FAQs
Wondering how can a healthcare virtual assistant work in your practice? Here’s how!
Saving Money
Yes, it really is $10 per hour, all included. Flat rate pricing means flat-rate pricing, period.
There is no extra charge for working weekends, nights, overtime or holidays.
We save each of our clients tens of thousands of dollars every year.
Our $10 per hour all-in flat rate means you enjoy a 75% discount versus hiring an in-house medical employee.
That’s because, with DocVA, you don’t have to worry about paying:
- Payroll taxes
- Minimum wage
- Health benefits
- Vacation pay
- Workers’ comp insurance
- PTO
- Cost of office space
For $10/hour, everything is covered, so it’s easy to afford and simple to budget for.
In many ways! For example, when you hire a VA to:
- Answer your phones, every patient gets the attention they need fast. This keeps your current patients happy. Potential patients won’t look elsewhere because they can’t get through to your office.
- Schedule and confirm appointments, your schedule stays full with fewer no-shows and revenue-losing gaps.
- Live chart and scribe, you save hours at the end of the day, and you have time to see more patients, and more patients = more revenue.
Time is money! Anything you can do to create more time to see patients means greater opportunities for increasing revenue and practice growth. Hiring VAs also lessens the burden on your in-house staff, so they work more efficiently with less burnout and turmoil.
Getting Things Done
DocVA’s virtual assistants can handle any task in your practice that can be done on the phone or internet … and that’s almost everything! Tasks that our VAs can handle include:
- Answering phones / problem-solving patient issues
- Scheduling and confirming appointments
- Verifying insurance
- Prior authorizations
- Sending invoices and bills
- Receiving and tracking payments
- Prescription refill requests
- Managing medical records
- And much more!
To make and receive phone calls from your American phone number, your VA will download an app on their device. You should also provide your VA with a practice email address so they can communicate with clients and third parties on behalf of your office.
We do, however, expect our clients to treat their VAs with respect and consideration. DocVA recommends giving your VAs the same amount of breaks and lunch time you give your in-house employees.
About Our VAs
Absolutely. All our VAs have healthcare backgrounds, including some combination of nursing school, clinical experience and practice admin experience. Most are Registered Nurses. This way, your chosen VA has the foundation to quickly integrate into your healthcare office’s workflow on Day 1.
Yes! All of DocVA’s virtual medical assistants are fluent English speakers. Strong communication skills are a high priority for us and our clients. The vast majority of our medical VAs are from The Philippines, where English is the first language taught from birth. The Philippines has the largest English-speaking population in the world after the U.S. and the U.K., even more than Australia and New Zealand.
The Philippines is known worldwide for its strong work ethic, a traditional part of its culture. While paying only $10 per hour is a bargain for U.S. businesses, in The Philippines, $10 per hour in U.S. dollars represents a top-tier salary, so your VAs are motivated to keep their positions with great work and doctor satisfaction.
Any! Our medical virtual assistants have been successfully employed with all types of healthcare practices and specialities.
Book a consultation with us here and we’ll be happy to introduce you to one of our VAs.
Working With Your VA
Yes! You’ll work with the same person every day so they master your workflow faster.
Remote work is easy thanks to the wealth of communication channels available today. To communicate with/train your VA, we recommend you use HIPAA-compliant video call platforms like Zoom or Skype. Phone calls, texts, emails and messages sent via your EHR/EMR can also be used.
Yes! Your VA will work whatever hours you set for them, whether you’d prefer your regular office hours, early morning, late evening, or even overnight.
We have installed time-tracking software on all of our VAs’ computers so we can monitor web and mouse movement during work hours to make sure your VA is working when they are supposed to. We can even send you reports to corroborate time logs with your invoices. You only pay for the time your VA is logged into the time-tracking software.
Our clients consistently report that their DocVA virtual assistants are just as productive as their in-house staff, if not more.
You don’t need any special softwares to work with a VA. Your medical virtual assistant can work within all of the platforms you are already using.
Onboarding Your VA
Step 1 – Tell us what your practice needs here.
Step 2 – We’ll send you a list of hand-selected VAs perfect for your practice.
Step 3 – You choose one (or two, or three) and get started!
Just like any other employee – whether they are sitting in your office or remote – you’ll need to train your DocVA virtual assistant on your specific workflow.
We do, however, expect our clients to treat their VAs with respect and consideration. DocVA recommends giving your VAs the same amount of breaks and lunch time you give your in-house employees.
We invest tremendous resources into recruiting the highest quality medical virtual assistants. Our on-the-ground recruitment experts in The Philippines are highly experienced in finding and vetting the country’s most sought-after VAs. By talking to potential candidates’ former employers, having them complete aptitude and personality tests, and conducting in-depth interviews, we vet our VAs for:
- Communication skills/mastery of English
- Clean background check
- EQ and coachability
- IQ and aptitude for learning
- Familiarity with medical terminology
- Strong work ethic
- Reliability on all fronts
- Personality and agreeableness
Policies And Procedures
DocVa takes your patient’s privacy and data very seriously. All of our medical virtual assistants are trained and certified in HIPAA compliance as part of their foundational training. We make sure all our virtual assistants’ computers have up-to-date antivirus and security software that is up to our strict standards. We also require all of our VAs to obtain NBI clearance, which is the Philippine version of an FBI background check.
We recommend that all of our clients have their VAs sign Business Associate Agreements. Because DocVA will not have access to any sensitive PHI, it is unnecessary for our company itself to sign a BAA.
Our medical virtual assistants are located in The Philippines, where U.S. healthcare companies are a major employer. Understanding the massive contribution to the Philippine economy by U.S. companies, The Philippine government has passed legislation prohibiting Philippine citizens working for U.S. companies from sharing confidential information. The Philippine Data Privacy Act of 2012 acts much like the United States’ HIPAA law and severely punishes any Philippine citizen who intentionally discloses or compromises any U.S. patient health information. You can read more about the Data Privacy Act of 2012 here.
We are so confident you’ll love working DocVA VAs that we offer a 100% No Contract/No Commitment policy.
This means that if you don’t love working with your VA, we’ll find a new one that suits your preferences right away! And if you need to discontinue our service at any time for any reason, we offer hassle-free cancellation with no additional fees or penalties.
We are in the business of recruiting the highest quality employees. We have found that the most dedicated employees are the ones who are looking for a full-time career to support their families. Therefore, we recommend that our clients hire their VAs for a minimum of 30 hours per week to get the best results.
We are happy to facilitate your VAs working more than 40 hours as long as working over 40 hours is mutually agreeable for both you and your VA.
An invoice will be sent to you twice a month, and DocVA will charge your card on file at that time for services rendered – that means no extra work or payroll steps for your staff!
We are always available to answer any billing related questions should they arise.
U.S. labor laws DO NOT apply to your virtual assistants because they are not located in the United States, which drastically reduces your threat of frivolous lawsuits and legal liability. Our country’s labor laws can make it difficult to hire and fire at will, leaving you with no choice but to employ people who may not be the right fit for your practice. DocVA puts you back in control of your staffing choices.
We do, however, expect our clients to treat their VAs with respect and consideration. DocVA recommends giving your VAs the same amount of breaks and lunch time you give your in-house employees.
