10 Administrative Tasks of a Medical Virtual Assistant

Virtual medical assistants are the powerhouse of your organization’s administrative tasks. They can give solutions to all your administrative challenges that might take up your time from your core duty, healthcare. But who actually are these virtual assistants?

Virtual medical assistants are professionals who assist you in resolving administrative tasks while working from a remote location. They keep all your administrative work tidy so you can treat your patients with the utmost care and professionalism.

Yet, you might be skeptical about what administrative tasks a medical virtual assistant handles. To resolve your skepticism, we have compiled a list of administrative tasks that your medical VA will handle for you. They are:

• Medical appointment scheduling & calendar management.
• Medical billing support and coding.
• Financial management.
• Insurance verification.
• Patient communication.
• Managing medical records.
• Handling correspondence and documentation.
• Data entry and analysis.
• Telehealth support.
• Assisting with patient referrals and follow-ups.

We will discuss all these tasks in detail right below:

10 Administrative Tasks of a Medical Virtual Assistant Can Handle

A healthcare organization, even solo practices, must have a healthy, organized, and maintained administrative system. Otherwise, important healthcare personnel will have to be stuck there and spend less time in patient care. 

So, here are the tasks your medical virtual assistant will handle for you:

1. Medical Appointment Scheduling and Calendar Management

As a healthcare service provider, you must manage hundreds of appointments and schedules to ensure effective medical treatment. However, keeping them organized and maintaining them accordingly can be quite troublesome, especially in high-traffic areas like healthcare departments.

When you appoint a remote medical professional, they will:

• Communicate with your patient and get a general idea of their health concerns.
• As they get the healthcare information, they will book appointments.
• They will generate a consistent system that all your healthcare employees can use easily.
• VAs will keep your calendar arranged and send notifications about important tasks and appointments of your day.
• These remote professionals will also keep track of reschedules and cancellations and update the calendar accordingly.

If you need assistance maintaining your calendar, we highly recommend hiring a medical virtual assistant.

2. Medical Billing and Coding Support

You need to collect bills from your patients to keep your practice running smoothly. However, processing invoices, converting medical codes, and insurance claiming processes can be overwhelming.

Your virtual medical billing assistant will help you with this task in the following ways:

• Gather all relevant patient data, including patient history, treatment details, diagnosis, test results, and other information, to generate an organized database.
• As the database is organized, your VA will start preparing invoices mentioning all your billable hours, procedures, and equipment.
• With a detailed bill, your virtual assistant will contact your patient or whoever is responsible for claiming the unpaid sum. 
• In the meantime, your remote professional will reach out to gather financial information, insurance information, and credit information.
• With all that information together, they create the most convenient payment plan for your patient.
• With the insurance information, your remote worker will reach out to the insurance institution and start the claiming process. 

3. Financial Management

Only collecting payments and funds from different sources is not enough; you need to manage these funds to go to the most important parts of the healthcare practice. That is where financial management comes in. 

Without proper management and supervision, keeping a proper trail of all your financial arrangements is impossible. With a virtual medical assistant, you can conduct all those complicated tasks more efficiently.

• VMAs will help you create and manage budgets to allocate financial records effectively.
• They will track and optimize revenue streams, including patient billing and insurance claims.
• Monitor and control expenses to maintain a healthy financial situation.
• Prepare reports and financial statements for stakeholders.
• Project future financial performance and plan accordingly for your practice.

So, there is a strong chance that hiring a medical virtual assistant might be the best way for your organization to perform smoothly and efficiently.

4. Insurance Verification

Did you know people who bought coverage under Obamacare had 17 percent of their care denied in 2021? Thus, as healthcare providers, you need to be very careful while conducting insurance verification.

Accurate billing and reimbursement are crucial factors in building and maintaining an organization’s goodwill. That is why every healthcare practice needs a good insurance verification process. However, it takes a lot of effort and vigor to work on these tasks.

Outsourcing these insurance tasks to a medical virtual assistant reduces claim denials, improves cash flow, and improves patient satisfaction. These capable professionals will handle:

• Gathering patients’ information such as name, date of birth, contact information, social security number, and insurance details.
• Confirming patients’ insurance coverage, including coverage start date, policy status, any pre-existing conditions or limitations.
• Claiming insurance coverage for specific healthcare services covered by the insurance plan to avoid potential claim denials.
• Identifying the patient’s financial responsibilities, such as copayments and deductibles.
• Contacting Insurance companies to obtain necessary information and resolve any discrepancies.

5. Patient Communication

Another important aspect of any medical institute is constantly communicating with the patients. This helps you to understand more about them and diagnose the correct medical problems. However, this task can be quite time-consuming and draining for you as a healthcare provider. 

To handle such situations, you can hire a medical virtual assistant to conduct communication with your patients. When you hire an MVA, they will conduct the following tasks in terms of patient communication:

• Receive patient’s phone at the earliest possible moment.
• Offer guidance over calls or chats if the patient needs first aid.
• Transfer the calls to the duty doctors if the patient’s condition is critical.
• Reach out to patients and other relevant officials regarding day-to-day tasks.
• Delivering medical invoices to authorized personnel.
• Communicate with patients regarding billing and insurance claims.

6. Managing Medical Records

As more patients visit your healthcare practice, more information is available for you to gather. However, proper gathering and management of these data needs dedicated service and excellent technological knowledge. A professional medical VA with good technical ability can-

• Collect patient information.
• Input patient data into EHR software.
• Regularly update the patient database.
• Implement security measures to protect patient information.
• Control who can access patient records.
• Retrieve patient records when needed for official purpose.

7. Handling Correspondence and Documentation

Additionally, healthcare practices need to have a proper and secure channel to keep accurate records and effective communication. You can delegate the following tasks regarding correspondence and document handling to your virtual medical receptionist:

• Sending patients appointment reminders, follow-up letters, and patient instructions.
• Recording patient visits, treatments, and medical histories.
• Writing and sending referral letters to specialists or other healthcare providers.
• Documenting internal communications.
• Managing and storing patient consent forms for treatments and procedures.
• Distributing medical reports to patients and other healthcare providers.

8. Data Entry and Analysis

You need to have access to accurate and well-maintained data to make informed medical decisions. Therefore, you must have professionals who can handle those data entry tasks with efficiency and accuracy. You can easily delegate the following tasks to a remote medical assistant:

• Inputting patient information into EHR records.
• Entering billing information and medical codes for insurance claims and patient billing.
• Tracking and updating inventory levels for medical supplies and equipment.
• Ensuring the accuracy and completeness of entered data.
• Creating reports on patient outcomes, financial performance, and operational efficiency.
• Measuring KPIs to assess the effectiveness of healthcare services.

9. Telehealth Support

Keeping a dedicated phone operator offering remote health support can help patients quickly assess medical conditions before the situation gets out of control. You can effectively delegate tasks to a VA with excellent medical knowledge. These professionals will help you by:

• Assisting patients and providers with navigating telehealth platforms and resolving technical issues.
• Guiding patients through the process of setting up and using telehealth services.
• Making sure telehealth practices comply with regulatory requirements and privacy standards.
• Providing training for staff and patients on using telehealth technologies.

10. Assisting with Patient Referrals and Follow-Ups

Last but not least, any healthcare practice’s goal should be to make sure patients receive timely and appropriate care to improve overall patient outcomes and satisfaction. Therefore, no matter what size of medicare practice you run, you need to have a dedicated professional to assist with patient referrals and follow-ups.

You can conveniently appoint a medical VA to handle the following tasks:

• Manage and coordinate referrals to specialists or other healthcare providers.
• Scheduling follow-up appointments for patients with referred specialists.
• Communicating referral details to patients and ensuring they understand the next steps.
• Recording referral information and follow-up details in patient records.
• Monitoring the status of referrals and ensuring that patients attend their follow-up appointments.

Final Words

Any medical practice needs to conduct the above-mentioned administrative tasks to conduct their practice for more than a month. However, increasing organizational capacity within the shortest time limit might not be an option all the time.

In those times of need, you can easily outsource those administrative tasks to a capable virtual medical assistant. They will process your work efficiently to keep your business organized and operational.

So, find your capable virtual assistant today and give your patients the excellent care that they deserve.