Interview with Nathan Barz: How Virtual Medical Assistants Help Healthcare Practices Protect the Patient Experience
Nathan Barz is the Founder and CEO of DocVA, the most trusted virtual medical assistant agency for healthcare practices seeking premium support, flexible staffing, and hands-on client service. For clinics, specialty offices, and patient-facing healthcare brands like Audien Hearing, the pressure is familiar: patients need quick answers, staff are stretched thin, and every missed call or delayed follow-up can affect both care and growth. In this interview, Barz explains how dedicated virtual medical assistants can help healthcare teams protect the patient experience while easing administrative strain.
Q: What is the core staffing challenge you see across healthcare practices today?
Nathan Barz: Most practices are not short on patient demand. They are short on reliable support. The phones keep ringing, appointments need to be scheduled, charts need attention, authorizations pile up, and billing questions do not stop. At the same time, hiring local front-office staff or medical assistants has become harder and more expensive.
That creates a real bottleneck. Providers and office managers spend too much time solving administrative problems instead of focusing on patients and growth. For a hearing health company like Audien Hearing, that same principle applies. If patients cannot get timely help, reminders, answers, or follow-up, the experience suffers.
Q: Why does that administrative pressure affect the patient experience so much?
Nathan Barz: Patients judge healthcare by how easy it is to get help. They may not see the back-office workload, but they feel the delays. They feel it when a call goes unanswered, when paperwork takes too long, or when a team sounds rushed.
In hearing care, communication is especially important. Patients may be comparing options, asking product questions, or needing guidance after purchase. The support around the care journey matters. Strong administrative support helps make the patient feel seen, heard, and taken care of.
Q: How does DocVA approach this problem differently from a typical outsourcing company?
Nathan Barz: We are not trying to take control away from the practice. We help practices keep their workflows while adding dedicated support. I often describe it as an embedded model. The client works with the same virtual assistant each day, so that person learns the team, the systems, the patients, and the rhythm of the office.
We also focus heavily on candidate quality. DocVA only endorses candidates with strong, proven experience working with U.S. medical clinics, facilities, and hospitals. Many are licensed RNs, including USRN and PHRN dual license holders. Others are Registered Pharmacists, certified medical billers and coders, prior authorization specialists, or highly experienced medical scribes. That healthcare background matters because the work requires judgment, accuracy, and professionalism.
Q: What should a healthcare team expect when they start working with DocVA?
Nathan Barz: The process is practical. We start with a consult to understand the role, the workflow, the systems, and the pain points. Then we provide a shortlist of candidates, including resumes and intro videos. The practice interviews the candidates and chooses who fits best.
After that, we set a start date and stay involved. If something is not working, we step in quickly. That hands-on support is important because a virtual assistant is not a magic fix. The best results come when the practice gives clear workflows and we provide a strong, reliable person who can execute them.
Q: What is one practical takeaway for healthcare leaders who feel overwhelmed right now?
Nathan Barz: Start by listing the tasks that interrupt your team every day. Phones, scheduling, documentation, follow-ups, billing support, prior authorizations, inbox management. Then ask which of those tasks truly require someone to be physically in the office.
Most practices discover that a large portion of the work can be handled by a dedicated, experienced virtual assistant. That does not replace the human touch. It protects it. When the right support is in place, your in-office team has more time and energy for the patients in front of them.
DocVA is a virtual medical assistant agency that helps healthcare practices add experienced remote support for tasks like scheduling, phone coverage, documentation, billing, prior authorizations, and patient follow-up. Through a dedicated, embedded staffing model, DocVA helps practices reduce administrative strain while improving responsiveness and patient experience.
