Patient Access Operations Leader

UCLA Outpatient Clinics; Santa Monica (CA); On-site; USD 78,500 - 163,600; Full time

Job summary

UCLA Outpatient Clinics in Santa Monica seeks a Senior Manager of Patient Access Services to lead registration, admissions, and financial clearance across hospital access functions. You will drive patient throughput, resolve complex access issues, and partner with clinical and administrative teams to ensure service excellence.

The role oversees staffing, performance, training, and coaching while promoting a patient-focused culture and continuous process improvements to reduce denials and delays.

Qualifications

• Experience leading large multi-level patient access teams.
• Strong knowledge of payer requirements and HIPAA compliance.
• Ability to oversee staffing, performance evaluations, coaching, and employee relations.

Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day patient registration, admissions, and financial clearance workflows for hospital patients while supporting efficient patient throughput.
• Provide real-time operational support and decision-making for complex or urgent patient access issues, workflow barriers, and patient flow concerns.
• Serve as an escalation point for patient concerns related to registration, access, or estimates, partnering with Patient Experience as needed.
• Manage staffing coverage, daily assignments, hiring, onboarding, training, performance evaluations, coaching, corrective action, and employee relations support.
• Promote a team-oriented, patient-focused culture aligned with service standards, staff accountability, and professional development.
• Identify process improvement opportunities that reduce registration errors, denials, delays, and operational barriers in patient access workflows.
• Apply knowledge of payer requirements, reimbursement processes, regulatory standards, and HIPAA requirements to support compliance and protect revenue.
• Monitor quality metrics and denial trends, participate in audits and regulatory readiness activities, and use data to guide training, reporting, workflow improvements, budget monitoring, resource planning, and operational decision-making.

Skills

Staff leadership

Operations management

HIPAA compliance

Job description

UCLA Outpatient Clinics in Santa Monica seeks a Senior Manager of Patient Access Services to lead registration, admissions, and financial clearance across hospital access functions. You will drive patient throughput, resolve complex access issues, and partner with clinical and administrative teams to ensure service excellence.

The role oversees staffing, performance, training, and coaching while promoting a patient-focused culture and continuous process improvements to reduce denials and delays.