Assistant Director, Admissions

Organization Overview, Mission, Vision, and Values

Our mission is to improve the health of people in the communities we serve through compassionate, high-quality care, prevention, and wellness education. Washington Regional Medical System is a community-owned, locally governed, non-profit health care system located in Northwest Arkansas in the heart of Fayetteville, which is consistently ranked among the Best Places to live in the country. Our 425-bed medical center has been named the #1 hospital in Arkansas for five consecutive years by U.S. News & World Report. We employ 3,200+ team members and serve the region with over 40 clinic locations, the region's only Level II trauma center, and five Centers of Excellence - the Washington Regional J.B. Hunt Transport Services Neuroscience Institute; Washington Regional Walker Heart Institute; Washington Regional Women and Infants Center; Washington Regional Total Joint Center; and Washington Regional Pat Walker Center for Seniors.

Position Summary

The Assistant Director, Admissions reports to the Director, Patient Access & Denials and supports the Vice President of Revenue Cycle by providing leadership and operational oversight for admissions and patient access functions across the main hospital, emergency department, labor and delivery, ambulatory surgery center, and physicians' specialty hospital admissions areas. This role is responsible for driving accurate, timely, and patient-centered registration and admission processes; optimizing front-end revenue cycle performance; supporting denial prevention efforts; and ensuring compliance with organizational, regulatory, and payer requirements.

Essential Position Responsibilities

• Provide operational oversight for admissions and patient access services across the main hospital, emergency department, labor and delivery, ambulatory surgery center, and physicians' specialty admissions areas to ensure timely, accurate, and courteous service.
• Lead daily workflows for facility-based registration, point of service collections and bed placement coordination as applicable.
• Partners with department director, clinical, nursing, case management, and ancillary department leaders to improve patient flow, admission throughput, and communication across all access points.
• Supervise, mentor, and develop admissions leaders and staff, including hiring, onboarding, scheduling, productivity management, coaching, performance management, and employee engagement activities.
• Monitor and improve key performance indicators such as registration accuracy, productivity, wait times, upfront collections, insurance-related edits, and front-end denial prevention metrics.
• Collaborate with denials, billing, utilization review, and managed care teams to identify root causes of front-end denials and implement corrective actions that improve clean claim performance and reimbursement outcomes.
• Ensure compliance with federal, state, and payer regulations and organizational policies, including patient identity management, consent forms, Medicare and Medicaid requirements, EMTALA considerations, HIPAA, and price transparency or financial communication standards as applicable.
• Support standardization of workflows, policies, training, scripting, and quality assurance processes across all facility-based admissions areas while addressing service-line-specific operational needs.
• Serve as a resource for escalation of patient, physician, and departmental concerns related to admissions, registration, financial clearance, and service recovery.
• Assist with department budgeting, staffing plans, technology optimization, reporting, audits, and special projects that advance patient access performance and revenue cycle goals.
• Maintain visibility in operational areas, identify barriers in real time, and lead process improvement initiatives that enhance patient experience, employee accountability, and financial performance.

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor's degree in healthcare administration, business administration, finance, or a related field required; master's degree preferred.
• Licensure and Certifications: Professional certification in patient access or revenue cycle such as CHAM, CHAA, or CRCR preferred.
• Experience: Minimum of five (5) years of progressive experience in hospital admissions, patient access, registration, or front-end revenue cycle operations required, including at least three (3) years of leadership experience. Experience overseeing multiple access points such as inpatient, emergency, outpatient, surgical, and specialty admissions is strongly preferred. Knowledge of insurance verification, prior authorization, EMTALA, payer requirements, denial prevention, and patient access technology workflows required.

Work Environment: This position will spend 50% of the time walking and/or standing while pushing, pulling, lifting, and/or carrying up to 50 lbs. This position will spend 50% of the time sitting while performing work in a standard office environment. This position will be exposed to communicable diseases, bodily fluids, and radiation. This position serves a cultural and linguistically diverse patient population.

Notice: This job description is designed to provide an overview of the essential and principal duties and responsibilities of the position. The job description is not designed or intended to cover or set forth a comprehensive listing of all activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee. Washington Regional reserves the right in its absolute discretion to change duties, responsibilities or activities or assign new duties, responsibilities, or activities at any time with or without notice. Employees may be directed to perform job-related tasks other than those specifically presented in this description.