Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Teaching hospital delivering patient-centered medical care

Utilization Management Specialist

Medical, Clinical & VeterinaryConfirmed live in the last 24 hours

Full-timeWinchester, MA, USA$166.4k - $197.6k /yr

About the Job

Requirements

Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
At least five years of experience as a Registered Nurse.
At least five years of experience in inpatient case management and utilization review.
Experience in staff education in both formal and non-formal settings, including presenting.
Certification in Case Management earned within one year of hire.
The ability to read, write, and communicate effectively in English with patients, visitors, vendors, and hospital staff.
Computer skills.
Use of leveling tools, including InterQual criteria.
Current license to practice professional nursing from the Massachusetts Board of Registration.
The ability to maintain continuing education or professional-organization participation to remain current in the field and/or licensure.
The ability to meet the physical and mental requirements of the position and work around potentially hazardous chemicals, blood, bodily fluids, and other potentially infectious materials.

Responsibilities

Perform medical necessity surveillance, concurrent clinical reviews, patient status oversight and management, and coordination with the financial team to ensure proper reimbursement.
Promote documentation of medical necessity and resource consumption during inpatient hospitalization.
Provide concurrent and retrospective queries supported by medical-record documentation to improve patient-data accuracy, integrity, and quality and physician documentation quality.
Collaborate with case management, unit managers, physicians and physician groups, staff nurses, coding staff, and the multidisciplinary team.
Educate and present in formal and informal settings for hospital-wide compliance and continual performance improvement.
Act as co-chairperson of the hospital Utilization Review Committee.
Complete initial patient-record reviews upon admission and within 24–48 hours for medical necessity surveillance, including reviewing observation and Medicare one-day stays for proper leveling and observation-versus-inpatient status.
Manage work queues and follow-up related to denials, appeals, resubmissions, audits, variances, and evolving workflows.
Conduct follow-up patient reviews every two to three days to ensure medical necessity and the Two-Midnight Rule are documented.
Initiate beneficiary notices for patients or families.
Collaborate with the multidisciplinary healthcare team on patient care plans to promote optimal outcomes and patient and family experience at discharge.
Work with the interdisciplinary team to foster collaboration, learning, and accurate and complete medical-record documentation.
Gather census information, review admissions, reconcile admissions, transfers, and discharges against census, and conduct patient handoffs as appropriate.
Query physicians regarding missing, unclear, or conflicting medical-record documentation and obtain additional documentation when needed.
Work with the team and providers to ensure the correct level of care, patient status, and documentation supporting the patient stay; collaborate with the Physician Advisor and Clinical Documentation Improvement staff.
Conduct payer reviews and concurrent reviews; review tests and procedures for appropriateness and consultant delays; and coordinate second-level physician peer-to-peer clinical reviews.
Educate physicians and healthcare providers on clinical documentation improvement and accurate, complete medical-record documentation.
Collaborate with case managers, nursing staff, coding staff, and interprofessional staff to resolve physician queries before patient discharge.
Analyze and trend statistical data for specified patient populations to identify improvement opportunities.
Review external data, including PEPPER, and internal data, including outliers, to trend, track, and educate for improved outcomes.
Maintain working knowledge of regulatory standards and support a compliant, high-integrity hospital environment.
Prepare and present clinical documentation monitoring and trending reports to physicians and hospital leadership.
Educate patient-care team members about documentation needs and reporting, reimbursement, and compliance issues identified through reviews and aggregate data analysis.
Instruct staff on best practices for accurate medical-record documentation.
Maintain and report clinical documentation improvement results to medical, clinical, and management staff.
Consult with providers, management, administration, and billing staff regarding documentation, coding, reimbursement, and compliance matters.
Investigate, evaluate, and identify improvement opportunities and assess their significance within the overall system.
Maintain confidentiality of customer and hospital information.
Adjust work schedules and functions as departmental needs and the work environment change.

Desired Qualifications

A master's degree in a health care field.
A master's degree in nursing or a relevant field.
Demonstrated leadership experience.
Demonstrated ability to drive change that achieves hospital and department goals.
Ability to participate in system-level meetings and ensure workflow design aligns with hospital operations and clinical, financial, and operational goals.
Professional certification.

When you join the growing BILH team, you're not just taking a job, you’re making a difference in people’s lives.

Contributes to the Hospital’s mission by supporting proper classification and a safe plan of care. This professional licensed position will have an impact on finance and growth by classifying patients’ status appropriately and supporting the workflow and care plan to ensure the delivery of high quality, safe patient care while maintaining an expected length of stay within budget. This role is critical to the denial management, utilization review, and discharge planning process and will support the evolution towards a system approach in this realm. This role functions in a high integrity manner and as a case management and utilization expert, collaborating interdepartmentally to educate and improve processes to appropriate classify patient status, which ultimately improves reimbursement. The Utilization Management Specialist will impact the patient experience and quality of care by daily rounding and working with the patient/family and provider to establish the best plan of care for discharge. This role will also cover in the absence of Director of Care Transitions

Job Description:

QUALIFICATIONS:

Education:

Required:

Bachelors of Science in Nursing

Preferred:

Master’s Degree in a health care field

5 year requirement: Masters Degree in Nursing or relevant field

Experience

Required

At least five (5) years of experience as a Registered Nurse
At least five (5) years of experience in inpatient case management and utilization review
Experience in staff education in both the formal and non-formal setting presenting
Certification in Case Management earned within one year of hire.

Preferred

Demonstrated leadership experience
Demonstrated ability to drive change resulting in achievement of hospital and department goals
Ability to participate at system level meetings ensuring workflow design aligns with hospital operations resulting in achieving clinical, financial, and operational goals.

Other Skills/Knowledge

Required

For safety and quality reasons, must be able to read, write and communicate effectively in English with patients, visitors, vendors, and fellow members of the hospital team.
Computer skills
Use of Leveling tools, including InterQual criteria

Preferred

LICENSES, REGISTRATIONS, CERTIFICATIONS

Required

Current license to practice professional nursing from MA Board of Registration

Preferred

Professional certification

POPULATION SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS

Neonate, Infant, Children, Adolescent, Adult, and Geriatric

OTHER JOB REQUIREMENTS:

Professional Commitment Requirements: Keep abreast of developments in the field and/or licensure through continuing education, participation in professional organizations or a combination of both.

Schedule requirements: Contingent on the needs of the department.

Travel requirements: Local travel may be needed for training, education, and participation in system level meetings.

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS:

Reports to the Director, Care Transitions.

Direct Reports

Utilization Review Team

JOB FUNCTIONS

Consistent with the WE CARE principles and inherent in a hospital environment, employees must be flexible in meeting patients’ and the Hospital’s needs. While the list below describes the primary functions of this job, all employees at Winchester Hospital need to recognize that an essential element of their job is the ability to respond to unanticipated and/or changing situations. This may result in assuming responsibilities or tasks which are not on this list.

Perform medical necessity surveillance, concurrent clinical reviews, patient status oversight and management, and coordination with financial team to ensure proper reimbursement.

The Utilization Management Specialist promotes the documentation of medical necessity and resource consumption during an inpatient hospitalization.

Provides concurrent and retrospective queries as supported by medical record documentation to improve the accuracy, integrity and quality of patient data, and improve the quality of the physician documentation within the body of the medical record. The candidate collaborates with all members of the case management department, unit managers, physicians and physician groups, staff nurses, coding staff and the multidisciplinary team. This role requires the ability to educate and present in both formal and informal venues for the purposes of hospital-wide compliance and continual performance improvement.

Medical Necessity/Utilization Reviewer

Acts as Co-Chairperson of the hospital Utilization Review Committee

Completes initial reviews of patient records upon admission and within 24–48 hours for medical necessity surveillance: Reviews all observation and Medicare one day stays for proper leveling, observation vs inpatient.

Manages all work queues and follow up related to denials, appeals, resubmissions, audits, variances, and those created as a result of evolving work flows.

Conducts follow-up reviews of patients every 2-3 days to ensure all elements of medical necessity and 2 MN Rule are documented

Initiates the provision of beneficiary notices to patients or families
Collaborates with the multi-disciplinary healthcare team regarding the patient’s plan of care to promote the best possible outcomes and patient/family experience upon discharge

Works in partnership with an interdisciplinary team to foster collaboration, learning and accurate and complete medical record documentation.

To assess the daily case management workflow and optimize the team’s efficiency, gathers census information, reviews admissions, reconciles admissions, transfers and discharges against census and conducts hand-offs regarding patients when appropriate

Queries physicians regarding missing, unclear, or conflicting medical record documentation by requesting and obtaining additional documentation within the medical record when needed

Interacts with team and providers to ensure correct level of care, status and accurate documentation to support patient stay. Works close with Physician Advisor and CDI staff.

Proactively works with payer reviews- Performs concurrent reviews-. Reviews tests, procedures ordered for appropriateness/consultant delays. Coordinates second level peer to peer (physician) clinical reviews

Educates physicians and key healthcare providers in both formal and informal settings regarding clinicaldocumentation improvement and the need for accurate and complete documentation in the medical record.

Collaborates with case managers, nursing staff, coding team and inter-professional staff regarding interaction with physicians on documentation and to resolve physician queries prior to patient discharge.

Participates in the analysis and trending of statistical data for specified patient populations to identify opportunities for improvement.

Reviews external (i.e. PEPPER) and internal data (i.e. outliers) to trend, track and educate to improve outcomes.
Consistently demonstrate a working knowledge of regulatory standards and the ability to function that positions

the hospital as a high integrity, continually compliant organization.

Preparation and presentation clinical documentation monitoring/trending reports for review with physicians and hospital leadership.

Educates members of the patient care team regarding specific documentation needs and reporting and reimbursement issues identified through daily and retrospective documentation reviews and aggregate data analysis.

Instructs staff on best practices to ensure accurate documentation in the medical record.

Maintains and reports clinical documentation improvement results in a clear and concise manner to the medical, clinical, and management staff.

Applies diplomacy and professionalism when interacting with physicians and clinical staff; especially when addressing missing or conflicting medical record information

Acts as a consultant to providers, management, administration and billing staff with regard to documentation, coding, and reimbursement and compliance matters.

Investigates, evaluates and identifies opportunities for improvement and recognizes their relative significance in the overall system.

Maintains confidentiality of all customer/hospital information.

Demonstrates flexibility in the face of changing work environment, adjusting work schedule and work functions accordingly and as the needs of the department dictate

PHYSICAL AND MENTAL REQUIREMENTS/CONDITIONS

The employee needs to have the physical and mental abilities to perform the duties of the position listed above using the WE CARE behaviors.
It is anticipated that employee may have contact with potentially hazardous chemicals while performing their job duties.
It is anticipated that the employee may have contact with blood, bodily fluids or other potentially infectious materials while performing their job duties.
The list below is intended to describe the physical and sensory ability requirements of the position; however those requirements may vary, sometimes considerably, based on meeting patient and operational needs.

Pay Range:

$166,400.00 USD - $197,600.00 USD

The pay range listed for this position is the annual base salary range the organization reasonably and in good faith expects to pay for this position at this time. Actual compensation is determined based on several factors, that may include seniority, education, training, relevant experience, relevant certifications, geography of work location, job responsibilities, or other applicable factors permissible by law.

As a health care organization, we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to care for and protect our patients, our colleagues and our communities. Beth Israel Lahey Health requires that all staff be vaccinated against influenza (flu) as a condition of employment.

More than 35,000 people working together. Nurses, doctors, technicians, therapists, researchers, teachers and more, making a difference in patients' lives. Your skill and compassion can make us even stronger.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled

About the Company

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Teaching hospital delivering patient-centered medical care

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) serves as a teaching hospital in Boston affiliated with Harvard Medical School, offering a wide range of medical services across inpatient, emergency, outpatient, and urgent care. Its care model centers on delivering high-quality medical treatment to patients, supported by patient access initiatives like OpenNotes, which lets patients view clinicians’ notes online to improve understanding and engagement in their care. The hospital also supports education and research through its affiliation with Harvard, attracting funding for studies and training programs. BIDMC differentiates itself through its patient-centered approach, active patient engagement tools, and a broad network of urgent care centers and outpatient services that extend access to healthcare. The goal is to provide comprehensive, accessible, evidence-based medical care while advancing medical education and research.

Company size: 10,001+
Company stage: Grant
Total funding: $5.4M
Headquarters: Boston, MA
Founded: 1996

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