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About Duke Primary Care

Pursue your passion for caring with Duke Primary Care, which offers family, adolescent, and internal medicine services as well as urgent, general pediatric, and virtual care at nearly 50 clinic locations across central North Carolina.

General Description of the Job Class

The Duke Primary Care (DPC) Referral Coordinator provides a comprehensive scheduling experience to meet the various needs of patients and referring providers within a Duke Primary Care clinic or centralized engagement center. The DPC Referral Coordinator performs various appointment and access-related duties for Duke Primary Care clinic(s) to including scheduling appointments from a referral, following up on referrals faxed externally, and closing the loop on all reconcilable referrals placed. The DPC Referral Coordinator remains current on providers, service locations, and insurance payers, while providing the highest levels of service excellence to each patient.

Location:

Patient Engagement Center 14 Moore Dr. Durham, NC 27703

Hours: 

Monday-Friday 8am-5pm.

Duties and Responsibilities

Elements that contribute to the unique characteristics of the position include: 

• Referral Coordinator II - autonomous problem-solving and decision-making as it relates to referrals, patient appointment and scheduling support for multiple DPC clinics daily, trainer for new referral coordinators, and network level process-improvement referral projects and initiatives.

Referral Duties

• Provide accurate information to patients regarding various services, providers, and locations available within the Duke University Health System and the surrounding community.
• Actively identify, listen, and understand the needs of each patient. Ask thoughtful questions to determine the appropriate resources or actions to be taken.
• Professionally communicate both verbally and in writing with patients, providers, internal specialty departments, and clinics in the surrounding community.
• Provide referral and radiology support within designated pod as assigned for PTO coverage.
• Monitor voicemail of assigned clinic(s).
• Assist in scheduling for more than 30 specialty departments.
• Provide referral and radiology coverage to other DPC clinics as needed.
• Utilize 31 different decision trees to schedule patients within the Duke University Health System.
• Utilize referral standard work documents and resources and performs work within established standards at all times.
• Make judgements guided by standard work on how to prioritize patients and complete tasks.
• Obtain authorizations and assist in covering 5 authorization work queues.
• Handle 2-4 clinic assignments daily including referral and radiology work queues and authorizations for each assigned clinic.

Patient Scheduling

• Identify patients using 2 identifiers in accordance with compliance guidelines.
• Schedule appointment from the referral using scheduling guidelines and questionnaires in order to determine the appropriate provider, location, and visit type.
• Maintain knowledge and resources to schedule patients outside of Duke as appropriate.
• Ability to answer questions from patients and ordering providers on where to send referrals for quickest access, closest geographic location, as well as specific insurance requirements.
• Provide patient with appropriate directions and pre-visit appointment information.
• Identify and document special needs; schedule interpreters as needed.
• Review assigned work queues and prioritize by emergency, urgent, and routine referrals ensuring all referrals are worked within 48 hours.
• Use all available resources to contact the patient, including phone numbers and MyChart, while following compliance guidelines.

Improvement Initiatives

• Maintain liaison with other offices and departments to coordinate referrals, foster collaboration, leverage resources, and help to accomplish program objectives.
• Contribute to program effectiveness by communicating trends and recommending modifications to current workflows.
• Proactively communicate issues to Team Lead and Service Access Manager as it relates to access and decision trees.
• Actively participate in DPC continuous improvement processes and practice level improvement projects.
• Complete time studies to conduct preliminary analysis of trends as assigned by Referral Manager.
• Actively participate and engage in network level process improvement projects.

General

• Exceed patient experience expectations.
• Meet or exceed daily productivity goals as set forth by department.

• Demonstrate Duke's values and behaviors in every interaction.
• Consistently use "Words that Work" and "RELATE" in all daily interactions.
• Comply with all regulatory and compliance policies and procedures.
• Strong ability to handle complex workflows utilizing critical thinking skills.
• Serve as trainer for new DPC referral coordinators to include training on referral standard work and referral authorization process.

Required Qualifications at this Level

Education: 

• A high school diploma or equivalency, is required.
• College or completion of post-secondary education is strongly preferred.

Experience

• Minimum of 1 year of health care related experience. An associate degree or higher may substitute for the experience requirement.
• Accurate typing and data entry skills
• Excellent customer service and communication skills
• Knowledge of HIPAA requirements regarding patient confidentiality

• Strongly Preferred for Referral Coordinator II: 
  • 2 years of health care related experience
  • Active user of electronic medical records (EMR) software
  • Experience with obtaining insurance authorizations
  • Comprehensive knowledge of primary care referral protocol
  • Familiar with process-improvement methods (PDSA, A3, 5S)
  • Comfortable training peers

Degrees, Licensure, and/or Certification    N/A

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Individuals successful in this job are:

• Organized and motivated by a fast-paced environment
• Able to manage multiple tasks/projects simultaneously
• Proficient in review and assess needs quickly
• Strong with the use of computer software tools and data files
• Comfortable with continuous change, is self-directed, and can take initiative
• Patient-centered and compassionate

Distinguishing Characteristics of this Level

Additional job expectations include the ability to:

• Build effective and trusting relationships with patients and family members/caregivers, colleagues, providers, and leadership
• Use active-listening skills when assessing patient requests, concerns, and needs

• Demonstrate confidence, compassion, and attention to detail

Duke is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing employment opportunity without regard to an individual's age, color, disability, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status.

Duke aspires to create a community built on collaboration, innovation, creativity, and belonging. Our collective success depends on the robust exchange of ideas-an exchange that is best when the rich diversity of our perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences flourishes. To achieve this exchange, it is essential that all members of the community feel secure and welcome, that the contributions of all individuals are respected, and that all voices are heard. All members of our community have a responsibility to uphold these values.

Essential Physical Job Functions: Certain jobs at Duke University and Duke University Health System may include essentialjob functions that require specific physical and/or mental abilities. Additional information and provision for requests for reasonable accommodation will be provided by each hiring department.