Admission Clerk Corner
Admission Clerks — Take Pride in Your Work!
Your work as an admission clerk at your hospital is very important. You are the face of the hospital. It is from you that patients and family often receive their first impression of your hospital. The impression that you make will have a lasting impact on those people. Don’t you always wish it would be a positive impact?
So, after the glory is over, you come down to the nuts and bolts of why you are really there. For each patient that enters the hospital it is hoped that eventually there will be a paid-in-full folder to file away.
Each task in the admissions process, each entry into the patient and guarantor database when done properly, contributes to the creation of a perfect financial folder. With a perfect financial folder, the third-party billing department and patient-pay billing department will have the ammunition to do battle with the prospective payers who will pay those claims and patient-pay amounts.
As an admission clerk, when you complete the financial folder, ask yourself: “If I were the biller or collector, could I bring this account to a paid-in-full condition based on the condition of the folder?” Of the answer is no, then your job is not complete.
As an admission clerk, recognize the importance of your position and how the work you do impacts the quality of information in the folder.
Take pride in your work while the folder is your responsibility. Always strive to prepare the best financial folder possible for each patient who enters your hospital.
At the minimum, are you obtaining this information on the guarantor?:
- Name
- Address
- Phone Number
- Social Security Number
- Date of Birth
- Name of Employer or Business
- Job Title
- Business Address
- Business Phone
- Employer-Provided Insurance Data
Are you obtaining the same information on the guarantor’s spouse?
Sometimes it may seem like an imposition to ask people for this and other admission information. The fact is this may be the only opportunity the hospital had to obtain adequate billing information. Very frankly, your responsibility is crucial to the hospital receiving fair and adequate reimbursement for its services.
Each new admission should be a new challenge for you. When you head home after, do you feel you’ve done the best you can to be the best admission clerk at your hospital?
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