Medical virtual assistant Australia: a guide for practices

A medical virtual assistant in Australia is a remote receptionist and admin hire who answers your practice phone, manages bookings and recalls, registers new patients and prepares billing for review, all inside your practice management software. Tarino’s typical salary for a full-time medical receptionist based in the Philippines is around $1,200 a month. The assistant takes the front-desk admin; your practitioners and onsite team keep everything clinical and everything that needs someone in the room.

This guide covers what a medical virtual assistant does, how Medicare and MBS billing admin fits in, the health privacy rules you need to plan for, and what it costs. For software and screening detail, see our medical receptionist role page.

What does a medical virtual assistant do?

Most practices hire for three areas: reception, recalls and billing. These are the administrative tasks that fill a receptionist’s day but don’t need clinical experience, so moving them frees healthcare providers to focus on patient care.

Reception

• Answering patient inquiries by phone and inbox, using your call scripts
• Managing appointment schedules: booking, rescheduling and cancelling within your scheduling rules
• Working the waitlist to fill cancellations
• Registering new patients and checking referral, care plan and health fund details before the first visit
• Routing clinical, urgent or sensitive calls to the right practitioner’s extension, with a short note on why the patient called

Recalls and reminders

• Sending appointment reminders by SMS or email
• Running recall and reminder lists set by your practitioners
• Following up patients who missed appointments, using your approved wording
• Tracking referrals and reports that haven’t come back

Billing admin

• Preparing invoices for Medicare, DVA, health fund and private patients
• Checking item numbers against your practice’s billing list
• Following up rejected or unpaid claims and outstanding accounts
• Reconciling payments and preparing reports for the practice manager

Many practices start with phones and bookings, because missed calls are missed appointments, then add recalls and billing as the assistant learns the practice. Your assistant will work alongside your onsite reception team, so set clear rules for who answers which line and who is responsible for each task. Our allied health page covers how clinics typically split the work.

What are the benefits for your practice?

• More time for patient care. Phone and admin work moves off your onsite team, so they can focus on the patients in front of them, and your practice manager gets valuable time back.
• Cost effectiveness. Tarino’s typical salary for a Philippines-based medical receptionist is around $1,200 a month, against Tarino’s typical Australian salary of around $70,000 a year for the same role.
• Availability. The Philippines is two hours behind AEST, so a shift can cover your opening hours, lunch breaks and busy mornings, depending on the hours you set.
• Scalability. As the practice grows, you can add a second assistant or extend hours without finding more desk space on site.
• Less stress at the front desk. Calls answered and recalls sent on time help create a positive patient experience, and your onsite team handles fewer interruptions during peak times.

How does Medicare and MBS billing admin work?

The Medicare Benefits Schedule lists the services the Australian Government subsidises, and MBS Online publishes the item listings and is updated as the schedule changes. Services Australia lists several channels for submitting MBS and DVA claims, including Medicare Easyclaim (through an EFTPOS terminal or integrated practice management software), Medicare Online, Webclaims in Health Professional Online Services (HPOS), ECLIPSE for in-patient claims, and manual claims.

For most clinics, claiming happens inside practice software such as Cliniko, Halaxy or Power Diary. That’s where a medical virtual assistant adds the most value: preparing the invoice, checking the item number matches your billing list and the referral or care plan on file, and following up claims that come back rejected.

Keep these decisions with the practitioner:

• Which MBS item applies to a consultation
• Whether a patient meets an item’s requirements
• Any adjustment that changes what was billed for clinical reasons

Also check who is authorised to use HPOS and other government portals for your practice, and never share a practitioner’s login. Each person who uses a system needs their own access. Confirm billing and portal access rules with Services Australia or your practice adviser.

What health privacy rules apply?

This is the part to get right before your assistant starts.

The OAIC says health information is sensitive information under the Privacy Act, with stricter handling rules than other personal information. Its definition of a health service covers activities intended to assess, maintain, improve or manage a person’s health, or to diagnose or treat an illness, disability or injury. Small business is no exemption here: the OAIC says the Privacy Act covers health service providers regardless of turnover.

APP 8 and overseas staff. If you disclose patient information to someone overseas, APP 8 applies. The OAIC says you’re generally expected to take reasonable steps before disclosure, usually by entering an enforceable contract with the overseas recipient, so the information is handled in line with the Australian Privacy Principles. Under section 16C, your practice can be accountable for a breach by that recipient. Whether giving your own overseas staff access counts as a use or a disclosure depends on whether you keep effective control of the information, for example through system access you control and can remove.

What that means in practice:

• A written employment contract with confidentiality and health-information clauses
• Access through your practice software and practice email, whether Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, with individual logins and multi-factor authentication, not copied files
• Access limited to what the role needs: a receptionist usually doesn’t need clinical notes
• No downloading, printing or storing patient data on personal devices, which protects patient confidentiality and data security
• A clear process for privacy questions and suspected breaches
• A review of your privacy policy with your adviser, so it reflects how patient information is now accessed

Our offshore staff security checklist and data privacy checklist cover the setup, and help ensure compliance is built in from day one. This is general information, so get advice from a privacy lawyer or your medical defence organisation before you give access.

How much does a medical virtual assistant cost?

Tarino’s typical salary for a Philippines-based medical receptionist is around $1,200 a month, about $14,400 a year. You’ll also budget for Philippine employer costs such as 13th month pay and statutory contributions, plus a headset and any extra software seats. The cost calculator gives typical all-in totals.

For comparison, Jobs and Skills Australia lists median weekly earnings of $1,229 for receptionists in Australia, an occupation group that includes medical receptionists. That’s about $63,900 a year before super and on-costs.

How much does a medical receptionist get an hour?

Tarino’s typical Australian salary for a medical receptionist is around $70,000 a year, roughly $35 an hour across a 38-hour week, before super. The Jobs and Skills Australia median of $1,229 a week works out to roughly $32 an hour on the same 38 hours. Actual rates depend on your state, award level and experience.

Option	What you pay	Good for
Onsite receptionist in Australia	Median weekly earnings of $1,229 for receptionists (JSA), plus super and on-costs	Front desk, payments and anything in person
Medical virtual assistant hired through Tarino	Salary around $1,200/month, plus a one-time $5,000 excl. GST fee	Phones, bookings, recalls, billing admin
Same, with Tarino EOR running payroll	As above, plus $387 per employee per month	Practices that don’t want to run Philippine payroll
Managed offshore agency	Salary, plus one published rate of A$1,099 per person per month and A$1,200 per hire (Staff Domain)	Practices that want the agency to manage the person

Many practices keep an onsite receptionist for the front desk and add a virtual assistant to take the phones and back-office load. If you’re mainly comparing phone cover options, our guide to virtual receptionist options compares answering services with your own receptionist. If you’d rather not run payroll, Tarino EOR (powered by Deel) handles the contract and payroll.

What makes a good medical virtual assistant?

The best hires combine a calm phone manner with accuracy. Look for:

• Clear communication in English, with a warm, patient tone on difficult calls
• Understanding of medical terminology and Australian billing basics such as Medicare, DVA and health funds
• Comfort with technology: practice software, online booking platforms, SMS reminder tools and other digital tools
• Attention to details like referral dates, care plan expiries and item numbers
• Judgement to recognise a clinical call and hand it over fast

A candidate with a deep understanding of one practice system usually learns another quickly. Plan training on your own processes and call scripts either way.

Will a medical receptionist be replaced by AI?

Not entirely. AI tools and online booking can take some routine bookings and reminders, but many calls need context and judgement: a worried parent, a complex referral, a billing dispute or a caller who is unwell. A human assistant handles those, and can use AI tools alongside your systems where your practice approves them.

What should stay with your practice team?

• Triage, symptoms, results and any conversation about a patient’s condition
• Clinical notes, referrals written by practitioners and treatment decisions
• MBS item selection and anything that changes billing for clinical reasons
• Payments taken in person and anything at the front desk
• Complaints that need a decision from the practice manager or a practitioner

Give your assistant a script for spotting clinical and urgent calls, a fast escalation path, and clear wording for callers describing an emergency.

How does the hiring process work?

1. Measure the load. A month of call logs, missed calls, recall list sizes and billing backlog, so you can see the workload and later check for increased efficiency.
2. Write the brief and boundaries. Hours, call scripts, escalation rules and what’s clinical, plus the range of tasks you’ll dedicate to the role first.
3. Set up privacy first. Contract clauses, access levels and your privacy policy, before the start date.
4. Screen for practice software and phone manner. Candidates who’ve worked in Cliniko, Halaxy, Nookal or Power Diary come up to speed faster. A role-play call shows more than a CV, and reference checks are worth the research.
5. Onboard in stages. Phones and bookings first, then recalls, then billing admin once their accuracy is proven. Our first 30 days checklist walks through it.

Tarino sources 1,000+ candidates per role and sends a shortlist of 3–4 in about 2 weeks. Whatever arrangement you choose, you hire and pay your assistant directly, with no monthly fees, and our 6-month replacement cover applies for the same role. See pricing, or book a 30-minute call to talk through your practice’s admin.