Administrative Coordinator - Orthopaedics Department

Duke Careers•Durham, NC

21h•Onsite

About The Position

We are seeking an Administrative Coordinator to oversee surgical scheduling across its high‑volume, multi‑site academic environment. This role is essential to ensuring accurate and timely case scheduling, coordinating complex multi‑service workflows, and maintaining compliance with institutional and payer policies. In this position, you will oversee a team of surgery schedulers across our Orthopaedic sub-specialties. Overall position success is dependent upon effectively managing direct reports and complex patient scheduling issues in pursuit of the overarching goal of fully utilized surgical schedules.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in a business-related field
2-3 years of business and/or administrative experience
Medical terminology knowledge
Direct exposure to clinic activities to acquire knowledge of clinical practices, scheduling, patient scheduling systems, patient types, and operational flow
Ability to clearly express expectations, goals, and timelines along with appropriate analysis, coordination, and monitoring of progress
Consistently displays accuracy and attention to detail
Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Excellent organizational skills
Management of own time
Respect for the time of others
Identifies and analyzes significant problems and opportunities; relates and compares data from different sources
Excellent planning and scheduling skills with the ability to be flexible and graceful in the face of change
Demonstrated ability to effectively control and participate in multiple projects of varying priorities in a consistently professional manner
Ability to establish and maintain respectful and effective relationships with faculty, management, co-workers, and customers
Ability to work effectively with a range of responsible parties throughout the Department, either as a project leader or as a team member, to advance projects to timely and successful completion
Demonstrated ability to analyze problems from multiple points of view, to lead consensus building within groups with differing views, and to translate consensus into planned action
Ability to act on own initiative to further Department/Division goals
Successfully uses multiple software programs independently; software includes Microsoft Office applications and Epic Maestro Care

Nice To Haves

A Master’s degree in a business related field may be substituted for 2 years of experience.

Responsibilities

Lead a team of surgical schedulers across all orthopaedic subspecialties and sites
Establish and enforce scheduling policies, SOPs, and escalation pathways
Serve as the primary escalation point for surgeons, clinics, and patients
Build and maintain standardized scheduling workflows, inclusive of pre‑op clearance, imaging, labs, and anesthesia requirements
Implement standardized checklists and verification steps to ensure readiness
Create consistent protocols for urgent/emergent or short-notice cases
Ensure alignment across all divisions to reduce variability and improve reliability
Partner with leadership to optimize OR capacity, block utilization, and case placement
Manage cancellation, rescheduling, and slippage workflows
Oversee onboarding, annual competencies, and a comprehensive training atlas
Ensure robust cross‑training across subspecialties
Maintain dashboards for OR utilization, Cancellation/no‑show rates, Pre‑op clearance and authorization turnaround times, Scheduling backlog by subspecialty, Patient access SLA adherence
Provide weekly/monthly reports with trend analysis and recommendations
Ensure compliance with institutional policies, payer authorization requirements, and HIPAA
Verify surgeon privileges, credentials, and facility-specific rules
Maintain accuracy of patient data, CPT/ICD coding, and documentation processes
Facilitate regular communication loops with surgeons, clinic leadership, and perioperative services
Set transparent expectations with patients and clinic teams regarding scheduling, readiness, and timelines
Support issue resolution with a structured, consistent approach