· Reviewed by Issabela Masters
Why do athenahealth users need a virtual assistant?
athenahealth tells a practice the truth in worklists. Missing slips from Tuesday. Claims sitting in a hold bucket with a kick reason nobody has read. Open orders without results. Portal messages a patient sent on Friday. Referrals waiting on an authorization number. The work is visible and repetitive, and it is exactly the work that gets pushed behind a waiting room full of people. Front office staff are not slow, they are interrupted. An assistant is not, because their whole shift is the worklists. They clear the buckets in the order you set, phone the payer, chase the authorization, message the patient, and give you a practice where nothing quietly ages past the filing deadline.
What can a virtual assistant do inside athenahealth?
- Scheduling and appointment types
- Books, reschedules and cancels across provider schedules using your appointment types and templates, and fills cancellations from the wait list the same day.
- Registration and eligibility
- Completes patient registration, verifies insurance and copay details ahead of the visit and resolves the eligibility failures athenaOne flags overnight.
- Prior authorization queues
- Works the authorization queue: submits requests on payer portals or by phone, records the authorization number and expiry, and chases pending cases on a set rhythm.
- Missing slips and closing encounters
- Chases the providers whose slips are open, corrects the administrative detail holding an encounter and keeps the daily close list short.
- Claim hold buckets and kick reasons
- Works claims by hold bucket and kick reason, fixes the registration, coverage or modifier problem within your rules and escalates coding questions to your coder.
- Patient portal and inbox messages
- Answers administrative portal messages about appointments, forms, billing and records, and routes clinical questions to the right staff inbox promptly.
- Referrals and open orders
- Sends referrals, tracks incoming referral documents, follows up on open orders without results and closes the loop with the ordering provider.
- Reports and worklist reviews
- Pulls days in accounts receivable, denial reason and no-show reports each week, with a written note on the two or three items that need a decision.
Integrations we handle
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athenahealth and Availity
Eligibility, claim status and authorization requests worked on the payer portal, with the reference number written back into athenaOne.
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athenahealth and Phreesia
Digital check-in answers reconciled against the chart so demographics and coverage match before the visit is billed.
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athenahealth and Zoom Phone
Inbound and outbound patient calls handled in your practice name with the outcome noted on the appointment or claim.
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athenahealth and Microsoft Teams
Daily handoffs and escalations posted to your practice channel so the assistant and your in-office staff never duplicate a call.
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athenahealth and QuickBooks Online
Posted payments and refunds reconciled with your bookkeeper each month so collections and the bank agree.
