Receptionist

Job Overview

Job Description

The following list of day-to-day job responsibilities may differ significantly depending on the size of your staff, the scope of your practice, and the area of medicine your practice specializes in. However, here are some common responsibilities you might include:

• Serves patients by greeting them, answering routine questions, scheduling appointments, and maintaining records and accounts.
• Uses practice management software (PMS), patient portal and appointment reminder systems, mobile applications, and other forms of technology to manage scheduling, interact with patients and providers, and update files and patients’ records.
• Welcomes patients and visitors in person or on the telephone and takes detailed messages as needed.
• Optimizes patients’ satisfaction, provider time, and treatment room utilization by scheduling appointments in person or by telephone.
• Assists patients in filling out insurance forms and other patient records.
• Arranges hospital admissions, provides referrals, and schedules appointments for medical tests and lab work for patients as needed.
• Keeps patient appointments on schedule by notifying the provider of a patient’s arrival, reviewing service delivery compared to schedule, and reminding providers of service delays.
• Minimizes patients’ stress by anticipating their anxieties, answering questions, and maintaining a calm and orderly environment in the reception area.
• Ensures availability of treatment information by filing and retrieving patient records.
• Maintains patient accounts by obtaining, recording, and updating personal and financial information.
• Obtains revenue by recording and updating financial information, recording and collecting patient charges, monitoring credit extended to patients, and filing, collecting, and expediting third-party claims.
• Maintains business office inventory and equipment by checking stock to determine inventory levels, anticipating needed supplies, placing and expediting orders for supplies, verifying receipt of supplies, scheduling equipment service and repairs, and overseeing the delivery of supplies.
• Helps patients in distress by responding to emergencies and solving problems.
• Collects, sorts, distributes, or prepares mail, messages, or courier deliveries.
• Prepares, processes, and archives memos, correspondence, travel vouchers, and other documents.
• Protects patients’ rights by maintaining confidentiality of medical, personal, and financial information.
• Maintains operations by following policies and procedures, reporting needed changes.
• Provides directions to the office to new patients, consulting practitioners, and vendors.
• Contributes to team effort by accomplishing related results as needed.

Work Hours and Benefits: Next, you’ll want to include your medical practice’s working hours and the salary range and benefits that come with this position. To determine a fair offer for your city or town, you can use a salary tool like Monster’s, which allows you to input job titles and locations to calculate estimates for low, median, and high salaries.

Compel potential applicants to apply by promoting benefits and perks that set your office apart, such as robust health and wellness benefits, commuting credits, childcare reimbursements, and job sharing with partial benefits for part-time candidates.

Medical Receptionist Skills and Qualifications: Be aware that some candidates are less likely to apply for positions if they don’t think they have every listed qualification. Exhaustive lists of required skills and experiences can be especially detrimental if you are looking to strengthen your diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives by attracting candidates from underrepresented groups. For this reason, you may want to limit the number of required skills you include or divide your requirements between “required” and “preferred” qualifications.

• Active listening and communication skills
• Patient focus
• Courtesy
• Multi-tasking
• Flexibility
• Telephone skills
• Customer service
• Time management
• Organization
• Attention to detail
• Scheduling
• Computer skills and word processing
• Professionalism
• Quality focus
• Problem-solving
• Active listening
• Interpersonal relationship building
• Teamwork

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