Hiring & cost
How much does a virtual assistant for a therapy practice cost?
The honest answer is: it depends on who you hire and how. A virtual assistant for a therapy practice can run anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month to the cost of a part-time employee. But the sticker price is the easy part. What actually decides whether it's a good deal is the total cost, including the hours you spend managing, training, and fixing things.
Here's a clear breakdown of your options, what each typically costs, and the costs most practice owners forget to count.
The three ways to cover your admin
1. Hire in-house (a part-time admin or receptionist)
You bring on an employee for intake, scheduling, and paperwork. You get someone dedicated and on your schedule, but you also take on the full cost and the full management. Beyond the hourly wage, budget for payroll taxes, equipment, paid time off, and the hours you'll spend hiring, onboarding, and supervising. When they're sick or quit, the work stops with them.
2. Hire a freelance virtual assistant
You find an individual VA on a marketplace or by referral. This is usually the lowest hourly rate, and it can work well if you already have clear processes and time to direct someone. The catch: you are still the manager. You write the task list, answer the questions, check the work, and start over if they leave. For a HIPAA-covered practice, you also have to vet their training and get a Business Associate Agreement in place yourself.
3. Use a managed virtual assistant service
A service assigns you a trained assistant and manages the work for you. You don't recruit, train, or supervise, and a good service already knows practice admin, so there's no ramp-up and there's a backup when your assistant is out. You pay a bit more per hour than a bare freelancer, but you're buying the management and the reliability, not just the hours.
What each typically costs
| Option | Typical cost | You manage it? |
|---|---|---|
| In-house part-time admin | Hourly wage plus roughly 20-30% in taxes, benefits, and overhead, and you pay for downtime | Yes, fully |
| Freelance VA | Often the lowest hourly rate; varies widely by experience and location | Yes |
| Medical billing service | Commonly a percentage of what they collect for you | Partly |
| Managed VA service | A flat weekly or monthly rate for a set number of hours | No, the service does |
Ranges move with experience, specialization, and whether the work is managed for you, which is exactly why a single "price" is misleading. The next two sections are how you compare them fairly.
What actually drives the price
- Hours. A few hours a week for intake is very different from full coverage.
- Complexity. Insurance billing and claims take more skill than inbox triage.
- Expertise. Someone who already knows mental-health admin costs more per hour but needs far less of your time.
- Managed vs. self-managed. The biggest swing isn't the rate, it's whether you or someone else runs the work.
The hidden costs most practices miss
The lowest hourly rate often hides the largest bill. Count these too:
- Your time. Every hour you spend assigning tasks and reviewing work is an hour you're not seeing clients or resting.
- Training and ramp-up. A cheaper hire who needs weeks of teaching can cost more than a pricier one who starts contributing on day one.
- Mistakes and rework. A missed claim or a botched intake costs revenue and goodwill.
- Turnover. If your one assistant leaves, you're back to square one, often with no backup.
- Compliance risk. Without signed BAAs and real HIPAA training, you carry the exposure.
A two-minute way to know if it's worth it
Skip the hourly rate for a second and ask what your own time is worth. If admin eats, say, eight hours of your week, and an hour of your time is worth far more than an hour of an assistant's, the math usually answers itself, before you even count the revenue a sharper intake and cleaner billing bring in.
Rough check: (hours you'd hand off each week) × (what an hour of your time is really worth) versus the weekly cost of help. If the first number is bigger, you're paying yourself to do admin.
What VA Helps costs
We keep it simple and managed. Pricing starts at $100 a week for four dedicated hours, then $20 an hour for anything beyond that, with no contracts and no setup fees. Every engagement includes a dedicated assistant plus a backup, weekly reports, and an assistant who signs a Business Associate Agreement and completes HIPAA training before touching your work. You can see the full plan on our pricing section.
The difference from a freelancer isn't the rate, it's that we run the work. You're not assigning tasks or chasing anyone; we already know intake, billing, and admin and simply do it.
The bottom line
The cheapest hourly rate is rarely the lowest total cost. For a busy practice, the option that gives back the most time and carries the least risk usually wins, even if it isn't the lowest number on paper. A freelancer can be a great fit if you have the processes and time to manage one; an in-house hire makes sense at a certain size; and a managed service is the move when you want the work simply handled.
Not sure which fits your practice? That's exactly what a short call is for, no obligation, and you'll leave knowing what to hand off first.