When you enter a doctor’s office, the chances are that the first person you meet is a patient service representative.
A patient service representative will obtain your medical history, insurance information and at times will also perform a physical examination
. He or she will also fill out forms and will take your insurance card for processing purposes.
After fulfilling preliminary formalities, a patient service representative will prepare you for the examination by the doctor. Technically, patient service representatives create a link between doctors and patients by facilitating communication.
As part of their primary duties, they maintain liaison between patients and insurance companies and determine patients’ ability to pay for the services rendered by a doctor. As part of their secondary duties, they are responsible for patient scheduling and paperwork handling.
If this job interests you and you have some background in handling medical work, you may be interested in the following list of duties that a patient service representative performs in a day.
Patient Service Representative Job Description and Duties
• Greet patients and take preliminary information such as medical histories
• Schedule appointments and make follow up calls
• Verify patients’ insurance information to determine eligibility
• Perform general physical examination and record findings
• Provide doctors with information on tangible results
• Register patients by verifying records
• Collect payments from patients once medical services are rendered
• Review medical records to ensure completeness and file information appropriately
• Manage data entry procedures such as entering procedure codes and diagnosis into databases
• Categorize and label medical documents
• Take messages and relay them to healthcare professionals
• Document work processes
• Begin application processes and help patients through to the end
• Print ledgers for outpatient accounts
• Handle prescription refill requests
Patient Service Representative Salary and Job Prospect
As per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary for the position of a patient service representative is $30,590 as of the year 2015. They are usually required to keep their schedules flexible as they often need to work unusual hours.
Owing to the growing need for people to work at this position, many jobs are expected to open over the next few years. A great boom in the healthcare industry has created many jobs for nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals.
Since there is an increase in demand for doctors, it goes without saying that the need for patient service representatives is quite high too.