Manager, Utilization Management

Beth Israel Lahey Health; Winchester (MA); On-site; USD 166,000 - 198,000; Full time

Job summary

Beth Israel Lahey Health's Winchester Hospital is seeking a Utilization Management Specialist. This licensed RN will classify patient status, support discharge planning, and collaborate with care teams to ensure appropriate care within budget.

The role emphasizes medical necessity surveillance, concurrent reviews, and education of physicians on documentation and reimbursement. This will require collaboration across departments to optimize patient outcomes at discharge.

Qualifications

• Education: BSN required; MSN preferred.
• Minimum 5 years as RN with inpatient case management experience.
• Certification in Case Management within 1 year of hire.

Responsibilities

• Perform medical necessity surveillance and concurrent reviews to support reimbursement.
• Coordinate with financial team to ensure proper reimbursement and patient disposition.
• Educate physicians and staff on documentation improvement and coding/reimbursement issues.
• Lead or co-chair the Utilization Review Committee to monitor outcomes.
• Provide education to the care team to optimize discharge planning and patient care.

Skills

Registered Nurse

Case management

Utilization review

Clinical documentation improvement

Education/Staff training

Presenting/teaching

Education

Bachelor of Science in Nursing

Master’s Degree in Nursing or relevant field

Tools

InterQual criteria

Job description

When you join the growing BILH team, you're not just taking a job, you’re making a difference in people’s lives.Contributes to the Hospital’s mission by supporting proper classification and a safe plan of care. This professional licensed position will have an impact on finance and growth by classifying patients’ status appropriately and supporting the workflow and care plan to ensure the delivery of high quality, safe patient care while maintaining an expected length of stay within budget. This role is critical to the denial management, utilization review, and discharge planning process and will support the evolution towards a system approach in this realm. This role functions in a high integrity manner and as a case management and utilization expert, collaborating interdepartmentally to educate and improve processes to appropriate classify patient status, which ultimately improves reimbursement. The Utilization Management Specialist will impact the patient experience and quality of care by daily rounding and working with the patient/family and provider to establish the best plan of care for discharge. This role will also cover in the absence of Director of Care TransitionsJob Description:

QUALIFICATIONS

Education: Required: Bachelors of Science in Nursing

Preferred: Master’s Degree in a health care field5 year requirement: Masters Degree in Nursing or relevant fieldExperience RequiredAt least five (5) years of experience as a Registered NurseAt least five (5) years of experience in inpatient case management and utilization reviewExperience in staff education in both the formal and non-formal setting presentingCertification in Case Management earned within one year of hire.PreferredDemonstrated leadership experienceDemonstrated ability to drive change resulting in achievement of hospital and department goalsAbility to participate at system level meetings ensuring workflow design aligns with hospital operations resulting in achieving clinical, financial, and operational goals.Other Skills/KnowledgeRequired For safety and quality reasons, must be able to read, write and communicate effectively in English with patients, visitors, vendors, and fellow members of the hospital team.Computer skillsUse of Leveling tools, including InterQual criteriaPreferredLICENSES, REGISTRATIONS, CERTIFICATIONS RequiredCurrent license to practice professional nursing from MA Board of RegistrationPreferredProfessional certification

POPULATION SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS

Neonate, Infant, Children, Adolescent, Adult, and Geriatric

OTHER JOB REQUIREMENTS

Professional Commitment Requirements: Keep abreast of developments in the field and/or licensure through continuing education, participation in professional organizations or a combination of both.

Schedule requirements: Contingent on the needs of the department.

Travel requirements: Local travel may be needed for training, education, and participation in system level meetings.

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS

Reports to the Director, Care Transitions.

Direct ReportsUtilization Review Team

JOB FUNCTIONS

Consistent with the WE CARE principles and inherent in a hospital environment, employees must be flexible in meeting patients’ and the Hospital’s needs. While the list below describes the primary functions of this job, all employees at Winchester Hospital need to recognize that an essential element of their job is the ability to respond to unanticipated and/or changing situations. This may result in assuming responsibilities or tasks which are not on this list.Perform medical necessity surveillance, concurrent clinical reviews, patient status oversight and management, and coordination with financial team to ensure proper reimbursement.The Utilization Management Specialist promotes the documentation of medical necessity and resource consumption during an inpatient hospitalization.Provides concurrent and retrospective queries as supported by medical record documentation to improve the accuracy, integrity and quality of patient data, and improve the quality of the physician documentation within the body of the medical record.The candidate collaborates with all members of the case management department, unit managers, physicians and physician groups, staff nurses, coding staff and the multidisciplinary team.This role requires the ability to educate and present in both formal and informal venues for the purposes of hospital-wide compliance and continual performance improvement.Medical Necessity/Utilization Reviewer Acts as Co-Chairperson of the hospital Utilization Review CommitteeCompletes initial reviews of patient records upon admission and within 24–48 hours for medical necessity surveillance: Reviews all observation and Medicare one day stays for proper leveling, observation vs inpatient.Manages all work queues and follow up related to denials, appeals, resubmissions, audits, variances, and those created as a result of evolving work flows.Conducts follow-up reviews of patients every 2-3 days to ensure all elements of medical necessity and 2 MN Rule are documentedInitiates the provision of beneficiary notices to patients or familiesCollaborates with the multi-disciplinary healthcare team regarding the patient’s plan of care to promote the best possible outcomes and patient/family experience upon dischargeWorks in partnership with an interdisciplinary team to foster collaboration, learning and accurate and complete medical record documentation.To assess the daily case management workflow and optimize the team’s efficiency, gathers census information, reviews admissions, reconciles admissions, transfers and discharges against census and conducts hand-offs regarding patients when appropriateQueries physicians regarding missing, unclear, or conflicting medical record documentation by requesting and obtaining additional documentation within the medical record when neededInteracts with team and providers to ensure correct level of care, status and accurate documentation to support patient stay. Works close with Physician Advisor and CDI staff.Proactively works with payer reviews- Performs concurrent reviews-. Reviews tests, procedures ordered for appropriateness/consultant delays. Coordinates second level peer to peer (physician) clinical reviewsEducates physicians and key healthcare providers in both formal and informal settings regarding clinicaldocumentation improvement and the need for accurate and complete documentation in the medical record.Collaborates with case managers, nursing staff, coding team and inter-professional staff regarding interactionwith physicians on documentation and to resolve physician queries prior to patient discharge.Participates in the analysis and trending of statistical data for specified patient populations to identify opportunities for improvement.Reviews external (i.e. PEPPER) and internal data (i.e. outliers) to trend, track and educate to improve outcomes.Consistently demonstrate a working knowledge of regulatory standards and the ability to function that positionsthe hospital as a high integrity, continually compliant organization.Preparation and presentation clinical documentation monitoring/trending reports for review with physiciansand hospital leadership.Educates members of the patient care team regarding specific documentation needs and reporting and reimbursement issues identified through daily and retrospective documentation reviews and aggregate data analysis.Instructs staff on best practices to ensure accurate documentation in the medical record.Maintains and reports clinical documentation improvement results in a clear and concise manner to the medical, clinical, and management staff.Applies diplomacy and professionalism when interacting with physicians and clinical staff; especially when addressing missing or conflicting medical record informationActs as a consultant to providers, management, administration and billing staff with regard to documentation,coding, and reimbursement and compliance matters.Investigates, evaluates and identifies opportunities for improvement and recognizes their relative significancein the overall system.Maintains confidentiality of all customer/hospital information.Demonstrates flexibility in the face of changing work environment, adjusting work schedule and work functions accordingly and as the needs of the department dictate

PHYSICAL AND MENTAL REQUIREMENTS/CONDITIONS

The employee needs to have the physical and mental abilities to perform the duties of the position listed above using the WE CARE behaviors.It is anticipated that employee may have contact with potentially hazardous chemicals while performing their job duties.It is anticipated that the employee may have contact with blood, bodily fluids or other potentially infectious materials while performing their job duties.The list below is intended to describe the physical and sensory ability requirements of the position; however those requirements may vary, sometimes considerably, based on meeting patient and operational needs.

Pay Range: $166,400.00 USD - $197,600.00 USDThe pay range listed for this position is the annual base salary range the organization reasonably and in good faith expects to pay for this position at this time. Actual compensation is determined based on several factors, that may include seniority, education, training, relevant experience, relevant certifications, geographyof work location, job responsibilities, or other applicable factors permissible by law.As a health care organization, we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to care for and protect our patients, our colleagues and our communities. Beth Israel Lahey Health requires that all staff be vaccinated against influenza (flu) as a condition of employment.

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Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled