Patient Access Specialist - Access Center

UTMB Health•Webster, TX

1d•Onsite

About The Position

The Patient Access Specialist represents UTMB as the voice of the Access Center, creating a nurturing, competent, and confident experience for callers. The role identifies callers’ needs and helps them navigate multiple functions and departments while maintaining a seamless interaction. It serves as a gateway to appointment scheduling for UTMB clinics and supports callers with scheduling, referrals, patient concerns, and access to appropriate resources. The position provides customer service in a 24/7, 365-day-a-year call center. It requires effective use of multiple software and media applications to manage patient information and facilitate care, as well as knowledge of UTMB clinical departments, resources, locations, scheduling procedures, and applicable guidelines. The role is onsite Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, including holidays. Employees may qualify for hybrid and/or remote scheduling after successful completion of training and performance expectations.

Requirements

Associate’s degree and no experience required; an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience may be considered.
Ability to provide high-level customer service in a high-volume call center.
Ability to multitask while using resources and software applications to assist callers and schedule appointments.

Nice To Haves

Previous experience in a healthcare setting and/or high-volume call center environment.

Responsibilities

Answer high volumes of calls while multitasking and using available resources to schedule appointments and address callers’ needs.
Provide positive, professional, and empathetic communication to callers.
Analyze caller concerns and determine an appropriate course of action.
Schedule, cancel, and reschedule appointments according to patient needs and clinic guidelines.
Escalate patient concerns and issues using defined processes.
Preregister patients as required and obtain or update demographic and insurance information.
Work with Access Center nursing staff to identify and resolve urgent patient issues.
Listen to and restate caller concerns to support accurate triage and effective communication.
Facilitate physician consultation requests and assist with patient referrals when appropriate.
Use AMCOM, EPIC, Invision, CECC, and other applications to store and manage patient information and facilitate care.
Use multiple media applications in unison and enforce UTMB regulations and guidelines when using systems.
Maintain knowledge of UTMB departments, resources, locations, contact information, scheduling and area-specific guidelines, personnel resources, age-specific guidelines, disease-process-specific guidelines, and basic consumer health plan guidelines.
Understand clinic procedures and scheduling processes, educate callers, and use software applications to make appointments.
Use critical thinking to determine call priority and support nursing intervention.
Expedite caller concerns to appropriate individuals and support the consumer online appointment request system.
Perform related duties as required.