Director, Patient Access and Surgery Scheduling Operations

Job Description

Job Description:\n\nDescription:\n \nJoin a company that has been voted Top Workplaces, Best Places to Work, Healthiest Employers and Best Workplaces in Ohio!!! Click on the link to our video below to learn more about us!\n\n offer competitive pay as well as PTO, Holiday pay, and comprehensive benefits package!\n \nBenefits:\n\n· Health insurance\n· Dental insurance\n· Vision insurance\n· Life Insurance\n· Pet Insurance\n· Health savings account\n· Paid sick time\n· Paid time off\n· Paid holidays\n· Profit sharing\n· Retirement plan \n\nGENERAL SUMMARY \n \nThe Director, Patient Access and Surgery Scheduling Operations provides operational leadership for centralized call center and surgery scheduling functions through direct oversight of the Call Center Supervisor and Surgery Scheduling Supervisor. This role is accountable for daily work queue management, staffing and coverage, scheduling quality, patient communication standards, schedule access, block utilization, department reporting, process improvement, compliance, and service recovery. The manager ensures that workflows are standardized, staff is appropriately trained and supported, patient and provider needs are addressed in a timely manner, and performance measures are used to improve access, accuracy, efficiency, and the overall patient experience.Requirements:\n ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTION/COMPETENCIES \n\n· Department Leadership and Daily Operations: Lead daily operations through the Call Center Supervisor and Surgery Scheduling Supervisor, with clear accountability for work queues, staffing, coverage, service levels, quality, escalation management, and team performance.\n· Establish a consistent operating cadence that includes daily workload review, regular team huddles, supervisor check-ins, performance review, and timely escalation of barriers.\n· Balance assignments across the centralized team so that no provider or location is left without scheduling support during absences, vacancies, demand spikes, or technology disruptions.\n· Recruit, onboard, coach, develop, and evaluate supervisors and staff; address performance concerns promptly and consistently in partnership with Human Resources.\nMaintain staffing, cross-coverage, and business-continuity plans, including reliable workflows for remote and on-site operations. Ensure appropriately trained schedulers can safely continue work when the assigned scheduler is unavailable.\n\n· Scheduling Quality and Execution: Ensure appointments, surgeries and procedures are scheduled accurately, completely, and within established service standards.\n· Standardize the end-to-end workflow from receipt of the scheduling request through case confirmation, patient communication, facility handoff, and resolution of outstanding items.\n· Maintain current facility requirements, block-time rules, provider scheduling preferences, contact lists, and escalation pathways in a controlled and accessible source.\n· Monitor scheduling defects, near misses, rework, and recurring exceptions; complete root-cause review and corrective action when patterns emerge.\n\n· Patient Communication and Service: Set and enforce consistent standards for the timing, content, documentation, and tone of patient communications before appointments, surgeries or procedures.\n· Ensure patients receive clear and accurate information regarding date, time, location, approved preparation requirements, required testing or clearances, and whom to contact with questions.\n· Use approved scripts, templates, and communication channels while preserving appropriate personalization and accessibility for each patient.\n· Monitor responsiveness, complaints, rescheduling, cancellations, and communication failures; ensure timely service recovery and escalation.\n\n· Capacity, Access, and Placement: Drive effective use of facility block time and clinic templates by identifying open capacity early, filling appropriate openings, managing release deadlines, and escalating persistently underused capacity.\n· Improve surgeon schedule efficiency by reducing avoidable gaps, sequencing cases appropriately in coordination with facilities, and aligning scheduled time with expected case duration and provider preferences.\n· Monitor the interval from the request for scheduling to scheduled appointment or procedure/surgery date; identify backlogs, bottlenecks, and access risks and implement corrective actions.\n· Support appropriate placement of cases at The Urology Center (TUC) when clinically appropriate and consistent with payer requirements, patient needs, facility capabilities, and provider judgment.\n· Promote appropriate health-system alignment between the patient’s primary care provider and the facility where surgery is performed, while accounting for network participation, clinical needs, patient choice, and available capacity.\n· Partner with providers and facility leaders to evaluate clinic template and block allocations, demand patterns, cancellations, add-ons, and opportunities to improve access and utilization.\n\n· Process Development and Continuous Improvement: Own the department’s policies, standard operating procedures, workflow maps, templates, training materials, and change-control process.\n· Create standardized onboarding, role-based training, competency validation, and cross-training programs for supervisors and schedulers.\n· Build practical feedback mechanisms for schedulers, providers, patients, offices, and facilities; translate themes into prioritized improvement work.\n· Lead process-improvement initiatives using data, staff input, root-cause analysis, and controlled pilots; measure whether changes produce sustained improvement.\n· Optimize use of Veradigm, shared work queues, Teams, dashboards, and other approved tools; partner with Information Technology when system or access changes are needed.\n· Maintain a documented failover plan for technology, connectivity, staffing, and facility-interface disruptions and periodically test readiness.\n\n· Performance Management, Reporting, and Physician Engagement: Define metric specifications, data sources, targets, owners, and review frequency in partnership with operational leadership and physicians.\n· Develop and maintain department dashboards that distinguish workload, access, quality, utilization, patient service, and staff-performance measures.\n· Provide leaders with routine operating reports and physicians with concise quarterly reports that identify trends, exceptions, decisions needed, and corrective actions.\n· Meet with providers and practice leaders to understand scheduling needs, review performance, resolve recurring issues, and maintain confidence in the centralized model.\n· Use balanced measures; avoid incentives that could compromise clinical appropriateness, patient choice, safety, compliance, or scheduling accuracy.\n\n· Collaboration, Compliance, and Risk Management: Maintain effective working relationships with providers, office teams, hospital and ASC scheduling departments, pre-admission testing, anesthesia, clinical leadership, prior authorization and financial-clearance teams, and revenue cycle operations.\n· Clarify ownership and handoffs across departments so scheduling work is not duplicated, omitted, or delayed.\n· Ensure department practices comply with HIPAA, TUG policies, facility requirements, payer rules, record-retention standards, and applicable laws and regulations.\n· Protect patient information in office and remote-work settings; monitor access, documentation, and secure communication practices.\n· Escalate patient-safety concerns, compliance risks, repeated facility conflicts, material capacity issues, and unresolved provider concerns promptly.\n\n· Supervisor Accountability: Maintain an effective operating cadence with documented daily workload review, supervisor check-ins, huddles, escalation follow-up, and regular performance review for the Call Center Supervisor and Surgery Scheduling Supervisor.\n· Ensure supervisors maintain timely work queue management, appropriate staffing coverage, cross-coverage readiness, service level performance, quality review, and escalation management for their assigned teams, and timely resolution of call center issues.\n· Hold the Call Center Supervisor accountable for tracking productivity, attendance, workflow adherence, escalation trends, patient complaints, and timely resolution of call center issues.\n· Ensure supervisors identify communication failures, escalate patient concerns appropriately, and route clinical questions, condition changes, and clinical urgency concerns to licensed clinical staff\n \n Qualifications\n· High school diploma or equivalent required; associate or bachelor’s degree in healthcare administration, business administration, or related field preferred.\n· Minimum of three to five years of healthcare operations, physician practice, call center, patient access, surgery scheduling, referrals, or related healthcare experience preferred.\n· Minimum of one to two years of supervisory or leadership experience required; leadership experience in a call center, scheduling, patient access, or physician practice setting strongly preferred.\n· Knowledge of medical terminology, appointment scheduling systems, electronic health records, practice management systems, referral processes, insurance verification, prior authorization, and surgical scheduling workflows preferred.\n· Strong understanding of HIPAA, patient confidentiality, patient service standards, and healthcare compliance requirements.\n· Experience coordinating with physicians, clinical staff, hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, authorization teams, and billing departments preferred.\nRequired Skills and Competencies\n· Excellent verbal and written communication skills.\n· Strong leadership, coaching, conflict resolution, decision-making, problem-solving, and team-building skills.\n· Ability to manage call center, scheduling, and patient access priorities in a fast-paced physician practice environment.\n· Strong attention to detail, particularly with surgical case requirements, provider schedules, authorizations, clearances, and patient instructions.\n· Ability to analyze operational data and implement workflow, scheduling, and patient access improvements.\n· Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage competing priorities, staffing needs, provider demands, and patient expectations.\n· Ability to build effective relationships with physicians, employees, patients, hospitals, surgery centers, vendors, and leadership.\n· Professional judgment, confidentiality, compassion, and commitment to compliance, ethical conduct, and excellent patient service.\n· Proficiency with Microsoft Office, call center technology, electronic health records, and practice management systems.\n\nKey Performance Indicators\n· Call Center Performance: Monitor call center service levels, including call volume, average speed to answer, abandonment rate, call handling accuracy, responsiveness, service recovery, and quality assurance results.\n· Scheduling Quality and Execution: Monitor scheduling accuracy, completeness, turnaround time, documentation readiness, authorization status, clearance completion, patient instructions, and facility handoff performance.\n· Patient Communication and Service: Track patient communication timeliness, documentation quality, use of approved scripts and templates, complaint trends, rescheduling or cancellation issues, and timely service recovery.\n· Capacity, Access, and Utilization: Monitor referral-to-scheduled-procedure intervals, backlog trends, access barriers, open capacity, capacity utilization, release deadlines, case placement, add-on volume, cancellations, and avoidable schedule gaps.\n· Process Improvement and Business Continuity: Track completion and ongoing maintenance of standard operating procedures, workflow maps, training materials, templates, provider preferences, facility requirements, escalation pathways, and change-control documentation.\n· Measure effectiveness of process-improvement initiatives, including reduction in errors, improvement in turnaround times, improved staff adoption, and sustained workflow performance.\n· Maintain and periodically test documented failover plans for staffing, technology, connectivity, remote work, and facility-interface disruptions.\n· Reporting and Physician Engagement: Maintain a department dashboard that distinguishes workload, access, quality, utilization, patient service, and staff-performance measures.\n· Provide routine operating reports to leadership and concise quarterly reports to physicians that identify trends, exceptions, decisions needed, corrective actions, and improvement progress.\n· Compliance, Risk Management, and Collaboration: Monitor compliance with HIPAA, patient confidentiality, TUG policies, facility requirements, payer rules, documentation standards, and secure communication practices.\n· Track and escalate patient-safety concerns, compliance risks, repeated facility conflicts, material capacity issues, unresolved provider concerns, and recurring handoff failures in a timely manner.\n· Review cross-department handoff performance with office teams, facilities, pre-admission testing, anesthesia, clinical leadership, prior authorization, financial clearance, and revenue cycle teams to reduce duplicated, omitted, or delayed work.\n· Overall Performance Outcome: Demonstrate measurable improvement in patient access, scheduling accuracy, service responsiveness, surgical readiness, provider satisfaction, team performance, compliance, and the overall patient experience.\n\nWork Environment and Physical Requirements\nThese roles operate in a healthcare setting and require professionalism, discretion, accuracy, and adherence to patient privacy and safety standards. The position may require extended periods of sitting, standing, walking, use of a computer and telephone, clear verbal communication, and the ability to respond effectively to patient concerns, provider scheduling needs, operational priorities, and staff support requirements.