| Position Title |
Billing & Coding Manager |
| About the University |
Western Washington University, with over 15,000 students in seven colleges and the graduate school, is nationally recognized for its educational programs, students and faculty. The campus is located in Bellingham, Washington, a coastal community of 90,000 overlooking Bellingham Bay, the San Juan Islands and the North Cascades Mountain range. The city lies 90 miles north of Seattle and 60 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia. Western has additional sites in Anacortes, Bremerton, Everett, Port Angeles, and Poulsbo. Western is recognized nationally for its successes, such as being named one of the top public master's-granting institutions in the Pacific Northwest for 25 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.
Western Washington University is committed to achieving excellence through advancing inclusive success, increasing our Washington impact, and focusing on transformational education grounded in the liberal arts and sciences and based on innovative scholarship, research, and creative activity. Western's greatest strength is the outstanding students, faculty, staff, and alumni/ae who make up its community. Western supports an inclusive governance structure for all and provides a learning and working environment in which everyone can thrive. In pursuit of this excellence, individual employees are expected to establish and maintain productive and effective inclusive working relationships amongst diverse populations including staff, faculty, administration, student, and external constituents. Further, individual employees are expected to have the ability to operationalize sustainability concepts (economic, societal, environmental) into all aspects of performing their job duties.
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| About the Department |
The Student Health Center supports Western's mission, which states that together with our students, staff, and faculty, we are committed to making a positive impact in the state and the world with a shared focus on academic excellence and inclusive achievement. We encourage applications from women, people of color, people with disabilities, veterans, and other candidates from underrepresented backgrounds and with diverse experiences interested in this opportunity. |
| About the Position |
The Student Health Center (SHC) Billing & Coding Manager serves as a Coding Subject Matter Expert, providing coding, compliance, and revenue cycle oversight to the organization. This position works closely with the SHC Administrative Services team to streamline processes and protect the financial and legal interests of the organization.
The Billing & Coding Manager reports to the Administrative Services Manager of the WWU Student Health Center.
Responsibilities include:
- Serves as advisor to leadership, providers, and staff on all aspects of billing and reimbursement trends.
- Develops billing strategy, processes, and policies.
- Posts payments accurately and timely to stay in compliance with federal, state, and insurance company contracts and regulations.
- Ensures compliance and completeness of claims for electronic submission.
- Ensures proper billing by State and Federal regulations by overseeing coding audit efforts and coordinates monitoring of coding accuracy and documentation adequacy Identifies, reports, and implements corrective action for compliance issues detected through auditing and monitoring.
- Conducts trends analyses to identify patterns and variations in coding practices.
- Verifies financial, payer, and patient information.
- Works closely with the all staff involved with billing for seamless flow between services and to increase knowledge of the relationship between charge behavior, billing flow, and reimbursement.
- Works closely with Clearinghouse(s), RCM consultants and electronic health record vendor to set up processes and protocols to process revenue.
- Analyzes and resolves complex billing related claim denials in a manner that ensures accurate and optimal reimbursement.
- Responsible for collections activity and payment denials, including account resolution with insurance companies and/or patients.
- Monitors process to ensure regulatory compliance, sound billing practices are being followed, and to protect the revenue cycle.
- Performs annual analysis and updates for fee schedules.
- Assists in obtaining managed care contracting; monitors contracts for compliance and any legal updates or other considerations.
- Reviews claims denials and rejections pertaining to coding and medical necessity issues, and when necessary, implements corrective action plan to prevent similar denials and rejections from recurring.
- Keep abreast of new developments in billing updates, technology, research, and regulatory data.
- Training Billing and coding staff
- Trains SHC and Billing and Coding staff on billing and coding functions and work flow.
- Supervises Billing and Coding staff, billing services, and integration with other departments.
- Delegates or responds to patient and insurance company inquiries.
- Responsible for training and updating all SHC clinical areas to understand and mitigate impacts of billing and coding in response to newly implemented workflows or laws/regulations.
- Review spreadsheets for coding compliance to ensure accurate and legal charge posting.
- Insurance Credentialing and Contracting
- Responsible for implementing systems and processes for billing that abide by all laws and contractual agreements.
- Participates in contract negotiations with insurance companies.
- Oversees insurance credentialing of providers.
- Auditing, Reporting and Compliance
- Works closely with providers to audit, monitor, and train for yearly coding and fee updates.
- Create and sustain auditing schedule for insurance billing process
- Review and manage aging reports daily to ensure timely billing and payments to enhance the revenue and performance of SHC billing program.
- Creates reports, dashboards, and benchmarks for trending, budget projections, and identify areas of concern.
- Develops and monitors daily billing edit reports for claims to ensure our contractual obligations are upheld and that we are following the terms to optimize revenue generation and regulatory compliance.
- Manage checks and balances for billing and coding processes as it relates to external audits.
- Analyze policies, programs, and initiatives to make recommendations for quality improvement.
- Student Health Center Collaborations
- Participate in SHC staff meetings
- Assist Administrative Services Manager with training and development for Patient Services Coordinators
- Work with SHC committees as needed Other duties as assigned.
The State HR classification for this position is Program Manager A.
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| Required Qualifications |
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Health Information Management or relevant field OR Certified Professional Biller; equivalent experience may be in lieu of Bachelor’s degree.
- Five years of billing experience in a medical practice or ambulatory services setting.
- Experience with data analysis, revenue cycle management, and CPT and ICD-10 coding.
- Two years of experience training staff in billing practices and on electronic health record usage.
- Demonstrated ability to locate, research, comprehend, and appropriately apply third party payer rules and regulations.
- A personal or professional commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion through active planning and purposeful effort.
- Experience working with clearinghouse(s).
- Experience with coding compliance.
- Ability to maintain confidentiality of patient information in accordance with policies of the WWU Student Health Center, Western Washington University, FERPA, state, federal and HIPAA requirements.
- Demonstrates strong decision making and problem-solving skills.
- Detail oriented and ability to meet deadlines.
- Ability to adjust successfully to changing priorities and work-load volume.
- Demonstrates clear and concise verbal and written communication skills.
WWU SHC follows CDC guidelines for Employee Health in a healthcare setting, including proof of several vaccinations and annual vaccinations during employment. Employees must show proof of compliance/willingness to comply by start date.
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| Preferred Qualifications |
- Experience and ability to apply FERPA (and HIPAA) standards/rules/requirements.
- Three years of supervisory experience in Billing.
- Experience in establishing a billing department, including denials, charge posting, payment posting, and appropriate resource management.
- Ability to advance the department’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
- Demonstrates autonomous decision-making ability.
- Experience in obtaining and negotiating managed care contracts.
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| Conditions of Employment |
All employees must comply with our Immunization policies, including Proof of Rubeola Measles Immunity within 60-days of hire. Please reach out to HR@wwu.edu if you need information regarding medical or religious exemption and applicable accommodations. |
| Salary |
$4,962 - $6,669/month depending on qualifications and experience. |
| Benefits Information |
Benefits Overview for Classified Positions |
| Bargaining Unit |
This position is part of bargaining unit D and is covered by the collective bargaining agreement with Public School Employees of WWU. |
| Application Instructions |
Application materials should address your experience related to the position responsibilities and the required and preferred qualifications.
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| Closing Date Notes |
Position open to PSE, DCA, and permanent internal (including project) WWU employees; PSE candidates will receive priority consideration. Position closes 05/15/2025 at 11:55 pm.
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