Patient Access: Meet the Panelists | part 2

Tell us a little about your professional background; what inspired you to start working in the healthcare industry, and the types of roles you’ve enjoyed during your career thus far.

I have been fortunate to be in Patient Access for almost 20 years. I began my career as a Patient Access Coordinator in the Emergency room (prior to EPIC!). I worked as a coordinator for several years as I enjoyed learning about the industry and the excitement that comes with each different day/challenge that the emergency room would present. From that I was promoted to a Financial Counselor. Within this role is where I believe I found Health Care finance to be my passion and something I wanted to pursue as a long term career path. As a Financial Counselor I was able to help patients talk through any insurance/finance related issues. There was no time constraint for these conversations. It was all about listening and then talking through what the best options would be for the patient. I could see the positive impact that I was having on our patient’s life and ultimately seen the true connection between their health care and the financial component. Both need to be aligned and supported through a patient’s journey.

From my Financial Counselor role I was promoted to Supervisor of patient access within our Radiology department and off site clinics. In that role I had oversight for the registration of all the patients that have outpatient imaging. I also played an integral role in the planning and implementation of our off-site clinics that were being throughout the Chicago Metro area. After 3 years within that role I was then promoted to my current role as Pre-Visit Manager of patient access.      

Can you share with us a bit about the scope of your role at Rush University Medical Center as the Revenue Cycle Manager, and what excites you about your current position?

The scope of my current role is manager of pre-visit Patient Access. This team encompasses 3 different areas. The first being are pre-registration team which is responsible for registration of outpatient physician appointments within the medical center. The second, our Central Referral Team which is responsible for obtaining authorization for all imaging services within the medical center and off sites. The third, is our Pre-Admit team which is responsible for obtaining all authorizations for outpatient surgeries within the medical center. The thing that excites me the most within my role is that we are constantly evolving our team and expanding our reach. We have recently centralized all the imaging authorizations to our central referral team and are in the process of centralizing all the surgical auths to our Pre-admit team. From a pre-reg perspective we are constantly looking to leverage EPIC in a more efficient way.  

We’re really looking forward to you joining the panel this February, focused on Registration & Eligibility Verification, which is a critical first step in a patient’s financial journey. Could you share one way that you and your team are trying to improve this process in 2023?

One way we are looking to improve this process is by giving our patients more timely and accurate out of pocket costs prior to service. There is a lot of work being down around the estimator tool within EPIC as well as MyChart.

Tell us a little about your professional background; what inspired you to start working in the healthcare industry, and the types of roles you’ve enjoyed during your career thus far.

I served eight years as an Army Military Intelligence Officer and transitioned to a national private sector company becoming a Director of Training and Organizational Development, and a Director of Operations.  My next step was a move to the consulting world and I followed that with a transition to Johns Hopkins as an internal OD Consultant.  After seven years working with leadership, I moved to Patient Access to become the Director of Patient Access Talent Management, Quality, and Training. 

When I was hired by Johns Hopkins I really fell in love with the mission!  I didn’t plan on staying here for 18 years but being part of an organization that has such great purpose has kept me.

Can you share with us some details about the scope of your role at Johns Hopkins, as the Director of Patient Access Talent Management and what excites you about the work you are doing?

I am responsible for all “people processes” to include attracting, hiring, onboarding, engaging, performing, developing, and departing for Patient Access.   We also have institutional responsibility for the training of a number of Epic modules centering around scheduling and registration along with three insurance modules.  Last year, we trained over 9000 people.  From a quality standpoint, we evaluate the customer service of 350 Patient Access agents and the registration quality of 2300 Johns Hopkins employees using two systems we have built. 

What excites me is having the opportunity to develop new ideas that solve challenges.

Staffing continues to be a considerable challenge for the healthcare, with patient access and revenue cycle teams struggling with not only recruitment, but onboarding, bringing new team members up to speed, and also retaining team members through developing new skills and career paths. Could you share your perspective on the staffing challenges the industry is facing, and how your role in talent management is helping to alleviate some of this pressure?

In a short period of time, the game has changed.  Employee’s expectations for employers have increased and they have many options if their “test drive” doesn’t go well.  There are no consequences for “jumping” since gaining organizations are only too happy to fill a vacancy.  We as talent managers need to rebuild those programs that were working pre-Covid and create new solutions to meet our employees’ needs.

Tell us a little about your professional background; what inspired you to start working in the healthcare industry, and the types of roles you’ve enjoyed during your career thus far.

I started out as an insurance verifier shortly after graduating from college. I quickly moved into a team lead position within the department. I have also been a Revenue Cycle trainer and a QA team auditor before ultimately moving into my current role as manager of Financial Clearance for the clinic line of business.

Can you share with us a bit about the scope of your role at the University of Missouri Healthcare as the Manager of Financial Clearance and what excites you about your current position?

I have clinic verification and authorization staff in my department. I also co-manage a Joint Corrections department that fixes insurance related issues post-billing. I enjoy piecing together the front and back end processes, finding gaps, and figuring out how to use our systems to catch and resolve issues.

We’re really looking forward to you joining the panel this February, focused on Registration & Eligibility Verification, which is a critical first step in a patient’s financial journey. Could you share one way that you and your team are trying to improve this process in 2023?

Partnering with our front facing areas to trend and address issues or gaps in verification is my main focus this year. I will be root causing and trending the volumes on our verification lists, monitoring our FSC change rate between scheduling and arrival, and reviewing eligibility related post-billing denials to determine where and how we can improve our processes and systems to get things right up front.