Role Description

At Mary Begg our front office receptionist acts as a first point of contact for all patients, clients, relatives, visitors and health care professionals.  He/she assists new clients with their clinic registration process, advises clients on MBHS services and availability of doctors for consultation visits on a daily basis and retrieves the patient’s medical health record, liaises with nursing and medical staff to direct patients to the appropriate consultation rooms or required services (i.e. laboratory, diagnostic imaging, pharmacy etc.) for assessment and treatment.

Our front office receptionist conducts herself/himself in a professional manner and always demonstrates good customer service towards all our clients, visitors, health professionals and MBHS employees

Educational Requirements 

• Diploma in Business Administration or any related field.
• Must have at least 2 – 3  years’ experience.

Key Role Accountabilities 

• Ensure that MBHS standard operating policies and procedures are followed with regards to the efficient organization and running of the clinic’s front office department.
• Demonstrate ability to work competently in the front office and assist all clients and visitors seeking medical or urgent care services promptly and efficiently.
• Treat all clients, visitors and relatives in a caring, courteous and respectful manner and demonstrate good customer service at all times.
• Assess patient waiting times for triage and OPD appointments to ensure that patient flow from OPD consultation to laboratory/diagnostic testing and back to the attending doctor for results are minimal.
• Always adheres to the MBHS Code of Conduct and provides high quality, professional and friendly service at all times.
• Must be accessible at all times when rostered and be available for shift work.
• Unconditional acceptance of the Mary Begg confidentiality agreement regarding patient information, staff information and all matters relating to Mary Begg business. Failure to comply will result in disciplinary action and/or dismissal from post.

Key Responsibilities

1. Receive, assist and direct clients in a courteous, efficient and welcoming manner projecting a positive, friendly and professional image.
2. Always demonstrate a warm outgoing personality, with the ability to interact in a supportive manner with persons of all backgrounds and cultures.
3. Assist clients or family members in completing any required information and registration forms.  Answer any questions the patient may have and if unable to do so refer to an appropriate staff member.
4. Responsible for entering all new patients details into the patient registration system, either manually or electronically.
5. Responsible for maintaining an efficient and orderly appointments system. Advise appropriate healthcare professionals of approaching appointments in a timely fashion and ensure patient’s medical file is always available prior to their appointment time.
6. Receive and make telephone calls as instructed. Identify yourself openly. Speak clearly and politely. Divert calls promptly or take messages ensuring accuracy of detail and timely delivery to the recipient.
7. Using appropriate MBHS infection control procedures, maintain own work environment in a tidy and safe way and free from hazards.
8. Maintain the paper/electronic file that makes up the patient medical record and be fully conversant in the filing system of your work area.
9. Ensure medical records are in good repair with all necessary information on the outside cover clearly visible. Ensure that patient waiting times for OPD/ specialist appointments are to a minimum.  Monitor patient flow for all appointments and ask patients waiting for longer than 15 minutes if they have seen the doctor.  Investigate delays and reassure and/or explain to patients the reason for delays (i.e. emergency, doctor running late etc.)
10. Inform walk-in patients of how long they might have to wait to see a doctor and let them know that OPD appointments might take priority, unless in emergencies.
11. Alert medical doctors if patients have been waiting longer than 15-30 minutes for an appointment.
12. Give walk-in patients/clients the phone number for booking appointments as they leave.
13. Hand out random waiting times surveys for patients/clients to fill and collect these when the patient leaves the clinic.
14. Cumulate all waiting times survey results and submit to the assistant clinic manager for review and action.
15. Maintain the client’s right to privacy and confidentiality throughout the MBHS registration process.
16. With direction from the triage staff, call doctors on-call for any out-of-hours patient emergencies.  If the doctors do not respond, contact the Chief Medical Officer.
17. Patient medical files must not be removed from the health facility for any reason. Log all files that are currently out of the filing room for any reason and monitor their return, ensuring patient confidentiality is kept at all times.
18. Inspect all medical files to ensure that charge sheets are not filed in error.
19. Prompt relevant healthcare professionals if a charge sheet is incomplete or not signed.
20. Answer all questions the client may have concerning invoice payments. Refer to the appropriate manager for any issues you are unable to make clear.
21. Keep up-to-date lists of credit clients and procedures.
22. Inspect all medical files to ensure that all patient personal details are complete on the OPD Consultation form or in their medical file.
23. Work with the finance department concerning lost receipts, receipts for insurance purposes, refunds, daily deposits of cash, credit card receipts, checks, and credit problems and accounts receivables.
24. Process closing day and backup report through the computer system in the morning and evening time.
25. Notify your supervisor, assistant clinic manager or senior management staff when an issue or incident arises with a client or staff member.
26. Assess and report any problems with the computer programme or hardware to the IT Department, or any other member of management if IT is not available.
27. Be available to work any shift according to the roster’s requirements (morning, afternoon, night).
28. Comply with all MBHS policies.
29. Perform any other duties or reasonable requests assigned by the Front Office Unit Leader/ Assistant Clinic Manager or Clinic/ Hospital Manager as part of your job specification.

Customer service:

1. Be polite and respectful to clients and staff at all times.
2. Complete the Customer Care training.
3. Report any evidence of poor customer service (i.e. bullying, rude behaviour, yelling etc.) to the Unit Leader or Clinic Manager or HR Manager.
4. Ensure all incident and adverse event reporting is according to the clinic’s standard operating procedure.

Professional 

• Attend in-house training seminars as mandated by the training coordinator or Assistant Clinic Manager.
• Demonstrates safety awareness for self and others.
• Demonstrates effective teamwork with other members of the healthcare team.
• Communicate with clients and staff in a clear and professional manner.
• Demonstrate ability to manage difficult clients in a professional manner.
  Proficient in MS Office (Word, Outlook and Excel).

General 

• Proficient in written and spoken English.
• Always adhere to the MBHS uniform policy and code of conduct.
• May be required to travel to other MBHS facilities as directed by the Clinic/Hospital Manager.
• Must be honest, trustworthy and act with integrity at all times.
• Consumption of alcohol whilst on duty is prohibited. Intake of alcohol while off duty is allowed but inebriation is forbidden in public.

Quality Management

• Proficient in managing infection control procedures.
• Promote a culture that is committed to learning from complaints, incidents, audit, research and development.
• Conduct waiting times internal audits to assess how long patients/clients are waiting at the clinic for doctor’s appointments or diagnostic tests and assess ways to create a more efficient OPD service.