Hi there!
Welcome to our next episode on using a VA. My name is Paula Burgess and I have an agency called Beyond the Maze, based here in Australia.
Today’s topic is about how to use a VA in your Allied Health Business.
Firstly, Allied Health, I’m talking about things like physiotherapist, dietician, osteopaths, psychologists, all of that sort of space. We can also talk about the medical field, could be doctors, cardiologists or anesthetists all that sort of space.
I will talk about both industries here because this is quite valid for both of them. Let’s chat about using a VA in that space and what you could use a VA for. This is somewhere that we really specialize – this Allied Health space.
First of all, we are knowledgeable in neurodiversity. If you’re somebody who is neurodivergent, then we can assist with that because we know the challenges that can exist around that and working in a business and not being in your zone of genius, right?
That’s where we really specialize, and we have that understanding of parents or people who are parents of neurodivergent kids or people who are neurodivergent themselves. Just having that little bit of extra understanding and support around that helps.
So what can we do?
To start, we can answer your phone.
How many times have you been in a client appointment, and you’ve come out of that appointment and had four or five messages on the phone?
Somebody may have been ringing around trying to find a physiotherapist, for example. They can’t get you because you’re in session with another client of yours. They will just go to the next physio on the list. If that physio has someone who answers their phone, they probably have already booked in with them by the time you’ve got that message and you’ve got the chance to ring them back.
Getting your phone answered by somebody who works in this space is really helpful. We can have an immediate answer on the phone, book the client in, get the information that’s needed for you, and it’s all taken care of.
When you’re out of that session with your client, you can then see that you’ve maybe got another one or two brand new clients in your diary. Of course, that helps if you are taking new clients right, which we know at this point in time a lot of psychologists are not doing because they’re just in demand.
Even if you are in demand, it’s being able to give that extra care and saying to someone, “Hey, you know we don’t have any vacancies at the moment and our waiting list is closed”, and if you do happen to know someone, then we can give those details to that person on the other end of the phone. That’s just that little extra bit of service that can build a great reputation.
Obviously, in this market at the moment, it’s quite difficult because there’s a lot of psychologists, for example, that are very busy and they’re not taking new clients and they don’t have waiting lists because they have closed them because they’re just too long, and so we may not be able to give that information, but if we can, we will.
Another benefit to actually having someone to answer your phone is that if somebody is lost on their way to the clinic or something bad has happened on the way to the clinic. They may have got into a car accident, or somebody has fallen ill and they’ve had to go help them, or pick up a child from school or something like that. They can call your practice and get someone on the phone straight away, without stressing that they’re going to be late for the appointment or something has happened and they just they can’t contact you.
Having that person on the other end of the phone for them is just giving that extra added value to your client.
We can also do things like rescheduling appointments.
If you’ve woken up ill for the day, the last thing you want to do is be ringing your 5 or 6 clients that you’ve got booked in for the day and rescheduling them. You just want to go back to bed and be able to just send an email to someone and say, “Hey, I’m not well today. I’m not working. Can you take care of this for me?” You can then go back to bed and recuperate. You will be able to do that, and we can reschedule your diary while you’re sleeping and recovering. Even if you’ve got a sick child at home, equally as important, so that you can attend to that child.
Before the appointment starts, we can be doing things like chasing up referrals from doctors or getting additional information. If you have a new patient form that you want a patient to fill out before they come in to see you, your VA can be making sure that that’s been uploaded to the system rather than you having to chase that up.
Your VA can also be doing things at the other end of the day. We are able to invoice at the end of the appointment and process payments, if you keep the information on file, after the appointments or charging that all out the next day. We can also be then claiming rebates for your clients if that’s something you do. Being able to do everything and sending all of that documentation off to the clients saying, “Hey, here is your invoice, this is your rebate – It’s all done!” – it’s fantastic service.
That’s just one less thing that you have to do right, because you’ve got reports to write and businesses to run and other things to manage. Having that VA to help you with all of that is so valuable and we see lots of clients going “Wow, it’s made such difference to my business!”
We can also move into things like marketing.
If you are looking for clients, we can do things like newsletters to help you build your list. Your VA can help with landing pages on your website, do social media posts, all that sort of thing. There’s lots and lots of things that you can use a VA for.
If you would like to have a chat with us about how you would use a VA in your business, then please contact me for a quick no obligation chat here: https://calendly.com/bossladycoach/15min?month=2023-03 . Let’s see how a VA could help you in your business!
So, until next week, Bye for now.
Read our blog about Working through Challenges here: https://beyondthemaze.com.au/working-through-challenges/
