Director of Patient Assistance Office (PAO)

UT Southwestern Medical Center • Dallas, TX

56d • Onsite

About The Position

Reporting to the Health System Chief Medical Officer, the Director, Patient Assistance Office leads the health system’s Patient Service Recovery program. The Director oversees the intake, triage, tracking, and resolution of patient complaints and service concerns received through centralized communication channels and external agencies. The role partners with clinical and operational leaders across all UT Southwestern clinical sites to ensure timely, compliant responses and to identify recurring issues that require process improvement. The Director also manages staff who support complaint resolution and patient communications.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Business, Healthcare Administration, Nursing, Public Health, or a related field
• Minimum 7 years progressive experience in patient assistance, service recovery, risk management, or related healthcare administrative functions.
• Minimum 3 years leadership experience managing teams, operations, or programs with measurable performance outcomes.
• Demonstrated experience interpreting and applying healthcare regulatory, accreditation, and compliance requirements, including CMS, Joint Commission, and patient rights standards.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to influence and align stakeholders across clinical and administrative leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and standardize operations across multiple hospitals/entities.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret data, identify trends, and implement corrective actions.
• Proven ability to create metric-driven operations and drive measurable improvements in analysis times, response times, and procedural compliance.
• Strong project management and change management capabilities.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s Degree preferred (MBA, MHA, MPH, or related field)
• Leading or implementing a service recovery function in a large medical center environment.

Responsibilities

• Leads the centralized intake and triage process for patient complaints and service concerns received through institutional communication channels (e.g., phone and email) across all UT Southwestern clinical sites.
• Defines and maintains clear workflows for assigning and handing off cases to operational partners (e.g., Medical Risk Management, site-based service coordination teams, and Revenue Cycle) and tracks cases through resolution.
• Ensures processes support timely acknowledgment, follow-up, and resolution communications to patients in accordance with applicable requirements and internal standards.
• Represents the Patient Assistance Office on institutional, hospital/site, and service line committees (e.g., Patient Experience Committee and the Clements University Hospital Patient Grievance Committee).
• Identifies recurring themes and patterns in patient concerns, escalates findings to appropriate leaders, and supports the development of action plans to address underlying issues.
• Partners with Medical Risk Management, Legal Affairs, Compliance, and Quality leadership to align service recovery activities with patient safety, risk mitigation, and organizational priorities.
• Maintains and improves data collection and reporting to monitor the volume, type, location, and timeliness of patient concerns and to support trend analysis and continuous improvement.
• Provides overall direction for the Patient Service Recovery process, including identifying and implementing process improvements to improve timeliness, consistency, and customer experience.
• Leads and develops managers and staff responsible for resolving patient service and billing complaints; provides guidance on appropriate resolution options and customer communications.
• Conducts regular reviews of Patient Service Recovery files with Service Recovery Managers to confirm next steps, remove barriers, and support timely resolution; leads team and individual meetings to review case status.
• Reviews and edits interim and final patient letters prepared by Service Recovery Managers to ensure clarity, completeness, and appropriate tone.
• Oversees the process for notifying patients when a physician is leaving their practice, in coordination with clinical and operational leadership.
• Follows up with hospitals, clinics, or services when responses to complaints are incomplete, delayed, or do not address the reported concern; documents and communicates recommendations.
• Assists in monitoring and preparing the annual budget for Clinical Operations and the Patient Assistance Office.
• Serves as a point of contact and coordinates responses to patient concerns received through external agencies (e.g., the Better Business Bureau) and similar organizations.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Benefits

• PPO medical plan, available day one at no cost for full-time employee-only coverage
• 100%25 coverage for preventive healthcare-no copay
• Paid Time Off, available day one
• Retirement Programs through the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS)
• Paid Parental Leave Benefit
• Wellness programs
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Qualified Employer

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director