If you are looking for a way to improve the efficiency of your medical practice, you might be thinking about hiring a virtual medical assistant. A virtual medical office assistant can handle a wide variety of tasks, removing clerical work from your clinical team. That way, you might be able to free up your nurses to handle more important issues while streamlining your operations. A virtual assistant for doctors is a versatile professional who can help you save time, allowing you to see more patients during the day, and drive revenue for your practice. Learn more about how a virtual medical office assistant can help you below.
1. Answer Patient Questions
One of the biggest benefits that a virtual medical assistant can provide is being your first line of defense when answering patient questions. There are numerous ways your patients might reach out to you. They include:
- Your patients may call the practice and leave messages or ask to speak to someone specific.
- Your patients may also send emails about various medications, procedures, and appointment times.
- If you have an electronic medical record system, your patients may use the messaging system in the EMR portal to reach out to you.
- Some patients may even leave reviews on social media platforms that need attention.
It can be difficult for you to keep an eye on all of these communication outlets, and a virtual medical assistant can interact with your patients, respond to basic questions, and funnel more complicated questions to the right member of your office team.
2. Handle Referrals
A virtual medical assistant can also handle referrals for your office. If you work in a primary care setting, you may have some patients who need to schedule an appointment with a specialist. Examples include heart specialists, lung specialists, allergy specialists, and even specialty surgeons. Before your patient can schedule an appointment, you may need to make a formal referral. A virtual medical assistant can handle this for you, making sure that your patients are seen as quickly as possible. That way, your nurses don’t have to worry about handling specialty referrals, and they can focus on other areas.
3. Take Care of Payments
Your virtual medical assistants can also handle payments for you. With so many different payment methods, you need to have a virtual medical assistant who has the training and experience necessary to accurately process payments. Then, they can balance the books for you, making sure you understand who has paid their bills and who still needs to pay them. This makes it easier for you to figure out what bills are covered by your patients, what bills are covered by the insurance company, and what bills are falling through the cracks.
4. Catalog Medical Records
The vast majority of medical practices use electronic medical records systems, and a virtual assistant can handle medical records for you. For example, if there is a voice message that needs to be transcribed into the medical record, your virtual medical assistant can handle this for you. If demographic information in the medical record needs to be updated, your virtual medical assistant can do that. Prior to a patient arriving for his or her appointment, a virtual medical assistant can take a look at prior visits and let you know what to expect. Finally, based on information in the medical records, a virtual medical assistant can reach out to patients and make sure they know when to schedule another appointment.
5. Detail Insurance Coverage
Health insurance is a major part of running a modern medical practice, and a virtual medical assistant can take a look at different insurance plans used by your patients. Then, your medical assistant can document insurance coverage, authorize certain transactions, and even handle billing and coding for you. If there is a prior authorization that has to be completed before a certain medication or procedure can be ordered, a virtual medical assistant can handle that for you as well.
Consider Hiring a Virtual Medical Assistant for Your Medical PracticeThese are just a few of the many tasks that a virtual medical assistant can handle for your medical practice. If you want to see more patients in the day and free up your nurses to focus on clinical tasks, you should consider hiring a virtual medical assistant for your practice. At the same time, you need to make sure you hire the right medical assistant, and Virtual NurseRX can help you. With a virtual medical assistant from Virtual NurseRX, you have access to a trained and experienced professional who can handle numerous tasks quickly and accurately, helping you save time during the day. Reach out to Virtual NurseRX to learn more about how a virtual medical assistant can help you.
