Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants

Job purpose

To provide secretarial and administrative support to a hospital, clinic or laboratory — scheduling patient appointments and procedures, handling telephone and reception traffic, completing claim forms, and maintaining medical charts, reports and correspondence — so that clinical staff have accurate records and patients are booked, informed and billed correctly.

Skills

• Working knowledge of medical terminology and of hospital, clinic or laboratory procedures, sufficient to book diagnostic appointments, surgeries and consultations from clinicians' orders, to compile charts and case histories, and to transcribe practitioners' diagnoses. Combines this with administrative and office practice, word processing and spreadsheet software, correct written English, and enough bookkeeping and claims knowledge to bill and collect. A secondary-level education is the norm, with a substantial minority holding a two-year degree and a further group a post-secondary certificate, plus on-the-job training.
• Handles a heavy volume of telephone, face-to-face and written contact — greeting visitors and establishing the purpose of a visit, interviewing patients to complete intake, case history and insurance documents, directing calls and routing laboratory results to the right staff — and remains courteous with patients and callers who are discourteous or angry and in situations of conflict. Explains appointment, claim and billing matters to people unfamiliar with them, and works as part of a clinical team.
• Fits clinician orders, patient availability and clinic capacity together, decides what a call or document requires and who should receive it, resolves incomplete or disputed claim and billing items, and judges what to escalate to clinical staff. Problems are procedural, with established practice to follow.
• Runs a booking diary and a flow of correspondence, claims and records against clinic timetables, confirms and rearranges appointments, and orders and maintains supplies. Determines much of the order of these tasks within the clinic's schedule, while the pace is largely set by patient and clinician demand.
• Seated desk work with sustained keyboard, telephone and office-equipment use, including voice mail and transcription systems, and handling of charts, forms and correspondence.

Responsibilities

• No line management. Co-ordinates others in arranging appointments, tests and procedures, so that the work of clinicians and other staff depends on the bookings and information provided.
• Completes insurance and other claim forms and performs bookkeeping duties — issuing bills and financial statements, pursuing credits and collections, and keeping financial records. Handles claim and patient billing values at set charges, and holds no budget or spending discretion beyond ordering routine supplies.
• Ordinary care of a workstation, office and voice mail equipment, medical records, correspondence files and a technical library, together with an inventory of supplies that is monitored and replenished.
• Compiles and maintains patients' medical charts, reports and correspondence, transmits records by post, e-mail or fax, and routes laboratory results. The information is personal to individual patients and is relied on clinically and for billing, so accuracy is central; its content and format are set by the practice.

Effort required

• Careful attention to exactness across booking, transcription, claim forms and record entry within a repetitive routine, with decisions made frequently through the day under time pressure and bearing on colleagues and clinic results.
• A steady volume of contact with patients, some of them unwell, anxious or in distress, including callers who are discourteous or angry and occasional conflict. Calls for composure, tact and a consistent manner in close physical proximity to patients and colleagues.
• Extended periods seated at a desk, with repetitive hand movements in keyboard, telephone and paperwork tasks. No lifting or exertion recorded.

Working conditions

• An indoor, environmentally controlled clinical or office setting, worked in close proximity to patients and staff, with exposure to disease and infection through patient contact. No other physical hazards are recorded; the psychosocial demand comes from frequent patient contact, some of it unpleasant or conflictual.
• An established routine on a set schedule, most incumbents working a full-time week or less, with no shift or on-call pattern recorded. Work is governed by clinic procedure and clinician instruction, though the postholder has scope to sequence the day's tasks and takes routine decisions without referral.