Access applicants: Are they patient-friendly?
Anecdotes can reveal much
Look for customer service "first and foremost" in patient access applicants. That advice comes from Elizabeth Reason, CHAM, director of patient access for Cleveland County HealthCare System in Shelby, NC.
Executive Summary
Customer service is the number one skill for patient access applicants, according to patient access leaders.
- Ask candidates to give examples of good service they've given.
- Look for previous customer service experience.
- Observe body language of applicants.
Here are items she looks for as an indication that an employee will give excellent service to patients:
• Certified healthcare access associate (CHAA) or certified healthcare access manager (CHAM) certification.
"If you’ve gone that extra step to demonstrate competence, you’re probably the type of person that will give patients your best each day," says Reason.
• Responses that indicate they work well with people.
Reason asks, "When something has not worked well, how did you recover? How did you adjust your style with the patient?" She also says to applicants: "Tell me about the best customer service you’ve ever given."
"Patient access applicants have given me some wonderful stories on how they have gotten a smile out of a patient who was initially very frustrated," she says.
• Previous customer service experience, even if it’s not in patient access.
"Quite often, we are seeing people who have lost jobs in manufacturing, who have now done some coursework and are looking to transition to the field of patient access," reports Reason.
Similarly, experience with "people contact" in the food service industry or retail stores can be a good fit for patient access, she adds.
• The ability to multitask.
Reason gives applicants a scenario and asks them how they would prioritize it. "There is no one exact perfect answer, but it gets me a sense of how the applicant views the environment," she says.
Use behavioral interviews
Melissa Milligan, CHAA, a patient access supervisor at Porter Adventist Hospital in Denver, looks for three key skills in patient access candidates. These are customer service, eagerness to learn, and good time management.
"To assess an applicant’s skill set, we utilize behavioral interviews," Milligan says.
These interviews consist of questions that require the applicant to describe a situation or task, an action, and a result. Here are two examples:
• "Describe a time when you took action to provide quick and thorough service in response to a customer’s request or problem."
• "New processes and procedures can be disruptive. What actions have you taken when you’ve been asked to significantly change a work process or procedure? What were the results?"
A recent applicant described a situation in which a change occurred in system used by her department, but her group received no communication regarding the change.
At the start of their work day, the applicant and her team were faced with a delay in their work because they were trying to find instructions. "She started playing around with the functions within the desktop and found that the only thing changed was the layout," says Milligan. It functioned just as it had before.
"She was then able to help her team get back on track and show them where to find the items they needed to perform their job," Milligan says. "This limited the delay they saw in productivity.
Ability to connect
"I’ve learned to look beyond the obvious when I meet a prospective new hire," says Mary Swanson, MA, CHAM, director of patient access at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, IL. In addition to a well-groomed appearance and knowledge about patient access functions, applicants should have "people skills," Swanson says
"I am looking for a candidate who can connect to a patient or another person — like me — within the first few minutes of the registration encounter," she says.
In the 10 minutes it takes to complete a hospital registration, a registrar needs to connect with a patient on several important levels, Swanson says. "In those brief minutes, the impression the registrar makes on a patient is setting the stage for the rest of the patient visit, as well as for the responses which will be completed later on during a post-visit patient survey," she says.
Swanson starts most questions by saying, "Give me an example" or "Tell me about a time." "While listening to the answers to my questions, I try to determine if the candidate has the right communication style which I look for on my registration team," she says.
Regardless of the responses, Swanson trusts her instincts. "If there is any comment during the interview which makes me feel that the candidate does not meet my standards or which makes me uneasy, I do not proceed with the hire," she says. (See related story, below, on observing body language.)
- Melissa Milligan, CHAA, Supervisor, Patient Access, Porter Adventist Hospital, Denver. Phone: (303) 765-6493. Fax: (303) 765-3777. Email: [email protected].
- Elizabeth Reason, CHAM, Director, Patient Access, Cleveland County HealthCare System, Shelby, NC. Phone: (980) 487-7471. Fax: (980) 487-7416. Email: [email protected]
- Mary Swanson, MA, CHAM, Director, Patient Access, Advocate Christ Medical Center, Oak Lawn, IL. Phone: (708) 684-7018. Fax: (708) 684-5401. Email: mary.swanson@
advocatehealth.com.
