A virtual medical assistant (VMA) is a type of virtual assistant. You can hire a VMA to do specific tasks for your hospital, clinic, and other healthcare businesses. Like all the other virtual assistant types, VMAs are flexible about the kind and amount of work they can do.
In this article, we look into the valuable benefits of hiring a VMA and the services they can provide for you.
Benefits of Virtual Medical Assistants
In general, hiring a virtual medical assistant has the following advantages:
Less Cost
The salaries of VMAs are a fraction of what you would normally pay in-house medical assistants. You can also get trained and experienced medical professionals without the need to pay for regular employee benefits. On top of that, because a VMA works from a remote location, you save on utilities, office supplies, and other overhead costs.
Less Space
When hiring additional staff, you must consider the extra workspace they need. Extra staff also means more people will use the parking, pantry or lounge, restroom, meeting room, and even corridors. Offices that have limited space but need more staff can benefit from hiring a VMA.
Less Training
You also save time training medical assistants when you hire one who can work virtually. Because VMAs work with online tools, training them is easier than on-site employees. Most VMAs are already experts in the medical field, and only need a short time to be familiar with your methods.
Also, you don’t need to give comprehensive training for your VMA. You can assign them one task at a time and pay only for the time they spend on a specific task. This way, they don’t get overwhelmed when trained, and they learn and adapt to your process faster.
More Quality Service
If you or your staff try to handle everything all at once, you are always pressed for time. Your attention has no focus, and as a result, the quality of service you provide suffers. This working condition can also take its toll on your health.
Delegating some of these tasks to an expert VMA frees valuable time for everyone. So you and your on-site staff can provide more focused and thorough service. Also, saving on staffing costs can mean more budget to spend on better tools or equipment to provide better services.
More Business
With improved services comes more business in the form of patients, customers, or clients. And, of course, more business means more money to invest in expanding and growing your medical practice, clinic, or hospital.
Your VMA can also provide a new perspective to your process. They can help you think up fresh ideas to increase revenue, promote your practice, or optimize your processes.
Types of Virtual Medical Assistants
Virtual medical assistants come by many names. The following are the common types of VMAs depending on the different medical practices:
Medical Virtual Assistants
Virtual assistants can work with doctors across different specializations. They are called healthcare virtual assistants, remote administrative assistants, medical virtual assistants, or virtual medical assistants (VMAs). Depending on their specific tasks, a VMA is also called a virtual medical scribe or transcriptionist, medical receptionist, practice manager, etc.
Dental Virtual Assistants
Virtual assistants can also work remotely for dental practices. VMAs for dental physicians perform similar functions and tasks as medical virtual assistants. Also, dental VAs must be familiar with some specific dental processes to perform well as dental virtual assistants.
Pharmacy Virtual Assistants
Virtual assistants for pharmacies or dispensaries are often assigned administrative tasks. These tasks include filing and updating records of purchases or prescription refills. VAs working for a pharmacy can perform stock inventory and bookkeeping duties.
Veterinary Virtual Assistants
Like medical VAs, veterinary virtual assistants support veterinarians or animal doctors. Veterinary VAs also help manage communications and records of animal patients. They can also assist with medical billing and provide customer support to animal owners.
Healthcare Services Virtual Assistants Provide
Among different VMA types, below are the many tasks that a virtual medical assistant can do for you:
Office Support
Most virtual medical assistant services revolve around transcribing, coding, and filing medical records. If your office uses an online filing system, a VMA can easily manage electronic medical records through your EMR system.
You can also assign other office and administrative tasks to a VMA. They can manage your calls and emails and answer questions or perform follow-ups. They can also schedule appointments, update patient information, and do other back-office tasks.
Insurance Verification
Any healthcare business or medical practice often deals with insurance verifications and processing. These tasks may seem simple, but when dealing with multiple clients and other issues, such insurance documents can easily pile up. Updating and organizing medical records is critical for successful insurance coverage claims.
A virtual medical assistant can deal with records processing and insurance claims. A VMA also performs constant communication and patient monitoring for proper and timely payments. You need someone who can focus on these tasks to prevent errors resulting in income loss or harm to your medical practice.
Virtual Bookkeeping Support
In the same way that VMAs can organize your documents and patient information, they can also help with your bookkeeping. A VMA can handle data entry, manage invoices, set up and file medical billing, process payroll, etc.
A VMA is not a substitute for a certified accountant. But hiring one can save time for your accountant, thus lowering your accounting fees.
Event Coordination and Assistance
Most healthcare providers, medical practitioners, and other medical professionals stay updated by connecting with their peers through events and symposia. Medical assistants can help plan and coordinate events or projects for their clients.
No matter the type of event or project, a virtual medical assistant can research venues for approval. They can also help select participants within the healthcare sector. They can also handle time-consuming tasks like communicating with service providers and participants.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing support is also one of the essential virtual medical assistant services. More people are now recognizing the critical role of social media in a business. An active and visible social media presence builds trust and drives traffic to your practice.
A VMA can handle repetitive social media tasks like posting regular content, replying to questions, and reacting to comments. Such regular engagements build your brand, directing high traffic of potential clients to your practice.
Virtual Assistant for Healthcare Support From Remote Raven
Hiring a virtual assistant for healthcare services doesn’t cost much. And it can be the best thing you ever did for your practice or medical establishment.
But what a virtual medical can do for you depends on YOU. So make sure you know what you want from a VMA. And ensure that your needs are communicated to and understood by them.
Success with a VMA depends on proper delegation and training. Administrative tasks and specific duties need to be presented completely. You can hire the most technically qualified healthcare professionals with HIPAA compliance training. But they will fail as your VMA if your expectations are not aligned with their capabilities.
Remote Raven is an expert in providing the medical community with qualified and trained professionals. We’ve been vetting virtual assistants for different industries for decades. We do this by first, taking your VMA needs into account. Then, we search for the ideal candidates from our extensive pool of medical virtual assistants.
We only present you with a short list of the most qualified candidates. A short call from us and you’ll be interviewing trained professionals in no time.
Find the right VMA for your specific needs. Consult for free today!
