HIM Specialist I

Status

Full-Time
Location: Bayfront Hospital
Hours: 8am-4:30pm
Schedule: Monday-Friday, with weekends and holidays as needed.

About the role

Orlando Health is a trusted healthcare organization that reinforces its reputation through award-winning hospitals and ERs, specialty institutes, urgent care centers, primary care practices, and outpatient facilities serving communities from east to west coast.

Responsibilities

• Supports day-to-day HIM operations across multiple hospitals and multiple HIM functional areas (Data Integrity, Document Imaging, Birth Registry, Deficiencies, ROI).
• Ensures records are accurate, complete, and timely and protects PHI per HIPAA and policy.
• Processes and routes documents and images; indexes and scans with quality checks; basic patient and encounter validation; approved demographic and chart updates; straightforward requests (minimum necessary).
• Documents work and escalates discrepancies and exceptions per policy.

Essential Functions

• Maintains the integrity of the Master Patient Index (MPI) by monitoring and researching patient demographics, identifying potential duplicate patients, and reporting potential patient overlays.
• Trips, assigns, and/or manages assigned chart correction cases or tasks on a routine basis and follows up with all members tasked within the case to ensure timely resolution.
• Reviews and processes externally received inbound messages from various health information exchanges to enable and support patient care in the electronic medical record.
• Performs data integrity tasks such as collecting and analyzing data elements mandated by state regulations and required for accurate birth certificate preparation.
• Collects, updates, and enters accurate birth information into the Electronic Vital Statistic System based on the timeframes established by the state.
• Performs medical record analysis across multiple service lines, multiple hospitals including, but not limited to, Emergency Department, Outpatient and Inpatient records to ensure documentation accuracy and compliance per the Medical Staff Rules & Regulations, Medical Staff Bylaws, Joint Commission, and other regulatory requirements.
• Assigns appropriate deficiencies to physicians, residents and allied healthcare professionals for completion of their medical records when appropriate.
• Manages assigned deficiency-related work queues with attention to accuracy, timeliness and workflow efficiency.
• Performs verification of the record elements to finalize the records with assistance, is needed.
• Efficiently retrieves, opens, sorts, and routes incoming correspondences received via mail, e-mail, and faxes ensuring timely handling and accurate documentation.
• Identifies record request types to ensure they are routed to the appropriate work queue for processing.
• Accurately logs, tracks, and verifies that all requests meet processing requirements to ensure compliance with all Orlando Health's policies, in addition to federal and state law surrounding patient privacy and security.
• Delivers high-quality support via phone and in person interactions, resolving inquiries and facilitating record access with professionalism and empathy.
• Facilitates the release of records during the fulfillment process by securely sending only the minimum necessary information requested in the format and delivery method required by the requestors at the hospital or through work queue requests.
• Maintains all ROI-related work queues, prioritizes tasks and releases based on departmental needs and service excellence.
• Retrieves patient information from archives, paper file systems, legacy applications, or any other system/application that contains the legal medical record or records otherwise being requested and assembles in a standardized fashion.
• Reviews all documentation such as chart notes, flags, alerts, etc. for sensitive information prior to processing a release to ensure release meets compliance with patient privacy standards / requirements.
• Assists with the preceptorship of new hires/existing team members.
• Develops working knowledge of the full Release of Information workflow within the various systems and resources identifying and resolving issues when there are breakdowns in the processes.

General

• Maintains productivity, timeliness, and quality standards and goals set by the department.
• Maintains compliance with all Orlando Health policies and procedures.
• Communicates cooperatively and constructively with physicians, patients, guests, and all other members of the healthcare team demonstrating excellent interpersonal, oral, written, and organizational skills.
• Serves as a resource for all HIM team members, providing guidance and support, and fostering professional growth to ensure team success and alignment with organizational goals.
• Maintains security and confidentiality of patients and hospital data and information.
• Demonstrates critical thinking and process improvement skills.
• Promptly reports any improper handling of PHI to include breaches or other HIPAA reportable offenses to manager when discovered and enters an Event Report as appropriate.
• Maintains strong organizational skills, maintained exceptional attention to detail, and ensures accurate data entry, verification, and updating as required.
• Demonstrated ability to read and comprehend medical records documentation through knowledge of medical terminology and anatomy/physiology.
• Possesses and applies knowledge of clinical and registration / demographic system information in all applications required to navigate the medical record, reason, and solve problems.
• Works independently with minimal supervision, showing initiative, accountability and sound judgement.
• Maintains level of productivity established by department.

Education/Training

• High School Diploma or equivalent required.
• Basic proficiency in Microsoft Windows operating system.
• Basic proficiency in Microsoft 365 applications (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint).
• Medical Terminology preferred or within 1 year of hire.
• Licensure/Certification: None required.
• Experience: One (1) year of experience in Health Information Management (HIM), Revenue Management or Revenue Cycle, or a Healthcare field preferred. Completion of Health Information Management, Healthcare Informatics, Health Information Technology, or Health Service Administration degree program can substitute for one (1) year of experience preferred.