• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Salary Range: $75,000-$95,000

Position Summary

Reporting to the Director of Practice Administration, the Practice Operations Manager ensures smooth day-to-day operations at five clinical sites in this high-volume practice. The Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery includes 27 patient care providers in 7 subspecialties (Otology/Neurotology, Rhinology, Laryngology, Pediatric Otolaryngology, Head & Neck/Facial Plastic Surgery, General Otolaryngology, and Audiology), who are supported by more than 30 clinical support staff members and care for more than 20,000 patients every year across 5 New York City locations. The Practice Operations Manager supervises a team of more than 20 support staff, including Practice Assistants and Medical Secretaries, to provide all front-office services.

Responsibilities

• Ensure adequate staff coverage for all administrative duties and monitor performance of practice personnel to maintain practice standards of accuracy and patient care.
• Supervise all front-end office functions, such as scheduling, registration, insurance verification, referrals, authorizations, charge capture, payment posting, TOS collection, cash management, and receipt book reconciliation.
• Perform routine audits to ensure that charges are entered properly and in a timely manner, and that referrals and patient information are properly collected at time of service.
• In collaboration with the Director of Practice Administration and others, continually refine and improve operational workflows and practices, and oversee appropriate training and implementation.
• Coordinate staff training and communication of policies and procedures; train new staff.
• Assist with orientation of new faculty and other providers to clinic operations.
• Oversee inventory of supplies and equipment; work with departmental finance team to place routine orders; serve as a point of communication with external vendors.
• Manage clinic facilities; report facilities problems and ensure appropriate and timely follow-up. Ensure efficient utilization of clinic space by providers and staff.
• Ensure that internal and external service providers perform functions satisfactorily and serve as a principal point of contact to vendors. For example, manage relationship with external call center vendor to ensure services meet the department’s standards for quality and timeliness.
• Directly assist patients with escalated requests or concerns. Serve as a patient advocate regarding issues of billing and patient experience.
• Manage clinic site compliance with safety and other requirements, including the handling of protected health information (PHI). Maintain procedures for responding to urgent situations involving patient safety and ensure staff members are trained on safety procedures.
• Manage Medical Surveillance and requires work with PHI (HIPAA compliance required), physician billing, and contact with patients.
• Perform other duties as required.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in education and experience, plus four years of related experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Desired: 5+ years of directly related clinic operations experience, including 3+ years of experience in a managerial/supervisory capacity.
• Experience as a hands-on supervisor of a large administrative support team.
• Familiarity with Epic scheduling/billing/medical records systems.
• Strong understanding of elements of clinical billing workflow, such as insurance pre-authorizations.
• Experience with staff training, call center operations, and management of clinic facilities.

Other Requirements

• Familiarity with medical terminology and clinical/patient care environment.
• Experience with scheduling and other front-offices processes.
• Outstanding interpersonal, customer service, communications, and organizational skills.
• Strong comfort level with Microsoft Office applications and with learning new administrative systems (such as electronic medical record and/or appointment scheduling systems).
• Ability to explain tasks clearly when training staff (e.g. training new staff on use of complex scheduling procedures and systems).

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.