Global Medical Virtual Assistants
Struggling to hire a medical assistant (MA)? You’re not alone. Medical group practices have faced significant staffing shortages in recent years, making it one of the most challenging HR tasks leaving many practices turning to alternative staffing options. According to a recent MGMA Stat poll, 43% of medical group leaders have turned to alternative staff to cover open MA positions. Enter Medical Virtual Assistants (MVAs) – the game-changer in healthcare staffing.
The Current Healthcare Staffing Crisis
Statistics and Insights from the MGMA Article
The healthcare sector has been hit hard by staffing issues, especially when it comes to hiring MAs. The MGMA report reveals that 43% of medical group leaders have resorted to alternative staffing solutions. This ongoing crisis affects not only the workload of existing staff but also patient care and operational efficiency. While there’s a slight improvement from the 52% reported in 2022, the struggle remains real for many practices.
Impact on Medical Practices
When MAs are unavailable, practice administrators often find themselves scrambling to fill the gap. Tasks such as taking and recording vitals, lab specimen collection, medication administration, and EHR updates fall behind. This not only disrupts the workflow but can also compromise patient care.
What is a Medical Virtual Assistant (MVA)?
Definition and Role
So, what exactly is a Medical Virtual Assistant? Simply put, an MVA is a remote professional who provides a variety of administrative and clinical support services to healthcare providers.
Sourced and trained from the Philippines, Global Medical Virtual Assistants handle tasks like scheduling appointments, prior authorization, insurance verification, managing patient records, coordinating care, and assisting with revenue cycle management.
Key Responsibilities of Medical VAs
MVAs take on essential duties that are typically managed by in-house MAs, ensuring that medical practices run smoothly and efficiently. Here are some of the key responsibilities of MVAs, organized by the departmental roles they can fill:
Front Desk Operations
Delegating front desk tasks to MVAs can save a substantial amount monthly and enhance the patient-staff experience. These tasks include:
Answering Phones
MVAs handle incoming calls, addressing patient inquiries, directing calls to the appropriate departments, and managing voicemail messages.
Scheduling Appointments
MVAs manage the scheduling of patient appointments, including new bookings, rescheduling, and cancellations. They also send reminders to patients to reduce no-show rates.
Patient Check-In and Check-Out
MVAs assist with the virtual check-in and check-out process, ensuring that patient information is accurately recorded and updated.
Managing Patient Communications
MVAs handle patient emails and messages, ensuring timely and professional responses.
Clinic Administrative Support
Medical Virtual Assistants offer a flexible solution to meet the administrative demands of healthcare practices, efficiently handling tasks from billing to appointment scheduling. These tasks include:
EMR/EHR Management
MVAs are proficient in using electronic health record systems to enter patient information, update medical histories, and record treatment plans. Global Medical Virtual Assistants receive comprehensive training on the most common EMR/EHR platforms used.
Prior Authorization
MVAs manage the submission and follow-up of prior authorization requests, ensuring that necessary treatments and medications are approved by insurance companies. They liaise with healthcare providers to gather required documentation and information needed for prior authorization, streamlining the approval process.
Insurance Verification
MVAs verify patient insurance coverage and benefits before appointments, ensuring that services provided are covered and minimizing claim denials. They update patient insurance information in the EHR system, maintaining accurate and current records to facilitate smooth billing and reimbursement processes.
Appointment Coordination
Beyond scheduling, MVAs manage the logistics of patient appointments, including referrals to specialists and coordination of lab tests.
Document Management
MVAs handle the organization and maintenance of medical records, ensuring that all documents are accurately filed and easily accessible.
Back Office Management
Significantly enhance your practice’s billing operations with a Medical Virtual Assistant to manage tasks such as patient billing, collections, patient follow-up, and much more. These tasks include:
Revenue Cycle Management
MVAs oversee the entire revenue cycle, from patient registration to final payment, ensuring that all financial processes run smoothly.
Patient Billing
MVAs handle patient billing processes, including generating invoices, sending payment reminders, and answering billing-related questions.
Benefits of Hiring Medical Virtual Assistants
Cost Effectiveness
One of the primary benefits of hiring MVAs is cost savings. MVAs typically cost less than in-house staff, reducing overhead expenses for medical practices.
Enhanced Efficiency and Productivity
By taking on routine administrative tasks, MVAs free up time for healthcare providers to focus on patient care. This leads to enhanced efficiency and productivity within the practice.
Flexibility and Scalability
Global Medical VAs provide consistent, full-time support at 40 hours per week, adapting seamlessly to the changing needs of your practice. As your practice grows, we can quickly and seamlessly add more MVAs to your team, ensuring continuous operational efficiency and high standards of patient care.
How Medical Virtual Assistants Address Staffing Challenges
Medical practices across the United States have been grappling with the challenge of filling medical assistant (MA) positions. The staffing shortages have led many to explore alternative solutions, and one such solution that has gained significant traction is the hiring of Medical Virtual Assistants (MVAs).
Let’s delve into how MVAs have successfully addressed these staffing challenges with some statistical support.
Statistical Insights
The positive impact of MVAs is not limited to anecdotal evidence; several studies and surveys highlight the effectiveness of MVAs in addressing staffing challenges.
MGMA Stat Poll
According to the MGMA Stat poll conducted in July 2024, 43% of medical group leaders have hired alternative staff, including MVAs, to cover open MA positions. This poll underscores the growing reliance on virtual assistants in the healthcare industry.
Cost Savings
On average, hiring an MVA can save a medical practice up to 60% in staffing costs compared to hiring in-house MAs. This significant cost reduction is primarily due to the lower overhead costs associated with remote work.
Efficiency Gains
A survey by the American Academy of Medical Management found that practices utilizing MVAs reported a 20% increase in operational efficiency. Tasks such as patient scheduling, billing, and follow-up communications were handled more swiftly and accurately.
Comparison with Traditional Medical Assistants
When compared to traditional medical assistants, Global Medical VAs provide consistent, full-time support at 40 hours per week, adapting seamlessly to the changing needs of your practice. Unlike traditional MAs, MVAs offer unparalleled flexibility, allowing medical practices to scale their workforce efficiently. As your practice grows or you recognize the benefits of having MVAs, we can quickly and seamlessly add more MVAs to your team, ensuring continuous operational efficiency and high standards of patient care.
Moreover, we maintain a pool of highly trained Medical VAs who are ready to be placed, drastically reducing the turnaround time for hiring a new assistant. Practices can avoid the headaches of the traditional hiring process, such as posting jobs, interviewing candidates, and training new hires, only to have them leave for a better opportunity. With MVAs, you get immediate access to skilled professionals, ensuring that your practice continues to run smoothly without interruptions.
The cost savings associated with hiring MVAs are substantial; they eliminate the need for physical workspace, benefits, and other overhead costs, enabling practices to reallocate these savings to other critical areas such as patient care or technology upgrades.
Additionally, MVAs bring a diverse skill set and specialized expertise, with college education and backgrounds in healthcare, ensuring tasks are performed with a high degree of accuracy and efficiency.
Addressing Administrative Overload
One of the most significant benefits of MVAs is their ability to alleviate the administrative burden on in-house staff. With the growing complexity of healthcare administration, MAs often find themselves overwhelmed with paperwork and non-clinical tasks. MVAs can take on these responsibilities, allowing MAs to focus more on direct patient care and clinical duties.
Integrating Medical Virtual Assistants into Your Practice
Workflow Integration
Integrating Medical Virtual Assistants (MVAs) into your practice is designed to be a smooth and efficient process. One of the key advantages of MVAs is their ability to seamlessly adapt to the existing tools and systems already in place within your practice. This means you won’t have to change any of your processes or workflows to accommodate them. Our MVAs are trained to familiarize themselves with your practice’s specific workflows, ensuring they can contribute effectively from the start.
Our approach ensures that MVAs can hit the ground running, integrating into your practice without disruption. They are proficient in using a variety of healthcare management software and EHR systems, making it easy for them to blend into your existing setup. This seamless integration helps maintain consistency in operations and minimizes the learning curve typically associated with new hires.
Support from Virtual Medical Managers (VMMs)
To further ensure the success of MVAs in your practice, we provide additional oversight through our Virtual Medical Managers (VMMs). VMMs play a crucial role in overseeing the productivity of MVAs and ensuring they are successfully integrated into the workflows of your practice. They monitor performance, provide ongoing support, and address any issues that may arise, ensuring that the MVAs are aligned with your practice’s goals and standards.
VMMs act as a bridge between your practice and the MVAs, facilitating communication and coordination. They help MVAs navigate the specific requirements and expectations of your practice, ensuring that they deliver high-quality support consistently. This additional layer of management ensures that your practice benefits fully from the expertise and efficiency of MVAs without any administrative burden on your part.
By leveraging the support of VMMs, your practice can enjoy the benefits of having MVAs while maintaining your existing workflows and standards. This comprehensive approach to integration ensures that MVAs are not only seamlessly incorporated into your practice but also consistently deliver the high level of support needed to keep your operations running smoothly.
Conclusion
The ongoing staffing challenges in healthcare underscore the need for innovative solutions like Medical Virtual Assistants. MVAs offer a cost-effective, flexible, and efficient alternative to traditional staffing, ensuring medical practices can continue to provide high-quality care despite recruitment difficulties.
By integrating MVAs into your team, you can focus on what truly matters – delivering excellent patient care.
