Customer Service & Self-Pay Director

Director Of Customer Service And Self-Pay Revenue Cycle Operations

The Director of Customer Service and Self-Pay Revenue Cycle Operations is responsible for overseeing the end-to-end self-pay lifecycle across all markets, from patient billing through collections, bad debt placement, and financial assistance determination. This leader will serve as the enterprise subject matter expert for patient financial engagementensuring a compassionate, transparent, and high-performing billing experience that aligns with our mission and drives measurable improvement in self-pay cash performance.

This role partners closely with the Consumer Experience (CX) team, Revenue Cycle Vendor leadership, and internal functional teams (Patient Access, Billing, Finance, and Market Operations) to ensure that the self-pay experience delivers both financial and patient satisfaction outcomes.

Strategic Leadership

• Develop and execute the enterprise Self-Pay Strategy, balancing compassion and collections effectiveness.
• Partner with the Revenue Cycle Vendor to define and enforce service level expectations, escalation pathways, and measurable outcomes for patient statement delivery, inbound call experience, and self-pay A/R resolution.
• Collaborate with the CX Team to continuously improve patient communications, digital payment options, statement design, and tone consistency across all markets.
• Provide executive visibility into performance through metrics, dashboards, and data-driven insights.

Operational Oversight

• Lead and monitor vendor performance for:
• Patient Billing and Statement Strategy
• Back-End Financial Assistance (including presumptive charity, policy adherence, and audit accuracy)
• Self-Pay Collections & A/R Aging
• Bad Debt Strategy and Vendor Management
• Ensure compliance with federal, state, and Ascension charity and billing policies.
• Partner with Revenue Integrity, Billing, and Finance to ensure accurate patient balances and minimal preventable self-pay leakage.
• Oversee the transition from active A/R to bad debt placement, ensuring appropriate segmentation, recall strategy, and vendor accountability.
• Call Center performance improvement, including First Call Resolution, Average Speed to Answer, and Abandonment Rate

Performance and Experience Optimization

• Define measurable KPIs for collection effectiveness, A/R aging, bad debt yield, and patient experience.
• Identify and drive root cause resolution for friction points in the billing and payment journey.
• Integrate feedback loops between CX, Vendor Operations, and internal leadership to enable rapid-cycle improvements.
• Champion digital engagement, self-service, and patient education initiatives that improve collection rates and reduce inbound call volume.