Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Help the Medical Practice

A VA can be great for your business if you choose the right one. Likewise, a bad VA can be very bad for your business.

If you are bogged down with the nitty gritty stuff of running your business and finding that you're just not getting the time to grow your business then consider a VA.

When searching for a VA for your business there are many different things you can try.

You can try searching on the internet for virtual assistant, if you add in your field of expertise then hopefully you'll get a much smaller collection to choose from but they should be specialists in their /your field of business.

Alternatively, you can ask your friends and colleagues for word of mouth referrals. While this is a good way to get a referral you do run the risk that the VA you are referred to knows nothing about your business.

An important aspect to remember is that a VA is a business owner in their own right and they are not going to be willing to clock in and out iwth you every day, so long as they meet the deadlines that you set.

If the worst comes to the worst and either you or your VA do not feel that the business relationship is working well then you may well want to cut ties and start again. If you find yourself in this situation ask your VA for a referral as they might know someone who is better suited to the job.

By the same token if your VA approaches you about referrring you on to another VA this may well be because the new VA is better skilled in your area of expertise.

Don't get put off if you have a bad experience the perfect VA is out there waiting for you.

Busy Doctors

I am fortunate to have met and deal with some very nice pleasant and helpful doctors in both my line of work as well as personally through my children and family. The one thing that does facinate me though is the degree of care and attention some of them put into their practices compared to others.

I know a paediatrician for instance types his own letters. Why you might ask, well his secretary/receptionist is very busy. He thought about voice recognition software (VRS) which he trialed for a period of time. He then came to the conclusion that even slowly as a two finger typist he was better than the VRS and that by using it, it actually took him longer to do the letter than if he just typed it in the first place.

Now, I can fully understand that having trialed some VRS myself. My question though is "Isn't his time much more valuable than to be spending it typing".

Often the person or people employed in a doctor's office while they have the secretarial skills etc necessary might not have the necessary medical knowledge to make it worthwhile for the doctor to give them the work to type, hence why they type their own work.

This is where the services of a medical transcriptionist comes in very handy. While certainly not a doctor they are highly skilled language specialists with a clear interest in medical terminology and advances that are being made in the medical field.

If you think your type is too precious to be spent typing letters or reports then why not consider hiring a medical transcriptionist.

If you are interested or would just like to discuss the matter further please feel free to call us, or visit our website.

Working From Home is easy Right!

You've decided that you think working from home would make you life easy, well you'd think so but you would be wrong. You would be amazed at the number of people who think that because you work from home you don't really work. You'll have the friend who stops by unannouced for coffeedbecause they're on leave for a day/week. The neighbour who doesn't understand why something hasn't been done that they spoke to you about urgently this morning. The friend who asks you to go on a shoppingspree with them, and then gets upset when you explain you can't as you're working. And lastly what about the partner who asks you to do something, and rings back 5 minutes later to check if it's been done.

These are just some of the external challenges you'll face if you want to work from hom. If you can be strict and set guidelines for friends and family and not let them disturb you when you're working then working from home can be wonderful. However, having gotten past those hurdles we come to the one hurdle that will sink any work at home career faster than all of the above put together. How good is your willpower. If you are easily distracted if you're at home by yourself or if there are other people about then working from home might not be for you.

A case in point, someone I worked with a while ago was "committed" to working from home and making some money. She however had no concept of self discipline for working at home. Now I'll grant you she had a young child, but there was also a full time nanny to help look after the child and keep an eye on the house. Her work would often miss deadlines and when queried upon why her standard answer was "I needed to do something" for the child. Breaking point for me was the day at 8:30 in the morning she told me she was just going off to pay a bill, at 6:0o that night when asked about the file her answer was "Well I was out with my husband until 5:30, then we got home and it was time to make supper, then her son needed to be bathed, and put to bed before she could start on it". Needless to say that the working relationship didn't last much longer, unfortunately, she took it personally and the personal friendship suffered a bit as well.

While this is an extreme case, if you have the willpower and committmentto work from home then you will find you don't get yourself into such situations. But it is certainly worth consideringbefore decidingwhether working at home is for you or not.

A couple of good ideas if you want to work from home:

1. Set rules about your workings hours. Yes they can be flexible but you do need to have some idea. It's also good for if you have clients to remind them of your hours so that you can actually have some family time.
2. Think about getting dressed in the morning before starting work. I don't mean getting dressed in office clothes but at least get up and get out of your PJ's, it's amazing what an effect that it will have on your mind set.
3. Don't run errands as they occur but rather try and keep them so that you can run them all together and save you time in the long run.

Help for a Doctor's Office

I find that in my dealings with the medical profession I am constantly amazed at how much money seems to be wasted on employing staff/services that do not work.

When your secretary goes on leave and you hire the temp from the Agency who apparently has all the necessary skills what do you do when you find out that they don't. I've had dealings with professionals who have actually resorted to typing their own reports as the temp that was supposed to help cover for their secretary just couldn't/wouldn't get her head round the dictaphone machine and heaven help them if she was given copy typing to do.

Any of you had your secretary come back from holiday and after a week say she needs another break as she's just spent the last week fixing all the mistakes made by the temp.

Does any of this sound familiar to you. If so why not contact Mediscribe and see how we can help you next time you have a problem and need cover for your secretary.

What is a Medical Transcriptionist

I often get asked about what I do and when I explain that I'm a a Medical Transcriptionist  I then get asked what on earth one of those is. So here goes.

An MT as defined by the AHDI is "Medical transcriptionists (MTs) are specialists in medical language and healthcare documentation. They interpret and transcribe dictation by physicians and other healthcare professionals regarding patient assessment, workup, therapeutic procedures, clinical course, diagnosis, prognosis, etc., editing dictated material for grammar and clarity as necessary and appropriate."Basically they are responsible for transferring the doctor's written or dictated notes into a correctly typed and accurate account of the doctor/patient encounter. The accuracy part is highly important as errors in the record can and have lead to incorrect surgery being performed.

That said, the work is very interesting and constantly challenging as there are new things to learn every day. Just went you think you are getting a handle on it someone comes along and changes the boundaries. It's the joy of working in a constantly changing and developing scientific world. The day I am bored typing medial work is the day that I know I need to seriously change profession
If you want to find out more about medical transcription then go to

www.ahdionline.org This is the home of The Association of Healthcare Documentation Integrity which used to be called the American Association of Medical Transcriptionists. While it is an American site and mainly geared towards the American, it is a good place to get an overview of what is needed to be a Medical Transcriptionist.

The Medical Transcriptionist along with most other VA type work can now quite comfortably be achieved at home thereby reducing the costs of having to have space for office staff to type the work. The advent of digital voice recorders has improved this immensely as the turn around time between the work being sent to be typed and the time that it gets returned has diminished greatly.
Alternatively if you want to ask me any questions please feel free to do so.

Secretarial Assistance

Has your secretary been booked off work sick and youve hired a temp.

You've given them some typing to do for you and you've now spent the last two hours correcting the work, you're now wondering how long your secretary is going to be off and how long you can hold onto the typing before you have to give the next batch to the temp.

Why not instead try a VA. We offer secretarial and transcription services and are highly skilled professional administrative personnel.

If your field of business has it's own set of terminology chances are if you hire a temp from an agency they are just going to send you however is next on the list and not bother to see what skill sets you require. Also what you pay the agency is never what the temp gets paid.

When you hire a VA you pay precisely for the services you want. You don't line someone else's pocket while you have to spend time "training" a temp that by the pure nature of what they do will only be there for a short period of time. After all the other choice is that you spend hours correcting everything that they've already done and if that's the case why have them their at all.

Next time you need temporary, short term or emergency cover why not try using a VA instead.

While VA's normal work from their own office, if mutually agreed upon they may well come to your office for a short period of time to help with filing etc. Then any work that they can do remotely from their office they will take and do for you.

So like I say why not give a VA a try next time you need a temporary short term solution to your admin crisis.