Supervisor, Patient Advocate - Mental Health

Overview

The Supervisor, Patient Advocate leads and develops a high-performing, medium-sized team (typically 8-12 direct reports), with a strong focus on coaching, accountability, and engagement. This role ensures consistent, compassionate service to patients and providers while maintaining compliance with HIPAA requirements and proper handling of Protected Health Information (PHI). The Supervisor has deep knowledge of company products and complex processes/systems, drives team performance, supports workflow improvements, and manages escalations that require sound judgment, professionalism, and effective communication skills.

Responsibility

Each employee's specific job responsibilities are uniquely defined by their individual training plan and assigned duties, but are generally defined as follows:

1. Manage daily workflow to ensure adequate coverage to consistently achieve service level and productivity goals, while cultivating a positive, coaching-focused environment that enhances overall team performance.

2. Provide regular feedback, conduct side-by-side reviews, and support team skill development through structured, ongoing coaching plans.

3. Partner with the training team to ensure the development and implementation of an effective team training program to reinforce expectations and develop staff competency.

4. Manage external customer escalations as well as internal cross-functional escalations and difficult cases requiring advanced communication skills, professionalism, and emotional intelligence. Implement team and department-wide improvements.

5. Participate in process improvement discussions and support the rollout and adoption of updated procedures or workflows

6. Hire, develop, and train qualified customer service employees.

7. Conduct routine quality audits to ensure accuracy, professionalism, and compliance with HIPAA and organizational standard operating procedures.

8. Use reporting and key performance metrics to set realistic team and individual goals, identify trends, performance opportunities, and workflow improvements, applying insights to strengthen team capabilities and service quality.

9. Interact with patients, clinicians, insurers, sales team and the Customer Service Manager/Director to ensure timely and accurate testing for patients.

10. Develop relationships cross-functionally and act as a liaison and/or business stakeholder for all other teams (including Revenue Cycle, Authorizations, EMR, Technology, Laboratory Operations, Project Management, and others).

11. Escalate systemic technical issues and partner with engineering on requirements, testing, and deployment

12. Responsible for the creation and updating of SOPs, escalation paths, and quality assurance frameworks.

13. Perform annual performance reviews of direct reports and take appropriate promotion or corrective action related to staff performance.

14. Participate in the Quality Assurance plan.

15. Complies with applicable CLIA and HIPAA regulations.

Qualifications

1. High school diploma or GED equivalent required; bachelor's degree preferred.

2. 3+ years of experience in healthcare, laboratory, life sciences, or customer service environments with at least 1 year of leadership, mentoring or periodic and/or temporary experiences leading teams.

3. Extremely versatile and passionate about driving a positive employee and customer experience.

4. Ability to prioritize tasks, assignments, and mentorship of team members. Demonstrates adaptability in fast-paced environment.

5. Demonstrated strong working knowledge of customer relationship management (CRM), telephony, training, Microsoft, Jira, and other commonly used applications. Quickly adapts to new software environments and leverages system capabilities to enhance customer experience and team productivity.

6. Familiarity with managing PHI and understanding HIPAA requirements.

7. Ability to interpret metrics, provide developmental feedback, and promote a collaborative, patient-centered team culture.

8. Dependable, detail-oriented, professional and able to build teams and motivate employees while working under pressure.

9. Effective communication and coaching skills, both verbal and written, with experience developing staff and supporting performance improvement. Ability to effectively tailor messages to different audiences.

10. Ability to adapt schedule as needed to meet business needs.

11. Travel as required.

Physical Requirements

Lifting Requirements -sedentary work or exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally. Physical Requirements -stationary positioning, moving, operating, ascending/descending, communicating, observing, pushing or pulling, and reaching. Use of equipment and tools necessary to perform essential job functions.

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