Job Description

Financial Counselor

Who We Are:

At Mercy Health Youngstown, we are committed to empowering and supporting a diverse and determined workforce who can drive quality, scalability, and significant impact across our hospitals and communities. In your role, you'll support those that are in our facilities who are interfacing and providing care to our patients and community members. We believe that our collective efforts will shape a healthier future for the communities we serve. Our programs offer customized rehabilitation tailored to the specific needs of those recovering from a stroke, brain injury, neurological conditions, trauma, spinal cord injury, amputation or orthopedic injury.

Why Choose Us:

• Affordable medical, dental and vision plans provided to meet the needs of full-time employees and their families
• Competitive Paid Time Off
• Tuition reimbursement, continuing education opportunities and apprenticeship programs for eligible employees
• 401(K) retirement plans
• Flexible spending and health savings accounts

How you'll contribute:

The Financial Counselor provides guidance to patients in all aspects of their financial responsibilities that result from acceptance of the facility's services. Counselor assesses patients' financial ability, determines ability to pay, advises patients on insurance benefits, explains financial liability, collects payment, negotiates payment arrangements, secures financing, identifies funding sources and resolves any confusion the patient may have about their financial obligations to the facility. Counselor is responsible for the accurate and timely verification of insurance benefits, to include: contacting patients and/or guardians to obtain additional insurance information, researching and maintaining an ongoing collective knowledge of HMO, PPO, Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial insurance reimbursement rates and criteria, evaluating plans to calculate and estimate of the patient's out of pocket charges, collecting any co-pays, co-insurance, deductibles, etc. and exploring patient's financial circumstances to ensure fair and reasonable repayment terms.

Essential Functions:

• Provides accurate account and billing information to required departments within timelines specified.
• Ensures the effective implementation of collection measures for uncollected co-pays, deductibles and coinsurance.
• Serves as an additional point of contact regarding benefit determination within departmental timelines.
• Maintains self-pay/ self-pay after insurance work list and ensures accounts are worked out daily and documents appropriately within the software system.
• Provides required follow-up on all patient accounts with the goal of collecting any patient co-pays, deductibles and coinsurance at the time of services rendered.
• Ensures that all admitted patient accounts have been verified, corrected, and completed within 24 hours of admission.
• Gathers and collects all pertinent financial information in order to accurately assess the patient's information.
• Works with uninsured patients to identify potential Medicaid eligibility and makes appropriate referrals to internal or external agencies.
• Processes all insurance requests from other departments and physician billing offices in a timely manner.
• Informs billing/ collections staff of any pertinent information needed to submit a "clean" claim when/ if charges occur during/ after visit.

Qualifications:

• High School Graduate or equivalent preferred.
• Previous experience in healthcare collections or a related field, or any combination of education, training, or experience in health care business office setting preferred.
• Valid driver's license preferred
• May be required to work flexible hours and overtime. Crisis Prevention Training (CPI) within 30 days of employment and prior to any patient contact.

EEOC Statement:

Mercy Health Youngstown is committed to providing Equal Employment Opportunities for all applicants and employees and complies with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination against any employee or applicant for employment because of color, race, sex, age, religion, national origin, disability, genetic information, gender identity, sexual orientation, veterans' status or any other basis protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

Lifepoint Health is a leader in community-based care and driven by a mission of Making Communities Healthier. Our diversified healthcare delivery network spans 29 states and includes 63 community hospital campuses, 32 rehabilitation and behavioral health hospitals, and more than 170 additional sites of care across the healthcare continuum, such as acute rehabilitation units, outpatient centers and post-acute care facilities. We believe that success is achieved through talented people. We want to create places where employees want to work, with opportunities to pursue meaningful and satisfying careers that truly make a difference in communities across the country.