The Patient Access Specialist (PAS) gathers and records required information about patients, provides customer services which includes confirming health insurance coverage, determining individual financial obligations, verifying that necessary authorizations for care have been obtained, scheduling physician office appointments, cancer treatment appointments, and ancillary appointments, and assisting patients in an office or practice setting. This position may be responsible for scheduling a high volume of complicated patient procedures and clinic appointments. This position will serve as a liaison and information resources for physicians, nursing support staff, and coworkers, referring physician offices, patients and insurance companies on referral requirements per diagnosis and service. This role will be required to answer incoming calls to the clinic, to schedule, transfer, or triage to a clinical team. This role will explain detailed complicated procedures to patients and answer any patient questions or concerns within scope. Works closely with other medicine/surgery clinics for appointment coordination. Works reschedule and wait lists when necessary; Prepare and mail, fax, or email new patient information packets when necessary; Direct patients to appropriate providers for other health care issues; Complete and route direct referrals to other clinical services; Enter patient information accurately into the electronic medical record when necessary. Coverage for managed care duties as requested.

Customer Service: Provide the highest level of customer service to both external customers (patients and their families, referring providers, insurance carriers, etc.) and internal customers (OHSU health care providers and staff) that meet or exceed the service standards of the health care industry. This duty includes prompt and professional communication efforts, face-to-face customer contact skills, crisis management, facility with available information technology, standard complaint processing, flexible coverage of internal service needs and the continuous application of process improvement methods and skills.

Call Processing: Responsible for connecting the patient with the appropriate individual to progress their care in the clinic; Transfers calls to schedulers as needed, creates telephone encounters, contacts nursing coordinators, and pages providers and staff as needed per circumstance; Scheduling and managing of patient access to the Hematology/Oncology and Center for Hematologic Malignancies groups. Create telephone calls from patients in the EMR which will include accurate documentation of requests for medication refills, complaints, general information inquiries and urgent health care concerns; Triage calls to the appropriate staff for patient care /needs assessment; Process call (answering, screening, routing, paging etc.) in a timely, polite, professional manner; Route calls to appropriate conclusion; Provide information to callers, including directions, addresses and hours of operation; Use schedules and departmental procedures to locate appropriate on-call person for internal and external callers; Understand and process calls per departmental policy for each encounter type (ie refill, telephone, documentation, etc); Expected to take 30%-33% of incoming volume of clinic calls.

Check-in/Checkout: Checks in and out clinic, procedure, and infusion appointments. This includes, but is not limited to careful review of insurance benefits, demographic information, confirming insurance eligibility, and /or authorization. Checks patient account numbers and corrects any problems, seeking advice from Central Registration as required. Ensures that all appointment comment information is accurate and completed. Identifies and updates deductible payments, co-payments, and prepayment requirements. Proper use of OHSU forms and documentation required for all patients.

Scheduling: Coordinate patient care appointments and managed care as directed by physician and/or nurse staff; Serves as a liaison and information resource for physicians, and nursing support staff; Return phone messages; Prepare and mail patient information packets; Direct patients to appropriate providers for other health care issues; Complete and route direct referrals to other clinical services; Enter patient information accurately into the electronic medical record when necessary. Maintains a service-based working knowledge of oncology practice.

Integrated Care: Obtain prior medical records and studies when appropriate; Responsible for obtaining, recording, tracking, and verifying referrals and authorizations for the respective outpatient clinic and lab visits when necessary.

Administrative Duties: Faxing; Letter queues; Use right fax to send outgoing fax notification re: referral receipt; Mail sorting; Other duties as assigned.

Continued Professional Development: Participate in appropriate educational activities that enhance general knowledge or ability to do assigned work; Attend staff meetings and other informational sessions; Read vendor documentation, trade publications, or other appropriate publications; interact with peers and other employees to receive and disseminate information.

• Six months of work experience in a medical office setting, including high volume direct patient contact OR
• One year of work experience in a high volume direct public contact position.
• Appointment scheduling experience.
• Basic computer keyboarding skills including typing of 40-50wpm.
• Proficient computer skills including word processing. Extremely high level of attention to detail.
• Strong customer service orientation.
• Must have excellent verbal and written communication, listening skills and awareness of self.
• Demonstrated reliable attendance record.
• Demonstrated effectiveness in confrontational customer interactions.
• Demonstrated problem solving and negotiation skills in resolving patient concerns, scheduling challenges and managed care related problems.
• Demonstrated understanding of managed care. Demonstrated reliable attendance record.
• Compliance:Code of conduct; respect in the workplace; applicable policies, procedures and agreements related to position, department or OHSU as a whole.
• Must be able to perform the essential functions of the position with or without accommodation.

• Experience in a medical and/or oncology office setting.
• Knowledge of Epic systems.
• Knowledge of OHSU network systems, including Outlook and Microsoft Office products.