Charlene B. Cathcart, CHAM, director of admissions and registration at Palmetto Health Richland Hospital in Columbia, SC, says her facility has moved billers to the front end because of the additional workload.

“They’re moving them to us where we have the need for them,” Cathcart says.

Has too much been put on the shoulders of patient access managers? When is enough enough? And on which areas should patient access managers focus?

The 2008 Patient Access Resource Center (PARC) salary survey reveals that too much work may be designated to the front end, and managers feel that they are not making enough money.

The survey garnered a nationwide response from hospital patient access managers.

“[Hospital executives] are giving more and more responsibility to these directors, and they don’t compensate much more, if at all, for these extra responsibilities,” says Steven Orvis, a revenue cycle consultant based in Los Angeles who is a former business office director at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. “The important thing is to just be able to prioritize and focus on what they need to. Just adding more responsibility is not necessarily a good thing,” he says.