Ciara Ferrier

Keeping You Compliant

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 09:07:45 GMT

10 ways a medical secretary virtual assistant can keep you compliant, avoiding litigation or legal issues.

Let's imagine you are a surgeon. Some of these points may seem trivial compared to severing a nerve, however they can cause you problems nevertheless. A data breach, for example, could see you fined up to 4% of your annual turnover, which could have a significant impact on your practice.

Your medical secretary, virtual assistant or personal assistant obviously can't directly help with the nerve severing, but here are 10 other ways in which we can...

Administrating your treatment plans, sending them for consent, checking they are signed and returned within your required timeframe
Responding to requests from partners for your professional documentation
Confirming any contractors such as technicians or locum nurses also have the correct documentation before you work with them
Reminding you of renewals due, such as your indemnity or ICO registration
Booking CPD courses for you to attend, along with travel and accommodation (if required)
Conducting analysis of the type of data your organisation processes and its flow into and out of your systems
Producing your privacy policy
Making you aware of the potential for data breach in your workflow and applying a "data puncture repair" to correct this
Ensuring your company information is correctly displayed on your documentation, along with your correct title and qualifications
Tolls! This one may seem insignificant... until you get a ticket or are delayed on your way to clinic but I can ensure your vehicle is correctly registered with any local toll operators and your account balance has sufficient funds

So, indirectly we also help with the nerve severing by allowing you greater focus on your clinical work .

Benefits to Patient Experience

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 14:28:31 GMT

How can engaging a medical secretary virtual assistant add value to your patients' experience?

Increasing levels of patient satisfaction will lead to increased patient uptake and expansion of your practice. The contribution of your virtual personal assistant or medical secretary VA can play a crucial role.

What do patients need from their experience?

We can break this down to 5 areas of need:

1. ACCESS

Patients need to be able to contact your business to find out what you offer and if you can help them. They need to know what to expect and they need to have their expectations managed.

For example, how do people know if you can help them? How can they get an appointment? Most patients understand there is a waiting list, however they need clarity around what that waiting list looks like. What can they expect in terms of emergency or routine wait times? Where can they be seen and when?

A medical secretary virtual assistant will respond promptly to enquiries, giving patients the information they need, reducing the volume of patient chase-ups. They can collect initial information from patients and maintai n lists, filling gaps in your diary in the event of cancellations.

2. COMMUNICATION

Once patients have accessed your service, good communication lets everyone know where they stand.

Communication is notable for its presence/absence, as well as how and when you communicate.

Prompt responses and clear information reduce patient anxiety.

Appointment reminders and follow-ups reduce cancellations, in turn reducing wait times.

Facilitating the consent process by sending out treatment plans and assisting patients to navigate your acceptance of treatment process improves patient understanding and uptake of treatment

3. JOURNEY

There are other components to a patient’s journey through your service, additional to their clinical time.

Do you have procedures in place to avoid losing notes/paperwork, scheduling appointments as appropriate and invoicing? Do your patients know where the various “stops” are along their journey? When will you invoice and how can they pay? Are there any adjustments or accommodations needed for a patient?

The ease with which a patient moves through your service can influence the satisfaction they feel with their experience.

4. PERSONALISATION

How do you feel when someone remembers your name? It is warming to feel you are a name, not a number, and that you are valued as a service user or client.

Ensuring the experience is tailored to individuals can increase engagement with a service. A medical secretary virtual assistant will prioritise delivery of a personalised experience by customising or tailoring communications to patients.

CLINICAL FOCUS

I f patients feel relaxed about their experience outside of their clinician-facing time, they have only clinical need to bring to their appointment.

Likewise, the clinician can have a greater focus on their patient.

The work of your medical secretary virtual assistant has removed obstacles from your delivery of exceptional patient care.

How a virtual personal assistant adds value to patient experience

Growth

Satisfied patients are a source of positive reviews and a driver of leads or referrals. Engaging a medical secretary virtual assistant will improve the experience of your current patients while growing your client base at the same time – retain and gain .

Final thoughts

Evolution in Transcription

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:30:39 GMT

Whilst we are seeing evolution in the way letters and reports are created, the skill of transcription is still providing best results in others

Broadly speaking, there are two "arms" of transcription

The creation of letters or reports from recorded dictation
The production of transcripts of recorded conversations

The creation of letters or reports has seen a definite evolution

It can be argued that rather than replacing secretaries and administrators, the advent of recording devices caused an evolution in their skills. I have never had to learn shorthand, however I am a skilled audiotypist.

We are seeing a similar situation now where, instead of audiotyping dictation, secretaries and administrators are proofing and editing the output of AI Scribes, writing prompts and training the technology to produce the letters and reports.

The evolution in our skillset follows a development in technology that improves the workflow of our clients.

Products such as Heidi AI are now able to populate clinical notes within a consultation so reliably that they give clinicians more time to focus on their patients, facilitate the smooth running of clinics and reduce paperwork outside of the consultation.

Assessing workflow and cost-efficiency - where is your data?!

As a note, we would still carefully consider cost-benefits and workflow when a client considers adopting an AI Scribe. Payment is by subscription and there are different plan levels offering different levels of functionality. However, the plan that is right for one client may not be right for another and may cost them more when considered over a full year.

Before adopting an AI solution, you should consider where your data is being processed, where it is being stored and also who can access it ? It is essential to comply with GDPR and you may wish to protect your intellectual property (IP). Look for certification and compliance standards of any product.

Transcription of recorded conversations has not evolved to give the same level of results

AI Scribes do not need to work verbatim . They need to be fed very good prompts and given very good templates that tell them exactly which gaps we want them to fill. They can then pick up high level information and insert it into those gaps.

They are identifying facts, looking for what was said rather than how it was said . They have been given context already - a consultation - and as part of that, the clinician will also be asking questions of the patient looking to definitively establish facts on which they will base their decision making and advice.

AI transcription of recorded conversations is still disappointing, if what you want is a professionally-formatted, accurate representation of a conversation that does not require additional work on your part.

It does not cope well with:

Strong accents
Poor quality audio
Place names
People's names
Acronyms
Technical vocabulary.

It does not listen for the quiet person in a focus group trying to interject comments and it does not sensitively add punctuation - "Let's eat, Grandma" versus "Let's eat Grandma ." Essentially, it lacks emotional intelligence and so you lose the humanity from a conversation...between humans!

You can use this output as notes to refer back to, or from which to create meeting minutes, but you cannot give it a blank canvas and expect a perfect result.

Human-ear transcription is both evolving...and not!

So while the skillset for creating letters and reports is evolving in an exciting way, very best results for transcription of recorded conversations are still achieved by human-ear transcription.

Having previously worked in medical software development, I am genuinely impressed by some of the AI Scribes. Writing prompts and templates is like writing code - with actual words!

But, for now, I still staunchly defend human-ear transcription too. Providing you with an accurate, professional transcript takes time, skill and effort.

I do see projects using AI transcription for interviews where just notes is sufficient and then sending more detailed interviews to me for a full transcript but this needs to be done with care. The cost of AI transcription is attractive until it doesn't deliver what is needed. At this point, it becomes a costly mistake.

More expensive for a reason

This is the difficult bit. Having realised that you need a human-ear transcript, you also need to then understand you are paying for someone's skill and time.

Scissors and hair clippers can be purchased for about the cost of one haircut. But if you cut your hair yourself, could you expect a hairdresser to charge you less than their usual rate to put it right? You haven't helped them by cutting some of the hair off and have probably made their job harder.

Pharmacies now stock temporary self-fillings for teeth but could you expect a dentist to charge you less than their usual rate for a permanent solution?

Plan your project!

So, researchers, please plan transcription into your project carefully. All too often, I am asked to reduce my rate because teams have not understood the capabilities of AI transcription and have not budgeted enough for human-ear transcription. I simply cannot be expected to absorb the cost of that mistake.

Final thoughts

Research, understand the capabilities and plan the role in your workflow of an AI Scribe or AI transcription solution.

AI Scribes are driving an evolution of skills in terms of letter and report creation. Human-ear transcription still gives very best results for qualitative research analysis.

Plan your budget. Plan your project.

Half Term

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 14:03:58 GMT

Do you struggle to juggle during school holidays? Do you wish you could just handover to someone else?

Do you struggle to juggle during the school holidays? Do you wish you could handover to someone else?

There's probably no need!

There are more school holidays than parents can take annual leave for.

I have been working around school holidays for 16 years now and as my youngest child is 10, life is set to revolve around the school calendar for another eight years! That probably does sound daunting if you are in the early primary school days.

There are times as a business owner where you will need to work through a school holiday and others where you will want to be completely off. Then there are the in-between times where you need to have a lower input: Business-light holidays.

It’s okay to do that!

You can make low-input time work for you with Planning , Prioritisation and Follow-up .

Holiday cover does not need to look like parachuting a replacement in for a week. Indeed, that sounds more like fire-fighting mode.

Plan

PLAN when you can be available for family and work during the holiday. Manage your customers’ expectations by giving them advance warning of what the service will look like during that time and deadlines for items requiring your attention beforehand.

Prioritise

PRIORITISE the tasks you are going to be available for. For example, have an autoresponder on enquiry emails or have “light” admin cover to monitor emails to ensure you don’t miss anything critical.

Follow-up

After the break and on resuming “normal” service, FOLLOW-UP . If you received enquiries, respond to them promptly. People need to see you do as you say you will. So, if your autoresponder said you will respond after X date, make sure that you do!

Final thoughts

My workload does not drastically increase because my clients are taking school holidays. It can’t. But by working methodically, planning, prioritising, following up – doing as I have said I will do - throughout the year, both my clients and I have been able to manage those business-light school holidays successfully.

Every client is different and the more I get to know them, the better able I am to judge if I do need to interrupt them for a response or if, with management of the customer’s expectations, it can wait until their return. That understanding comes from many weeks of working together, not parachuting in for one intense week.

Completing the BDIA Introduction to Dentistry Course

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 17:19:59 GMT

This course formed part of our CPD requirement for 2025-2026

Ciara completes CPD annually as part of AMSPAR membership requirements. Having worked with dentists for a number of years it was interesting to take this course and learn more about dentistry as an industry. Working with individuals or small teams, it is both easy and essential to see their work from their point of view but valuable to zoom out and look at the bigger picture within which they are operating.

The BDIA (British Dental Industries Association) Introduction to Dentistry Course is designed for non-clinical staff as a grounding in the industry. It covers 11 Modules, each with an end-of-module-test, followed by a final exam once all modules are complete.

Modules are:

Introduction to Dentistry
Oral and Dental Anatomy
Oral Health and Disease
Oral Hygiene
Diagnosis and Radiography
Restorative Dentistry
Dental Technology and Laboratory Procedures
The Dental Environment and Equipment
Infection Control in Dentistry
Minor Oral Surgery, Anaesthesia and Sedation
Implant Dentistry

Other CPD completed this year includes Skills 4 Health training in Information Governance, Remote Working and Consent.

The Power Automated Difference

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:57:51 GMT

Configure behind-the-scenes automation to enhance your workflows

Use Power Automate to Simplify and Notify

Power Automate allows the small business owner to introduce automation into their workflows, simplifying their role in the process by taking care of the background task and notifying when input is required. It consists of "connectors" - actions linking "components' within the microsoft environment - which can be strung together in simple or more complex configurations to carry out a seemingly endless possibility of tasks. Even the basic offering of Power Automate can introduce a significant amount of personalisation and versatility into your Microsoft 365 workspace.

In this post, as an introduction to the topic, we will explore how you can quickly and easily configure your own simple CRM system.

Establish your process

Receive an enquiry from a potential customer
Be notified of the enquiry in order to respond promptly
Gain consent to keep the potential customer updated with our services
Store the potential customer's details if they consented to receive news - and ensure details are NOT stored where consent was not given.

Gather necessary components

We need:

To make it easy for the potential customer to make contact - FORMS
A tool that makes it easy to respond to the enquiry - OUTLOOK
Somewhere to store and review the data - SHAREPOINT LISTS
A method of checking for and removing information that should not be stored - A PROCESS
A distribution list - OUTLOOK

Enquiry form

This can be created in Microsoft Forms . Importantly, a field requesting permission to "Keep in touch," or equivalent should be included.

SharePoint List

Create a list in your SharePoint site. This can be displayed in Teams, if required, with views set up to facilitate review of a subset of data. Views also allow you to restrict what data can be seen by which users. If needed, the list can be exported in Excel format.

The designated user receives an email with full details of the enquiry straight to their inbox, giving them all the information they need to promptly respond.

The details also populate the SharePoint list where they can be viewed according to whether they did or did not consent to keep in touch.

REMEMBER: only details of those who opted in - entered "Yes please," in the enquiry form can be saved as contacts and added to a distribution list.

To select contacts from a contact folder, click on the "To," "cc," or "bcc" button at the top of a new email message.

When sending a marketing email you should protect the email addresses by adding them to the "bcc" field.

Final thoughts

This example of a very simple CRM system was very easily and quickly put together. Despite its simplicity, it definitely enhances the process of ensuring you receive and respond to your enquiries.

Power Automate can supply automation to your workspace in simple and more complex ways. It is well worth exploring the possibilities on offer.

Un-Deck the Halls

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 19:40:45 GMT

January is here but are you facing or embracing the new year?

Tuesday 6 January 2026, the day after Twelfth Night and second day of the first full working week of January. The decorations are down and we probably have a feel for how kind this first week back is going to be to us.

At this point it’s easy to feel disheartened if the week is hitting hard. Maybe you are reflecting on what has or is not going so well in your business. Whilst I support others with the running of their businesses, I am also a business owner myself. With over 7 years’ experience, similarly I can identify things that have both gone well and not so well.

Choosing the weight

The things that haven’t gone so well can feel heavy. This is maybe a good time to consider those things as suitcases, meaning you can choose to put them down or transport them in a different way. Lightening your load is a choice you get to make.

Reflecting on last year for myself, I would name my suitcases PAIN, REHABILITATION, LEARNING and HELP. HELP is a key one that you might think isn’t heavy, but accepting I needed it and what I needed it for was. Likewise LEARNING, until you consider that some lessons are easier to accept than others.

This year, I choose to put those suitcases down. Those I will carry instead are NEW, HEALING, COMPASSION and GROWTH. My family bought me a shopping trolley for Christmas (picture below) to help me carry physical loads – moving me forwards – and I will use the metaphorical equivalent for the less tangible things!

One of the greatest things I think having a PA gives to a client is someone in their corner. Our job is to act in the interests of our client, meaning a lot of noise from situa tions falls away immediately. We’re good sounding boards, we just get administrative tasks done for you – instantly creating headspace – and look for ways we can help your business run more efficiently, even and especially when that may mean ultimately you require less of our time.

Brighter times

It may feel like a long time to summer but January is a fantastic time to embrace change and accept help. I am mum to a January baby, born at the end of the month. Once Christmas is out of the way, we start looking forward to his birthday. It’s really helped January feel less bleak as I know by the time his celebration comes around there will be a sizeable increase in daylight hours. This year, with cold crisp weather in Devon, I’m noticing the stretch already.

January is about brightening and renewal, not continuing darkness.

A One Diary Mindset

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 11:02:49 GMT

Your time is precious, guard it by adopting a “Master Diary” mindset.

Ensure your time is accessible only to those you need to see, for booking at events you need to attend.

When juggling multiple diaries, I am reminded of the verse from JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, One Ring…

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

Substitute “Diary” for “Ring” and this is how I see efficient diary management working for you. There has to be a hierarchy, with your master diary sitting at the top.

Why have a Master Diary?

Where your working life spreads across multiple organisations, you can find yourself in a situation where multiple calendars are competing with each other. Ultimately, you can only be in one place at one time so you need to be in control.

A master diary can give you back a feeling of ownership over your time. There will still be the individual organisations’ diaries but you will decide or agree which portion of your time to allocate to each. Your diary is your time. The organisation diary is the granularity of a pocket of time. If it’s not in your diary, it’s not happening.

Implementation of a master diary can be an educational exercise, as organisations learn that booking your time is a conversation , not a given, a request, not a demand. It can feel confronting, however at the other side of those conversations awaits greater freedom and peace. While it may feel difficult for you to have those discussions yourself, they are the bread and butter of a PA!

Paper Diary

Are you already working to a digital diary or do you prefer a paper diary or wall calendar? There is still a place for paper diaries. For example, my family has a wall calendar displaying the academic year. This helps us plan work and family life over the school year around our children’s commitments. Some small businesses opt for a wall calendar where they and staff can view holiday leave at a glance.

While there may still be a role for paper diaries, great care should be taken as their loss could be an instant data breach. The loss of a phone does not necessarily lead to a data breach if the device is encrypted.

Remember… If you are relying on both paper and digital diaries then you will need to remember to transpose into the paper diary from the digital diary, or vice versa! And if your master diary is a notebook clutched firmly to your side, it is harder for someone to help you with its management.

Although it may feel contradictory, relinquishing complete control of your diary is an important step in guarding your time as you become one step removed from negotiations.

Tricks with Digital Diaries

With digital diaries, there are some tricks you can employ to help in management of your master diaries.

The mechanism of working will vary depending on the calendar application you are using, but consider sharing your calendar, perhaps with a partner or select colleague. Layering the shared calendars with your own provides a view of them all in one place. This can further reduce time spent negotiating over meetings.

Be mindful of sharing permissions! Consider data privacy and decide whether to share with just free and busy times viewable, or with full editing ability! Always have in mind that your diary is your time, so ultimately it must work for you .

Diary Gold

For greater impact and data security, move away from the calendar associated with a gmail.com, hotmail.com, iCal or similar and use one linked to your business name domain .

Remember: Look after your brand. Your brand is you!

Key Points

Diary management is a mindset. Your time is precious; guard it.

There is a hierarchy of diaries, with your diary on the top. (One Diary to bring them all…)

Consider data privacy in your choice of diary, the content of diary events and who you share your diary with.

Relinquishing complete control can (weirdly!) lead to greater overall control as you take a step back from negotiations.

For gold standard diary management, use the calendar associated with your business name domain as your master.

"I don't need an Assistant: I'll just use Copilot!"

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 12:25:58 GMT

Why relying on AI tools only is insufficient.

There have been many exciting advances in AI in recent years. We hear stories all the time that AI can or will almost entirely replace administrative workers or “entry-level,” jobs. Whilst businesses may feel inspired that AI is a huge opportunity to save on overheads yet simultaneously boost and streamline productivity, this isn’t the reality.

AI is another tool for you to master – do you have time to keep up with changes in functionality? Can you be aware of all the up-to-date risks and limitations surrounding it? Are you overly optimistic about what it can and cannot do? Misunderstanding the capabilities of AI, yet not investing in administrative or entry-level support, can prove costly when you end up spending far too much time working far too below your own pay grade.

AI tools and automated systems, used with sensitivity, can be valuable in making your processes run smoothly. They can also be of real disservice to your business when they cause frustration. The old adage that people will do business with people remains true. If people are paying for a service, they like to know they can access that service. Situations that could result in a complaint can sometimes be avoided entirely by a reply from a human being. Maintaining the personal touch could be what makes you stand out from the crowd.

AI is a tool for humanity, not a replacement.

A Day in the Life: How do you Work?

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 15:29:02 GMT

The most common question I am asked is “So how do you work?” Let me take you behind the scenes to describe a typical working day…

Wednesday 01 October 2025

08:45-09:00

The working day starts after the school run – or rather, “walk.” A walk first thing energises for the day ahead and is a useful time to ponder and reflect. It’s also an easy way to clock 12 miles of walking a week.

Back at my desk, after greeting the family guinea pigs, I power up PC and Mac. Most days start with checking my own and my clients’ inboxes for any urgent tasks. After that first look, I will decide in what order to do various tasks and plan my day ahead.

Today is slightly different as it is the first working day of the month meaning…

09:00-10:00

…my first job today is to invoice for the preceding month. I use Toggl to record the time spent on administrative work so I log in and generate a report for each client to be sent out with their invoice.

Interview or report-from-dictation transcription is charged according to the length of the audio and I keep an Excel timesheet detailing the audio file name and length.

Next, it’s a login to QuickBooks to generate and send those invoices and reconcile monthly outgoings.

10:00-12:30

Month end complete, it’s time to login to emails and prioritise the rest of the day.

There are some clinic lists to add to one client’s diary and a couple of short letters to type up. This client has approved some letters from the previous day so these are ready to be sent to their patients for e-signature.

Another client has a trip to an overseas conference coming up. I confirm flights and arrival times with their host.

I have received an enquiry about transcription work and I reply to this with my availability for next week.

12:30-13:00

Time for a short lunch break. Over lunch, I browse Skills for Health searching for and purchasing an Information Governance course. I am a registered member of AMSPAR - CPAdm MAMS AIPC as I have completed their Level 2 Certificate in Medical Terminology – so there is a CPD requirement to fulfil.

13:00 – 15:00

Another check for client administrative tasks and then head down transcribing until…

15:00 – 16:30

…it’s time for school pick-up. Being freelance, I work mostly within office hours but also flexibly. Knowing my children are happy has always been my own baseline for happiness and productivity at work. I collect my son from school and, as it’s a club day, after a quick turnaround drop him off for today’s activity.

16:30 – 18:00

To wrap the day up, I finish off some transcription and type another couple of short letters. There are some more enquiries to deal with for my clients and some filing.

I’ll finish responding to and for clients at around 18:00. I check Toggl and my transcription timesheets. Although my day is spent dipping in and out of different “pots” of work, I keep an eye on how much time is clocked up overall. This helps me plan, quote and set deadlines better.

I notice that I have accrued one hour of chargeable work to one particular client today. Knowing the work I have done today, I feel pleased about this. My client will only be charged for one hour of my time today, however the experience of their customers is that their queries have been answered as if the enquiry email was manned 09:00 to 18:00. An eight hour day for the cost of one hour of chargeable time.

Key Points

There are different “pots” of work, which I dip in and out of throughout my working hours.

Administrative work is charged by my time spent completing the work.

Transcription work is charged by the length of the audio.

I work flexibly, planning and structuring my own workday. However...

...you only pay for the time I spend working for you.

Invoices are sent out at month end, this being the first working day of the new month.

Ciara Ferrier

Keeping You Compliant

10 ways a medical secretary virtual assistant can keep you compliant, avoiding litigation or legal issues.

Benefits to Patient Experience

How can engaging a medical secretary virtual assistant add value to your patients' experience?

What do patients need from their experience?

1. ACCESS

2. COMMUNICATION

3. JOURNEY

4. PERSONALISATION

CLINICAL FOCUS

How a virtual personal assistant adds value to patient experience

Growth

Final thoughts

Evolution in Transcription

Whilst we are seeing evolution in the way letters and reports are created, the skill of transcription is still providing best results in others

Broadly speaking, there are two "arms" of transcription

The creation of letters or reports has seen a definite evolution

Assessing workflow and cost-efficiency - where is your data?!

Transcription of recorded conversations has not evolved to give the same level of results

Human-ear transcription is both evolving...and not!

More expensive for a reason

Plan your project!

Final thoughts

Half Term

Do you struggle to juggle during school holidays? Do you wish you could just handover to someone else?

Plan

Prioritise

Follow-up

Final thoughts

Completing the BDIA Introduction to Dentistry Course

This course formed part of our CPD requirement for 2025-2026

The Power Automated Difference

Configure behind-the-scenes automation to enhance your workflows

﻿

﻿ Use Power Automate to Simplify and Notify

Establish your process

Gather necessary components

Enquiry form

SharePoint List

Final thoughts

Un-Deck the Halls

January is here but are you facing or embracing the new year? ﻿

Choosing the weight

Brighter times

A One Diary Mindset

Your time is precious, guard it by adopting a “Master Diary” mindset.

Ensure your time is accessible only to those you need to see, for booking at events you need to attend.

Why have a Master Diary?

Paper Diary

Tricks with Digital Diaries

Diary Gold

Remember: Look after your brand. Your brand is you!

Key Points

"I don't need an Assistant: I'll just use Copilot!"

Why relying on AI tools only is insufficient.

A Day in the Life: How do you Work?

The most common question I am asked is “So how do you work?” Let me take you behind the scenes to describe a typical working day…

Wednesday 01 October 2025

08:45-09:00

09:00-10:00

10:00-12:30

12:30-13:00

13:00 – 15:00

15:00 – 16:30

16:30 – 18:00

Key Points

Use Power Automate to Simplify and Notify

January is here but are you facing or embracing the new year?