A cover letter is required for consideration for this position and should be attached as the first page of your resume. The cover letter should address your specific interest in the position and outline skills and experience that directly relate to this position.

The Administrative Specialist Associate Healthcare supports the daily operations of the McCauley Blue North student clinic by coordinating patient scheduling, managing clinic workflows, and actively supporting student clinical progression through effective patient assignment and retention strategies.

This position plays a central role in ensuring Dental Hygiene (DH) students have appropriate access to patients needed to meet clinical requirements by proactively monitoring schedules, managing patient pools, and intervening to address gaps. This position serves as a liaison among dental and dental hygiene students, faculty, clinic coordinators, pre-doctoral clinic team leads, and schedulers to optimize clinic flow, patient experience, and student success.

Clinical Scheduling - Patient Assignment - Student Support

• Manage daily clinic schedules for assigned Dental Hygiene students, optimizing chair utilization and patient flow.
• Proactively monitor Dental Hygiene student schedules and patient pools to identify gaps.
• Actively assist Dental Hygiene students in securing patients by leveraging recall systems, overdue patient lists, and reassignment strategies.
• Exercise independent judgment to redistribute patients and balance patient families across DH students based on student clinical progress and competence.
• Partner with DH students to address barriers to patient attendance, including communication challenges, scheduling conflicts, and follow-up needs.
• Liaise between predoctoral clinic team leads, dental students, other Patient Care Coordinators, and DH Clinic Coordinators to optimize/equalize each student's patient family.
• Coordinate with SoD schedulers and other Patient Care Coordinators (PCC) to maintain scheduling accuracy in Epic/MiDent.

Student Clinical Progress and Clinic Operations

• Track and maintain accurate data on DH student patient counts, clinical experiences, and clinical requirement completion.
• Prepare and distribute DH student clinical progress reports to support evaluation meeting between DH students and DH clinical course directors.
• Generate and aggregate monthly operational reports (e.g., patient attendance, cancellations, chair utilization, student patient counts).
• Identify trends in patient distribution to inform scheduling and operational decisions.
• Contribute to DH student professionalism assessment as part of the broader student evaluation process established by the DH program.

Communication and Workflow Management

• Serve as a central communication hub for clinic operations, triaging and responding to emails, phone calls, and electronic messages from patients, students, faculty, and staff.
• Coordinate communication between DH students, Clinic Coordinators, schedulers, and faculty to resolve workflow and patient care logistics.
• Manage and respond to communication related to scheduling cancellations, and patient inquiries.
• Meet regularly with DH Clinical Course Directors and/or DH program Director to review clinic operations and student support needs.
• Maintain HIPAA compliance in all communications.
• Provide DH students with guidance on clinic administrative procedures, including patient communication, reassignment, referral coordination, and patient warning letters.
• Document all relevant communication in contact notes in accordance with clinic documentation protocols.
• Attend operational meetings (e.g., OAE Roundtable) to remain informed on best practices in patient scheduling and workflows.

Patient Service and Issue Resolution

• Serve as an escalation point for patient concerns related to scheduling, clinic logistics, or communication.
• Resolve DH student/patient issues directly when appropriate and escalate complex concerns to DH Clinical Course Directors.
• Support implementation of patient communication protocols - including reminder calls, missed appointment follow-up, and warning letters.

General Administrative Support

• Provide general office support including - copying, faxing, filing, and mail distribution.
• Maintain and update DH student cohort contact information, photos, and clinic postings across all comprehensive care clinics.
• Assist with preparation of materials and documentation to support clinic operations and meetings.
• Participate in events and activities that support relationship building with assigned students.

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent work experience
• Requires an understanding of dental principles with the ability to apply those principles
• Must have the capability to make independent decisions within the scope of their responsibility

The School of Dentistry is consistently ranked as the #1 dental school in the United States and the world. We embrace diversity in many forms and champion diversity of thought and culture. Our Mission, core values, and additional information about our school can be found on our website. The University of Michigan also offers comprehensive benefits to help you stay well and to support you as you plan for a secure future. Benefits include:

• Generous paid time off for vacations, holidays, sick time, season days, and paid parental leave.
• A retirement plan that provides two-for-one matching contributions after the first year of employment.
• Many choices for comprehensive health insurance
• Life insurance
• Work-life programs to strengthen a workplace culture that supports personal and family life, including child care, elder care, lactation resources, and mental and emotional health services.
• Flexible spending accounts for healthcare and dependent care expenses

Positions that are eligible for hybrid or mobile/remote work mode are at the discretion of the hiring department. Work agreements are reviewed annually at a minimum and are subject to change at any time, and for any reason, throughout the course of employment. Learn more about the work modes.

We are committed to maintaining a safe and healthy work environment for everyone. As part of the onboarding process, all candidates are required to submit their immunization records to Occupational Health Services (OHS) prior to their appointment start date to verify their immunization status. The process includes completing a two-step TB test for all new hires and providing proof of Hepatitis B immunization for clinic-facing roles. Additional immunizations may be necessary based on public health guidance or specific job responsibilities.

The University of Michigan conducts background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer and may use a third party administrator to conduct background checks.  Background checks are performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Job openings are posted for a minimum of seven calendar days. The review and selection process may begin as early as the eighth day after posting. This opening may be removed from posting boards and filled any time after the minimum posting period has ended.

The University of Michigan is an equal employment opportunity employer.