Patient Registrar - Mercyhealth

Overview:Mercyhealth Patient Registrars are responsible for patient registration duties at Mercyhealth Hospital locations. Patient Registrars will demonstrate behavior that reflects the hospital's mission, vision and values. Patient Registrars will greet patients or family members in the various hospital settings and assist them in answering any questions or concerns they may have in person or over the phone. This position is fast paced (sometimes chaotic) and you will be the person patients and our clinical care teams rely on to get patients entered or checked in within the electronic medical record to get care started. As Mercyhealth Patient Registrars we are part of Revenue Cycle and are responsible for accurate registrations, obtaining insurance coverage, educating our patients on their financial responsibilities and collecting applicable payments. To thrive in this job, you will need to be confident with technology and typing; however you don't need to have any previous experience or knowledge in healthcare. Since some shifts are in an Emergency Department, you will need to be prepared to see serious illness and injuries. This position requires weekend and holiday rotations.Responsibilities:

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

•    Will engage 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.
•    Participate 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 as identified by leadership. 
•    Ability to use good judgment in highly emotional and demanding situations. 
•    Responsible for arriving patient to the ER and Urgent Care.
•    Responsible for signing 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.
•    Responsible for admitting all surgical and direct admit patients.
•    Schedules and checks in hospital outpatient lab patients.
•    Identifies and selects patient using department required patient identifiers to select correct electronic medical record. Thus reducing the chance for privacy, medical or duplicate medical record errors. 
•    Responsible for entering 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. 
•    Responsible for gathering and entering into EPIC all necessary demographic, guarantors, and billing information from patients/family.
•    Responsible for obtaining 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 taxi vouchers and payment for taxi services for patients.
•    Responsible for maintaining an accurate cash drawer.
•    Responsible for closing and balancing cash drawer at the end of each shift in compliance with our cash handling policy.
•    Manages workqueues to resolve registration errors thus allowing patient bills to process in a timely manner.
•    Ability to assess and determine situations requiring an interpreter and when to use interpreter services effectively. 
•    Responsible for logging in, answering, returning, and transferring all incoming telephone inquiries. Additionally is responsible for making 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. 
•    Ability to remain 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 patients visitors as needed and appropriate based on current hospital guidelines.
•    Provides directions, help 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.
•    Performs other duties as assigned.
 

Culture of Excellence Behavior Expectations

To perform the job successfully, an individual should demonstrate the following behavior expectations:

Quality - Follows policies and procedures; adapts to and manages changes in the environment; Demonstrates accuracy and thoroughness giving attention to details; Looks for ways to improve and promote quality; Applies feedback to improve performance; Manages time and prioritizes effectively to achieve organizational goals.

Service - Responds promptly to requests for service and assistance; Follows the Mercyhealth Critical Moments of service; Meets commitments; Abides by MH confidentiality and security agreement; Shows respect and sensitivity for cultural differences; and effectively communicates information to partners; Thinks system wide regarding processes and functions.

Partnering - Shows commitment to the Mission of Mercyhealth and Culture of Excellence through all words and actions; Exhibits objectivity and openness to other's views; Demonstrates a high level of participation and engagement in day-to-day work; Gives and welcomes feedback; Generates suggestions for improving work: Embraces teamwork, supports and encourages positive change while giving value to individuals.

Cost - Conserves organization resources; Understands fiscal responsibility; Works within approved budget; Develops and implements cost saving measures; contributes to profits and revenue.

Education and Experience

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

Certification and Licensure

N/A

Skills and Abilities
Self-starter with a willingness to try new ideas.
Positive can-do attitude coupled with a sense of urgency.
Knowledge of computer systems, to include navigation, typing, and data entry.
Detail oriented.
Strong oral and written communication skills.
Excellent problem solving, conflict management, time management and stress management skills in highly emotional and demanding situations.
Ability to use good judgment and utilize independent decision-making skills.
EPIC knowledge preferred but not required.
Able to work independently, as well as, collaborate in a team environment.
Interpersonal skills to interact with patients to obtain needed information to communicate to partners and providers.

Special Physical Demands

The Special Physical Demands are considered Essential Job Functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodations.
Medium work exerting 10 to 25 lbs of force frequently and 25 to 60 lbs of force occasionally. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to sit, handle, finger, feel, reach, talk and hear. The employee is occasionally required to stand, walk, stoop, kneel, crouch and crawl. Specific vision abilities required by this job include frequent close vision and ability to adjust focus and occasional distance vision. Prolonged sitting. Manual dexterity needed to operate telephone and keyboard. Must be able to push patient in wheelchair.

Level of Supervision

Some independent judgment is required, but alternatives are limited by standard practices or procedures.

Supervises

This job has no supervisory responsibilities.