Private Care Patient Navigator

Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust; Greater London; On-site; GBP 25,000 - 30,000; Full time

Job summary

A major healthcare institution in the UK is seeking a highly organized individual for the role of Patient Booking Administrator. The successful candidate will manage patient bookings, provide vital support during outpatient clinics and ensure smooth operations. Responsibilities include coordinating appointments, handling queries, and maintaining accurate records. Ideal candidates will possess strong communication and problem-solving skills, along with the ability to work effectively in a busy environment. This role offers an opportunity to contribute to high standards of patient care.

Qualifications

• Experience in patient booking administration or a similar role.
• Strong communication skills for interacting with patients and consultants.
• Ability to work under pressure and handle complex queries.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate patient bookings and manage clinic templates.
• Provide administrative support during outpatient clinics.
• Ensure efficient running of outpatient clinics by pre-empting issues.

Skills

Coordination

Communication

Customer service

Teamwork

Problem-solving

Job description

Responsibilities

• Coordinate all patient bookings in line with agreed processes and timelines, ensuring accurate capture and recording across the relevant booking systems.
• Issue written confirmation of outpatient clinic appointments to patients, consultants and their medical secretaries, serving as the first point of contact for queries.
• Prepare clinic notes for consultants, request external imaging imports into trust systems via the Image Exchange Portal, and assign images to patient records.
• Manage the administration of all Private Care outpatient clinic templates, including consultant regular templates and ad‑hoc requests.
• Capture consultant leave to ensure it is reflected within the clinic template.
• Provide administrative support and front‑of‑house cover during outpatient clinics, managing patient registration.
• Ensure outpatient clinics run efficiently, pre‑empting issues and implementing corrective action as needed.
• Escalate issues to the Service Manager and Head of Operations, providing thoughtful recommendations for resolution.
• Work with consultants to understand next steps for all outpatients in clinic and promptly book radiology and/or follow‑up appointments, preferably as they leave clinic.
• Manage the timely export of charge sheets to Private Care's outsourced billing provider.
• Coordinate all radiology bookings in line with agreed processes and timelines, ensuring accurate capture and recording in the booking systems.
• Issue written confirmation of radiology appointments to patients, consultants and their medical secretaries, serving as the first point of contact for queries.
• Develop and implement a process to upload paper‑based image request forms from outpatient clinics to ICE, ensuring patients are booked without delay.
• Manage the rota for consultant radiologists undertaking ultrasound in Private Care outpatients, ensuring adequate cover for all lists and escalating concerns to the Service Manager in a timely manner.
• Ensure all images are reported by consultant radiologists within agreed timescales, addressing breaches directly and escalating as appropriate.
• Maintain an up‑to‑date theatre template for regular lists and collaborate with the theatre scheduling team to accommodate ad‑hoc bookings.
• Ensure the necessary pre‑authorisations are secured from sponsors of care and that any extensions to length of stay are proactively managed.
• Communicate onward actions or important information to the relevant teams, particularly pre‑operative assessment and billing/revenue assurance.
• Develop expert knowledge of Private Care's service offering and a robust understanding of the entire patient pathway.
• Contribute to the development and delivery of service standards and KPIs for Private Care's booking function, ensuring they are market‑competitive and meet key stakeholder needs.
• Work with the Service Manager to review demand and capacity, ensuring additional capacity is made available as required.
• Ensure all written patient correspondence is highly accurate and professionally formatted with excellent use of spelling and grammar.
• Assume responsibility for the continuity of patient care from first outpatient attendance through to admission, ensuring patients understand next steps and who to contact with queries.
• Develop a cloud‑based action tracking mechanism so that all stakeholders can see at a glance where a particular patient is in their journey.
• Proactively manage the patient journey within outpatients and radiology, ensuring each stage (booking, reporting and follow‑up) is delivered in accordance with Private Care KPIs.
• Train as a super‑user of trust booking, information and patient navigation systems (PAS, ICs, ICE and CRIS).
• Contribute to the development and implementation of PathPoint for outpatient clinic booking and theatre bookings within Private Care, training external medical secretaries to use it.
• Work with the Private Care Finance Analyst to ensure operational processes within the bookings team are reflected in the trust's Electronic Patient Record (EPR) project, automating activity capture and feeding data to the outsourced billing provider.
• Proactively identify opportunities to use technology as an enabler, where appropriate, to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the booking teams.
• Develop a robust understanding of private patient financing and discuss pricing and estimated costs of treatment with patients, consultants and their medical secretaries.
• Ensure a signed registration form is in place, a credit card token stored, and funding secured for every patient attendance, liaising with sponsors of care for additional pre‑authorisations as required.
• Work with the Private Care Finance Analyst to maximise revenue capture throughout the patient journey, ensuring a clear process feeds information to the outsourced billing provider.
• Provide an exceptional standard of customer service to all key stakeholders, proactive, attentive and knowledgeable.
• Communicate effectively with key stakeholders across the organisation, delivering an exceptional standard of customer service at all times.
• Maintain effective, proactive working relationships with key trust stakeholders to ensure operational requirements of Private Care are coordinated within shared services.
• Be aware of and sensitive to other cultures and religions when dealing with private patients, ensuring vulnerable groups are not discriminated against.
• Engage and support consultants to deliver the highest standards of patient care in accordance with Private Care service standards.
• Act as a key point of contact for consultants and their private medical secretaries to coordinate timely resolution of issues, escalating them to relevant trust departments as required.
• Use initiative to determine appropriate action for complex queries and demonstrate an understanding of appropriate priority.
• Contribute to the development of standard operating policies for booking functions within Private Care, ensuring regular updates reflect current practice.
• Identify changes needed within booking functions to enhance patient experience and implement these changes with the support of the Private Care Service Managers.
• Collate key themes and learnings from feedback, complaints and incident reports, working with the Service Manager and Head of Operations to develop and implement a continuous improvement cycle.
• Work with the Head of Commercial Finance and Business Analyst to develop a performance dashboard for booking functions, contributing performance data at periodic intervals.
• Contribute to the investigation of and response to complaints and incident reports as required.
• Undertake and input to audit activities, both internal and external.
• Act as an ambassador for Private Care, within the division and trust, promoting service standards to enable growth aspirations.
• Contribute to recruitment, appointment and induction of new staff within the booking function.
• Provide cover for colleagues during sickness and annual leave, ensuring continuity of care and service for patients and stakeholders.