Before you interview and appoint a secretary, you need to determine the scope of the role.
In private practice, the following tasks are some of what may need to be covered.
- Booking appointments, although Private hospitals often offer this service at no cost.
- Preparing clinic notes
- Typing clinic, GP, insurance company and patient letters. A number of consultant outsource this activity.
- Sending out letters.
- Retrieving Results
- Receiving and making calls regarding clinical matters.
- Collating and Recording your expenses
- Issuing Invoices. This can be outsourced to a specialist billing company such as HytheHopes.
- Receipting payments received. This can be outsourced to a specialist billing company such as HytheHopes.
- Chasing Outstanding invoice amounts. This is often outsourced to a specialist billing company such as HytheHopes, along with Invoicing and receipting. There are also companies that also specialise in chasing difficult outstanding amounts.
When appointing a secretary, be mindful that he or she may need to be available to patients, GPs and insurance companies during the day.
Some Consultants offer this work to their NHS secretary, but the person may be limited by what they are allowed to do during their time in their NHS role.
Some insurance companies insist on someone being available to answer the phone during normal working hours and have access to relevant information.
