69: How The Global Workforce Era Is Shaping The Future Of Dental Staffing

Foreign.

Welcome back to another episode of the Dental Boardroom podcast. I'll be your host of today's episode. My name is Drew Phillips. I have a very, very interesting topic and guest that I'm so happy to share with you guys today. Her name is Beth Lachance, and her company is called Global Medical Virtual Assistants. As everyone knows in the dental space, since COVID our staffing woes have grown exponentially, and companies like Global Medical are here to fill in that void and create consistency and predictability in your staffing model. So please welcome me in having Ms. Beth Lachance on the show today. Welcome, Beth.

Ah, thank you so much, Drew. I'm so excited to be here.

Likewise. Likewise. So let's just. I want you to start just with a general overview who you are, how you got into the space, and a little bit about Global Medical, and then we'll start to dive into some more of the specifics here in a minute.

Yeah, thanks. So I'm Bethel Chance. I am the founder and CEO of Global Medical Virtual Assistants. How I got here, it's been, you know, everybody has. Either you have a direct line in your career or you have a. Have a very windy trail. I had a very windy trail, but I came all from within the medical space. So I, immediately after college, jumped into pharmaceutical sales and then surgical devices and did that for 20, you know, 22 years. Loved every minute of it. Paid very close attention to what was happening inside of medical practices and in hospitals and learned. Learned a lot. And at just seven years ago, my partner, who was my husband at the time, he had had a virtual assistant company that specialized in just real estate. And so he had a partnership breakup that went terribly wrong and went very quickly. And I quit my job immediately, jumped in with him, and we were a force to be recogn. Reckoned with. And we were able to rebrand and start a whole new virtual assistant company that specialized just in real estate. So from there, but because I became. Because I came from the medical space, I loved medicine, and I knew that there was a. There was room in that industry to bring and introduce virtual assistants into that space. So I started and branched out and started my own company that just specialized in medical virtual assistants. And from there, it has just been a very wild ride, because when we initially started the company, it was previous to Covid. The conversations with medical practices, hospitals, and beyond were a very long sales process, to say the least, because virtual assistants were just not utilized in the medical space yet. Widely utilized in all other industries, but just not in the medical space. But with COVID Covid thrusted the entire industry into not only having to do it, but figuring out very quickly that it's possible. And so after, during COVID and then post Covid, it's the, you know, the sales calls that we have are very fast. It's more or less of when can we get started, how quickly can we get started, and how do we institute this and make it work successfully. So it's a very different call than it used to be. And it's been. It's been an amazing space to be in.

Absolutely. And what I like the, the roundabout life journey stories. They're way more interesting.

Yeah, it's. It's been. It's been an interesting ride. You know, I always forever wanted to be, you know, I knew in high school I wanted to be in the operating room. I wanted to be a nurse practitioner, a PA or a nurse in the or. I found my way somehow into the or, and that ended up being through sales and surgical devices. But interestingly enough, then this has completely, completely taken me into a different direction and in a direction that I absolutely love. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't have it any other way. The, you know, had I not done and had the path I had, I wouldn't have learned what I've learned and been able to bring this to this industry.

And we're, we're glad that you did. You know, the COVID really disrupted a lot of things. You know, from an operational perspective, people work from home more often, and dental especially was kind of taboo to even consider having someone remote. But today, and just with technology changes and the adoption, it seems that it's. It's almost can increase or enhance the. The overall experience. So why, why don't you maybe start with, you know, what, what a medical virtual assistant is how they're incorporated into medical practices. Maybe dental specifically just given. Given our audience base here.

Yeah. Interestingly enough, we are Philippine based on. And we in the Philippines. The number one graduating degree in the Philippines of a bachelor's degree is in nursing. So we have got a massive amount of amazing pool of talent to be able to select from to come work in our company. So most of our talent are they have a bachelor's degree, a bachelor's degree in nursing of something or something of the sort. They fully understand how our, you know, our insurance works here in this country, how co pays and deductibles function together and beyond. So our. We have such a great opportunity to be able to bring such great talent and place them into dental practices and medical practices. So I like to explain one of the things I don't really like about this industry is that people have an immediate negative thought around virtual assistants. Like it sounds like they're a lower level professional. The reality is we're talking about a true professional. They have a career in, you know, in this field. And what's exciting is that the, the amount of tasks and what they're able to accomplish is so incredible. They really raise the professionalism within practices because they are incredibly professional individuals. So for me, it's just been, it's been really, really exciting. And I like to consider them virtual professionals, not virtual assistants. And that immediately makes people kind of shift and change their mindset around the utilization of these professionals in their practices, but remotely. So getting back to your question though, how do we, you know, who are these individuals? How do we get them in place? We have a phenomenal recruiting team, we have an amazing training team. And then we find what skill sets that these individuals have, these professionals have, and we place them in roles of clients coming into U.S. dental practices and beyond of, you know, making sure that their skill set is really a good fit for, for what the role will be and what the role is requiring. So again, we have a pool of VAs to be able to select from. So if we have a dental practice that comes to us that's really struggling with their front desk, let's say it's a very large dental practice, very busy, but frankly just doesn't have enough room in the front for more people at the front desk, we're a phenomenal solution to be able to scale with us and not introduce another person actually sitting physically in the office, but introduce another person that actually can do the work of that receptionist, but remotely. And so we are able to introduce that effectively through teamwork with the professional within, you know, the, let's say it's their practice manager and effectively be able to create what that solution looks like. And how, you know, we integrate into the practice is really, is really dictated by the practice manager. For example.

Are you looking to sell a dental practice? If you're a seller, how do you find a strong list of potential buyers? There's no MLS or Zillow for dental practice sales. In such a fragmented market, with transaction costs so high, many dentists selling their practice feel discouraged. That's why I built practiceOrbit.com practice orbit is modernizing how dental practices are sold through its online marketplace platform. It brings together buyers, sellers, and their professional teams directly. Sellers can easily and anonymously showcase their practice on the site for free. Practice Orbit offers two options to sell your practice. Option one, for 2% of the sale price fee, you'll get access to all Practice Orbit tools to sell your practice, along with a dedicated human assistant to coordinate the sale. And you only pay that 2% if you sell through the Practice Orbit system. Option 2, Practice Orbit also offers a fully brokered option of 4 to 6% of the sale price. With our fully brokered option, you'll be assigned an experienced practice sales agent to help you determine a price, identify a buyer, and navigate the entire transaction. If you're thinking about selling your dental practice, create your free account today at www.practiceorbit.com.

And we're breaking down these barriers that exist, right? These preconceived notions of, of what outsourced, right? And it's, I think it's important and education is where it starts. And that's one of the, one of the cool things that I wanted to bring you on the show to help do. And you know, practice cfo, we, we outsource to the Philippines for some accounting services as well. And so we've had a wonderful experience into Beth's point, very professional. And these, you know, these people have, you know, college degrees and specialization licenses within our spaces. And so it's just, it's, it's a brave new world that we're in. And, and so I'm excited that we get to share some of our experiences with everybody today. So you, we were talking offline earlier and you mentioned that while the virtual professionals work, you know, directly with the offices, that you also still have this sort of higher level management function within Global Medical that is there to not only assist the, you know, the practice with those team members, but also to help coordinate processes and maybe even process improvements to some degree. Maybe you could talk a little bit about that for a moment?

Yeah, no, I'd be happy to. The key to our success, frankly, has been having a very strong virtual medical manager as part of the team to make sure that not, you know, look, it's heavy lifting. Anytime you have additional staffing that you're bringing into your practice, it's more people to manage, it's more people to oversee, it's more people problems. Right. We take that burden off of the practice. So part of our, you know, part of our services, which is a, which is really, frankly, one of the biggest parts of our success is that we have very, very strong, a very strong management team that's overseeing the day to day of the VAs and their tasks and, and their productivity and then also responsible for doing coaching. For example, if we have a virtual assistant that had a miss for whatever reason it might be, then we figure out on our end it's time that we take. It's not time from the practice of the practice manager or the point of contact within the practice to have to get involved. We take that on. That's our burden to do as part of our management structure. So then we're spending the time with the virtual assistant to find out, well, is it a skill issue, is it a will issue? And if it's a skill issue, well, we're going to spend the time to get them to be trained up to where they need to be to be fully productive and be efficient in their role. If it's a will issue, well then it's again it's our job to motivate them and get them back on track. And so we take that, that burden off of the practice to do that. And that has really been a huge part of our success. Our managers also, they work in tandem and work very closely hand in hand with the practice manager and or the again the point of contacts within each of the departments that we're functioning in. And therefore we're getting collective consistent feedback from them on how things are. We're making suggestions on more use like efficiencies and how we can be more efficient. Why reinvent the wheel? We have the ability, we see hundreds of practices across the country. We know what works in our, you know, with the use of remote staffing, we know it seems to work the best, we know it seems to fail. And why reinvent the wheel? We can bring different avenues of success to utilizing remote staff to the practice, but we also will do it your way. You know, we're a true partner. And the fact is not every practice functions the same. Not every dental practice functions the same. Even sister practices don't function the same. And so therefore we do it your way. But we will absolutely make recommendations on ways to be more efficient, more effective and have streamlined processes as part of our role. But again that is entirely dictated by how the practice works, wants it done.

So in dental we, some of the common services that are outsourced today to third party providers would be billing for one and in call answering would be one of the other sort of top ones. And then maybe more recently, you know, temp staffing platforms like direct dental and things of that nature that help bring in assistants and hygienists, but ultimately for billing and Call answering services. You know, that's where I feel like most people have the most experience or at least the most prerequisite knowledge coming into this show. So maybe you could help explain how Global Medical, in your insourcing model, just meaning you're at the office working directly with them, differentiates between these outsourced models and kind of the comparable nature or lack thereof of your two strategies.

Sure, yeah. No, thanks for that. And there's such a big difference. So, you know, just to give a little bit of context around that, I was at a conference, a very large conference, and you know, I'm looking at all the vendors that are there. Of course, there's got to be 200 vendors that are in, you know, at this particular conference. And, and there were 10 solution providers, vendors that were there that offered full outsourcing of. Of anything. Revenue cycle management. Right. So anything within revenue cycle include, of course, anything around billing was entitled, and those are full outsourced solutions. We were the only staffing solution that was insourcing. Meaning we're an extension of your practice, an extension of your team. So if a practice has all their billing in house, they haven't outsourced us to an outside company. They're fully responsible for billing internally. They have a cbo, a centralized billing office. We're an extension of that. So if they need additional additional staffing for that, let's say the headcount was very low and you just are getting behind in billing. You can add virtual assistants from our team, from our company to be integrated as part of the team that you have, and we can scale with you. So there's a very big difference between fully outsourcing versus insourcing. We are considered an insource. We are brought in as additional staffing to the staffing, staffing that you already have within your practice. And therefore, then we can help and do again, do things your way. We're part of your staff. If you have a Monday morning staff meeting, we are part of that. If you have scrub suits that all of your, you know, the rest of your dental hygienists and practice, you know, people within the practice are wearing, you can send us your scrub shoot scrub suits and the virtual assistants will be on camera in your scrub so that they're really integrated as part of the team. So there's just such a drastic difference in terms of fully outsourcing to those revenue cycle management companies versus utilizing a service like ours, where we adapt, we add additional staffing to your team. And it's just, you know, it works incredibly differently.

And to put all those points together, to summarize, you know, one of the nice things about outsourcing, it's almost like a set it and forget it. But what you don't get to have that those creature comforts around are being able to have eyes on. Are they working on me today? Are they working on their other 5,000 clients? And it. But, you know, but there is still that element of, oh, well, at least I don't have to manage or. But then you bring in the management functions. On top of being able to see and know the person that's facilitating this role, you get to know them on a personal level and you know that they're working every day because they're accessible to you throughout the day. So I think that you're blending all of the best efforts into. Into one model, which I just wanted to emphasize that because I think that those. Some of those points can get lost as you're out navigating the options for you in the market. So. And then what are you just kind of curious, Beth, what you're seeing in the industry as far as. As trends in. In this. Maybe in this realm, specifically for practice owners in the country?

Yeah, trends. Interestingly enough, I think one of the most amazing parts of being in this industry for me and watching this grow, and one of the best compliments I have seen internally is that we've had heavy growth from our existing client base. Of course we're getting new clients coming in. But the trends that. What we're able to capture is once we get started in a practice in one particular department, let's say we start as a remote receptionist. We have three remote receptionists that are integrated as part of a call center or part of helping the front desk or our front desks for multiple practices. Let's say that there's, you know, let's say there's a dental practice that has, you know, four locations, right. So we have found that they have seen such great success with how this functions that they're immediately thinking, okay, where else can we use medical virtual assistants? Where else can we include Global Medical as part of our solution? And then they start really looking into other departments, and that's where we see our growth.

So.

So the trend really is that people in the dental and medical industries.

Are really going. They're really extending themselves and going outside of that typical box, and they're really starting to expand outside of that and utilize medical virtual assistants across the board in many areas. We're talking chart review. We're not just talking, answering the phones, we're not just talking billing were, you know, conversations with patients, giving them results, giving them instructions, following up on denied claims and seeing where we are with those having conversations with patients about their follow up treatment and follow up visit. So there's, there's, you know, fax review, for example, there's you know, chart prep as I already explained. So there's so many different ways we can be utilized and practice managers in different department heads in different departments start really thinking outside of the box of how we can really help the onshore team to expand and scale because a lot of practices are continuing to grow and with that growth you only have so much physical space. With that growth you only have a certain budget and how can you do it and hit and be effective and not lose the existing staff you have out of to burnout or to being overworked. And so we're a great solution to that. So the trend is really moving heavily in this direction. And of course with AI knocking on the door, there's a lot of solutions internally with different EMRs and different software solutions that are offering additional help to staffing to simplify or make things a little bit more efficient. But in the end we really need live bodies and this is a way to do it and a way to do it effectively without hurting the bottom dollar.

Absolutely agree. I think it'll be interesting to see as AI and technology in general continues to evolve and how that will, I think, will increasingly create more opportunities to incorporate virtual assistants professionals into the space. So one couple things that this is from my own experience, it's not necessarily as it relates to your business model, but when we decided to strategically bring in outsourced support on the accounting side of the equation, some of the things that we were challenged with, which were good challenges, were potential communication issues or potential technology compliance or regulatory issues that being abroad potentially creates. So maybe you could take some time just to maybe demystify some of those elements for our listeners today.

Yes, thank you. This is one of my favorite parts of my job actually because it just, you know, I have the ability to educate people to, you know, to a whole nother world of staffing and how it's possible. And you can go, I mean just on our website, for example, you can go to our website and there, you know, we have recordings of what our VA sound like. So there's one of the kind of demystifying. Oh, because right away we all start to think, ah, you know, we get those calls from call centers from around the world. And there's, you know, there's a language barrier, there's a deep accent, and we're immediately turned off by it. Right? I mean, that's just one of. And our patients are turned off by that. I mean, imagine calling into your dental practice and you're, you know, you know, you're immediately being, you're talking to somebody offshore just based on their English accent. So one of the beautiful things about what we're able to do is we have an amazing recruiting team. We recruit and we have a baseline of what we expect to bring in as part of our talent pool. And the English proficiency is phenomenal and their accent is minimal to the point where I know that every single virtual assistant that we employ, I know that I can deploy them in Albany, New York, I can put them in Louisville, Kentucky, I can place them with a practice in Michigan, I can put them in practice in California or Colorado without even thinking about it. I know that they would be able to handle complex conversations with patients, complex conversations with the elderly, with the, with people that are mentally, that have mental illness, patients that are already agitated and are in desperate need of assistance. And we have the right talent pool to be able to handle those conversations. So one of the great things that I get to do is, you know, send people to my website, check out what do we sound like, and that will immediately take away that one obstacle in people's minds of, you know, one of those things, the hurdles that they need to get over to think about utilizing remote staffing in a company like ours.

And the spoken language is probably the, the bigger hold up for, you know, in general, but also, but there's also the written communication too, which is, you know, depending on the, the virtual professional's role, that could be a big element of, to, to their job. So on the, on the written communication side, kind of intuitive that if they, if they, if they're, if their spoken language is, is, is strong, then likely their written language is as well. But maybe you could speak to that as that piece too.

Agreed. Absolutely. If the spoken language is strong, we know that their writing, their writing abilities are also very strong. We also assess this through training. So we have two weeks of what we call academy training, which is just two full weeks of, of our internal training here. That's where we really, really get to know our VAs, our exactly where they would fit in and where would, where we could potentially place them with clients in which roles. And there's many assessments that take place during that time. They wouldn't be in training if they didn't pass our original assessment in terms of our onboarding through our application process and through our recruitment team and the interviews that happen there. So. But we really get to do a deeper dive when they go through our training program. And what I have to say is like, again, the professionalism is excellent. They raise the bar, the reporting that they report back to practices in terms of productivity, in terms of initiatives, even from our management team Are you looking.

To buy or sell a dental practice? If you're a seller, how do you find a strong list of potential buyers? There's no MLS or Zillow for dental practice sales. In such a fragmented market, many dentists selling their practice feel discouraged. That's why I built practiceOrbit.com practice orbit is modernizing how dental practice are bought and sold. It's a platform technology. Y' all know them Zillow, Airbnb, Uber, and OpenTable, just to name a few. These technologies do two things. First, they help match buyers and sellers by centralizing the marketplace. Second, once the match between buyer and seller is made, these technologies help them navigate the sale to a successful close. Here are a few of the features inside a Practice Orbit users can determine a reasonable sale price for practice in just minutes. All they need is the most recent business tax return. Practice owners can use the directory to find important service providers like practice brokers, attorneys, accountants and bankers. Practice owners and their brokers can invite those service providers into the platform so all parties are coordinating the sale together. Practice owners will have a beautiful digital listing of their practice, like a home on Redfin. And importantly, the listing will be anonymous and personal information like your address, name and pictures are only released after an NDA is signed and approved by you or your broker. Practice buyers can create saved searches to be auto notified when new listings come on the platform that fit their desired specialty and location. And hey, dental practice brokers, you can list all your practices on the site for free. By doing so, you'll get access to to Practice Orbit's large pool of buyers, all of whom have created profiles and saved searches to be auto notified when new listings come for sale. You can use the platform to introduce your listings to a targeted set of buyers. Additionally, and optionally, you can use the platform tools such as a built in NDA, a customizable loi, and a workflow tool to navigate the sale from LOI to closing. In fact, you can manage all your listings on the system, from listing the practice to NDA to loi, and finally to closing the deal. Create your free account today at www.practiceorbit.com.

It's really, really quite impressive. And make no mistake about it, yes, it is a different country, but their level is extraordinarily high.

Well, you know, education is big, right? And, and this is not a knock to dental staff members at all, you know, but when you, you look at the majority of dental staff, at least in the front front office and some of these key roles that we're talking about today, a lot of times they're, they may not have that higher degree of education. And so, you know, I think that to your point, right, it has the, the ability to raise the bar. And I think that, and actually, let me ask this to you. Instead of saying it with that bar that's being raised by these, these educated people that you're bringing in. Have you seen that? To bring up the shoreside people in their ability and sort of hold them to a higher standard as well, does it create a cultural element, I guess is what I'm asking.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, I mean, of course, you know, I'm the owner of my company, so I of course, would say all of those things. However, I ended up hiring one of my clients. There was a nurse in one of my medical practices, and I ended up hiring her as one of my salespeople because she comes from this, she comes from a totally different side of an angle of it in a practice that instituted and brought in our services. And she has a totally different perspective. And so I'm like, no better of a salesperson to have a nurse that was on the other end of bringing in our services. And that's one of the things that she always touches upon is that the level of professionalism that our team brought to their front desk team, to their receptionist team, it was, it was absolutely elevated without a question. And, and it really, I mean, number one, it's a team atmosphere, which always helps. And you always raise your bar when you're working with other people that are really strong. Right? And so that ended up being the case with their, with their practice. And it was exciting to see and exciting to hear because I didn't realize that, you know, I don't get to hear that side of it. And when I did hear that side of it, I'm like, wow, that is so, so true. And I'm, and I'm very impressed that other people are having that experience within the practices, you know, that she had.

One of the things I think is one of the nice things that I feel like I get to enjoy by working, you know, As a direct to, you know, B2B with these, with practice owners is I get to see all the different technology solutions that people are deploying, the processes and the operational sort of strategies that they deploy. And. And you got to get to synthesize and sort of see the. What works the best, and then offer that guidance to sort of prepackage the best of all of all those areas. And so the fact that you guys have all of these virtual professionals in all these different clinics, I'm imagining that you guys are getting that sort of that view and that perception as well, across the board. And how are you guys, you know, leveraging that information to make your business partners more successful? Sure.

Well, it is definitely an art of management.

Managing people is not easy, and managing remote staff is most definitely a little bit more challenging than managing people.

Within your eye view. Right. But I think.

We have such an extensive amount of experience now in what we do, and I'd like to say that we are most definitely a leader in this, you know, in the medical virtual assistant space that we always have management teams that are. That are so strong that they're willing to go out on a limb and explain to a practice manager how we can make things better. You know, they will come to us initially with what, this is the way we do things. This is the way we want things done. And of course, that's great. We will absolutely follow what we're told, of course. But we have strong enough leaders in our management team that they're. That they will immediately then follow up with, how about we do it this way? We know that we've seen this work. If we do it this way, would you be open to us trying this? And we'll trial it. And if the practice is open, open to trialing it, and we see that, okay, it works great, then we all win if we see that. Okay, no, this doesn't work because there's slight differences in that practice. No problem. We go back to the way that we were doing it previously. So the expertise is really in our favor because we have so many, again, hundreds of practices across the country. Almost 1000 VAs are within those practices working. So we know what works. And especially for practices that have never utilized remote staff. And this is different. You know, it's different when you had somebody who was working in your practice and billing and who, like now with COVID has said, oh, I really only need to come in three days a week or two days a week, that's different. You've already had that built that level of Trust with that, with that team member. They've already been part of your onshore in office staff and having them work from home a few days a week, no big deal. Right? Because you've already built that level of trust. There is a huge amount of faith, a very big leap of faith that practices need to take when they're going to start hiring entirely remote staffing from day one. Right. They don't have a relationship with this team. They don't have a relationship with our VAs yet. They don't have a relationship with us. So there is a very big leap of faith. But I know that we definitely have had a tremendous amount of success. And like I said earlier, our biggest and best compliment has been our existing client base just continues to add on more and more VAs.

I. I'm gonna take a quick step that was. Thank you for that. I'm gonna take a quick step back because there was. You mentioned during your intake and onboarding process internally that you're identifying which roles and tasks that this particular person would be best suited for. Once you've determined that. Do they get any specialized training for that role before they're deployed into a practice?

They do. Yes, we have. Once they graduate from our, from our academy batch classes, then they go masterclass, which they then get to do more specialized honing in on those skills that we think that they really specialize in. And also tasks that they want to do, don't forget. You know, we also want to make sure we have really high retention and low turnover. So if we put somebody in a role that they're not going to enjoy, you know, they're not going to stay long. So we also make sure that their skill set also matches their passion. So because more than likely they're going to be in a role where they're doing that task. And it can be redundant, a task over and over and over and over again every day. And we want to make sure that they have passion and love for it. But beyond that, then they also get to spend time with mentor vas that are doing that exact task or role. And so they get to see it like in real time, in motion, you know, how does the day to day look for another VA that's doing that same task or that same role and then making sure that it's a great fit for them. And then they're learning. You know, anytime you just get to sit side by side with somebody and you get to see see what they do on a daily basis, you learn from that and you take that with you to the position that you're being.

Placed in, you know, one. And this is again, I'm speaking from my own, my own personal experiences. You know, it was a little challenging at first to incorporate our accounting group into the culture of our onshore team and really make them feel like a viable, you know, member of the organization and vice versa. And you know, that was really important that we, you know, cross that, that bridge and we, I feel like we have at this point, but it still, it felt challenging in the early part of that, of that onboarding. So how do you guys work to incorporate them into the culture and get them, you know, familiar with the onshore team and really create that compatibility and for that organization?

Yeah, well, part of the, you know, we have those conversations very early on. The manager that, you know, are what we call vvm, our virtual.

Our virtual medical manager, they are responsible for having some of those, those conversations early on with the practice manager, for example, on, you know, one of the things that we have seen is there can be people within the onshore team, within the practice that want to sabotage bringing in remote staff because they're afraid for their job. They're afraid that, oh, now they're going to start bringing in remote staff workers at a lower cost point so that they can get rid of me. That is usually never the intention.

Right.

You know, 99% of the time we are brought in as an additional asset to the existing team. It is never to eliminate team members. So 99% of the time. And that's critical for me. That's a, that's critical because I am not in this industry to eliminate American jobs. I am in this industry to help with the scaling process of practices that are really struggling and need additional staffing and also want to hold on to those really, really great team members that are in their practice every day, but they're burnt out because they're doing too much. So how can we be of assistance to that? That's why I'm in this industry. So 99% of the time our practices are new practices coming in. We are not being brought in because they want to eliminate their existing staff. We're being brought in because they need additional staffing and help.

Absolutely.

And they want to really take some of the burden off of their existing staff members in certain roles. So having that said, it is critical that the practice manager does a really, really great job introducing the reasoning behind bringing in our, you know, bringing in our staffing solution and why they're doing it and how they're going to do it. And you've got to get everybody on, you know, on board and in step. If you have team members that are not on board with it, it is, then it just is a bumpier ride. It is a bumpier ride to finally get to this, you know, to get to things being smooth. But as long as you've got everybody on board and they are excited about it, you know, it goes extraordinarily well. Now keep in mind, I know you mentioned earlier before about set it and forget it. We are not a set it and forget it. We are. Yes, there's some heavy lifting in the beginning to get us up and running. We're learning your tools, we're learning your processes, we're learning your culture and your practice. We need to integrate into that and be part of the team. But then beyond that, it is critical that our team still has a cohesive working relationship between the point of context in the practice and our management team to make sure that it continues to go on in a really great way. And if we have that working relationship, it's amazing. The sky's the limit and we've had clients that have been with us for five years and we have very few clients that move away from utilizing our services.

And look, the, the preconceived notions are not limited to business owners, right? The, the, this, this, this is a large part education for everyone. And you know, we're moving into a, a fresh frontier of, of globe, of a global workforce across all industries. And the demand for your services wouldn't be this high if there were people stateside in enough quantity that wanted these positions. And so I totally echo what.

Well and then, so we touched on this a little bit. But just because HIPAA is such a big thing, especially you know, in medical and so, or obviously medical, but in dental. And I know that these will be questions that if some of my, our dental listeners call you about, we'll want to ask, so HIPAA compliance, how do you guys approach that and make sure that that stays intact?

Yeah, great question. First of all, day one of training here is weight is HIPAA certification. So HIPAA training, HIPAA certification and consistent reminders of the protection. And we do that through, through many, through many aspects. But we, we have to do it. And there's, there's multilayers of this. Number one is of course the basics of HIPAA training and consistent reminders of protection of phi. Right, there's that a little bit more concrete is how are we protecting through software, through the management of tools that we're accessing patient information. So one of the things that we do is we have, we have a HIPAA audit of the VA's computers. They're random HIPAA audits. They're also some scheduled HIPAA audits. And what we're doing is we're just ensuring that the computer systems of our VAS are protected with the correct malware. They go into sleep mode after a certain amount of time and they're password protected. There are no saved passwords to access the client's EMR or any of their tools and beyond. So that's just part one. Okay. The second part of that is, you know, we're given access directly into our clients tools. We are not saving and storing patient information on our end. That is all held within the client's tools. So we're really, truly are an extension of the practice as a remote workforce from that practice. So it is critical that the practice also has all of the, you know, all the firewalls up that they need to have up to protect patient information. But ensuring that our virtual assistants have an email within the domain of the practice, yes, they have an email in our company, but they need to have an email within the practice so that any patient information or any, you know, any coordination between practitioners and the staff all stays within the domain of the client, you know, of the practice and so on. So there's many facets to protecting Phi. Then we also institute an additional software which is an additional vpn, malware and beyond to make sure that any of our VAs that are logging in, they're logging in through a remote desktop in the United States.

And so we're remote desktop or cloud based practice management software, whichever modality you have at this time. And then do you ever have instances where you have to coordinate with their IT team to.

Yep, yes, absolutely. In many cases we need to coordinate with the IT team because we also have, there's also some, some software systems that our clients require to be on the computers of the VAs. So we work closely with the IT. So we also have an internal IT team here that will coordinate and work with the IT team of the dental practice or medical practice to ensure that everything is the way it should be on the VA's computers before they're logging in to any to see and have access to any patient information.

We have in a lot of ways, kind of in a roundabout way, maybe even talked about the onboarding process basically start to finish. But maybe we could just be in a more of a summary format, give the experience that A practice owner would go through from start to finish with you guys?

Sure. Well, it starts with, you know, accessing, going directly to our website. There is a button they can click to, to to schedule a strategy session with one of our salespeople to do a full strategy call. I don't even like to call them salespeople because they're really educating someone on what it is to have a medical virtual assistant. They're not selling virtual assistants. They're, they're really educating on the process. So you can go to our website, click on strategy session, create and, and get that scheduled. And then it's a, you know, it's a zoom call or a phone call with someone from our team that will go through everything about our services, how it functions, how we work, how we integrate, you know, to, you know, what next steps are and beyond our pricing structures, everything. We'll go through soup to nuts, the whole entire process. So that's part one. If a client then decides, yes, oh my God, we totally want to do this, we send a contract. As soon as they sign the contract that starts the process of a virtual medical manager will reach out, set up a meet and greet, have that initial meet and greet, we select which VAs would be a great fit, we have a start date instituted and we get rockin'. And that is really the, you know, a simplified version of the steps that happen, but, but it goes that smoothly.

And I know it'll be somewhat dependent on the role that they're servicing, but in general, what from start, from the time that they start at the office to the time that most offices feel that that person is proficient within their process and their systems. What does that timeframe usually look like?

Yeah, it, I mean it, obviously it depends on the role. Just like you said, it depends on the complexity of the role and the number of tasks and the different, different pieces of their, of their position. But I, you know, for the most part, four to six weeks.

Four to six weeks.

You know, for. Yep. For a simple, you know, everyday tasks that are the same every single day, simplified versions easily for within four weeks they should be fully up to full productivity. More complex multiple tasks, learning a lot of different types of things. I would say, you know, that up to six weeks marker and then they should be able to be fully, fully, fully performing within eight and within that two month marker, really be able to be at full productivity as though they're really part of your onshore team.

That's a really, that's a really great benchmark. And then it should be Somewhat intuitive, but what we've talked about today, but maybe for just to summarize for this point as well, the different roles that you see most commonly deployed with the virtual professionals, and then maybe some that you see on the horizon that aren't as prevalent right now, but very well could be very soon. Great.

Oh, I'm so glad you said that. So the typical roles in medical and dental, of course, is everything and anything front desk related. Patient volume is up, we all know that. So patient volume is up. So that means more phone calls, more patient appointments, more patient cancellations, more new patient intakes for incoming patients, referrals and beyond. Right. So all of that everything and anything front desk related, not so much. In the, in the dental industry, are prior authorizations necessary? You know, maybe in a small facet in some of the specialized dental practices, but the heavy lifting around insurance verifications and prior authorizations is our number one ask from practices coming to us just because it's time consuming, it's redundant, and it's one of the loathed things that onshore staffing doesn't want to do anymore. They just don't want to do it. And it also is one of the things that if you were to poll your practice members, nine out of ten of them would say, if you could take that off my plate, I would be happier and my morale would go up. And so that's one of the biggest things we're also asked to do. And then of course, chart review, chart prep, patient engagement and back office tasks in terms of like revenue cycle management. That's also part of a big part of what we're asked to do on the horizon, which is so exciting. And it's already happening and there's already been in a handful of the practices that we're in is recruiting and credentialing of new hires into practices. So I actually just very recently was at a staffing conference for mgma and that is one of the number one issues we know, staffing, of course, and that I'm in the industry, so I know what the issues are. But everybody is feeling this across the board. In medical and dental, all administrative staff members, it's really hard to recruit and get them in the door. And then once you get them in the door, sometimes they quit even in their first week. And so it's just very, very challenging. And so recruiting, just recruiting and sifting through the resumes and setting up those first few, those first few interviews, for example, you know, a lot of people don't show up to their very first interview, right. And that is typically put on the practice manager and so it's wasting that person's time. So worth finding. One of the biggest trends and we're moving in this direction, which I'm so excited about, is recruiting and for practices. So as you know, ads are posted, we're the ones that are going through, you know, through the applications as they're coming in. We're setting up the very first interview and performing and doing the first interview to make sure that, you know, to screen, to screen them. Are they going to show up? Did they show up for the first interview? You know, did they dress appropriately? You know, it's all through zoom, of course. But did they dress appropriately? Did they show up in a professional manner? Did they answer some of the baseline questions that we've been set with and then take it from there? But then once they're onboarded, if we're talking about a mid level practitioner, a dentist and, or a dental hygienist, credentialing, getting them credentialed with the insurance policies so that we can make sure that they're going to be billed for and that also credentialing has been a very big deal that offices don't want to do anymore. It's just, it's heavy lifting, it's a nuisance. It has really turned into a nuisance. And that's something that we have seen is on the horizon, is a really big leap in the direction we're headed.

Anything that you're, when you're dealing with third parties, that's not uniform, it creates nuisances. And credentialing with insurance companies is one of those nuisances. I mean every insurance company has a different way of doing it. Some are paper based, some are digital. It's just, it is not necessarily overly complex but a massive time burden nonetheless. And there is some uniquenesses that you can mess up too. I mean, so it's definitely takes somewhat of a skilled level person to do it. So it's got all of those sort of, of factors that, that you, you know, is right for what you just said, which is right, a new solution.

And even the onboarding of someone new or multiple people coming into your practice, you know, just the simple, the, the beginning of onboarding and getting them set up with their business cards, getting them set up with their email, getting them set up with, you know, you know, in, within the system, within the HR system. Those are all things that, you know, that we absolutely can do and be part of that team of that onboarding. HR team within a practice with, you know, alongside the practice manager.

Such a, such a great point. And you know, as most private practices, one, maybe two locations, which is probably the majority of the people listening to this show at least. And you know, it's hard to have a true, quote unquote, HR department within your organization at that size. And so being able to leverage these tools and get some of the creature comforts that your larger organizations have available to them is, is a nice, nice thing to have. I have to have to agree with that completely.

Absolutely.

Well, Beth, it has been a wonderful conversation. Before we adjourn here today, any last thoughts? I want you to share those and then also give our listeners the how they can get contact with. I think you mentioned it earlier in your website, but just one more time for everybody.

Sure, absolutely. So please go to our website if you want to find out more information about us at www.globalmedicalva.com. again, that's Global Medical VA as in virtual assistant.com and there is where you can find all kinds of information us about the process about our VAs and be able to schedule a strategy session with someone in our team.

Beautiful. Thank you so much, Beth. And it has been a pleasure. I hope that everybody got a lot of value. I sure I surely did. And until next time, it was great having you.

Thanks so much. I appreciate it. It's been great being here. Drew, thanks again.