Patient Registrar - 1st Shift

Mercy Health System Corporation•Riverside, IL

2d•Onsite

About The Position

The Patient Registrar is responsible for engaging in positive interactions with patients, visitors, and customers, providing helpful assistance, and maintaining composure under pressure. This role involves anticipating and responding to needs, participating in team-building and quality improvement activities, and providing training to new staff. The registrar uses good judgment in emotional situations, manages patient arrivals to the ER and Urgent Care, and handles hospital outpatient visit check-ins. They identify patients needing immediate care, prioritize registration by complaint severity, and monitor the waiting area for changes in patient conditions, alerting triage RNs as needed. The position also involves admitting surgical and direct admit patients, scheduling and checking in hospital outpatient lab patients, and accurately identifying patients using required identifiers to ensure the correct electronic medical record is accessed, thereby minimizing privacy, medical, or duplicate record errors. Additionally, the registrar enters patient complaints/symptoms, completes required arrival information in the electronic medical record, generates patient armbands, face sheets, and labels, and verifies information before applying armbands, especially during traumas. They gather and enter demographic, guarantor, and billing information, obtain necessary signatures and documents, verify and update insurance information, identify out-of-network insurance patients, and complete related paperwork. For patients without insurance, they work with financial counselors to facilitate self-pay services. The role involves identifying appropriate primary/secondary payees, completing MSPQs for Medicare patients, collecting co-pays and payments, and assisting with patient unit coordination. Accurate information and timely updates are provided to patients and visitors. The registrar assists other departments and outside EMS/EMT agencies with patient arrivals and paperwork. Pre-admission and pre-registration functions are performed, and patients are provided with admission information like the VIP Folder. Signatures for Medicare forms are obtained within the required timeframe. Patient valuables are secured and returned according to policy. Assistance is provided during EPIC downtime or disaster mode, including providing transportation vouchers and payments. The registrar maintains an accurate cash drawer, balances it at the end of each shift, and manages work queues to resolve registration errors for timely bill processing. They assess the need for interpreters and use interpreter services effectively. Incoming and outbound calls are managed, and security cameras and door entry systems are monitored politely, with information communicated to appropriate staff. Service recovery skills are used to resolve problems, and flexibility is required to adapt to changes in duties and work volume across different locations. The registrar manages their schedule efficiently, presents a professional demeanor, completes travel screening questionnaires, tracks visitors, and provides directions or escorts. Teamwork is demonstrated by assisting coworkers, and timely, clear communication is maintained with leadership, charge nurses, physicians, and partners. Unusual occurrences are reported to the leadership team. Organizational and departmental resources are used efficiently, and local, state, and federal healthcare regulations are followed. Light cleaning of registration, lobby, and waiting room areas is performed, and all assigned educational courses are completed. Alternate shifts, weekends, and overtime may be required.

Requirements

Graduate of high school or equivalent preferred
One to two years customer service experience required
Knowledge of third-party payors preferred
Medical terminology preferred

Responsibilities

Engages in positive interactions; demonstrate friendliness by smiling and making eye contact when greeting all patients, visitors and customers.
Provide helpful assistance in anticipating and responding to the needs of our patients, visitors and customers and staying calm under pressure to deal effectively with difficult people.
Participates in team building activities, continuous quality improvement activities and educational experiences in support of departmental or Mercyhealth initiatives.
Provides shadowing and training to new partners.
Uses good judgment in highly emotional and demanding situations.
Arrives patient to the ER and Urgent Care.
Signs in or checking in hospital outpatient visits.
Identifies patients in need of immediate care by visual assessment at time of registration, prioritizes patient registration by severity of complaint, and monitors waiting area for changing patient conditions and alerts triage RN to the need to re-evaluate patients.
Admits all surgical and direct admit patients.
Schedules and checks in hospital outpatient lab patients.
Identifies and selects patients using department required patient identifiers to select correct electronic medical record. Thus, reducing the chance for privacy, medical or duplicate medical record errors.
Enters patient’s complaints/symptoms and them in the appropriate order based on severity of symptoms. Also completing all other required arrival information with the electronic medical record.
Generates patient arm band, face sheet, and patient labels.
Verifies information before quickly applying patient armband during traumas or other chaotic situations.
Gathers and enters into EPIC all necessary demographic, guarantors, and billing information from patients/family.
Obtains necessary signatures and documents for inpatient and outpatient registrations.
Verifies patient insurance information and updates insurance information as appropriate.
Identifies patients in the ER that have an out of network insurance and provides this information to the appropriate ED partners.
Completes our out of network paperwork and adds an account note documenting conversation with staff and that paperwork was completed.
Identifies patients without insurance and works closely with patient financial counselors to help facilitate self-pay services for patients without insurance.
Identifies appropriate primary/secondary payees.
Completes MSPQ as required for Medicare patients.
Collects all applicable co-pay’s, self-pay payments, and in some cases pre-payment for services.
Assists with coordination of patients into the appropriate unit.
Provides accurate information and timely updates to patients, visitors, and customers.
Assists other departments at various hospital locations to notify when patients have arrived.
Assists outside EMS/EMT agencies to arrive patients to the facility and provide paperwork for billing purposes.
Performs Pre-admission functions for patients.
Performs Pre-registration functions for patients.
Upon admission provides patients with admission information such as the VIP Folder as needed.
Obtains signatures for Medicare forms as required for admission within required timeframe.
Properly secures and returns all patient valuables in accordance with Mercyhealth policy.
Assists hospital staff to facilitate patient care during periods of EPIC Downtime or during disaster mode.
Assists nursing staff to provide transportation vouchers and payment for transportation services for patients.
Maintains an accurate cash drawer.
Closes and balances cash drawer at the end of each shift in compliance with our cash handling policy.
Manages work queues to resolve registration errors thus allowing patient bills to process in a timely manner.
Assesses and determines situations requiring an interpreter and when to use interpreter services effectively.
Logs in, answers, returns, and transfers all incoming telephone inquiries. Additionally makes outbound calls as needed.
Monitors security cameras and door entry systems in a polite manner and communicates information to the appropriate staff, patient or visitor.
Addresses questions or concerns promptly or identifies appropriate resource to do so.
Uses effective service recovery skills to solve problems or service breakdowns when they occur.
Remains flexible and reliable to react to frequent changes in duties and volume of work to meet the needs of our many locations and patients.
Manages work schedule efficiently to ensure all tasks and assignments are completed on time.
Presents a friendly, approachable, professional demeanor and appearance.
Completes travel screening questionnaire for every patient, visitor and customer that enters the facility.
Tracks patient's visitors as needed and appropriate based on current hospital guidelines.
Provides directions, helps or escorts patients/visitors to the correct area.
Demonstrates teamwork by helping co-workers in and across departments.
Communicates appropriately, clearly, and timely to leadership team, charge nurse, physician and partners.
Uses excellent judgment to notify leadership team of all unusual occurrence or situations requiring leadership team attention or action.
Uses organizational and departmental resources efficiently.
Follows local, state, and federal healthcare regulations.
Performs light duty cleaning or registration, lobby and waiting room areas.
Completes all required educational courses as assigned by leadership.
May be required to work alternate shifts, weekends, and overtime during peak periods.
Performs other duties as assigned.