The medical field is varied, with all manner of services combining into a comprehensive healthcare service. Each of these services is vastly different, but they all share one thing in common: they’re incredibly busy. And the current healthcare staffing crisis is compounding this problem, with healthcare professionals working even longer hours and experiencing burnout. Evidently, a solution is required, and it comes in the form of a virtual assistant.
Understanding Virtual Assistants
One of the most popular forms of a virtual assistant is – in the medical field – a healthcare virtual assistant. But while virtual assistants have been present in business settings for around 15 years, many business owners remain unfamiliar with them. Luckily, Hello Rache know a thing or two about the how’s and why’s of a virtual assistant, and we want to share this with you.
As with all the best business solutions, simplicity is at the core of a virtual assistant. Compared to a traditional, in-house assistant, a virtual assistant offers a highly attractive simplicity. Most notable, of course, is the fact that a virtual assistant doesn’t need to commute to your premises. Instead, a virtual assistant can take advantage of modern, high-speed internet connections to work remotely. With this in place, all a virtual assistant needs is a PC and a set of login credentials for your server.
It couldn’t be simpler, and virtual assistants have been steading rising in popularity for several years. In fact, the role of a remote receptionist is proving incredibly popular with rapid growth. The restrictions imposed by the pandemic have only strengthened this rapid rise, with remote workers now considered the new normal. So, if you wanted to hire a healthcare virtual assistant, you should feel confident they can seamlessly integrate with your business. But what exactly can they offer?
The benefits of a virtual assistant are numerous and apply to any business who decides to start working with one. Accordingly, if you decide to hire a healthcare virtual assistant, you can expect to reap the following benefits:
Cost Savings:
Hiring a virtual assistant allows you to save on overhead costs like office space, utilities, and equipment. Additionally, you can avoid expenses related to employee benefits, taxes, and insurance. This cost-effective solution is estimated to save your business up to $11,000 per virtual assistant, and allows businesses to allocate resources more efficiently.
Boost Productivity:
With the global healthcare industry set to grow by 8.7% over the next few years, competition is set to be fierce. Therefore, you need to up your productivity to remain competitive; a virtual assistant makes this possible. By delegating routine administrative tasks to a virtual assistant, you’re ensuring that your core staff can focus on their main responsibilities.
Scalability:
Virtual assistants offer you the flexibility to scale your business operations according to demand. This means you can easily hire additional virtual assistants for specific projects, seasonal work, or peak times without committing to long-term contracts. This adaptability helps you manage your workload effectively and maintain optimal performance.
Access to Specialists:
Virtual assistants often possess specialized skills and extensive experience in various fields, such as marketing, IT, customer service, and administrative support. This expertise allows you to access high-quality services without investing in extensive training programs, ensuring tasks are completed efficiently and to a professional standard.
Virtual Assistants in Action: The Tasks They Handle with Ease
If you feel the benefits of a healthcare virtual assistant could help transform the fortunes of your medical business, it’s now time to see what they can do for you on a daily basis. As with any virtual assistant, a healthcare virtual assistant can take on a multitude of different tasks such as:
Patient Communication:
It’s well known communication is crucial in healthcare, so you need to prioritize this in your organization. And even the smallest patient query needs to be handled professionally and efficiently to provide a positive experience. This is where a virtual assistant can excel. Acting as your first point of contact, a virtual receptionist can deal with telephone queries, respond to patient emails, and relay test results.
Medical Billing:
Nearly 80% of medical bills contain some form of inaccuracy and processing them is a time-consuming affair. This, naturally, is time your employees could be spending on patient care and enhancing the patient experience. So, you need a solution, and you don’t have to look far for the answer: a virtual assistant. With extensive training in best billing practices, a virtual assistant will take control of your billing to ensure accuracy and prompt follow-ups on outstanding payments.
Appointment Scheduling:
A healthcare virtual assistant can easily manage your patient appointment scheduling, coordinating with medical staff and patients to ensure efficient time slots. This streamlines the booking process, reduces no-shows, allows cancelled slots to be quickly filled, and improves overall patient satisfaction when timely appointment reminders are issued.
Telemedicine Support:
Worldwide usage of telemedicine has exploded from 57 million in 2019 to 116 million in 2024. This is a rise exacerbated by the pandemic. Telemedicine, however, is still far from perfect, with many users experiencing technical issues and jeopardizing their appointments. Thankfully, with a healthcare virtual assistant onboard, they can provide technical support and help patients access their virtual appointments.
EHR Management:
To ensure patient data is accurately documented and accessible, a virtual assistant can update and maintain electronic health records (EHR). With a healthcare virtual assistant fully proficient in entering and updating data, you’re guaranteed high levels of accuracy and compliance with healthcare regulations. This empowers you to deliver high levels of patient care and avoid any unwanted penalties.
Medical Transcription:
Healthcare virtual assistants can transcribe medical dictations from healthcare providers, converting audio recordings into accurate written documents. And by choosing a virtual receptionist, you avoid the pitfalls of trusting voice recognition software which fails to translate context and struggle to detect errors. Using a virtual assistant ensures accurate and timely documentation of patient visits, treatment plans, and other medical communications, which are essential for maintaining comprehensive patient records.
Patient Education:
A crucial part of a patient’s journey involves high quality patient education, often provided in the form of literature or online materials. A healthcare virtual assistant can help provide patients with educational materials and resources related to their health conditions, treatments, and preventive care. They can send out information packs, links to reliable online resources, and follow-up on educational queries, saving your in-house team significant time to invest in their core duties.
Enhance Your Operations: The Virtual Assistant Edge
In the medical field, service is everything. Your patients are the reason your healthcare professionals get up in the morning. But the age of burnout means your team needs help. A healthcare virtual assistant is the definition of this help. Packed full of skills and expertise, a virtual assistant also brings a whole range of benefits with them to transform your medical business.
There’s just one question you’re dying to know the answer to: where do you find a virtual assistant? After all, if they’re based on the other side of the planet, how do you get in touch with the`m? The answer’s simple: you speak to Hello Rache. Having operated successfully as a VA agency for several years, we have a wide range of virtual assistants from virtual receptionists through to healthcare virtual assistants.
Whichever type of virtual assistant you need, we guarantee we can connect you with one perfectly tailored for your needs. Not only can they slot seamlessly into your organization, but they’re also available at $9.50 per hour. They have no setup or contract fees. This is in stark contrast to the average wage of $18 per hour for an in-house healthcare assistant, so now is the perfect time to go virtual.
Interested in hearing more? Just click here to chat with us about your virtual assistant future.
