As remote work’s popularity continues, and as the city continues to increase minimum wage, two local doctors are helping businesses contract offshore employees to save on costs. Founded in 2021, MedVA LLC supplies medical, veterinary and dental offices with “virtual assistants” to take on jobs like office management, reception, administration and billing. MedVA and BizVA – its recent spinoff platform that employs these virtual assistants to businesses outside the medical field – are growing rapidly and currently employ more than 1,200 virtual assistants.
Co-founders Dr. Steven Kupferman and Dr. Omid Shaye were struggling to maintain employees at their medical practices and match the minimum wage, which will go up to $25 per hour for health care workers in Los Angeles County by 2028. Shaye, a gastroenterologist at Cedars-Sinai, said he was initially wary about outsourcing employees for his office, but soon found that customer care for patients improved. MedVA’s leadership team, including Kupferman, Shaye and MedVA Chief Executive Chris McShanang work out of Los Angeles, while its operational team works remotely and is spread around the world.
“Once you start, you really realize what an incredible asset these folks are, and immediately it started addressing our pain points,” Shaye said. “(Virtual assistants) have significantly improved our practice, lowered our costs, lowered our liability and also improved our patient care.”
Almost all virtual assistants hired by MedVA are in the Philippines and are put through a vetting and background check process, as well as several weeks of training. MedVA acts as a “middleman” to connect its clients with the virtual assistants, who function as independent contractors.
Since its founding in 2021, the company’s revenue has grown 1,634%. MedVA and BizVA have grown to about 50 employees total and are forecasting 300% revenue growth next year.
Kupferman, a surgeon at the Century City-based Los Angeles Center for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, said health care costs in the U.S. are “orders of magnitude” higher than other countries. Shaye and Kupferman said virtual assistants are paid a competitive salary compared to what they would otherwise make in order to attract the “best people.”
“A large part of this is taking advantage of the American dollar, the cost of living and the ability for people to work from home,” Kupferman said. “(The competitive pay) is still fractional, particularly in Los Angeles.”
MedVA said it recruits from the Philippines for several reasons, particularly because one of the country’s official languages is English and because of business privacy laws established by its government. In addition, minimum wage in Metro Manila, the capital region of the Philippines, is equivalent to about $10.96 per hour for a non-agricultural job.
Clients are charged by MedVA twice a month to cover employees’ salary and benefits. Since virtual assistants don’t live or work in the U.S., state and federal labor laws and employee protections do not apply, and virtual assistants cannot file legal suits against their employers. MedVA’s clients are “expected to treat (virtual assistants) with dignity and respect” and are “encouraged” to give breaks, but MedVA does not require or monitor either matter.
Kupferman said that he and Shaye both employ virtual assistants at their own medical practices, and that being both owners and users of the platform influences their decision making and planning.
“Our ability to source talent is well-oiled and very effective, and our basis of creating the company to help ourselves but to (also) help other doctors … really makes it different,” Kupferman said. “I think there’s a lot of staffing companies trying to offshore people, but our ability to … retain our own staff and control the security of our company is what sets us apart.”
