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Patient Coordinator job description

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294 words
Patient Coordinator

ABOUT THE ROLE
[Company name] is looking for a patient coordinator to guide patients from first inquiry through to completed treatment. You'll schedule procedures, walk people through their treatment plan and what it will cost, verify benefits and obtain pre-authorizations, coordinate referrals, and follow up afterwards. When a patient hesitates, you're usually the reason they go ahead — or don't.

WHAT YOU'LL DO
• Answer and route incoming calls
• Book, reschedule and confirm appointments
• Take accurate messages and pass them on
• Monitor the shared inbox and reply to routine email
• Verify insurance and collect co-pays
• Maintain patient or client records
• Complete new client or patient intake paperwork
• Run recall and reactivation lists
• Manage the waitlist and fill cancellations
• Walk patients through treatment plans and what they'll cost
• Obtain pre-authorizations and verify benefits
• Coordinate referrals and follow up on outcomes
• Schedule procedures and send pre-visit instructions
• Explain payment plans and financing options
• Follow up with patients after treatment

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
• Experience in a medical or dental practice, or a strong patient-facing background
• Comfortable discussing money — costs, coverage gaps and payment plans — without flinching
• Familiar with insurance verification and pre-authorization
• Warm and patient with people who are anxious about treatment or cost
• Accurate with records, benefits detail and scheduling

NICE TO HAVE
• Knowledge of medical or dental terminology and treatment coding
• Experience with treatment-plan presentation or case acceptance
• A second language spoken by our patients

DETAILS
• Employment type: Full-time

TO APPLY
Send your résumé and a short note about why this role suits you to [Company name]. We read every application and reply to all of them.

Nothing you type is uploaded — this runs entirely in your browser.

What the role involves

We're looking for a patient coordinator to guide patients from first inquiry through to completed treatment. You'll schedule procedures, walk people through their treatment plan and what it will cost, verify benefits and obtain pre-authorizations, coordinate referrals, and follow up afterwards. When a patient hesitates, you're usually the reason they go ahead — or don't.

Core duties

  • Answer and route incoming calls
  • Book, reschedule and confirm appointments
  • Take accurate messages and pass them on
  • Monitor the shared inbox and reply to routine email
  • Verify insurance and collect co-pays
  • Maintain patient or client records
  • Complete new client or patient intake paperwork
  • Run recall and reactivation lists
  • Manage the waitlist and fill cancellations
  • Walk patients through treatment plans and what they'll cost
  • Obtain pre-authorizations and verify benefits
  • Coordinate referrals and follow up on outcomes
  • Schedule procedures and send pre-visit instructions
  • Explain payment plans and financing options
  • Follow up with patients after treatment

Requirements

  • Experience in a medical or dental practice, or a strong patient-facing background
  • Comfortable discussing money — costs, coverage gaps and payment plans — without flinching
  • Familiar with insurance verification and pre-authorization
  • Warm and patient with people who are anxious about treatment or cost
  • Accurate with records, benefits detail and scheduling

Nice to have

  • Knowledge of medical or dental terminology and treatment coding
  • Experience with treatment-plan presentation or case acceptance
  • A second language spoken by our patients

Skills to screen for

Treatment plan presentationInsurance and benefitsPatient rapportSchedulingFollow-up disciplineFinancial conversations

Be honest about the phone

The treatment-plan call is the one that decides whether a case goes ahead, and it is almost never convenient — it lands mid-clinic, and it cannot be rushed. The follow-up calls that nobody has time for are where most case acceptance quietly leaks away.

Worth writing into the description rather than leaving as a surprise. Candidates who are good at it will recognize the description and apply; the ones who would have quit in month two will screen themselves out, which is the cheapest screening you will ever do.

What the hire actually covers

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook puts the median wage for medical secretaries and administrative assistants at $45,930 a year as of 2025, before employer payroll taxes, benefits and paid time off. Source.

Either way you get 40 of the 168 hours in a week. The remaining 128 — evenings, weekends, lunch cover, sick days, holidays — are hours our practice still takes calls, and nobody is on the desk for them.

Hire the person. Just budget for the gap too, and work out what it's costing with the missed-call cost calculator.

Patient Coordinator FAQ

  • What does a patient coordinator do?+

    Guides a patient through treatment from first contact to completion: scheduling procedures, presenting the treatment plan and its cost, verifying benefits and securing pre-authorizations, coordinating referrals, and following up afterwards. It sits between clinical and front-desk work and touches both.

  • How is a patient coordinator different from a medical receptionist?+

    A receptionist handles the front desk and the schedule for everyone. A coordinator owns a patient's whole journey — particularly the treatment-plan and financial conversations that a busy front desk has no time for. Practices that separate the two usually do it because case acceptance was suffering.

  • What makes a good patient coordinator?+

    Comfort with money conversations and discipline about follow-up. Plenty of people are warm with patients; far fewer will calmly explain a four-thousand-dollar plan and then actually call back the eleven people who said they'd think about it.

  • Do patient coordinators need clinical training?+

    Usually not, though terminology helps a great deal — you have to explain a plan clearly enough for a patient to decide on it. Most practices train on their own systems and treatment language; what they screen for is the patient-facing judgement.

The other 128 hours

Hire the receptionist. Cover the rest of the week.

RingOwl answers the calls your front desk can't — after hours, at lunch, and on the second line when the first one's busy. It books appointments into your calendar, takes messages, and emails you a summary of every call.

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