The Tasks Medical Practices Should Stop Doing In-House?

Most Medical Practices Waste Time on These Tasks—Outsource Them Now
Many medical practices try to handle everything in-house, but it’s costing time, money, and quality care. Stop managing billing, IT support, credentialing, and marketing internally. Instead, outsource these tasks to professionals and focus on what really matters—patient care.

What you’ll learn in this article:

In this article, you’ll discover which in-house tasks are dragging down your medical practice. You’ll also learn why outsourcing is more cost-effective and efficient. Plus, you’ll find expert-backed suggestions on what to delegate and to whom.

Excerpt of The Tasks Medical Practices Should Stop Doing In-House

Many medical practices struggle with burnout, inefficiencies, and staff overload because they try to handle everything internally. From complex billing processes to IT troubleshooting, these non-clinical tasks eat up valuable resources and reduce time spent on patient care. The solution? Identify the tasks that can be handled better externally and partner with specialists who can streamline operations. This strategic shift boosts productivity, improves patient outcomes, and protects your bottom line.

Tasks Medical Practices Should Outsource Immediately

• Medical Billing & Coding: Avoid revenue loss and compliance issues by hiring professional medical billing services.
• Credentialing & Insurance Verification: This tedious and time-consuming task can delay hiring; let experts handle it.
• Digital Marketing & Patient Outreach: Marketing experts can bring better results while your staff focuses on care.
• IT Services & Cybersecurity: External IT teams provide 24/7 support and stronger protection against data breaches.
• Transcription & Documentation: Use virtual scribes or AI documentation tools to reduce charting burnout for doctors.

Not every task in a medical practice needs to be performed by someone sitting in the office. Some work genuinely requires physical presence—greeting patients, assisting with procedures, handling equipment. But a surprising amount of administrative work doesn’t.

Yet many practices keep doing everything in-house out of habit or assumption. They’ve always done it this way, so they continue. The result is paying for expensive office space and in-person staff time for tasks that could be handled just as well (or better) remotely.

Rethinking which tasks truly need in-house staff can free up resources, reduce overhead, and let the physical office focus on what actually requires being there.

Phone Answering and Triage

When the phone rings, does the person answering really need to be sitting at a desk in the waiting room? They’re not looking at the patient. They’re not handing them anything. They’re just talking, which can happen from anywhere with a phone and computer access.

Phone coverage is one of the most logical tasks to move away from in-house exclusivity. Remote staff can answer calls, access the scheduling system, and handle patient questions just as effectively as someone at the front desk. The patient on the other end can’t tell the difference and doesn’t care where the person answering is located.

This becomes especially valuable during peak call times, lunch breaks, or when in-house staff are busy with patients who are physically present. Instead of letting calls go to voicemail or making patients wait on hold, remote support can ensure calls get answered promptly regardless of what’s happening in the office.

The office phone system doesn’t need to be a physical constraint anymore. Cloud-based systems route calls wherever they need to go, making location irrelevant.

Appointment Scheduling and Rescheduling

Scheduling doesn’t require physical presence. It requires access to the calendar system and knowledge of the practice’s scheduling rules. Both of these exist digitally and can be accessed remotely.

In fact, remote scheduling often works better than in-house because the person handling it isn’t constantly interrupted by patients standing at the desk or other office activities. They can focus on scheduling without the distractions that come with being in a busy medical office.

Same-day rescheduling and filling cancellation slots particularly benefits from remote handling. Someone dedicated to monitoring the schedule and working through waitlists can keep the calendar optimized in ways that busy front desk staff rarely have time for.

Working with a virtual medical assistant for scheduling means appointments get handled efficiently without consuming workspace or pulling in-house staff away from patients who need immediate, physical assistance.

Insurance Verification and Prior Authorization

These tasks are entirely computer and phone based. There’s no reason they need to happen in the physical office. Someone verifying insurance benefits or working through prior authorization requirements can do it just as effectively from a remote location.

Actually, remote handling often improves these processes. Insurance verification and prior authorization work requires sustained focus and can take significant time. In-house staff doing this work are constantly interrupted by other office needs. Remote staff can work through these tasks more efficiently without interruptions.

Many practices find that shifting insurance-related work to remote staff improves both speed and accuracy. The work gets done faster because someone is actually focused on it, and errors decrease because they’re not splitting attention between multiple competing demands.

Patient Callback and Follow-Up

Calling patients with test results, scheduling follow-ups, checking on post-procedure recovery—none of this requires being in the office. It requires access to patient information and good communication skills, both of which work remotely.

This is actually an area where remote support often excels. Callbacks require dedicated time that in-house staff struggle to find during busy clinic days. Patients end up waiting longer than necessary for results or follow-up information because staff can’t get to the callback list.

Remote staff can systematically work through callbacks without the interruptions of patients arriving, phones ringing, or other office activity. The result is patients getting timely communication and better follow-up care.

Medical Records Requests and Management

Processing medical records requests, scanning documents, organizing digital files—this administrative work doesn’t need anyone in the office. It needs someone with proper access and attention to detail.

Practices often have backlogs of record requests because in-house staff are too busy with immediate patient needs. Remote staff can handle these requests promptly, improving both patient satisfaction and compliance with records request requirements.

Digital records management is entirely computer-based anyway. Whether someone is organizing files from a desk in the office or from a home office makes no practical difference to the quality of work.

Billing Follow-Up and Patient Payment Coordination

Calling patients about outstanding balances, setting up payment plans, answering billing questions—these tasks benefit from being handled by someone focused on financial operations rather than someone at the front desk trying to do multiple things at once.

Remote billing support can dedicate proper attention to payment coordination without the distraction of in-office activities. They can work through accounts systematically, follow up persistently, and handle the patient communication that improves collection rates.

Many practices see better financial results when billing support is handled remotely because the work actually gets done rather than being pushed to the bottom of the priority list behind more immediate office needs.

Data Entry and Documentation Support

Entering referral information, updating patient demographics, processing forms, managing documentation—this clerical work consumes hours but doesn’t require physical presence in the office.

Remote staff can handle this work during times when it would be difficult for in-house staff. Evening or weekend data entry work doesn’t require anyone to be in the physical office. It just requires system access and time to complete the tasks.

This is particularly useful for practices that accumulate paperwork during busy clinic days. Rather than staying late or coming in early, in-house staff can focus on patient-facing work while remote support handles the behind-the-scenes data management.

What Should Stay In-House

Not everything belongs outside the office. Patient greeting and check-in benefits from physical presence. Clinical support obviously needs to be in-person. Handling physical paperwork, managing supplies, and coordinating immediate patient needs all require being there.

The key is distinguishing between work that genuinely requires physical presence and work that only happens in-house out of tradition. Many practices discover they’ve been using expensive office space and in-person staff time for tasks that would work just as well remotely.

The Strategic Advantage

Practices that successfully shift appropriate tasks to remote handling gain multiple advantages. They reduce the need for office space as they grow. They use in-house staff time more efficiently on work that truly requires physical presence. They often improve the quality and timeliness of administrative work because it’s being handled by focused, dedicated resources rather than squeezed in between other demands.

This isn’t about cutting corners or reducing quality. It’s about matching tasks to the most effective way to handle them. Some work needs in-house staff. Some work doesn’t. Practices that recognize this distinction and act on it operate more efficiently and effectively than those that continue doing everything in-house simply because that’s how it’s always been done.

The question isn’t whether to move work outside the physical office. It’s which work makes sense to move and how to do it effectively. Practices answering these questions well are building operational advantages that improve both their finances and their staff’s quality of life.