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Career Description

Assist patients in obtaining services, understanding policies and making health care decisions.

What Job Titles Patient Representatives Might Have

• Case Manager
• Medicaid Service Coordinator (MSC)
• Patient Advocate
• Patient Representative

What Patient Representatives Do

• Coordinate communication between patients, family members, medical staff, administrative staff, or regulatory agencies.
• Interview patients or their representatives to identify problems relating to care.
• Maintain knowledge of community services and resources available to patients.
• Refer patients to appropriate health care services or resources.
• Investigate and direct patient inquiries or complaints to appropriate medical staff members and follow up to ensure satisfactory resolution.
• Explain policies, procedures, or services to patients using medical or administrative knowledge.
• Provide consultation or training to volunteers or staff on topics such as guest relations, patients' rights, and medical issues.
• Collect and report data on topics such as patient encounters and inter-institutional problems, making recommendations for change when appropriate.
• Read current literature, talk with colleagues, continue education, or participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in the field.
• Identify and share research, recommendations, or other information regarding legal liabilities, risk management, or quality of care.
• Develop and distribute newsletters, brochures, or other printed materials to share information with patients or medical staff.
• Analyze patients' abilities to pay to determine charges on a sliding scale.
• Teach patients to use home health care equipment.

What Patient Representatives Should Be Good At

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).

What Patient Representatives Need to Learn

• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• Sociology and Anthropology - Knowledge of group behavior and dynamics, societal trends and influences, human migrations, ethnicity, cultures and their history and origins.
• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• Public Safety and Security - Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
• Medicine and Dentistry - Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Transportation - Knowledge of principles and methods for moving people or goods by air, rail, sea, or road, including the relative costs and benefits.
• Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.