Starting Hourly Rate of Pay: $18.2380/hr+ DOE
Schedule: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 9am-2pm

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.

If you are unsure whether you meet all of the required qualifications for this role but are interested and passionate about this potential position, we encourage you to apply.

Job Summary: The Patient Access Representative answers incoming patient calls to assess patient condition, makes appointments, takes messages or refers calls to medical personnel. This position answers all incoming calls and transfers to appropriate person/department. This position functions as part of the Call Center Team and assists other team members as needed.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Answer Call Center calls being courteous, timely, and helpful at all times.
• Determine whether an appointment is for routine care or for an emergent problem.
• For emergent problems, document in chart and transfer directly as appropriate.
• Schedule, as available, all chronic or non-acute problems, or routine care appointments.
• Accurately document incoming and outgoing information in the patient’s chart.
• Route all incoming calls to appropriate staff or take messages as needed.

• Follow all policies, procedures, protocols and workflows.

• Assist other Call Center staff as time permits and need is established.

• Cover for Medical Records and/or the Administrative Assistant at the front desk as needed and trained.

• Participate in all staff meetings.

• Perform other duties as assigned.

• Handle protected health information (PHI) in a manner consistent with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

HIPAA Requirements:

The Patient Access Representative will have access to PHI during the course of her/his work activities. The Patient Access Representative schedules appointments, routes calls and takes phone messages from patients about medical issues. The Patient Access Representative also receives patient-specific scheduling requests from providers written in the progress notes of the medical record and would thus need access to recent progress notes. Applying the minimum necessary standard of HIPAA, the designated record sets to which this employee will have access include: the demographic and scheduling functions of the practice management system, progress notes, telephone encounters, referrals, medications and labs of patient charts. The Patient Access Representative may also be trained to cross cover for the medical records clerk, and/or Administrative Assistant and, when performing those duties, will have access to PHI as per those job descriptions.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Excellent communication skills, both oral and written with sensitivity to inter-cultural issues.
• Basic computer skills.
• Bilingual Spanish/English, both written and spoken language preferred.

Education and Experience:

• High school graduate or equivalent.
• Previous clinical experience in ambulatory health care setting with knowledge regarding medical terminology preferred.
• Multi-line telephone experience preferred.

Behavioral Competencies:

Accountability

• Role model VG’s mission, vision, and shared values

Customer-Focus

• Listen to the voice of the customer and strive to delight them by exceeding their expectations

Teamwork

• If someone needs help, help them

Initiative

• Be innovative, apply fresh ideas, and continuously improve how you do your work

Confidentiality

• Maintain strict confidentiality and respect the privacy of others

Ethical

• Demonstrate integrity, honesty, and stewardship in all encounters at work

Respect

• Demonstrate consideration and appreciation for co-workers and patients

Communication

• Demonstrate the ability to convey thoughts and ideas as well as understand perspective of others

Physical Requirements:

Percentage of time spent

• Standing: 10%
• Walking: 10%
• Sitting: up to 85%
• Reaching/stooping/bending: Occasional
• Must be able to lift/carry up to 10 lbs.
• Computer usage: up to 85%

Immunization:

Staff member must meet immunizations requirements as stated in VGMHC’s immunization policy.

Job description represent a general outline of the essential and major job duties, functions and qualifications required. They cannot be all-inclusive and comprehensive due to the dynamic nature of work performed to accomplish VGMHC’s Mission.

VGMHC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. No person is unlawfully excluded from consideration for employment because of race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, sex, age, veteran status, marital status or physical challenges. The policy applies not only to recruitment and hiring practices, but also includes affirmative action in the area of placement, promotion, transfer, rate of pay and termination.

Education

• GED or better in General Education
• High School or better in General Education

Skills

• Multiline Phone System
• Bilingual - Spanish
• Bilingual-Other than Span