Patient Navigator in San Francisco, California at Wayward Medical Management Inc

POSITION SUMMARY
The Patient Navigator serves as the patient’s primary point of contact, guiding them through the full gender-affirming surgical journey from initial inquiry through surgery and postoperative follow-up. This role coordinates communication and next steps across all departments, including providers, financial counseling, insurance, authorizations, surgery coordination, and the surgery center, to ensure patients remain informed, prepared, and supported.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS
• Serve as the primary point of contact for assigned patients throughout their journey.
• Serve as a liaison between assigned provider and patients throughout their journey.
• Explain the practice’s process, general timelines, required steps, and what patients can expect at each stage.
• Conduct regular check-ins and provide timely updates to keep patients informed and engaged.
• Coordinate with all departments to ensure patient requirements and next steps are completed within established timelines.
• Partner closely with providers, financial counselors and surgery center staff.
• Track each patient’s progress from initial consultation through surgery and postoperative follow-up.
• Coordinate appointments, consultations, surgery dates, and other nonclinical components of the patient journey.
• Ensure that all required demographic, insurance, consent, and administrative documentation is accurate throughout the journey. If any changes happen, ensure proper documentation is submitted timely to prevent delays or cancellations.
• Confirm that required financial, insurance, authorization, scheduling, and surgery-center requirements have been completed before surgery.
• Identify missing information, delays, or barriers and work with the appropriate department to resolve them.
• Communicate scheduling changes, outstanding requirements, and next steps clearly and compassionately.
• Escalate complex patient concerns or operational barriers to the appropriate department or leader.
• Accurately document patient communication, status updates, and completed milestones in the appropriate systems.
• Maintain patient confidentiality and comply with HIPAA and practice policies.
• Provide respectful, compassionate, and gender-affirming support without providing clinical advice, medical education, or medical decision-making.
• Maintain regular and reliable attendance sufficient to meet the position’s operational, patient-service, and team obligations, with or without reasonable accommodation.
• Comply with applicable laws, regulations, accreditation requirements, privacy and security standards, and organizational policies relevant to the position.
• Other duties as assigned.
The essential functions listed are intended to describe the fundamental duties of the position. A qualified individual must be able to perform these functions with or without reasonable accommodation. The organization will engage in a timely, good-faith interactive process when an accommodation is requested or the need for accommodation is known.
MINIMUM REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
• Education: High school diploma or equivalent required; equivalent combination of education and directly relevant experience may be considered.
• Experience: Experience in patient coordination, healthcare administration, customer service, scheduling, case coordination, or a similar patient-facing administrative role.
• Licensure/Certification: No specific license or certification required unless assigned by the organization.
• Knowledge/Skills: Strong written and verbal communication; ability to explain processes clearly; strong organization and follow-through; ability to manage competing priorities; accurate documentation; comfort using electronic systems, email, phones, and practice-management tools; ability to maintain confidentiality.
• Other: Ability to provide respectful, compassionate, and gender-affirming support to patients and to comply with HIPAA, privacy, security, and organizational policies.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
• Experience in a medical office, surgical practice, specialty care setting, or patient navigation role.
• Familiarity with insurance, authorizations, financial counseling, surgery scheduling, or referral workflows.
• Experience supporting transgender, nonbinary, or gender-diverse patients in a healthcare or community-service setting.
• Experience using electronic health record, practice-management, CRM, or task-tracking systems.
• Bilingual or multilingual communication skills aligned with patient population needs.