The COVID-19 pandemic has created some positive changes in the healthcare industry, despite being a human misfortune of incalculable measure. Particularly, it has increased the utilization of artificial intelligence-based services, personalized services, high-level automation, remote monitoring systems, and telehealth management.
One characteristic of telehealth that is gaining popularity is the utilization of virtual medical assistants to manage workflow within doctors’ offices. This highlights the significance of virtual medical assistants for doctors.
Let’s dive deeper based on the variety of healthcare sources.
Introduction
Virtual medical assistants perform administrative tasks that assist in keeping a healthcare practice ticking and save valuable time for the doctors. This time is efficiently allocated to patient care. They can take the form of aides or flesh-and-blood receptionists who function remotely and assist create a virtual medical staff.
Here are a few common roles fulfilled by virtual medical assistants:
- Patient appointment scheduling
- Entering and gathering patient information
- Managing transcripts, referrals, documentation, and payments.
- Replying to patient queries to clarify patient understanding through phone calls, social media, and emails.
- Organizing and securing medical records
- Patient visits plan based on disease severity and medical records
- Documenting and comprehensive insurance coverage
- Authenticating insurance coverage before the physician works up
- Finishing paperwork associated with all sorts of insurance coverage
- Follow up with the patients
Advantages of virtual assistants
The VMAs are capable of distributing contracted labor efficiently, but it lessens the burden of the already existing staff. Here are some advantages of virtual assistants.
- They relieve physicians of all the inconvenience associated with the collection, organization, and management of patient data. The precious time a physician gains from this process can be used to attend to more important things and other responsibilities.
- They improve the quality of interactions that patients have with their patients. They enable the physician to build the physician-patient relationship through more time spent in structuring some interactions.
- Virtual assistants might facilitate further expansion in the scope of the practice as much as responsibilities include.
- They make virtual room space possible, thus allowing for the expansion of office space in clinical equipment and instrumentation when necessary.
Cons of virtual assistants
For instance, there can be failures in communication when talking about things by phone, chatting over, or by way of video teleconferencing with VMAs. Take, for example, loss of power or ignorance of internet connection. In such cases, it is advisable to have contingency measures in place and equip your current real-life personnel to shoulder the burden during such urgent periods.
Another problem that can arise with VMAs includes issues of supervision resulting in errors. Given that these helpers are working far away, they will hardly get help as they work. Their output needs to be evaluated and checked for errors and assessed in performance, especially in the beginning they are preparing to be able to meet the requirements of your practice. That seems to be the importance of having such communication channels open so that your VMAs can feel free to ask questions or ask for assistance as needed.
One risk that cannot be ignored in a society governed by HIPAA is compromising data. The VMAs access this data outside your network, where there may be external security issues. It is important to establish protocols to mitigate this risk and ensure that VMA does everything possible to minimize the risk of compromised data. Policies and procedures, in this regard, become vital. Remember that other staff can help you the best to come up with safeguards against the leaks.
Bottom line
When you are in a hectic practice with your bandwidth stretched in several directions, VMAs may potentially work well. Certainly, there might be concerns such as supervision of a remote workforce or data security; however, the benefits of efficiency and greater personal time with patients are likely to outweigh these disadvantages. Preparing for some sort of provision concerning the setup and any other contingencies when the internet goes down or any unforeseen circumstances prevent the use of VMAs is important.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are the virtual medical assistants?
Virtual medical assistants perform administrative tasks that assist in keeping a healthcare practice ticking and save valuable time for the doctors. This time is efficiently allocated to patient care. They can take the form of aides or flesh-and-blood receptionists who function remotely and assist create a virtual medical staff.
What are the duties of the virtual medical assistants?
- Patient appointment scheduling
- Entering and gathering patient information
- Managing transcripts, referrals, documentation, and payments.
- Replying to patient queries to clarify patient understanding through phone calls, social media, and emails.
- Follow up with the patients