Job Details

Patient Scheduling:

• Schedule surgeries in accordance with patient needs, surgeon availability, and facility schedules to ensure the smooth flow and progression of scheduled cases within the operating room at all University of Michigan sites (inclusive of joint venture sites).

• Organize and secure surgery dates for patients through direct contact in clinic or via phone. 

• Exercise initiative, independent judgment, and a service-oriented attitude while calling patients to schedule surgeries and provide instruction to prepare patients for their surgery based on established protocols. 

• Coordinate and schedule pre- and post-operative appointments, follow up return visits, and tests as directed by faculty and/or nursing staff.

• Obtain appropriate authorizations, medical clearances, outside medical records, and other required test results and ensure consents are in place.

Schedule Management:

• Utilize the electronic medical record to create and maintain the surgical schedule, considering surgeon availability, procedure complexity, operating room capacity, and appropriate turnaround times. 

• Review and compare various calendars to verify which dates are available for surgery.

• Prioritize and maintain OR case depots and operative waitlists.

• Cancel/reschedule pre- and post-operative appointments according to physician schedule changes and notify appropriate clinic personnel. 
• Complete and/or verify and enter all insurance authorization, and correspondence relating to referrals in patients charts and/or electronic medical records (EMR). 
• Monitor and adjust surgery schedules based on changes in patient status or unexpected events. 
• Assign operating rooms and equipment to each surgical case and initiate requests for urgent/emergent overbooks as well as incremental rooms as needed. 
• Ensure information such as operative details, required equipment, and procedure codes are entered into MiChart correctly. 
• Answer questions regarding pre-surgery documentation requirements involved with surgical cases as needed.

Communication and In-Basket Coordination: 

• Serve as the primary contact for direct surgery scheduling calls from our Call Center. 
• Continually monitor the surgery scheduler in-basket in MiChart for new messages. 
• Triage patient calls to nursing staff or physicians as appropriate. Answer patient queries of a general or program related nature 

Administrative Tasks:

• Maintain surgery logs or other required practice or case tracking logs.

• Assist in the monitoring of OR utilization by division, faculty, and location, in efforts to maximize efficiency.

• May lead daily huddles with topics and presentations to provide positive and effective collaboration.

• Subject matter authority to the department and colleagues for the scheduling process.

• Provide onboarding and training for new Surgery Scheduler hires.
• Provide cross-coverage for other OR teams across Specialties.
• Generate reports on surgical volume, utilization rates, and scheduling trends. 
• Assist with quality improvement initiatives related to surgical scheduling. 

• Perform other duties as assigned.