Vice President of System Access & Patient Scheduling

HealthPartners is hiring a Patient Access Executive. The Patient Access Executive is a strategic leader responsible for overseeing and optimizing patient access operations across our multispecialty group practice and family of care hospitals. This role will provide strategic direction to support access to care and patient scheduling, leading the development and implementation of an omnichannel approach to patient scheduling to achieve strategic patient growth, efficient use of resources and strong performance in value-based care contracts by ensuring timely and appropriate care.

The scope for this role includes standardizing clinician schedule templating, aligning visit types and decision trees within various specialties, managing our 24/7 contact center operations in high reliability fashion, and delivering an omnichannel scheduling experience-including online platforms, telephone-based services, and in-person support-that seamlessly integrates with our Epic Systems electronic medical record (EMR) and drives the use of AI-assisted self-service and agent interactions. The role includes oversight of patient placement activities, such as inbound admits and physician-to-physician consults. This role will partner with nursing leadership to integrate nurse triage functions, both in clinics and within our centralized contact centers, with patient scheduling. These responsibilities will be pursued during cycles of evolution in the organization.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

Education, Experience or Equivalent Combination:

• Bachelor's degree in Healthcare Administration, Business Administration, or a related field.
• Minimum of 7-10 years of experience in healthcare operations, with a focus on patient access, scheduling, or related fields.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Proven experience managing and optimizing health care related contact center operations, preferably in a 24/7 environment, including oversight of staffing, performance metrics, and continuous improvement initiatives. Must have experience with high reliability practices and maintaining standards through times of change.
• Strong knowledge of clinic operations, clinician scheduling and workflow optimization in a healthcare setting.
• Experience working with Epic Systems or similar EMR platform(s).
• Demonstrated expertise in designing and implementing an omnichannel scheduling strategy that enhances patient access across telephone-based, online, and in-person channels.
• Previous experience in managing patient placement activities including inbound admits and physician-to-physician consults, ensuring effective patient flow.
• Experience in developing and overseeing nurse triage functions in both clinical and centralized contact center environments.
• Excellent analytical, organizational, and project management skills.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal abilities, with a proven track record in cross-functional leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to drive change and lead process improvement initiatives in a complex healthcare environment.
• Familiarity with patient acuity assessment and value-based care models is highly desirable.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Education, Experience or Equivalent Combination:
  
  
  
  • Master's degree in Healthcare Administration, Business Administration, or a related field.
  
  

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

• Strategic Planning & Continuous Improvement:
• Develop and execute strategic initiatives to enhance overall patient access, scheduling efficiency, and patient placement outcomes across all channels.
• Lead projects to integrate innovative technologies and best practices into scheduling and placement processes.
• Provide regular reports and analysis on performance metrics to senior leadership.

• Omnichannel Scheduling & 24/7 Contact Center Operations:
• Manage and optimize all scheduling channels, including our 24/7 contact center operations, ensuring round-the-clock availability and support for patients.
• Deliver a consistent, high-quality experience across telephone, online, IVA/IVR and in-person scheduling platforms.
• Implement performance metrics and continuous improvement initiatives to maintain high service levels across all channels.

• Online Scheduling Optimization:
• Identify the business needs for online scheduling and other digital tools. Identify priorities for implementation to accelerate results. Partner closely with product and technical leaders to support ongoing enhancement of our online scheduling platform as part of an omnichannel strategy.
• Ensure that the digital platform integrates seamlessly with Epic Systems, providing a user-friendly and intuitive experience that complements other scheduling methods.
• Utilize analytics to monitor user engagement and drive improvements in the digital scheduling experience.

• Clinician Schedule Templating & Workflow Optimization:
• Develop and oversee a governance approach to manage clinician templates and change requests that meet access goals and support sustainable clinician practices.
• Oversee the development and alignment of visit types and decision trees across specialties.
• Collaborate with clinical and operational leaders to align schedules with departmental goals, patient demand, best practices and an omnichannel approach that facilitates a seamless patient experience across all access points.
• Monitor schedule performance and make data-driven adjustments to improve efficiency.

• Group Practice Building and Value-Based Care:
• Implement strategies to facilitate patient scheduling based on clinical acuity and the principles of value-based care.
• Identify strategies for smart and financially sustainable growth, leading group practice building and referral management efforts.
• Partner with revenue cycle leadership on out-of-network volume management decisions.
• Collaborate with clinical leadership to integrate acuity-based triaging into all scheduling channels.

• Nurse Triage Functional Integration:
• Partner with nursing leadership to ensure we have functional and strategic nurse triage in-place in both clinic settings and our centralized contact center to enhance patient outcomes and operational efficiency
• Collaborate with nursing and clinical operations leadership to develop protocols and guidelines that support effective patient triage and ensure timely intervention based on patient acuity.

• Patient Placement and Inbound Admits:
• Oversee patient placement activities within our hospitals, ensuring smooth and efficient inbound admits.
• Partner with clinical teams to manage physician-to-physician consults and transfers, facilitating timely and effective patient care transitions.
• Develop and refine protocols to optimize patient flow from consults to admission, ensuring alignment with clinical priorities and capacity.

• Collaboration & Stakeholder Management:
• Work closely with care group operations leadership, clinician leadership, IT, revenue cycle and other operational teams to ensure alignment of scheduling practices with broader organizational goals and an integrated omnichannel experience.
• Serve as a key liaison between the scheduling operations team and clinical departments.
• Engage continuously with both care group operations and clinician leadership to review performance, gather insights, and drive process improvements.
• Support health plan product performance and strategy.
• Engage with external vendors and partners as needed, particularly related to Epic Systems enhancements.