What are the responsibilities and job description for the PATIENT ADVOCATE position at OrthoAlliance MSO, LLC?
PATIENT ADVOCATE - Revenue Cycle/Clinic
Full-Time: Monday through Friday
Department: Revenue Cycle/Clinic
Location: Erlanger
Responsible To: Clinic Manager
Position Summary:
Provides financial counseling to all patients concerning anticipated patient balances for scheduled procedures at Clinic and/or ASC. Reviews patients accounts.
Responsible To: Clinic Manager
Position Summary:
Provides financial counseling to all patients concerning anticipated patient balances for scheduled procedures at Clinic and/or ASC. Reviews patients accounts.
Position Responsibilities/Standards:
General
- Attend department, clinic or company meetings as required
- Demonstrate sound judgment by taking appropriate actions regarding questionable findings or concerns
- Consistently work in a positive and cooperative manner with fellow staff members.
- Consistently demonstrate ability to respond to changing situations in a flexible manner in order to meet current needs, such as reprioritizing work as necessary.
- Attend required annual in-service programs.
- Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of all company policies and procedures. Adheres to established facility safety requirements and procedures to ensure a safe working environment. Identifies potentially unsafe situations and notifies supervisor
Specific Duties
- Patient Financial Counseling
- Provide patient with counseling to help them understand their financial responsibility prior to and/or post procedure. Provide them with payment options to help them meet their financial obligations. Assist patients with account questions.
- Support for Billing Call Center, Patient Account Reps
- Inform patient of their payment options including budget plan, care credit, credit card, cash, check etc. that best fits the patient’s need.
- Setup new budget/payment plans.
- Review and process patient hardship applications
- Pre-Collect
- Prepare estimates for all procedures, notify patient of financial responsibility, and collect payment prior to procedure.
- Resolve Patient Credit balance / Unapplied payments:
- Review patient credit balance, distribute unapplied pre-collect to corresponding encounters and initiate request for patient refunds
- Appointment Prep
- Self-Pay
- Large balance (ASC and Clinic)
- Delinquent Budgets
- Bad Debt Review for overdue/delinquent patient balance
- Review past due patient balance to determine accounts that need forward to external collection agency.
- Review delinquent budget plan and reach out to patient to resolve issues.
- Act as liaison between billing personnel, physician, and patients.
Additional Duties
- Maintains patient confidentiality standards for both medical and financial information.
- Communicates patient information to assure confidentiality (includes proper documentation, discussing patient information with other staff in an appropriate environment and documents patient’s or family’s response to teaching interventions)
- Interacts with all patients, families, visitors and fellow employees in a mature, responsible manner to ensure a positive and professional facility environment (maintains confidentiality, fosters positive and professional environment, diffuses/resolves conflicts through communication, accepts constructive criticism and gives suggestions in a professional manner, considers age specific needs in communication.)
- Effective communication (internally and externally) to ensure proper handling of the patient’s account. Excellent communication skills are required when dealing with the patient or patient’s family
- Ability to review all patient account information in systems and explain to patient in a concise manner
- Keeps job related skills current through facility and other training programs.
- Participates in any facility compliance program.
- Participates in loss prevention by protecting company assets and maintaining a safe environment.
- Adheres to established facility safety requirements and procedures to ensure a safe working environment. Identifies potentially unsafe situations and notifies supervisor.
- Adheres to facility standards of business conduct.
Education/Experience Required:
- High school diploma or equivalent.
- Medical office financial counseling, collections, or billing experience
- Must be self-directed and able to work with minimal direction.
- Must be detail oriented with good organization skills and able to maintain accuracy while meeting daily deadlines.
- Ability to organize time well.
- Effective communication skills, both oral and written.
- Able to work well with numbers.
- Effective positive interpersonal and customer relation skills via telephone and face-to-face interaction.
Physical Requirements:
Physical requirements for the position include the ability to frequently hear and communicate orally, see up close and at a distance, read and comprehend, stand, sit, walk, reach, handle, and/or feel objects. Must be able to climb, pull, push and kneel. Maximum unassisted lift = 25 lbs. Average lift less than 10 lbs.
