I am a solo doc as well and I have 2 MAs that share the front desk and clinical duties. They switch off approximately by the week. This is a tremendous upgrade from the 1 receptionist/1 MA configuration I had previously for exactly the reason you state. If one of them is sick, I still have someone to do an EKG or give an immunization instead of doing it myself which really slowed me down. They are both pretty fresh and are making around $14/hr. They are both LESS expensive than my old receptionist but that is another story.
