Recipient Rights Specialist

Job Summary

Recipient Rights Specialists act as regulatory officers enforcing the Michigan Mental Health Code (MHC), Administrative Rules, OCHN policies and procedures, and Public Acts as mandated under state law. Recipient Rights Specialists act as advocates to inform individuals receiving behavioral health services of their rights and assist them in problem-solving within the Rights & Advocacy unit. This may entail working cooperatively with, but not limited to, Customer Services, Due Process, or other units within OCHN.

Essential Function:

• Collect and analyze information and make decisions. Act as the point of collection for all information relevant to recipient rights and alleged rights violations.
• Conduct rights investigations. Analyze evidence to determine whether a violation of code-protected right has occurred; interview individuals receiving services, guardians, contracted/sub-contracted staff, and other witnesses; secure records; obtain and analyze evidence. Make referrals to other community and regulatory agencies.
• Generate required reports from investigations, including decisions and recommendations for remedial/disciplinary action of substantiated violations; review action for MHC, Administrative Rules, OCHN policy/procedures, and contract compliance; make referrals to the Service Network Team for contract actions; serve as a consultant to the Administration in matters relevant to rights; provide crisis recommendations as needed; and participate as required in the Grievance and Appeals and Mediation process.
• Maintain all required timelines for Recipient Rights-related documentation, including reports, letters, and other documents.
• Provide technical assistance related to Recipient Rights to contract providers and the public.
• Analyze and track patterns relating to rights issues within their territory.
• Maintain data on all substantiated perpetrators and recipient demographic information; provide information to maintain database with recipients, sites, core and network provider information.
• Coordinate and ensure the organization’s effort to fulfill requirements for the MDHHS and MDHHS-ORR audits, participate in provider monitoring efforts as a member of the Recipient Rights Team, Quality Improvement and Regulatory Compliance Team or other auditing or monitoring process assigned by the ORR Manager.
• Review and analyze all incident reports relevant to assigned territory. Code using appropriate ORR/OCHN IR Code in a timely manner. Open complaint and begin investigative process as deemed appropriate based on IR content.
• Obtain, review, and analyze information involving recipient deaths; coordinate information collection from the County Clerk and Medical Examiner’s office; review autopsy reports, death certificates, and mortality reports; ascertain if a death warrants a rights investigation; input death information into database; provide data to the Sentinel Event Review Committee (SERC) or other OCHN Team or Office as necessary; and consult with SERC as needed or other OCHN Team or Office as necessary.
• Assist the training unit with the provision of recipient rights training as needed and qualified.
• Serve as a source of consultation and education for the OCHN provider network regarding Rights related issues.
• Maintain a positive and professional relationship with individuals receiving services and providers operating within the assigned territory. Conduct friendly visits during times when there are no investigations to build rapport.
• Assume duties as assigned that support ORR and OCHN operations. These can include being a liaison with Adult Protective Services, helping with licensing verifications, sitting on one or more OCHN communities as the Rights representative, assisting with New Hire training, and others.

Education:

A bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in a relevant discipline is required.

Experience Requirements:

• At least one year of work experience in administrative, rights advisor, support coordinator, case manager capacity, or related position.
• Experience with and demonstrated understanding of behavioral health services.
• Understanding of the Oakland County/OCHN public behavioral health system is preferred.
• Investigative experience is preferred and highly beneficial.
• Effective communication skills, including verbal and written communication.
• Excellence in writing skills and report writing.

Preferred Requirements:

• Experience with interviewing, such as forensic or motivational interviewing.
• Experience with technical writing.
• Experience working with a variety of populations, including people with intellectual disabilities, individuals with mental illness, and others.

Job Specific Competencies/Skills:

• Must make sound judgments and conclusions.
• Interface professionally with individuals receiving services, secondary consumers, contracted/sub-contracted employees, and the public.
• Must have excellent time management skills.
• Must be able to work with multiple timelines to achieve statutory compliance.
• Must possess excellent report writing and verbal skills.
• Must be able to travel county-wide and statewide as needed.

Oakland Community Health Network’s Core Competencies:

• Interacting with others in a way that gives them confidence in one’s intentions and those of the organization; demonstrating loyalty to the organization and its mission and values; maintaining social, ethical, and organizational norms; firmly adhering to codes of conduct and ethical principles. (Integrity/Building Trust)
• Making customers and their needs a primary focus of one’s actions; developing and sustaining productive customer relationships, recognizing that the ultimate customer is the person served. (Customer Focus)
• Actively identifying new areas for learning; regularly creating and taking advantage of learning opportunities; using newly gained knowledge and skill on the job and learning through their application. (Continuous Learning)
• Setting high standards of performance for self and others; assuming responsibility and accountability for successfully completing assignments or tasks; self-imposing standards of excellence in addition to consciously adopting organizational standards of excellence. (Work Standards)
• Clearly conveying information and ideas through a variety of media to individuals or groups in a manner that engages the audience and helps them understand and retain the message. (Communication)

(Travel required, physical requirements, on-call schedules, etc.):

• Must have available means of transportation to and from OCHN and for required offsite meetings or site visits.
• Must be available for meetings and events which may occur outside of standard office hours.
• Work performed primarily in the community with remote work from home.
• The ideal candidate must be able to complete all physical requirements of the job with or without a reasonable accommodation.

OCHN is committed to building a diverse team and fostering an inclusive and equitable culture. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer that embraces and encourages our employees’