Psychiatric Admissions Referral Specialist at University of Maryland Medical System in Baltimore, Maryland

Job Description:

Job Description

General Summary


Under general supervision, obtains detailed clinical and demographic information regarding referrals into various psychiatric programs, reviews patient information with designated psychiatry attending physicians, and manages the logistic details and communications required to successfully complete transfers for psychiatry admission. Interfaces with callers seeking information about psychiatry services and processes, patients/families, internal and external clinical referral sources, third party payors, receiving unit staff/providers, psychiatry attending physician reviewers, Maryland Office of the Public Defender, Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings, and other stakeholders. Obtains and documents complex and highly specialized psychiatry pre-certification authorization from commercial third-party payors. Acts as Hospital Presenter in Involuntary Admission (IVA) Hearings and Hospital Presenter or Rights Lay Advisor in Clinical Review Panels. Performs the duties of PARC Administrative Assistant in addition to PARC Referral Specialist duties when workload volume or priority requires.

Principal Responsibilities and Tasks


The following statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this classification. They are not to be construed as an exhaustive list of all job duties performed by personnel so classified.

Coordinates psychiatry transfer center: Service line/unit-specific lists for referrals to inpatient psychiatry units on DTC and MTC. Must be maintained in Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA)-compliant manner.

Determining capacity for admissions to maximize patient flow and bed utilization

Reviewing cases for admission

Call Center: High Volume Incoming and Outgoing Calls to facilitate job tasks and PARC operations

Document management: incoming and outgoing

Building Encounter Shell in Epic

Inpatient initial insurance authorization

Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP)/Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) referrals and initial authorization

Serve as Hospital Presenter (involuntary admission hearings or clinical review panels) or Rights Lay Advisor (clinical review panels) when designated by PARC Manager

Company Description
3-12 hour shifts per week: Tuesday or Thursday (9a-930p), Saturday & Sunday (8a-830p)


Looking for candidates familiar with the Psychiatric Admission process.


University of Maryland Medical Center: Renowned as the academic flagship of the University of Maryland Medical System, our Magnet®-designated facility is a nationally recognized, academic medical center with opportunities across the continuum of care. Come join UMMC and discover the atmosphere where talents and ideas come together to enhance patient care. Located in downtown Baltimore near the Inner Harbor and Camden Yards, you won't find a more vibrant place to work!


The University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) is an academic private health system, focused on delivering compassionate, high quality care and putting discovery and innovation into practice at the bedside. Partnering with the University of Maryland School of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Nursing and University of Maryland, Baltimore who educate the state's future health care professionals, UMMS is an integrated network of care, delivering 25 percent of all hospital care in urban, suburban and rural communities across the state of Maryland. UMMS puts academic medicine within reach through primary and specialty care delivered at 11 hospitals, including the flagship University of Maryland Medical Center, the System's anchor institution in downtown Baltimore, as well as through a network of University of Maryland Urgent Care centers and more than 150 other locations in 13 counties. For more information, visit www.umms.org.


Qualifications

Education and Experience

Bachelor's degree in psychology, social work, nursing, or a related health and human services field is required. Associate's degree: May substitute 2 years of directly related experience in psychiatry admissions for Bachelor's degree. HS Diploma: May substitute 4 years of directly related experience in psychiatry admissions for Bachelor's degree.

One-year experience in a hospital or psychiatric treatment setting is preferred.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Strong critical-thinking and problem-solving skills required to manage referrals and patient flow: matching individual patient needs to the right bed at the right time in the context of overall service demand and availability of resources.

Effectively manage competing priorities with high reliability and attention to detail.

Interact and communicate effectively verbally and in writing with patients, potential patients, and healthcare professionals in stressful situations while maintaining calm, courteous, exemplary customer service.

Accurate documentation and stewardship of protected health information.

Familiarity with psychiatric illnesses including working knowledge of DSM/ICD diagnostic categories and disorders and psychotropic medications commonly used in treatment of psychiatric illnesses and substance use disorders.

General familiarity with levels of psychiatric care available at UMMS and in the community. Direct callers seeking psychiatry treatment to appropriate resources, including callers in crisis.

Learn and maintain working knowledge of legal and regulatory requirements of hospital-based health care, transfers between health care facilities, patient rights, legal guardianship, procedures for emergency petitions and emergency psychiatric evaluations, voluntary and involuntary psychiatry admissions, involuntary admission hearings, and clinical review panel/forced medication processes.

Learn and maintain working knowledge of insurance prior authorization processes, including third party payor rules and clinical criteria for inpatient, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient levels of care.

Proficient in the use of technology to support communication, review of records, and documentation. Requires daily use of telephone, fax, email, secure text messaging, internet navigation including third party online portals, Microsoft Office applications, and electronic medical records system (Epic).

Additional Information
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