Customer Service Specialist

About the role

Penn Medicine is dedicated to its tripartite mission of providing the highest level of care to patients, conducting innovative research, and educating future leaders in medicine. Working for this leading academic medical center means collaboration with top clinical, technical, and business professionals across all disciplines.

Position Summary: Provides complete and accurate patient scheduling, registration, insurance verification, ordering of tests, and coordination of applicable screening, diagnostic, physician office, and outpatient hospital services. Capable of coordinating and communicating effectively during increased volumes or with complex patients.

Responsibilities

• Performs complete and accurate patient registration including walk-in, check-in, and scheduled patients
• Demonstrates ability to successfully adapt and perform during times of high volumes and/or high patient acuity
• Demonstrates skill to service both hospital and physician office patients, as assigned
• Supports inbound and outbound calls to or from patients, guests, or appropriate parties to provide services
• Effectively manages general patient complaints and concerns in a professional manner, escalating more complex issues to supervisor/manager as needed
• Understands and supports Point of Service Collections; performs all necessary functions needed to collect patient obligations
• Refers patient to appropriate person for questions regarding collections, insurance coverages, and financial assistance
• Disseminates or discusses information with patients regarding co-pays, out-of-pocket expenses, pre-appointment preparation, arrival times, etc.
• Verifies patient, guarantor, coverage, and hospital account information
• Performs required referral authorization processes and enters orders for applicable tests
• Understands insurance company coverage and referral authorization requirements of payors
• Performs electronic and manual verification of insurance coverage and understands how to read and accurately apply electronic insurance responses
• Prepares and/or releases records or orders in the e-Health record
• Scans all necessary documents into appropriate medical record
• Understands the importance of patient's medical information documented on paper; sends all pertinent information to document imaging or health information management team within established time frames
• Completes documentation for compliance and regulatory needs and/or release of orders
• Retains knowledge and abides by all regulatory requirements pertaining to duties of position and overall operations as applicable
• Screens and accurately relays messages using protocols established for emergent, urgent, and non-urgent calls
• Demonstrates ability to register unscheduled patients requiring full financial clearance
• Completes assigned patient scheduling and registration work queues according to performance standards
• Ability to resolve work queue issues and missing registration items via electronic medical record
• For LGHP, this role may necessitate occasional regional travel
• For Regional Positions: Travels regularly to various sites within the region to support operational needs as listed above
• Assists at new practices and sites by mentoring and leading other team members during the initial onboarding period
• Special projects as assigned
• Nasal swabbing and general specimen collection may be required in select departments (secondary duty)
• Other duties as assigned (secondary duty)

Requirements

• High School Diploma or equivalent GED (Required)
• One (1) year of clerical, customer service, or administrative support experience in a highly customer-oriented organization
• One (1) year experience with basic keyboarding, personal computer use, and other office setting equipment
• For Regional Positions only: Valid driver's license required
• One (1) year of registration experience, point of service collection, insurance validation, understanding of compliance regulatory guidelines, and order release processes
• One (1) year prior experience of Revenue Cycle in a Hospital Medical Office Setting
• Previous Epic or equivalent Electronic Medical Record experience

Skills

Cognitive Requirements

• Attention Concentration: Ability to attend to a specific stimulus without being distracted by extraneous environmental stimuli; ability to attend to environmental detail with the ability to separate essential from non-essential or irrelevant stimuli; attention skills are generally automatic/passive but focused with intact capacity for selective perception
• New Learning and Memory: Large portion of position requires reliance on verbal memory and new learning; efficiency in processing verbal information (written or spoken) is a major requirement; must attend to and process multiple bits of information simultaneously; must organize and categorize information effectively for later recall
• Problem Solving, Reasoning and Creative Thinking: Minimal requirement for autonomous problem solving or creativity; problems involve few concrete variables in standardized situations; typically involves adhering to a chart or set procedure

Essential Job-Worker Situations

• Repetitive work: Ability to continuously perform the same type of work for extended periods according to set procedures, sequence, or pace
• Performing under stressful conditions: Ability to perform under stress when confronted with emergency, critical, unusual, or dangerous situations, or when working speed and sustained attention are critical; subject to danger/risk or tension as a regular, consistent part of the job
• Variety and change: Ability to perform a variety of duties, often changing from one task to another of a different nature without loss of efficiency or composure, involving significant differences in technologies, techniques, procedures, environmental factors, physical demands, or work situations
• Communication: Ability to exchange information with others clearly and concisely; to present ideas, facts, and technical information
• Interpersonal relations: Ability to maintain relationships that facilitate task accomplishment; to cooperate and resolve conflicts; to recognize needs and be sensitive of others

Benefits

We offer a comprehensive compensation and benefits program that includes one of the finest prepaid tuition assistance programs in the region. Our employee benefits programs help employees get healthy and stay healthy.