Patient Services Associate

Patient Service

Strives to understand and anticipate patient needs, manages service recovery efforts when needed, enlists management assistance as appropriate, identifies opportunities to improve the patient experience.

• Answer phones in a timely manner, manage/handle patient requests and route appropriately
• Retrieve voicemails in a timely manner, take accurate and thorough messages and route appropriately through EMR
• Schedule patient appointments (on phone or in person) by determining reason for visit, following established schedules and protocols, using appropriate billing area/appointment location, communicating changes and confirming appointments, and, as needed, offering alternative and canceling/rescheduling appointments
• Responsible for arriving/departing activities of patient at practice and performs point of service activities: collects copays and records accurately, obtains necessary signatures/forms, obtains insurance cards and referrals/authorizations, updates appointment status in EMR, and finalizes all check-out procedures
• Communicates with patients regarding patient flow and wait times – keeps manager aware of potential issues as they arise
• Issues referrals and obtains pre-authorizations for patients as required and as per protocol

Financial

• Maintains up to date knowledge of insurance requirements pertinent to patient service and billing procedures: including basic knowledge of all managed care plans and which insurers require a copayment or referral
• Validates patient demographic/insurance information and/or registers new patients into EMR using established protocols
• Records receipts accurately to ensure end of day reconciliation; participates in cash reconciliation delineations
• Solves work queues and/or issues from front-end reports; proactively prioritizes recovery of missing charges
• Orders supplies for the office and generates front-end process reports as requested

Other / Regulatory

• Ensures compliance with all applicable federal, state, and local regulatory standards (ex TJC, DOH, FDA, HIPAA, HCFA, DPW, LCGME, SCGME, etc)
• Flexible and readily adopts new processes and engages in practice operation changes

Access Center Responsibilities (if appropriate)

• Coordinates clinical and administrative aspects of the new patient scheduling encounter
• Perform within the expected outcome of the Automated Call Distribution (ACD) environment
• Solves telephone issues and timely reports problems related to volume to manager
• Follow established downtime procedures for registration

Other Duties

• As needed: assist with coverage of POS and Pre-Processing Areas, create/mail new patient packets, appointment ‘bumping’, wait list scheduling, resource scheduling, and team scheduling