Patient Advocate - Service Excellence - Full Time 8 Hours Days

Keck Medicine of USC; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 63,000 - 98,000; Full time

Job summary

Keck Medicine of USC in Arcadia, CA is hiring a Patient Advocate – Service Excellence. This full-time, dayshift role supports the care team by bridging communication gaps and advocating for patients and families.

The position focuses on LEP patient outreach, care coordination, and frontline service improvements. Responsibilities include documenting complaints, guiding patients through the hospital environment, and partnering with staff to ensure informed decision making and respectful care.

Qualifications

• Minimum Education: High School or equivalent.
• Experience: 3–5 years in related field, preferably in acute care.
• Bilingual abilities (English plus another language) helpful.

Responsibilities

• Act as liaison between family and care team to enhance communication and advocate for patient needs.
• Identify LEP patients and conduct roundings to ensure language access.
• Facilitate closing gaps in care with clinical teams and assist with resolution of issues.

Skills

Written communication

Interpersonal skills

Customer service

Relationship building

Education

High School diploma or equivalent

Job description

Patient Advocate - Service Excellence - Full Time 8 Hours Days (Non-Union, Exempt)

Arcadia, CA

Job ID: REQ20180702

Category: Keck Medicine of USC

Helpful Information for Applicants

• External Applicants
• Internal Applicants (Current USC Employees)

Job Accountabilities

• Act as a liaison between the family and care team to enhance communication, bridging gaps in understanding. Drawing on ability to empathize and look at situations from a variety of perspectives, creatively and effectively facilitates patient care services and amenities while always anticipating patient and family needs.


• Acts as an advocate for the patient and communicates any gaps to the care team and assists with the resolution.


• Identifies Limited English Proficient (LEP) hospital patients in the hospital each day and conduct roundings.


• Identifies any patient that may require intervention in the patient care area.


• Facilitates closing gaps in care by partnering with clinical care team to ensure patients receive all information needed, concerns are being addressed, and assist with the resolution as needed.


• Supports clients with serious chronic or life-threatening illnesses and their families to make informed medical decisions, form effective partnerships with providers and assist patients/families in developing self-advocacy skills. Promotes an active patient voice. Facilitate techniques for patient involvement in informed decision making.


• Document and process patient complaints from initial intake whether received via in writing, in person, via phone or through surveys and comment cards. Provide continuous education to staff on the patient complaint process. Make process improvement recommendation to leadership as needed.


• Inputs information in the rounding log, looks for themes and global issues that can be escalated for resolution.


• Orient patients to the room and hospital, including orient the use of the interpretation processes and devices. Assists the patient with basic needs including menu selection, personal needs.


• Tracks and reports to the department manager/ director any issues, recognitions, and/or findings.


• Communicates with staff needs of the patient/ family to nursing/ staff.


• Assists with translation for on-site Educational Programs for the for LEP population.


• Interprets /Translates low level communication.


• Facilitates the incident reporting process to ensure events are appropriately addressed and follow-up is documented.


• Alerts clinical risk management staff when egregious events are noted in the event management system or reported by the department. Assists clinical risk management staff with activities related to the identification, retrieval, and processing of events.


• Performs other duties as assigned.

Job Qualifications

• Minimum Education:High School or equivalent


• Minimum Experience:3-5 years Experience in related field, preferably in an acute care setting


• Minimum Skills:Able to communicate in writing in both languages.Demonstrated interpersonal, communication and customer service skills.Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with physicians, managers, staff, and volunteers.


• Preferred Experience:Experience in the medical field/ medical terminology


• Preferred Skills:Bilingual – Strong command of English and Chinese/Spanish language (multiple dialects preferred).

Pay Transparency

The hourly rate range for this position is $62,733 - $97,781 When extending an offer of employment, the University of Southern California Arcadia Hospital considers factors such as (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the candidate’s work experience, education/training, key skills, internal peer equity, federal, State, and local laws, contractual stipulations, grant funding, as well as external market and organizational considerations.

Job Summary The Patient Advocate will work as an extension of the clinical care team by identifying and resolving communication and cultural barrier using advocacy skills. This position will also be expected to manage patient expectations, including educating, and influencing expected service behaviors with staff and providers. Additionally, this position will be responsible to act as an advocate striving to empower Limited English Proficient (LEP) patients and families to take an active role in improving their patient experience while providing creative solutions to unique challenges in collaboration with leadership, the Patient Relations Representative will develop education materials, assist with policies that are patient and family centered, and make recommendation to drive service excellence.

Job ID: REQ20180702

Posted Date: 09/17/2026