Manager Patient Relations / Patient Experience

Socket.dev; Newark (NJ); On-site; USD 99,000 - 149,000; Full time

Job summary

University Hospital in Newark, NJ is seeking a Manager, Patient Relations/Patient Experience to lead the department, oversee advocacy, grievance handling, and language interpretation services, and drive strategies that deliver exceptional human experiences.

You will coach leaders and staff, monitor patient satisfaction metrics, ensure timely response to concerns within 24-48 hours, and collaborate across clinical and administrative teams to promote service excellence.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a healthcare field or related discipline required.
• 5 years in healthcare or related field with a lead/supervisory role.
• Experience triaging patient concerns and strong customer service skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Patient Relations department and monitor service recovery activities.
• Coach leaders, physicians, and staff on patient experience best practices.
• Ensure patient concerns are addressed within 24–48 hours and tracked.
• Oversee interpreters and patient advocacy; report on satisfaction metrics.
• Develop standards, schedules, and staffing to optimize operations.
• Engage in data analysis and action planning to improve satisfaction.

Skills

Leadership

Customer service

Communication skills

Conflict resolution

Bilingual

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in healthcare field

Tools

Vizient

Job description

Overview

Manager Patient Relations / Patient Experience

Newark, NJ | Full-Time | Human Experience |

About the Role

The Manager, Patient Relations/Patient Experience, is responsible to execute, participate and monitor Patient Experience strategies deployed across the organization to create an exceptional human experience for individuals, families, and visitors at University Hospital. This position represents the voice of the individual (patient, family and significant others, community and team members) while collaborating with leaders, medical staff, team members, affiliates, partners and the community to ensure extraordinary human experiences. Is responsible for managing the hospital's Patient Relations department which includes patient advocacy, grievance and complaint management, service recovery and language interpretation services. In addition, this individual is a subject matter expert for the purpose of educating and coaching leaders, physicians and team members on market data relative to the PE including CMS public reporting programs (i.e., HCAHPS and STAR ratings, etc.), rounding trends and outcomes.

Responsibilities

What You’ll Do

• Processes are patient centered.
  • Actively contributes to creating a friendly, welcoming, and safe environment for UH customers.
  • Drives collaboration with leadership, including physicians.
  • Organizes and monitors operations to accommodate and respond to patient needs, concerns, and complaints within 24-48 hours of complaint.
  • Continuously displays “can do” attitude within the department and across department lines to contribute to the overall customer service plan.
  • Monitors and analyzes data on patient satisfaction and takes corrective actions as appropriate.
  • Acts as a role model for Service Excellence, developing professional liaison with all customers.
  • Maintains professional composure and confidence during stressful situations.
  • Customer service scores for work area meet/exceed targets.
  • Ensures that all staff demonstrates respect for patient rights and are committed to the uniqueness of the individual patient.
• Manages all aspects and functions of Patient Relations. Monitors daily productivity and efficiency for the purpose of apportioning work, evaluating team member performance, conducting disciplinary actions and/or implementing improvements or changes in staffing to enhance departmental operations.
• Manages the Patient Representatives and Medical Language Interpreters. Holds agenda meetings, rounds, shadows, and coaches assigned staff on regular basis.
• Develops and maintains monthly employee work schedules; maintains time and attendance records; reviews schedules and approves time off and vacation requests.
• Establishes standards of performance for team members. Delegates responsibilities to team members and develops mechanisms to evaluate their effectiveness so that training, education and/or counseling for improvement can be completed.
• Helps personalize and humanize the hospital experience by serving as a liaison between patients, families, and staff.
• Works with patients to assure their concerns and issues are addressed by the appropriate party and coordinates problem solving for patient issues of a complex nature that involve more than one area. Follows up on cases to assure action has been taken.
• Recognizes and diffuses anger/fear of patients and family members/significant others and refer issues to appropriate staff.
• Educates patients, families/significant others and visitors about patient rights and hospital policies and procedures.
• Recruits, hires and supervises Patient Relations staff. Completes timely annual evaluations.
• Supervises the documentation of cases entered by Patient Relations staff into Vizient to ensure compliance with grievance policy. This includes ensuring that grievances/complaints are responded to as per policy and within established time limits. At the direction of the Assistant Director Human Experience, supervises staff investigations and edits letters to patients and families and visitors in response to grievances.
• Organizes and prioritizes time and tasks to achieve effective work processes. Generates summaries, reports, memos, meeting minutes and correspondence, as appropriate, regarding patient relations related issues.
• Proactively rounds on patient units to assess patients’ perceptions of care and triage issues to the appropriate healthcare providers.

Qualifications

What You’ll Bring

Required:

• Bachelor’s Degree in a healthcare field, Management, Business, Communications, Social Sciences, or other related field required.
• Five (5) years of professional experience in a healthcare field, customer service, communications, business, social science, or related work, required. One (1) of which shall have been in a lead or supervisory capacity required.
• Experience should include triaging and addressing patient/family/customer concerns in a timely and efficient manner.
• Must have experience with HCAHPS, CMS, and/or patient satisfaction surveys strong computer skills to perform daily operations; excellent communication skills; exceptional customer service skills and the ability to organize and resolve multiple priorities including conflict resolution and the ability to de-escalate issues in a fast-paced environment.
• Must have strong leadership skills, excellent judgment, analytical thinking and excellent verbal and written skills. Experience in Health Advocacy or related field helpful. Bilingual skills preferred. Additional related experience may be substituted for the degree on a year-for-year basis.

Compensation (NJ Job Transparency Law)

In compliance with New Jersey’s Pay Transparency Act, the salary range for this position is $99,310.00 - $148,967.00.

University Hospital considers multiple factors when determining compensation, including (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the candidate’s relevant work experience, education and training, key skills, internal equity, market data, and organizational needs.

About Us

University Hospital is one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers. As the principal teaching affiliate of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the only state-certified Level 1 Trauma Center in Northern New Jersey, University Hospital is training the next generation of physicians and advancing science to discovery while taking exceptional care of patients, regardless of their financial situation.