Cardiology Care Navigator

About the Role

Coordinate the patient journey from referral through completion of diagnostic testing and follow-up care. Serve as the primary point of contact for non-clinical patient coordination, ensuring patients are scheduled for recommended imaging and follow-up appointments before leaving the clinic whenever possible.

Responsibilities

• Monitor patients requiring cardiac CT, cardiac MRI, stress echocardiograms, PET, SPECT, and other cardiovascular diagnostic procedures, tracking them throughout the imaging process to ensure completion.
• Review imaging work queues daily and coordinate imaging appointments with Radiology and Cardiology.
• Ensure imaging orders contain all required documentation and coordinate with authorization staff to secure insurance approvals, escalating scheduling or authorization delays as needed.
• Coordinate rescheduling of cancelled or missed imaging appointments and maintain tracking lists for outstanding imaging studies.
• Actively manage imaging waitlists to maximize imaging capacity and review daily provider schedules to identify patients needing imaging or follow-up before leaving the clinic.
• Coordinate same-day scheduling opportunities to fill cancellations and monitor imaging scheduling turnaround times.
• Schedule provider-recommended follow-up appointments and monitor follow-up work queues to ensure patients are not lost to follow-up.
• Contact patients who miss appointments, cancel, have incomplete imaging, require repeat testing, or need ED/hospital follow-up.
• Track outstanding imaging orders and coordinate completion, while monitoring referral leakage and coordinating appropriate follow-up.
• Coordinate surveillance and repeat imaging based on provider recommendations.
• Contact patients regarding appointments, preparation requirements, scheduling, and follow-up, reinforcing procedure instructions provided by nursing staff.
• Answer non-clinical questions, route clinical concerns appropriately, and encourage adherence to care plans and scheduled testing.
• Collaborate with physicians and nursing staff to ensure patients receive pre-procedure instructions, medication instructions, laboratory requirements, and preparation materials.
• Notify nursing staff of patients requiring clinical outreach or education.
• Manage referral, imaging, recall, ED follow-up, hospital discharge, missed appointment, incidental finding, surveillance imaging, and waitlist work queues to ensure timely patient outreach and appointment completion.
• Support program growth and service line development by increasing completion rates for advanced cardiac imaging and reducing delays from provider order to completed imaging.
• Reduce no-show and cancellation rates and maximize imaging utilization through proactive scheduling.
• Monitor referral conversion and imaging volumes, supporting outreach to referring providers and new cardiovascular service initiatives.
• Support population health and surveillance imaging programs.
• Maintain dashboards and tracking tools for outstanding imaging orders, referrals, follow-up appointments, and work queues.
• Provide weekly and monthly reports to clinic leadership and providers on outstanding tasks, turnaround times, completion rates, no-shows, referral conversion, waitlist utilization, and operational barriers.
• Present findings during operational, provider, and quality meetings, recommending workflow improvements based on trends and performance data.
• Document all patient outreach and coordination activities in the electronic medical record and maintain tracking spreadsheets, dashboards, and operational reports.
• Participate in quality improvement initiatives, workflow redesign, and departmental meetings.
• Participate in departmental meetings and special projects, cross-training to support ambulatory cardiology operations as needed.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Associate's degree preferred.
• Three years of healthcare experience preferred, with experience in cardiology, ambulatory operations, patient access, scheduling, referral coordination, or care coordination.
• Experience with Cerner or comparable electronic medical record preferred.

Skills

• Excellent organizational and communication skills.
• Strong customer service and interpersonal skills.
• Knowledge of medical terminology, referral management, and insurance authorization processes.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities independently.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and EMR systems.