. The virtual assistant can also create financial reports to reflect expenses and estimate cash flow.
Technical support
If your need is more technical, you can consider hiring a tech-savvy virtual assistant. Such a specialist can offer you much-needed technical support. They can also set up your medical software and train the staff to use it correctly.
Marketing
To grow a practice rapidly, you must get the word out pronto – hence the need for marketing. This might include specific marketing tools like a user-friendly website and social media accounts. In addition, you should be sourcing some good reviews that can be posted on the web. You might also want to include a paid ad campaign on both Google and Facebook to reach your target audience.
The Bottom Line: The Medical Virtual Assistant
A new medical practice takes several years to become established. It can take up to six long years. However, you could dramatically speed up this process. Just as start-ups scale up, so can you. The secret is that many entrepreneurs are using virtual assistants. However, you cannot hire a regular virtual administrative assistant in the medical field – you will need a specialized virtual medical assistant. Such virtual assistants will provide you with the most appropriate support.