Receptionist Extra Functions

Overview

At Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, we welcome diversity; we encourage, uplift, and are honored to serve people who have been historically underrepresented and underserved. Our mission is to provide high-quality, culturally appropriate healthcare to low-income residents of Washington and Yamhill Counties, with a special emphasis on seasonal and migrant farm workers and others with barriers to receiving healthcare. We strive to provide an inclusive environment that welcomes and values the diversity of the people we employ and serve.

The Receptionist performs all duties related to checking patients in and out, updating computer data, preparing patient charts, and assisting with patient flow. The position answers and makes phone calls, takes messages, makes appointments, collects payments, gives change, and balances collections at the end of the day. They perform all switchboard and medical records duties.

• Prepare Center at start of day to receive patients; unlock doors, turn on lights, prepare cash register drawer, prepare sign-in sheets.
• Perform established patient check in processes, including consents, Annual Verification form, insurance, & FPL.
• Update contact and demographic information for all registered patients.
• Procure proper documentation of patient financial status to allow Center to identify appropriate billing sources.
• Refer potentially eligible patients to the Medicaid Eligibility worker.
• Check in and complete Behavioral Health, Mental Health, and Dietician internal referrals.
• Assist other patients as may be appropriate.
• Set up charts for provider and create charts for new patients.
• Coordinate patient flow with nursing staff, lab, and pharmacy.
• Demonstrate knowledge and adhere to clinic policies and procedures regarding patient care, insurances, new patients, etc.
• Support Call Center and route calls to appropriate staff, being consistently courteous, timely, and helpful.
• Provide back up to Call Center when needed; take messages and schedule appointments for patients.
• Process mail, office deliveries, and incoming faxes.
• Perform reminder calls, schedule and call for intake appointments.
• Provide patient information and customer service related to charges, discounts, payments and billing.
• Reconcile encounter payments with cash and prepare money for deposit.
• Review pending work queues.
• Assist patients with collections issues or direct to the appropriate person.
• Assist in training new Front Office staff as needed and as time permits.
• Maintain waiting room and children's play area to ensure they are clean, tidy, and orderly.
• Prepare Center at end of the day; lock up Front Office area, verify that the front door is locked.
• Attend Front Office team meetings: contribute to meeting agenda, participate in all staff meetings.
• Attend refresher trainings and/or engage in coaching sessions as assigned.
• Escalate issues, concerns, or recommended workflow improvements.
• Handle protected health information (PHI) in a manner consistent with HIPAA.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

The Receptionist uses PHI to schedule, register, and update insurance coverage, and to enter demographic information. The position helps patients with limited questions about their accounts and performs end-of-day reporting that includes payment information. Applying the minimum necessary rules of HIPAA, the designated record sets to which this employee has access include: patient demographics and account information in the practice management system, encounter forms, user batch reports and payment posting reports generated by the practice management system, the patient information section of the medical record, the HIPAA section, recent progress notes (as needed to answer scheduling questions), and the problem list/immunization record (to provide copies to patients upon their request).

This position is required to read and use the content of these records only to the extent needed to accomplish the assigned task.

• Proficiency in English and Spanish, both written and spoken language.
• Proven sensitivity to inter-cultural issues.
• Able to…