A large majority of mental health professionals dream of opening their own private practice someday. For some, this signifies a milestone they’ve worked for since they began schooling decades ago.
While working for yourself comes with many benefits, the downside to opening your own mental health practice is all the business work that comes along with it. While some mental health professionals are incredibly talented in their profession, business operations may not be their strong suit. This is where a virtual assistant can be of great value.
If you’ve been considering hiring a virtual assistant to take some weight off your shoulders, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s talk about the pros and cons of hiring a virtual assistant so you can ensure it will be a positive experience for both of you.
What Can a Virtual Assistant (VA) Help With?
A virtual assistant works as an independent contractor to help you manage your clerical work remotely. They can help with administrative duties such as scheduling, answering phone calls, returning voicemail messages, and sending out reminder emails. Or they can help with the technical side of your practice such as developing your website or managing your social media. You can hire a virtual assistant to be your creative mind as they help with marketing and designing a face for your brand.
Virtual assistants exist to make your life easier. Not only can they perform these duties, but they’re also skilled and knowledgeable in how to do them well. They often have years of experience in being a virtual assistant, so they know what tasks to prioritize and how to manage their time efficiently.
A virtual assistant is your second set of hands as they can help with financial records, data tracking, and patient management. Each virtual assistant will have certain specialties ranging from strictly office duties to performing all the above. It just depends on what your practice needs most.
Pros To Hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA):
The benefits of a virtual assistant are plentiful. Here are a few of the top reasons mental health practices hire them:
- Affordability: Most virtual assistants work with multiple clients, allowing them to have lower rates than an in-office employee. Depending on your contract, you may only have to pay them for the hours you need, or for the projects you need completed. This saves you the money you may be spending on in-person employees on the clock without tasks to complete.
- Contractor Convenience: Most virtual assistants are contractors. This means you don’t have to worry about the hassle of payroll taxes, vacations, and insurances. Since they essentially work for themselves, you don’t have the expectation to give paid time off or benefits.
- More Time: As obvious as this may sound, we must include it since it’s likely the top reason mental health professionals hire virtual assistants. Without having to worry about scheduling, financial paperwork, or document completion, your time is freed up to focus on your patients.
- Flexibility: Since they aren’t confined to the traditional 9-5 pattern of employment, virtual assistants are known to be much more flexible when you need them.
As you can see, hiring a virtual assistant is a great business option if you’re looking to free up your time and mental load and are willing to hand the keys over to someone experienced in these fields. While it may be difficult to hand over duties of your own private practice, you’ll quickly realize just how beneficial having a virtual assistant can be.
Cons Of Hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA):
Like anything in life, there can be some downsides to this method of business. These downsides are minimal, however, and can often be worked around or even avoided completely by hiring the right person.
Let’s go over a few of the most common disadvantages of hiring a virtual assistant:
- Communication Barrier: Miscommunication can occur even if the virtual assistant is proficient in your native language. Diction, grammar, and tone of voice can all become distorted when you aren’t speaking to someone in person. When messages aren’t communicated effectively between staff, deadlines may get missed, or emails may be misinterpreted.
- Dedication: There’s no doubt that the dedication between an assistant that shows up to the office every day, and an assistant that may be completing client calls while working from home can be vastly different. This doesn’t mean a virtual assistant can’t be motivated and professional, though. It takes hiring the right person for the job.
- No Supervision: If you were to hire office staff for your practice, you’d be able to oversee their progress on certain tasks or overhear the way they speak to your clients. With a virtual assistant, this can be a disadvantage as you’re unable to monitor the quality of their duties or micromanage.
- Internet Issues: When you hire someone remotely, you’re putting full faith in them that they have a stable, reliable, consistent internet connection. Without this, there may end up being poor communication between you and your assistant, leaving far too much room for errors.
Should I Hire a Virtual Assistant (VA) for My Private Practice?
If the downsides above don’t scare you away, the answer should be simple. Virtual Assistants can make life much easier for you as you juggle client dilemmas and the stress of running your own practice. When you work in a field like mental health care, it’s incredibly important for you to be fully present when meeting with your clients. If your mind is constantly stressing about payroll being due, scheduling follow up appointments and intakes, making sure documents have been submitted, or updating your website, you will take time away from what matters most. Keep what’s valuable at the top of your list with the help of a virtual assistant.