Director, Access Center Operations

Job Description

Join a world-class academic healthcare system, UChicago Medicine, as the Director of Access Center Operations, responsible for leading and inspiring the access strategy with administrative and operational accountability across UChicago Medicine’s Ambulatory footprint including primary care and behavioral health services.

The Director of Access Center Operations supports the strategic, financial, and clinical priorities by providing systems, processes, and people-oriented methods to improve access to care. The director is responsible for delivering results against a defined scope of work that includes measurable ROI, strategic innovation, performance reporting, and human capital development. This position leads the effort to reengineer ease of access through contact center operations inclusive of scheduling, patient navigation, and care coordination. The director will standardize workflows within the contact center through process improvement efforts, resulting in a hardwired, sustainable, and standard patient access experience across the organization.

As the Director of Access Center Operations, you will be accountable for the results and performance of the strategy and promotes teamwork to achieve organizational goals and objectives for access. You will work to influence change among multidisciplinary teams involved in patient access and flow, and continuous enhancements to improve the patient, family, and customer experience. The director will have oversight of Access Center staff including but not limited to Patient Access Coordinators, Patient Access Specialists, Customer Service Representatives with 24/7 accountability, RNs, LPNs, Access Center Managers, and Access Center Supervisors.  Additionally, the Director of Access Center Operations will collaborate and build strong business relationships with various divisions, physicians and leaders across UChicago Medicine. 

Who you are:

A collaborative, self-motivated, and results-driven healthcare leader with the ability to influence change and:

• Bachelors’ degree required; Masters’ degree preferred
• Certified Healthcare Access Manager (CHAM) preferred
• 8 years demonstrated success/results in healthcare patient access, practice management or contact center operations
• Minimum of 5 years of people management experience strongly preferred
• Proven ability to operationalize strategies
• Broad knowledge of healthcare trends, challenges, and opportunities applicable to academic medical centers
• Strong understanding of Epic, Telecom (Cisco), and Calabrio systems
• Ability to analyze, compare and evaluate various courses of action
• Ability to build successful teams utilizing strong interpersonal skills
• Leadership skills with problem-solving ability and time management

What you’ll gain as the Director of Access Center Operations: 

• Opportunity to work for an integrated academic and community health system with aggressive plans for growth across the Chicagoland area.
• Positioned to support the Access Center through a state of transformation as we grow our teams, improve processes, and implement new technologies.

What you’ll do as the Director of Access Center Operations:

• Provide oversight of the formation, interpretation, and implementation of policies, processes, and programs within the contact center that drive enhanced access to care.
• Oversee the daily operations of the Access Center, including organization and tracking/reporting on KPIs.
• Identify process and workflow optimization changes for the Access Center consistent with UCM policies and practices for continuous improvement for greater efficiency across the system.
• Oversee human resource needs for the access center including, but not limited to, hiring, onboarding, compliance, performance management, continuing education, and payroll.
• Partner with the Training and Quality team to develop and direct training and development of quality assurance programs for the ongoing success of the Access Center.
• Provide oversight and guidance to assist in the care coordination of defined populations with a goal of enhancing patient and provider experiences across the system, inclusive of advanced scheduling, identification of medical specialties, referral management, and direct communication with practices.
• Serve as primary contact to ambulatory practices and other departments seeking to improve front-end phone and scheduling management.
• Act as a subject matter expert regarding centralized access models and contact center best practices.
• Demonstrate a commitment to excellence through ongoing staff development and the creation of programs enhancing employee engagement, service, knowledge, skills, and morale.
• Maintain and develop departmental budgets and capital submission.
• Leverage knowledge of Epic, Telecom, and Calabrio systems to drive improvement in department, access center workflows.
• Build relationships with varying internal stakeholders including, IT, marketing, Revenue Cycle, Hospital Administrators, clinic operations, physician leaders, and department administrators to design and implement access related technology, digital, and other related solutions to ensure the success of access center and UCM programs.
• Direct all clinical access center workflows including nurse triage and prescription refills.
• Partner with Clinical Nursing Practice leadership, CMO, and ACMO on clinical workflows; clinical direct reports have dotted reporting to nursing leadership.
• Direct referral management initiatives designed to meet customer service, revenue performance, and staffing efficiencies and productivity goals.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory, insurance, and health systems standards.
• Understand and assist in developing UCM’s population health strategy and work with the team to reach annual wellness visit and transition care management goals.
• Partner with Template & Capacity Management teams to identify and optimize provider-based templates to ensure expeditious access to care.
• Collaborate with leaders in Revenue Cycle to design and optimize pre-visit planning and registration activities to capture appropriate revenue while providing an ideal patient experience, including POS pre-service opportunities.
• Hold ultimate responsibility for patient experience from initial scheduling contact through arrival in clinic, including collection of demographic and insurance information, coordination of records, and timely scheduling through template management.

Leadership at UChicago Medicine:

E4 Leadership (Equity, Engage, Evolve, Excel) is a patient centered management system that empowers teams to improve on a daily basis. This is done through daily readiness huddles, real time process monitoring, performance review huddles and structured problem solving. E4 Leadership is an evolving system where leaders work together to cultivate a culture of equity and continuous improvement that enables:

• Each person to realize their full potential for contribution
• The organization to achieve high performance outcomes
• System-wide integration, coordination, and seamless execution
• Clear focus on exceptional, equitable patient care and experiences

As part of the leadership team, this position will be instrumental in reinforcing and sustaining UChicago Medicine’s E4 Leadership Culture.

Why Join Us

We’ve been at the forefront of medicine since 1899. We provide superior healthcare with compassion, always mindful that each patient is a person, an individual. To accomplish this, we need employees with passion, talent and commitment… with patients and with each other. We’re in this together: working to advance medical innovation, serve the health needs of the community, and move our collective knowledge forward. If you’d like to add enriching human life to your profile, UChicago Medicine is for you. Here at the forefront, we’re doing work that really matters. Join us. Bring your passion.

UChicago Medicine is growing; discover how you can be a part of this pursuit of excellence at: UChicago Medicine Career Opportunities.

UChicago Medicine is an equal opportunity employer.  We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, civil union status, parental status, religion, national origin, age, disability, veteran status and other legally protected characteristics.

Must comply with UChicago Medicine’s COVID-19 Vaccination requirement as a condition of employment. If you have already received the vaccination, you must provide proof as part of the pre-employment process. This is in addition to your compliance with the Flu Vaccination requirement as well. Medical and religious exemptions will be considered consistent with applicable law. Lastly, a pre-employment physical, drug screening, and background check are also required for all employees prior to hire.

Compensation & Benefits Overview

UChicago Medicine is committed to transparency in compensation and benefits.  The pay range provided reflects the anticipated wage or salary reasonably expected to be offered for the position.

The pay range is based on a full-time equivalent (1.0 FTE) and is reflective of current market data, reviewed on an annual basis. Compensation offered at the time of hire will vary based on candidate qualifications and experience and organizational considerations, such as internal equity. Pay ranges for employees subject to Collective Bargaining Agreements are negotiated by the medical center and their respective union.

Review the full complement of benefit options for eligible roles at Benefits - UChicago Medicine.