What is a Virtual Medical Assistant?

Because of the way VMAs have helped healthcare professionals with their workload, many are now curious what is a virtual medical assistant. VMAs can take some of the burdens off doctors and nurses by providing a range of services. As a result, VMAs can take some of the burdens off doctors and nurses, freeing them up to focus on more critical tasks. Now, medical practices that employ virtual medical assistants can run more efficiently, providing a better experience for patients.

What is a Virtual Medical Assistant (VMA)?

A virtual medical assistant, or VMA, is a medical professional who provides administrative and clinical support to healthcare providers via the Internet. VMAs are typically licensed health care professionals with experience in medical coding, billing, and documentation. They may also have experience scheduling appointments, handling patient inquiries, and managing medical records. In many cases, VMAs work from home, providing a flexible work schedule and reduced overhead costs for healthcare practices. Virtual medical assistants can play a vital role in improving the efficiency of healthcare delivery and reducing the cost of care. 

Here are the types of VMAs that you can hire for your practice: 

1. General Virtual Assistant
2. Medical or Dental Receptionist
3. Telehealth Support
4. Patient Care Coordinator
5. Telephone Triage Assistant
6. Remote Patient Monitoring Assistant
7. Medical Virtual Scribe
8. Medical Transcriptionist
9. Medical Biller or Dental Biller
10. Medical Coder or Dental Coder

How can VMAs help your medical practice? 

1. They provide services according to your needs.

Medical practice is divided into many fields. Consequently, there are various types of medical virtual assistants tailored for your every need. 

You can hire a medical or dental receptionist to help schedule appointments, handle patient intake, and perform an initial patient evaluation. On the other hand, to man the telephone triage, you may hire VMAs who will focus on answering phone calls and patient inquiries. They can also be assigned to call the patient to follow up on the condition of the patient after the check-up. 

In addition, VMAs specializing in patient care coordinator can prioritize patient intakes, laboratory exams, and aftercare. Meanwhile, medical scribes are experts in documenting patient care. Their job includes accurately taking note of the doctor-patient interaction and managing the Electrical Medical Records (EMRs). 

If you want to monitor your patients remotely, you may employ remote patient monitoring assistants, another type of VMAs. They specialize in remote patient monitoring to talk to and check the patient’s condition after a procedure or perhaps after an initial check-up. They can also be tasked to monitor elderly patients, patients with chronic illnesses, or patients with contagious diseases. 

Further, a medical or dental coder can be tasked explicitly to code patient data or details for insurance claims. Lastly, a medical or dental biller organizes the patient bill and ensures that the physician is generating the revenue from services paid. 

You can choose from the variety of VMAs or hire them all for your team. 

2. They alleviate and improve administrative tasks.

What is a virtual medical assistant and what they can offer to the medical field are still evolving. They can provide a valuable service to patients and doctors by helping reduce the administrative burden in doctor’s offices and clinics. These include administration of EMRs, charting, doing research, sending prescriptions, and scheduling appointments. 

Since virtual medical assistants take over your daily administrative tasks, you can now focus on high-priority duties such as patient care and building strong patient relationships. 

3. They can improve out-of-clinic customer relations.

Since physicians are focused on the patient during check-ups, who will cater to patients outside the clinic? Virtual medical assistants are experts in providing quality customer service. What is a virtual medical assistant is not only about having exceptional communication skills. They also possess a healthcare background that can cater to patients’ basic and immediate needs. 

They are certified in HIPAA compliance and have undergone training in medical terminology. This makes them ideal for handling a variety of tasks related to patient care. Hence, medical professionals can rely that VMAs will give credible answers as they are registered nurses, nursing graduates, or graduated with an allied health degree. 

In addition, virtual medical assistants can provide support when you’re on call or away from the office, ensuring that your patients always have someone to turn to. So if you’re looking for ways to improve your practice, consider hiring a virtual medical assistant. You’ll be glad you did.

4. They are affordable and can lessen expenses. 

Medical practices are under immense pressure to do more with less. Overburdened staff members see fewer patients and have less time for administrative tasks. One way to alleviate this pressure is to know what is a virtual medical assistant and invest in them afterwards. VMAs are trained professionals who can handle many tasks that take up your time, such as scheduling appointments, verifying insurance, and even billing. And because they work remotely, they’re a much more affordable option than hiring additional staff. You would not need to rent an office space or pay expenses for office equipment because VMAs are self-sufficient.

Medical practices that have invested in an VMA have seen significant reductions in costs and increases in efficiency. So if you’re looking for ways to save your practice time and money, a virtual medical assistant is well worth considering.

5. They can help you manage your practice, freeing up time to see more patients.

If you’re a busy medical professional, you know that there are only so many hours in the day. Seeing more patients would mean more income for your practice, but finding the time is tough. That’s where knowing what is a virtual medical assistant comes in. Medical virtual assistants are trained to smoothly handle administrative tasks, from scheduling appointments to handling insurance claims.

Because the tasks are well-handled, a patient is less likely to walk out. Since their appointments and records are organized, there would be no double-booked appointments that would waste the patient’s time. VMAs ensure that patients are taken care of outside and inside the clinic.

In effect, this frees up your time so that you can see more patients and focus on providing quality care.

Onto the next step: Finding quality VMAs!

With Core Virtual Solutions, you can find well-screened VMAs. Core ensures that they do not only have a medical background but also possess the commitment to help you and your practice. 

By leveraging our free discovery call, you can get to know more about our VMAs. Click here to solve your staffing problems!