Health Services Coordinator (HSC) Qualifications & Requirements
- Bachelor's or equivalent degree AND three (3) years experience in direct patient care, return-to-work coordination, occupational health care, or equivalent experience OR seven (7) years experience in direct patient care, return-to-work coordination, occupational health care, or equivalent experience.
- Direct patient care includes nurse, medical assistant, nurse navigators, and care coordinators, but does not include referral coordinators, schedulers, or clinical administrative staff.
- Able to obtain and maintain an L&I Provider ID, and bill HSC services. No reported issues with Labor & Industries.
- Experience or demonstrated skills in:
- Oral and written communication with health care professionals, patients, employers, and insurance staff and resources.
- Data management and tracking.
- Completing care coordination or similar documentation.
- Analyzing and communicating provider, care coordinator, and best practice reporting data.
- Must successfully complete L&I required training and/or testing.
Assistant Health Services Coordinator Minimum Qualifications
- Three (3) years experience in direct patient care, return-to-work coordination, occupational health care, or equivalent experience.
- Direct patient care includes nurse, medical assistant, nurse navigators, and care coordinators, but does not include referral coordinators, schedulers, or clinical administrative staff.
- Able to obtain and maintain an L&I Provider ID, and bill HSC services. No reported issues with Labor & Industries.
- Experience or demonstrated skills in:
- Oral and written communication with health care professionals, patients, employers, and insurance staff and resources.
- Data management and tracking.
- Completing care coordination or similar documentation.
- Analyzing and communicating provider, care coordinator, and best practice reporting data
- Must successfully complete L&I required training and/or testing.
Health Services Coordination Standard Work
Health Service Coordinators (HSCs) assist providers, workers, and employers in a variety of ways. L&I has developed a core set of standard work for HSCs. Examples of standard work include:
- Coordination and tracking of referrals:
- Track referrals through provider chart notes and follow up with the worker to ensure that they have engaged with referred services.
- Contact referred providers' offices as needed.
- Check with workers to see if there are any barriers to completing referred services and work to resolve them.
- Review provider chart notes to determine next steps and assist when needed.
- Assessment of barriers to recovery:
- Conduct Functional Recovery Questionnaire (FRQ) and report positive FRQs to attending providers.
- Document pain and function scales to ensure that progress is being made. Alert attending provider if pain and function scales show that progress is not being made.
- Complete other assessments as needed (ex: HSC's barriers assessment).
- Ongoing monitoring of recovery:
- Review new workers, work lists, and tasks daily.
- Assist workers in navigating L&I and health care systems.
- Determine and follow up on HSC care coordination plan goals and next steps.
- Coordinate case conferences, refer to COHE advisors, and suggest PGAP or other programs as applicable.
- Assist providers and workers in completing occupational disease or opioid paperwork.
- Refer to community services:
- Maintain a list of community resources and share them with workers as needed.
- Follow up with workers about community resources if it is part of their care coordination plan.
- Assistance with medication issues:
- Explain the new prescribing best practices to providers (L&I resources and guidelines).
- Check with workers about their medication usage and if they're taking them as prescribed. Report issues to providers.
- Alert the attending provider if the patient complains of pain issues and/or shows drug-seeking behaviors. Discuss referrals to possible interventions (ex: PGAP) with provider.
- Remind providers about L&I opioid paperwork and requirements.
- Coordination of return to work:
- Ensure that employer, provider, and worker understand restrictions, capacities, return to work expectations, programs, and assistance opportunities (ex: Stay at Work).
- Answer questions about L&I related programs.
- Assist employers with job descriptions; assist Vocational Rehabilitation Councilors (VRCs) working with providers to complete the job analysis review process.
- Communicate and coordinate with VRCs.
- Track work status and include return to work goals in the care coordination plan as needed.
- Support during transitions of care:
- Assist workers in finding a new attending provider when needed.
- Assist providers in submitting transfers of care when needed.
- Assist workers coming from emergency departments and needing ongoing care to ensure continuity of care.
- Assist workers transitioning to and from attending provider care.
- Communicate with other health services coordinators when workers are transitioning to other providers.
- Coordination of surgical care:
- Ensure communication to workers who are surgical candidates.
- Ensure that workers have pre-operative released to work plan.
- Ensure that workers have post-operative recovery and released to work plan.
- Communicate with surgeon when worker is not making progress on their post-operative recovery and released to work plan.
- Ensure that the worker transitions to a non-surgical provider when ongoing care is needed.
In addition, HSCs support providers' best practice work and training. Visit the information on each program's website for more information:
L&I is currently developing HSC training materials. Materials should be available by July 1, 2022.
Frequently Asked Questions
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