The Bottom Line - Fall 2020 - 50

NFPHC CONTINUED
completing tasks and supporting each
other. Overall, the COVID-19 experience
has tested our SMARTER values and it is
encouraging to report that none of the letters have been missing in action. We continue to be Service driven with a great work
ethic, Motivated and mission focused,
Accountable, Respectful, Trustworthy, feeling greatly Empowered, and accomplishing
Results for the Hospital as usual.
DEPARTMENTS:
Patient Access - Crystal Bivens, Director
of Patient Access

s the Director at the Not-for-Profit
Hospital (United Medical Center), I
manage, direct, coordinate and oversee
the overall operations of the Patient Access
division.
Our charge includes, but is not limited
to the scheduling new and established
patients, managing all point-of-service collections, insurance authorizations, informing
self-pay patients about available options for
financial assistance, managing patient registration in all areas of service (outpatient,
ancillary, emergency, admission), providing
support for UMC's Community Mobile Unit,
monitoring the productivity/efficiency of all

50 | THE BOTTOM LINE

Patient Access employees, and monitoring and reporting all compliance efforts and
issues.
In addition, I also collaborate with various departments including the Skilled
Nursing Facility (SNF), Department of
Patient Financial Services (PFS), and the
Hospital's Finance Department to establish
goals, plans, programs and operational best
practices that are consistent with the organization's vision and mission. This helps to
ensure financial accountability as well as
efficient, effective, and optimal operational
outcomes.
At the start of the pandemic, we desperately needed facemasks and gowns for
protection while meeting with patients to
gather demographic and insurance information. With the strong and persistent
support from our CFO and the hospital
leadership team, we now have the safety
equipment we need. I thought we were all
set until we heard the word "SURGE." The
hospital advised all departments to prepare for a massive volume of patients and
to hire the necessary additional staff. I
asked our temp agency to send us potential new hires. I was confident that we
had this problem in hand until the agency
refused to send any applicants citing the
dangers of the pandemic. Fortunately,
we found another agency that went

The Bottom Line - Fall 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Bottom Line - Fall 2020