Patient Navigator

Key Responsibilities

• Serves as the primary liaison and patient navigator, ensuring seamless coordination of care throughout the surgical continuum.
• Provides comprehensive education and support to enhance patient understanding, satisfaction, and clinical outcomes.
• Builds and maintains strong relationships with referring physicians and specialty providers.
• Guides patients through the continuum of care, from referral and consultation to surgery and recovery.
• Provides individualized pre-operative and post-operative education tailored to patient needs.
• Improves patient understanding of diagnoses, treatment options, and care plans.
• Promotes informed patient decision-making.
• Ensures timely scheduling of patient appointments, procedures, and follow-ups.
• Regularly reviews provider schedules to ensure appropriate referrals and scheduling.
• Facilitates referrals to consultants and ancillary services as directed by the physician.
• Coordinates additional care, including diagnostic testing, procedures, hospital admissions, and physician orders.
• Initiates and manages pre-authorizations for specialty medications, procedures, and treatments.
• Manages and monitors patients through the electronic health record (EHR), ensuring adherence to active treatment plans.
• Serves as a liaison between patients, providers, hospitals, and multidisciplinary teams.
• Identifies and mitigates barriers to care to improve access and continuity.
• Supports program growth by strengthening relationships with referring practices and enhancing the patient experience.

Direct Patient Care & Clinical Support

• Triage patients, obtain vital signs, and act as a chaperone for providers.
• Afford appropriate routing of triage calls and EHR messages.
• Delivers individualized nursing care to meet patient needs.

Documentation, Compliance & Health Information Management

• Ensures accurate documentation and adherence to regulatory and organizational standards.
• Documents all patient encounters within the EHR.
• Records pertinent patient information and completes workflows to meet meaningful use and advancing care information objectives.
• Completes patient forms, including FMLA, school forms, and work notes.
• Ensures compliance with departmental, institutional, and regulatory policies and procedures.

Operational Support & Organizational Responsibilities

• Promotes the philosophy, goals, and objectives of the institution, department, and program.
• Serves as a clinical resource for staff.
• Maintains required attendance to meet performance expectations.
• Assists with tracking metrics, statistics, and program performance indicators.
• Supports workflow optimization and operational efficiency.
• Completes other duties as assigned.