Medicaid Paralegal [HE041]

THE ROLE:

The Medicaid Paralegal’s primary responsibility is to support the attorney, provide non-legal advice and family counsel to obtain Nursing Home, Assisted Living or at home Medicaid eligibility and benefits per Department of Children and Families policy manual. Leverage attorney time with actual factual detail collection, accurate drafting from templates and necessary instruction for Durable Power of Attorneys, Advance Directives, Last Will & Testaments, Deeds, Qualified Income Trusts, Personal Service Contracts and Special Needs Trusts. Provide basic overview of ancillary documents, confirm, and receive necessary verification to obtain Medicaid coverage and benefits. Providing support to the client by tracking income, spend down of assets, banking and signing appointments, and assisting in any transfer of assets per attorney direction.

Supports attorney with various tasks including monitoring calendar, scheduling of appointments, tasking attorney review of legal documents, printing and scanning appropriate documents for client meetings, communicating client’s goals for upcoming meetings, tracking case engagement, obtaining representation and fee agreement, collection of retainers, taking and tracking payments, and ensuring customer satisfaction by collaboratively working with the attorney to confirm a tight and strict deadline.

Reporting Relationship and Goals: Reports to the managing Attorney for post consultation debrief to obtain attorney oversight of legal advising and drafting instructions. Responsible for case tracking to ensure goal management and timely completion of approved case conclusions. Collaborate with 2nd Medicaid paralegal on case details and deadlines to achieve overall goals for the client.

Full Time: 40 hours / week

Duties and Responsibilities: Performs a wide variety of Paralegal/Legal Assistant functions to support the firm with a focus on Medicaid planning. Have strong knowledge of our client process, the value, and the nature of our services.

• Client Contact – Communicates with client and client contact via email, office appointments and phone calls. Ensures deadlines for drafted and executed documents, banking appointments, and asset protection to Medicaid qualification or client goals. Anticipates client needs to avoid surprises and unpreparedness. Responsive to questions with regards to the Medicaid process, application, overall goal and benefit of Medicaid. Provide non legal advice and service regards insurance, additional care needs, and placement, that provides unique knowledge to client or the client’s contact to alleviate concern and stress within our scope of legal work and per engagement agreement.
• Problem Solving – Proactively anticipates and resolves issues quickly prior to being a potential issue. Able to use good judgment when necessary to provide exceptional advice and service, involving the attorney when appropriate.
• Process Improvement – Recommend, create, and implement interoffice systems to improve processes which include matter and hard file organization, auto tasking, letter templates and generating documents that will increase efficiency, productivity, and responsiveness to increase client satisfaction.
• Draft Documents – Accurately draft legal documents, obtain any necessary factual demographic information from client or client contact and revise legal documents per attorney direction.
• Client Signing Meetings – Send drafts to client or client contact to review documents prior to signing, ensure attorney reviews all necessary legal documents prior to execution, schedule legal questions with the attorney, meet with the client or client contact to execute legal documents per attorney direction and oversight.
• Client Documents- Review intake questionnaire and any relevant documents provided for the case, attention to detail is a must when creating Outstanding Document List, Asset and Income spreadsheet and Patient Liability Spreadsheet. Update any necessary spreadsheets when documents are received and reviewed.
• 3rd Party Communications- Send all relevant documents to Application Specialist and contractors, respond to requests for any clarification on case. Communicate with nursing home or assisted living on application status, document submission and anticipated approval date.
• Matter Tracking – Regularly monitor and oversee Medicaid matters to confirm open cases are active with current and ongoing work. Review prospective client matters assigned to Medicaid paralegals to anticipate future caseload for or from attorney consults.
• Billing- Review and approve prebills and time entries for monthly billing, oversee retainers, outstanding billable fees, and communicate to client or client contact when retainer has been exhausted due to the billable hours. Monitor accounts receivable to ensure positive cash flow and communicate when write offs must occur to the appropriate supervisor.
• Billable Time – Track and record all billable and non-billable work with timesheet function in ActionStep.
• Other Duties – Performs other duties as assigned including scanning documents, copying, intakes, file creation, data entry, and organizing documents in appropriate matter.

Qualifications & Skills:

• Paralegal experience with background in medical malpractice / family law (for higher net worth divorces), commercial litigation, or estate planning/probate.
• Basic knowledge of Medicaid Law is a plus
• Amenable to commute in St. Johns County Office or Jacksonville Office
• The ability to interact with families that pertain to Medicaid application process.
• Excellent client service with oral and written communications skills. Can communicate analytical details at client meetings and manage the entire Medicaid application process from start to finish.
• Solid organization, exceptional multi-tasking skills, and the ability to prioritize tasks.
• Demonstrated experience with Microsoft Office Applications including Word, Outlook, Excel, and ElderDocs.

Salary: $62,000.00 - $80,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401k with full employer match allowed by law. The plan has Roth components.
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Opportunities for advancement
• Travel reimbursement
• Vision insurance
• Vacation: 5 days 1st year, 10 days 2-4th years, 15 days 5 years.
• Sick 5 days.
• No paid material/paternity leave - short-term disablity is paid by firm. PTO is use it or lose it with very little annual carryover.
• FMLA and Military leave is available, and firm has provided such benefits (job protection) in excess of legal requirements.

Perks:

• 28-34% of collections; exact percentage depends on client results and proper exercise of independent judgment
• $5,000 budget in CLE and professional development education relevant to the position.

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday

Ability to Relocate:

• Jacksonville, FL or St. John's Office, relocate before starting work (Required)
• We’ll pay moving expenses!

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $60,000.00 - $80,000.00 per year

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday

Experience:

• paralegal: 3 years (Preferred)

Ability to Commute:

• Jacksonville, FL 32256 (Required)

Work Location: In person

Salary : $60,000 - $80,000