In this day and age, many industries hire virtual assistants to provide necessary business and customer support services. However, while it is fairly common to find virtual assistant jobs in the ecommerce industry, not many talks about the benefits of hiring virtual assistants in the medical field.

What Is A Medical Virtual Assistant

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A medical virtual assistant is a remote employee that can provide digital support and services to medical professionals and their patients. A medical virtual assistant, much like any other virtual assistant job, can handle a wide array of tasks and responsibilities. However, their primary objective is to offer support in order to lighten the business workload as well as streamline its processes. 

Unlike the common misconception, there is no medical degree or field experience required in order to become a med VA. However, those with such a background are preferred since there is minimal adjustment or training needed. Luckily, there are numerous online training programs and courses available to become more skilled and knowledgeable about the medical VA position. According to Glassdoor, the average salary for medical virtual assistants in the United States is around $52,300 per year. 

 

What Does A Med Virtual Assistant Do?

In general, virtual assistant jobs cover a wide range of responsibilities. Some deal with simple administrative tasks while others are delegated with even marketing and graphic design projects. But what exactly do medical virtual assistants do? Here are some of the common tasks and responsibilities of medical virtual assistants:

 

Client Appointment Scheduling

Healthcare providers and medical professionals are often swamped with patients. Whether it’s a simple dental check-up, a follow-up appointment, or a major operation, dozens of clients and patients try to get the medical attention that they need as soon as possible. Given the urgency of some patient cases, handling and managing client schedules and appointments can be complex and stressful. 

Medical virtual assistants can take over this responsibility and manage all patients’ appointments and schedules. Doing so allows healthcare providers to focus and be efficient and productive in their day. Aside from this, adding an automated medical appointment scheduler software to your system can significantly improve the clinic’s appointment and scheduling process. 


Data Entry

In the healthcare industry, keeping medical records up to date is crucial in providing quality patient care. Aside from maintaining an organized record and filing system, digitizing patient information and medical records can help in improving the clinic’s files and database. However, it’s not practical to have your medical team spend so much time in order to update their patient’s medical records. A medical virtual assistant can provide data entry services that will ensure all information is correct and updated in a timely manner. 


Customer Service and Support

Some medical professionals still deal with patient or client inquiries on their own. While this is feasible for a relatively smaller client base, attending to all of the client’s needs in and out of office hours can actually be counterproductive.

Medical virtual assistants are well-equipped to handle client concerns and provide the necessary support that they need. This takes the load of mundane client interaction off of your healthcare providers which in turn allows them to focus on providing quality patient care.

Aside from that, virtual assistants are generally trained to accommodate and deal with a variety of client concerns. They are capable of handling different and delicate scenarios such as a demanding client, a scared patient, and the like. 

 

Online Patient Monitoring

In some cases, patients require more than one doctor’s appointment. Whether it’s to follow up with an initial check-up or to keep track of their treatment or recovery. But when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, many lost the privilege of easily coming to the hospital or clinic for their next appointment. 

Fortunately, healthcare and technology have led to the use of online or digital check-ups. People can get access to health care from the comfort of their own homes. While this practice is remarkably helpful, it is important to note that this setup can be difficult and somewhat time-consuming. 

Given that medical professionals meet several patients face-to-face every day, it can be hard to slip in several 10 to 20-minute online consultations in between. Aside from that, it is arguably impractical to have the doctors handle simple patient monitoring tasks.

Hiring a medical virtual assistant can help with this. Healthcare providers can delegate this task to med VAs and have them update patient records, monitor their conditions, take note of notable changes, and report them back to the primary care physician.

 

Insurance Tasks and Bookkeeping

Handling patient insurance paperwork is part of almost every doctor’s visit or consultation. Before anything gets done or anyone gets paid, the clinic should first contact and communicate with their client’s insurance providers. This step is important as it tells the clinic how to properly and adequately charge their patients. While considerably simple, dealing with insurance and other insurance-related task is not easy.

Oftentimes, there is a long waiting time to get a patient’s insurance program verified. Hiring a medical virtual assistant can help avoid this. They can communicate with insurance companies ahead of time as well as prepare, manage, and organize the patient’s invoice for bookkeeping. 

 

Advantages Of Hiring A Medical Virtual Assistant 

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Delegating tasks to a virtual assistant can significantly help ease the burden and workload in any business. But in what other ways can companies benefit from adding a medical virtual assistant to their team?

 

Increase productivity

Providing quality healthcare is more than just meeting patients and offering a prescription. Medical professionals also do a lot of paperwork that can often be unnecessarily time-consuming. Having a medical virtual assistant can provide your team with the help and support they need with their current workload. In turn, doctors spending less time updating records in front of the computer means that they would have more time to meet more patients and provide them with the care that they need.

 

Prevent employee burnout

Considering the general atmosphere of urgency, fear, and panic in hospitals, it’s easy for medical professionals to be overcomed by stress. Add to this the long working hours and high-pressure work environment, and having a medical virtual assistant ready to help and support their needs can ease the burden on their shoulders. A medical virtual assistant would handle certain tasks typically assigned to the healthcare providers themselves. This, therefore, lessens the responsibilities under the medical staff’s belt and helps prevent employee burnout.

 

Improve patient care and experience

Aside from medical professionals, customers, clients, and patients can also benefit when you hire a medical virtual assistant. Common virtual assistant responsibilities such as patient scheduling and customer service are directly tied to the customer’s experience. The more effective and efficient the clinic’s processes are, the better service they would be able to provide.

 

Bottomline

The healthcare industry can be one of the most hectic and stressful work environments. Given that some cases are a matter of life and death, providing your medical team with an extra pair of hands can bring amazing changes in productivity and efficiency. Taking this into consideration, don’t have second thoughts when it comes to hiring a medical virtual assistant whenever needed. 

 

Want to know more about hiring virtual assistants for your business? Sidekicks is an on-demand virtual company and we’re eager to help visionaries and entrepreneurs like you. Get a free ebook and learn more about how we can help you by signing up for our newsletter. We also offer a free 30-minute consultation if you prefer something more personal.

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