Advanced Medical Support Assistant

About the role

The Department of Veterans Affairs, Indianapolis VA Medical Center is seeking motivated individuals to join their team to serve as an Advanced Medical Support Assistant. The Indianapolis VA Medical Center is hiring at multiple locations with varying tour of duties.

Responsibilities

• Knowledgeably utilizes VA scheduling software including the Electronic Health Record, ISS, VS GUI and Virtual Care Manager in establishing patient appointments within the appropriate desired date.
• Adheres to scheduling protocol on patient outreach attempts and ensures appointments entered in ISS are accurately reflected in CPRS.
• Appointments are cancelled/rescheduled according to established protocols and informational note is entered in CPRS.
• Patients receive a call 24-hours in advance and are reminded of scheduled appointments.
• Verifies and updates demographic and eligibility information in computer systems.
• Refers all questions requiring immediate medical or clinical attention to the appropriate health care team member.
• Utilizes various reports to complete assigned tasks, such as EARR (Error Action Required report), 1st time appointment reports, consults due reports, and other national, VISN, and locally developed reports.
• Assists in the update, development, and maintenance of program materials, packets, and other printed materials.
• Affords assistance in the orientation/on the job training of new staff.
• Completes work orders and contacts appropriate staff when requested to support the environment of care.
• Prepares correspondence to support the administrative functions of the assigned team; all correspondence is neatly formatted and checked for appropriate spelling and grammar, all documents are the current version, and outgoing Certified mail meets USPS standards.
• Participates in scheduling/phone audits and reviews to ensure effective scheduling practices.
• May have other administrative duties assigned, including but not limited to records management.
• Provides support for the Health Administration Service and is cross-trained in many of the specific job functions of other support staff performing duties such as resulting consults, scanning, and providing front desk coverage. This versatility enables the incumbent to provide cross coverage for time sensitive administrative duties needing completion when those staff with primary responsibility are unavailable.

Requirements

The work is sedentary. Typically, the employee sits comfortably to do the work. However, there may be some walking, standing, bending, carrying of light items such as papers, books, small parts, or driving an automobile, etc. No special physical demands are required to perform the work. Condition of employment: Must be able to pass the national scheduling training exam and competency within 60 days of employment.

Qualifications

• Basic Requirements: United States Citizenship: Citizen of the United States. Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy.
• Experience: Six months experience of clerical, office, customer service, or other administrative work that indicates the ability to acquire the particular knowledge and skills needed to perform the duties of the position; OR, Education: One year above high school; OR, Experience/Education Combination: Equivalent combination of experience and education are qualifying for entry level for which both education and experience are acceptable.
• Grade Determination: In addition to meeting basic requirement listed above, applicant must possess at least one year experience at or equivalent to work at the next lower level, GS5 (Full Performance level), that provides the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the work of the position.
• Demonstrated Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs): Candidates must demonstrate, in their resume, all of the KSAs below:
• i. Ability to collaborate and communicate with a wide range of medical clinicians across multiple disciplines (e.g. medical doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, clinical pharmacists, and nursing staff) to accomplish team goal setting to ensure medical care to patients is met.
• ii. Ability to independently set priorities and organize work to meet deadlines, ensuring compliance with established processes, policies, and regulations.
• iii. Ability to communicate tactfully and effectively, electronically, by phone, in person and in writing, with internal and external customers. This may include preparing reports in various formats and presenting data to various organizational levels, as well as resolving patient concerns.
• iv. Advanced knowledge of the technical health care process (including, but not limited to, scheduling across interdisciplinary coordinated care delivery and/or care in the community models and patient health care portals) as it relates to access to care.
• v. Advanced knowledge of policies and procedures associated with interdisciplinary coordinated care delivery and/or care in the community operational activities that affect patient flow, and patient support care administrative functions to include, but not limited to appointment cycles, outside patient referrals, follow-up care, overbooking, provider availability, etc.
• vi. Advanced knowledge of medical terminology due to the technical nature of language utilized by clinicians.
• Grandfathering Provision: May qualify based on being covered by the Grandfathering Provision as described in the VA Qualification Standard for this occupation (only applicable to current VHA employees who are in this occupation and meet the criteria).