Certified Medical Assistant

"A New Approach to an Age-Old Need" - Pathway Geriatrics is a nurse practitioner-owned medical startup headquartered in Redmond, WA, currently serving Greater Seattle. We provide in-home primary care services for homebound older adults. Said differently, we bring our medical services to our clients, who often can't leave their homes to get the specialized care they need.

We have a uniquely deep background in technology (and tech startups), which heavily influences our workflows and culture. Our vision is to build a new kind of medical practice that melds the latest technologies and best practices with the caring hearts of top-tier professionals.

The Basics

We are looking for an experienced certified medical assistant to join our team. After the initial training period, you can expect to work from home 2-3 days a week and at our office in Redmond, WA, the rest of the time.

Typical business hours are 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday - Friday.

Compensation

The position will pay $50,000 - $65,000 annually, depending on your skills and experience.

The Job Details

Your day-to-day responsibilities, under the delegation of a licensed practitioner, will include:

• Providing verbal orders to collaborating physicians, hospice, and home health staff.
• Preparing and coordinating referrals for physical therapy, durable medical equipment, and other services
• Submitting orders for labs, mobile imaging, and other services
• Coordinating written orders that need action with our providers
• Facilitating the delivery of test results with relevant parties and updating results in our EHR.
• Helping to coordinate visit schedules with care facilities, powers of attorney, and clients
• Communicating as needed with powers of attorney and family members
• Answering our main office line and performing phone triage for our providers.
• Maintaining medical records and chronic care management notes
• Working with our providers to coordinate medication orders/refills with pharmacies and facilities

We're also developing a proprietary healthcare tech platform for in-home patient care. Our engineers will work with you from time to time while designing and testing our software platform to streamline operations (i.e., make your life easier).

Occasionally, we might ask for your help on other tasks, but always within reason.

Our Services

Pathway Geriatrics provides in-home primary care for homebound older adults. We currently have three providers but are planning to continue expanding. Most of our clients live in Adult Family Homes (AFH), with a portion residing in assisted living facilities. We often have several clients at each home. Our providers aim to visit each facility every five to six weeks, and clients are seen based on medical necessity.

Our providers also facilitate each client's medication and chronic care management between face-to-face appointments.

We do our best to keep clients out of the emergency room. While we don't provide in-home urgent care, we can often manage urgent situations remotely with help from our local network of in-home diagnostic services. These include mobile imaging, ultrasound, phlebotomy, and urinalysis/urine cultures.

Our Clients

The nature of our services means we often work with multiple parties when coordinating patient care. We typically have at least three clients per patient: the patient, their medical power of attorney, and their caregiver (typically an Adult Family Homeowner).

A typical client is 75+ years old and often in their final few years of life. Most clients are homebound due to advanced dementia, but many also have other chronic diseases like osteoarthritis with contractures and pain, Parkinson's disease, heart failure, and diabetes. That said, we also work with younger adults who are homebound due to traumatic brain injuries, strokes, or mental health conditions.

The family members and powers of attorney for our clients have varying levels of engagement and knowledge. We are transparent and communicative with them and aim to serve as a resource for them and their loved ones.  

Our Care Philosophy

Our practice approaches issues from a palliative care perspective. Our primary goal is to improve client comfort and quality of life while reducing unnecessary medications. We monitor as diseases progress and consider when they should transition onto hospice services. We usually remain as the client's PCP while on hospice, managing their end-of-life care.

We see many routine problems day-to-day, but we are also frequently surprised by things we've never seen before.

• We often work with dementia-related behavioral concerns expressed through tearfulness, restlessness, physical aggression, combativeness, and sleep difficulty. 
• As our clients grow weaker, they will transition from walker to wheelchair to hospital bed and require our assessments and orders to coordinate that equipment.
• We partner with local home health care teams when our client needs skilled nursing, physical and occupational therapy, speech therapy, and psych nursing.
• Adult family homes also have special state regulations, so they need us to provide specific orders and permissions for their inspection requirements.

Requirements

Our primary goal is to find a capable, kind, well-rounded person who will fit our startup culture and become a great teammate. We’re a small team looking to help the vulnerable older population we care for, and we’re looking for folks who share that mindset.

Beyond that, here are a few things we’re looking for in our ideal candidate:

• Certification as a medical assistant
• A relatable personality comfortable conversing with a wide array of people on the phone
• An ability to empathize with clients and their families. Our clients are often near end-of-life, which can lead to sensitive emotional conversations.
• Comfort with adopting new technologies. Our platform constantly evolves, so our team must be comfortable frequently adopting new tools or workflows. We are a fully digital office; there is no paper whatsoever.

Benefits

In addition to your compensation, we provide each team member with:

• 4 weeks PTO (vacation+ sick leave)
• Nine paid federal holidays (six are set, three you get to pick, including your birthday)
• Top-notch low deductible Health Insurance (Medical, Dental, Vision) with a Healthcare FSA and Dependent Care FSA
• 401K with company matching (up to 4%)
• Life & Disability Insurance
• Workers Comp

We Provide

All the tools needed for you to be successful in your role, including:

• An iPhone with an unlimited voice/data plan
• A company laptop (we don't skimp) with a nice monitor (for home use)
• A multi-use Bluetooth headset
• A mouse & keyboard