Office Coordinator

The Office Coordinator is an elevated, hands-on front desk leadership position responsible for training and coaching patient access staff, coordinating consistent front office operations, and supporting patient scheduling, retention, collections, and authorization follow-through across Advanced Heart Group cardiology locations. In partnership with the Practice Lead, this role maintains accountability for workflow execution, provides real-time support to staff, monitors outstanding work, and identifies opportunities to improve patient access and service. The Office Coordinator provides operational guidance and escalates clinical questions, staffing decisions, disciplinary actions, and other matters outside delegated authority to the appropriate leader.

Essential Functions of the Role

1. Front Desk Leadership, Training & Accountability

• Provide day-to-day direction, coaching, and hands-on support to front desk staff and coordinate consistent standards across assigned office locations.
• Train and retrain employees on check-in/check-out, telephone etiquette, patient registration, insurance verification, co-pay collection, referrals, scheduling templates, message routing, and accurate EHR documentation.
• Observe staff workflows, review errors and incomplete work, provide constructive feedback, document training needs, and share recurring concerns and recommended action plans with the Practice Lead.
• Coordinate cross-training and coverage plans so front desk staff can support multiple providers, sites, and appointment types; assist directly during high-volume periods or absences.
• Conduct short operational huddles, communicate provider schedule changes, reinforce standard operating procedures, and escalate patient complaints or barriers not resolved at the front desk.

2. Employee Onboarding, Competency Development & Offboarding

• Coordinate the front desk portion of new-hire onboarding with the Practice Lead and HR, including first-day readiness, introductions, worksite orientation, approved system-access requests, and review of job expectations.
• Maintain an onboarding checklist covering privacy/HIPAA, patient identification, registration, insurance collection, financial policies, phone standards, EHR navigation, cardiology scheduling rules, referrals, testing preparation handoffs, and prior authorization routing.
• Provide structured job shadowing, demonstration, supervised practice, and competency checks before an employee independently handles appointments, financial transactions, or complex scheduling; schedule follow-up reviews and refresher training.
• Ensure new staff are trained on location-specific workflows, provider schedules, escalation contacts, documentation requirements, handling of patient messages, and correct routing of urgent clinical concerns to licensed clinical staff.
• Assist the Practice Lead and HR with offboarding logistics, including tracking last working day, documenting handoff of pending appointments/referrals/authorizations, reconciling front desk work queues, and arranging return of keys, badges, devices, and other property.
• Notify designated system owners to remove or adjust access in accordance with HR/IT policy; coordinate transfer of site-specific job aids and responsibilities and communicate approved staffing transitions appropriately. Do not independently make termination or personnel decisions.

3. Cardiology Scheduling, Patient Access & Retention

• Train staff to accurately schedule new patient consults, established-patient follow-ups, post-hospital visits, nurse practitioner visits, electrophysiology visits, device/pacemaker follow-ups, echocardiograms, stress testing, and other approved services using provider-approved templates and scheduling rules.
• Confirm the correct visit type, ordering provider, location, time allotment, referral information, required documentation, and any approved scheduling prerequisites; direct clinical appropriateness or urgency questions to the clinical team.
• Review open appointments, cancellations, no-shows, recall lists, overdue follow-ups, incomplete referrals, and unscheduled diagnostic orders; organize staff outreach to reconnect patients and fill appropriate openings.
• Coach staff to offer clinically appropriate available appointments, including advanced practice provider openings when approved, to minimize unnecessary delays and preserve cardiologist access for patients requiring physician care.
• Track outreach attempts, patient responses, declined appointments, rescheduling needs, and unresolved scheduling barriers in approved systems; promptly escalate time-sensitive issues to clinical staff.
• Partner with call center, medical assistants, clinical staff, and providers to ensure checkout orders, future testing, results follow-up appointments, and post-hospital care transitions are scheduled and communicated accurately.

4. Prior Authorization, Referrals & Diagnostic Testing Follow-Through

• Oversee the administrative workflow for referrals, benefits verification, and prior authorization requests associated with office visits, echocardiograms, nuclear stress tests, other diagnostic studies, and applicable cardiology procedures.
• Ensure front desk staff collect accurate demographics, payer details, ordering information, service location, and appointment dates; route clinical documentation requests to designated authorization or clinical personnel.
• Maintain visibility into authorization work queues and outstanding items; track submission status, payer requests, expiration dates, determination updates, and the scheduled service date through documented completion.
• Follow up with responsible authorization teams and payers when within assigned duties; escalate delays, denials, missing clinical records, or services at risk of postponement before the appointment.
• Coordinate approved communication with scheduling and patients regarding authorization-related changes, without promising coverage or advising patients that a service is authorized before verification.
• Audit common causes of preventable delays and provide targeted training on correct handoffs, timely escalation, and accurate documentation.

5. Patient Collections, Financial Conversations & Front Office Revenue Support

• Assist front desk staff with point-of-service collections, including collecting applicable copays and known patient balances in accordance with practice policy and verified account information.
• Train staff to verify demographics and insurance, identify missing coverage details, give patients accurate billing contact information, and explain the front desk payment process without making unverified benefit or coverage guarantees.
• Guide professional, respectful financial conversations; assist with patient questions about statements or balances and route disputes, complex billing questions, hardship requests, and payment arrangements to authorized billing personnel.
• Support accurate posting and documentation of payments, distribution of receipts, end-of-day balancing, and escalation of discrepancies according to approved cash-handling and payment-card procedures.
• Monitor front desk collection opportunities and workflow gaps; review relevant collection reports with the Practice Lead while following privacy, financial, and organizational policies.

6. Patient Experience, Daily Operations & Quality Improvement

• Help resolve scheduling complaints, registration issues, long waits, and service concerns with professionalism; refer medical advice, symptoms, or emergent concerns immediately to appropriate clinical staff per protocol.
• Monitor front desk queues, voicemail and callback turnaround, referral and authorization follow-up, check-in readiness, chart/registration completeness, and patient check-out completion.
• Provide regular updates to the Practice Lead on trends such as scheduling errors, overdue recalls, unfilled slots, no-shows, unresolved authorizations, service recovery, and collection process gaps.
• Help standardize workflow documents, job aids, training checklists, and multi-site communication; recommend corrective actions and confirm implemented improvements are sustained.
• Promote HIPAA compliance, accurate recordkeeping, secure handling of patient financial information, and adherence to applicable federal and Illinois requirements.

Minimum Qualifications

• Three or more years of medical front desk, patient access, or specialty practice experience; demonstrated experience training, mentoring, or leading peers.
• Working knowledge of EHR/practice management scheduling, insurance verification, referrals, prior authorizations, patient collections, and front office workflows.
• Strong written/verbal communication, tact in difficult patient interactions, detail orientation, follow-through, multitasking, and ability to monitor work across locations.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Outlook, Excel, and Word; ability to learn practice-specific systems and monitor operational reports.

Preferred Qualifications

• Cardiology, electrophysiology, diagnostic testing, or multisite specialty experience; experience developing onboarding materials, auditing work queues, and coaching front desk employees; familiarity with NextGen, Athena, ADP Workforce Now, or comparable systems.
• Reporting Relationship & Role Boundaries
• Reports to the Practice Lead. Provides front desk workflow leadership and training support as delegated. Clinical triage, decisions about medical necessity, payer determinations, employment actions, and formal HR decisions remain with qualified

Physical Requirements

This position requires full range of body motion. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit, walk and stand; talk or hear, both in person and by telephone; use hands repetitively to handle or operate standard office equipment; reach with hands and arms; and lift up to 25 pounds.

Salary and Benefits

Full-time, non-exempt position. Competitive compensation and benefits package to include 401K; a full suite of medical, dental, and ancillary benefits; paid time off, and much more.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

The statements contained herein are intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed by the Office Coordinator, but is not a complete list of the responsibilities, duties, or skills required. Other duties may be assigned as business needs dictate. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.