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Jennifer: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Ask the Doc. I’m your host, Jennifer Filsen, and today I have with me Sanju Zachariah of Portiva. Welcome, Sanju.
Sanju: Thank you, Jennifer. It’s a pleasure.
Jennifer: I’m so glad you’re here. So tell us all about Portiva and what you guys do.
Sanju: Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me. A little background about Portiva: my name is Sanju Zachariah, and I’m the owner and CEO of Portiva. We’re a medical staffing company headquartered in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, in the greater Philadelphia area. We started back in 2009, and we had a different focus back then. We were engaged in back-office operations for doctors. We serve healthcare practitioners in general, so we have some dentists, some veterinarians, and so on. Back in 2009, we were focused on back-office operations, doing a lot of medical transcription. That was the main bread and butter of the company.
That continued until the pandemic hit. That’s when things shifted a bit because we started getting calls from our clients asking for more help, especially with front-office operations. We had a situation where people couldn’t come into the office anymore, like the medical assistants, because of restrictions. Doctors were strapped, managing everything themselves. So that’s when we started getting calls from doctors asking, “Do you have people who can help us with phone calls, scheduling, billing, and so forth?” That’s when we started our virtual medical assistant service. We added that to Portiva’s portfolio. That’s how it all began.
Jennifer: That is amazing, and you’re absolutely right. We’re already seeing that doctors are busy doing what they do, practicing and seeing patients. But to also be the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker within your own practice, running the back end, running the front desk, doing all the paperwork, and making sure everything’s sterilized, that’s a lot for one person to handle. So it’s great that you guys are providing a service that gives them the help they need. I’d imagine that with the labor shortage we’re currently seeing, you really are a blessing to a lot of these doctors and practices because it’s hard to find help these days. So are you doing temporary staffing specifically for this, placements that end once they’re no longer needed, or is it more of a headhunting model where you’re placing people permanently in these roles?
Sanju: It’s a permanent placement model. Basically what we do, and I don’t want to call it “disruption,” maybe that’s too harsh or extreme, but we’re looking to disrupt the traditional medical staffing industry. In the old-school way, doctors typically reach out to a medical staffing firm and say, “We need a medical assistant or certified medical assistant,” and they’d have to wait weeks, these days even months, because it’s hard to find people who want to work in an office. A lot of people have retooled because of the pandemic. They’re not going back into offices. Every industry is going through this, restaurants, hospitality, travel. People are having a hard time finding good people willing to work on-site. They’d rather work online.
So basically what we do, Jennifer, is maintain a roster of pre-vetted candidates with medical backgrounds. A lot of them are former nurses, and everything can be done remotely using voice-over-IP and conferencing technologies. A medical staff member gets interviewed and, depending on the doctor’s needs, whether it’s billing, medical scribing, patient scheduling, or other specialties, we already have candidates ready. They go through a process we call “Portiva University,” where they receive rigorous training and testing. Once they’re ready to be placed, they go into a queue. When a doctor reaches out to us, we provide a list of candidates, typically two or three, and ask the doctor to choose the one who resonates best with their practice.
Once that happens, they come on board, and we’ve had a wonderful experience so far. Doctors really like them. They’re logged in when the doctor comes into the office and typically log out when the doctor leaves, though sometimes they’re doing follow-up work even after the doctor leaves, like documentation and catching up. The great thing is that we become an extension of the doctor’s office, and it saves the doctor a lot of time. We have doctors who love their virtual assistants because they’re not taking up physical space in the office. We handle all the benefits, including health insurance, retirement plans, and everything else. The doctor just pays a flat hourly rate.
In the worst case, if the doctor doesn’t feel it’s the right fit after a month or so, which does happen sometimes, we can immediately provide another set of candidates. Compared to the traditional model, where a doctor has to wait weeks, go through interviews, and then start all over again if it’s not the right fit, with Portiva we already have candidates lined up and ready to go. We can typically place a doctor with a trained candidate within hours. We also have doctors’ offices that need more than one virtual assistant, or VA. Those are some of the benefits of the service we provide.
Jennifer: Amazing. Oh my gosh, I love your business model. You’re doing some great work, Sanju, truly. Now, we’re running out of time, but I tell you what, well have to have you come back in the future and tell us a little more about your origin story. In fact, let’s do a quick 30 seconds right now. How did you get into this?
Sanju: Yeah, no, it’s a good question. Portiva started back in 2009, and I’m an engineer by trade, but I have family members and friends in the medical field, some of them doctors. The idea came about because of a bad experience I had at a doctor’s office before 2009. I waited about 45 minutes to be checked in because my primary care office was so inundated, with the staff juggling so many different things. That’s when the idea originated. I felt like doctors need help managing their practice. As good as they are, and they truly are medical professionals, their time should be focused on the patient, not on administrative tasks. That’s how it all started, and that’s how the idea originated.
Jennifer: I love it. You didn’t just complain, you found a solution, and now you have a very happy business because of it. I love that. Well, we’ve run out of time, but truly, thank you, Sanju, for being here. And everyone, thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed hearing about the good work Portiva is doing. If you want to find out more, please go to BuzzTV.iab-buzz.com. Thank you so much for watching, and we’ll see you next time. Bye.
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Hello, Dr. Ashore here, board-certified family medicine physician. I am at this gorgeous, gorgeous national park and just taking a break, a couple of days where I decided not to book any patients for myself. I did bring my laptop just in case I need to do any kind of work, but fortunately, with Portiva, I have all the support I need. There’s somebody checking my email and any patient messages.
Patients are still able to schedule and handle any scheduling issues, and any kind of billing that still needs to go through, Portiva handles it all for me. I get to enjoy this incredible weather and be away from my office without feeling like everything is going to go down the drain, as they say. I have support. I have somebody that I can access pretty much 24/7, and I know that things are still happening behind the scenes. As somebody who owns her own practice, I don’t have any other medical assistants.
I don’t have any other physicians who work with me. I decided to move my entire practice online before the pandemic, and for that reason, I need somebody who is also remote and understands how things work from the whole remote perspective. That’s what Portiva has offered me, and it’s incredible to be able to be away from my office and know that everything is still happening as it should. For my patients, it’s all very seamless. They don’t see that I’m away from the office.
There are no booked appointments right now, but if somebody has an emergency or needs a medication called in, I know that the virtual assistants at Portiva will handle that for me. I hope you can do the same. Take care.
Calvin Elado
“We were overwhelmed with calls while our staff focused on in-clinic patients. Portiva came highly recommended, and since bringing on Jennifer as our Virtual Front Desk Receptionist, things have run much more smoothly.”
Stephen Sisselman
“I am currently employing and managing 3 virtual medical assistants in various roles including billing, population health and back office. These exemplary individuals are smart, self-starters who can be trained to perform new tasks.”
Aly Gonzalez
“Prior to Portiva, I used another virtual staffing agency and I was not happy with the candidates or the service. Portiva does an excellent job pre-screening qualified candidates that meet the requirements of the job.”
Brianna Gunther
“It has been a pleasure working with Portiva and their VMAs. Before working with them, we faced challenges managing the increasing workload that came with our growth, especially with limited on-site space.”
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| Comparison Area | Portiva Dental Virtual Assistant | General Virtual Assistant | Traditional In-House Staff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dental experience | Specialized support for dental-practice workflows | Usually trained for general administrative work | Experience varies by employee |
| HIPAA readiness | HIPAA-trained for handling patient information | May not include healthcare-specific training | Training must be managed by the practice |
| Core support tasks | Scheduling, insurance verification, billing follow-up, recall and patient communication | Typically limited to basic administrative tasks | Can manage both administrative and on-site duties |
| Scalability | Remote support can grow with the practice without adding office space | Can scale, but may require additional dental training | Requires recruitment, equipment and workspace |
| Best overall fit | Best for dental practices seeking specialized, flexible remote support | Better for simple, nonclinical tasks | Better for duties that require an in-office presence |
Handle scheduling, billing, claim processing, follow-up, reminder systems, checks, and payments.
Help dental operations run seamlessly and support patient retention.
Enable you to focus on patient care, improve morale, and ultimately increase revenue
Dental Workforce Report · 2025
Dental Staffing Shortages Remain the Biggest Challenge for U.S. Practices
Source: American Dental Association Health Policy Institute ↗62% of dentists surveyed identified staffing shortages as the biggest challenge their practices expected to face in 2025.
While dental virtual assistants cannot replace licensed or chairside personnel, they can help practices reduce pressure on existing teams by supporting scheduling, insurance verification, billing follow-up, patient communication, and other remote administrative tasks.
── WHO'S BEHIND THIS
Sanju Zachariah
Founder & CEO, Portiva
Sanju Zachariah is the Founder and CEO of Portiva, a healthcare staffing company he established in 2009 to help medical practices reduce administrative burdens and operate more efficiently. Before founding Portiva, Sanju worked as a management consultant at Accenture and PwC, where he gained extensive experience in process improvement and operational strategy.
Inspired by firsthand frustrations with inefficiencies in healthcare administration, he built Portiva to provide scalable virtual support that allows healthcare professionals and business leaders to focus on higher-value work.
2009
3
US
Find answers to your queries about Portiva’s dental virtual assistant services.
Yes. Portiva’s remote healthcare professionals are HIPAA-compliant and trained to protect sensitive patient information while providing administrative support.
Portiva’s remote professionals can log into a dental practice’s authorized practice management system to update patient and insurance information. Practices can confirm compatibility with their specific software platform during a consultation.
Yes. A dental virtual assistant can answer patient calls, schedule appointments, coordinate calendars, confirm patient information, and support other front-office responsibilities.
The process begins by scheduling a free consultation with Portiva to discuss the dental practice’s staffing needs, workflows, and required responsibilities. The specific onboarding timeline depends on the practice’s requirements.
Portiva provides trained remote professionals to support a dental practice’s daily administrative operations. The assignment structure and whether the practice works with a dedicated assistant can be confirmed during the consultation process.
Portiva pre-screens qualified candidates and provides training to prepare them for healthcare administrative roles. Team members are also trained to follow HIPAA requirements and handle sensitive patient information.
Practices can discuss performance concerns, staffing needs, and available reassignment options directly with Portiva. The appropriate next step will depend on the practice’s requirements and the circumstances of the assignment.
Yes. A dental virtual assistant can improve practice efficiency by supporting scheduling, billing, claims, patient follow-ups, reminders, insurance verification, payments, and hygiene recalls, allowing the in-office team to focus more on patient care.
