Clinical Health System Navigator

VITAS Healthcare•Sacramento, CA

About The Position

The Clinical Health System Navigator coordinates care and communication among patients, families, VITAS teams, assigned health systems, and community or post-acute organizations. The role supports hospice referrals and admissions, discharge coordination, and care transitions, including situations involving hospital readmissions or hospice revocations. It applies knowledge of the Medicare Hospice Benefit, VITAS services, disease-specific clinical criteria, and evidence-based medicine while helping patients and families navigate the admission process. The position also supports relationships with health-system accounts and potential referral sources, works with facility case managers and discharge planners, helps address customer feedback, and contributes to referral performance. The navigator completes required admissions and sales training, administrative duties, and ongoing professional learning, and applies coaching to improve performance. Duties are performed in accordance with VITAS policies, procedures, guidelines, contractual commitments, and government regulations. Other related duties may be assigned.

Requirements

At least three years of experience in direct customer service or the healthcare industry.
Must be a registered nurse, licensed vocational nurse, medical social worker, chaplain, or counselor.
Clinical knowledge sufficient to support effective care transitions to VITAS for hospice-eligible patients.
Excellent presentation, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.
Experience participating in a team environment involving individual accountability and teamwork; driven and results-oriented.
Ability to demonstrate critical thinking and develop solutions.
Strong customer service, urgency, and problem-solving skills.
Time-management and organizational skills.
Ability to collaborate with a team to support a market, build relationships, and educate others to generate access to hospice care and develop long-term business partnerships.
Strong interpersonal skills across all levels of an organization.
Excellent oral and written communication skills.
Ability to work outside normal business hours (8–5), including evenings and weekends as needed.
Proficiency in Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and iOS devices.
Integrity and patient/customer focus, including ethical and moral conduct and customer service.
Reliable transportation.

Nice To Haves

Past military service.
Experience with a volunteer organization.
Evidence of exceeding goals or expectations on a project or in a previous job.

Responsibilities

Serve as a subject matter expert on the Medicare Hospice Benefit, VITAS service offerings, disease-specific clinical criteria, and evidence-based medicine.
Coordinate care and communicate patient status with members of the assigned health system, the VITAS team, and community or post-acute entities, including referral, discharge, readmission, and hospice revocation processes.
Collaborate with the sales department to meet hospital performance metrics for referrals and maintain good standing.
Gather information and document findings in the Pre-Admit Evaluation while supporting patients, families, and admission nurses through admission.
Facilitate hospice presentations and initiate Pre-Admission Evaluations when needed.
Escalate clinical concerns to the Director of Admissions immediately.
Guide conversations with patients and families by acknowledging, clarifying, answering, confirming, and transitioning inquiries appropriately.
Support accounts, patients, and families when patients readmit to the hospital or emergency room following VITAS revocation by coordinating care with the VITAS team.
Develop and sustain consultative relationships with assigned accounts and potential referral sources through effective customer contacts and service.
Investigate customer feedback, identify development opportunities, develop solutions, prepare reports, and collaborate with program management on resolutions.
Use educational tools on provided devices as customer visual aids and learning tools, and maintain knowledge of sales visual aids.
Complete Admissions and Sales training and apply training, tools, and resources when executing customer strategies with urgency.
Maintain professional and technical knowledge by reviewing publications, building professional networks, and keeping current with healthcare changes.
Receive and proactively apply coaching feedback from the direct manager to improve skills.
Work with facility case managers, discharge planners, floor staff, and VITAS colleagues across admissions, sales, medical, management, patient care, and leadership functions.
Attend team meetings at least twice per quarter.
Complete expense reports, payroll entry, and other administrative tasks by required deadlines.
Communicate effectively in professional verbal, written, and electronic formats.
Perform other related duties as assigned.