Bilingual Cancer Information Specialist - Remote

At the American Cancer Society, we're leading the fight for a world without cancer. Our employees and 1.5 million volunteers are raising the bar every single day. We actively seek candidates from diverse backgrounds including communities of color, the LGBTQ community, veterans, and people with disabilities. The greater the diversity of our people, the better we can serve our communities.

The people who work at the American Cancer Society focus their diverse talents on our lifesaving mission. It is a calling. And the people who answer it are fulfilled.

The Bilingual Cancer Information Specialist (BCIS) empowers Spanish and English-speaking cancer patients, their families, and caregivers through supportive discussion and the delivery of high-quality cancer related information. The BCIS conducts an evaluation of stated and implied needs to further enhance the patient’s ability to increase decision making and patient self-efficacy. The BCIS assesses psycho-social stress and addresses opportunities for improving emotional needs throughout the cancer journey. The BCIS utilizes impartial interpretation skills while accurately and effectively translating all necessary information in Spanish and English.

The role of the BCIS is also to assist cancer patients in achieving the best possible health outcome by facilitating access to American Cancer Society patient programs as well as community resources to assist with cancer-related needs such as transportation, lodging, and support. The goal of the Specialist is to help patients overcome barriers to cancer treatment and improve quality of life through the navigation of multiple systems and databases, both internally and externally, to ensure the delivery of information and services. Develops and maintains strong working relationships with field staff, volunteers, and health care systems. BCIS demonstrates exceptional relationship building skills to develop trust and loyalty between callers and the American Cancer Society.

Lastly, the BCIS responds to a broad range of inquiries that may include cancer prevention and early detection information, requests for community resources, material orders and a variety of other topics related to the American Cancer Society’s work.

This position is critical to the promotion and enhancement of the Society’s mission, goals, and objectives.

This is a full time permanent remote opportunity which can be home-based anywhere in the U.S.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES

• Handles high volume of patient related and general constituent inbound calls to the National Cancer Information Center in a consistent and customer focused manner.

• Serves as a member of a highly trained team, including specialists supporting both the work outlined in the Cancer Support Specialist and Cancer Information Specialist positions.

• Maintains regular caseload of new and ongoing cases, triaging work appropriately based on constituent needs and providing timely follow up to customers.

• Takes complete ownership of constituent inquiries, identifies, and evaluates constituent needs while providing an accurate and thorough information exchange.

• Ability to learn and effectively share complex cancer related content including anatomy, diagnosis, treatment options and medications amongst other components, in both English and Spanish.

• Precisely and accurately interprets critical cancer information into equivalent terminology in the patient’s native language.

• Must be able to navigate between English and Spanish conversations call-to-call.

• Will read content, including complex medical content, in English and translate it in the moment into a Spanish language conversation.

• Systematically researches options and provides patients, caregivers, and families with information regarding ACS programs and services, and other cancer-related resources using approved data sources.

• Assesses the caller’s distress level and promotes psycho-social support resources, as needed.

• Coordinates ACS transportation, lodging, and support programs to remove barriers to care and help patients complete treatment.

• Assists constituents with technical, website related issues associated with programs such as ACS CARES, transportation, and lodging self-service.

• Handles all interactions with tact, courtesy and empathy while assessing the contact’s emotional status, and promotes psycho-social support resources as needed.

• Strives for first call resolution and skillfully provides process expectations to support overall customer experience.

• Fulfills diagnosis and treatment related material orders, as well as prevention and early detection and general information material requests.

• Connects patients and other constituents to additional resources based on individual need.

• Responsibilities may include educating and referring to clinical trials matching services or other strategic partnerships, when appropriate.

• Maintains knowledge of current work-related processes and policies and participates in continuing education.

• Contributes to a cohesive and inclusive team environment and utilizes coaching and feedback to improve performance.       

• Develops and maintains strong working relationships with patients, field staff, volunteers, program partners and health care systems through courteous, timely and professional service.

• Documents all data points in the customer relationship management database required by organizational processes and policies.

• Triages requests to internal groups and escalates complex issues to the appropriate knowledgeable resource.

• Handles referrals for special programs such as the White House partnership and the Ukraine Clinicians program.

• Works to achieve operational metrics while ensuring high quality call taking.

• Performs other duties as assigned.

FORMAL KNOWLEDGE  

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience, preferably in healthcare related field (e.g., Sociology, Psychology, Nursing, Social Work, etc.)

• Written and verbal language proficiency required in Spanish and English

• Ability to translate medical information accurately and effectively in Spanish and English with impartial interpretation skills.

• One-year experience utilizing bilingual English / Spanish skills in a contact center, social work, patient services, or public health role strongly preferred.

• Contact center and/or work from home experience, strongly preferred.

SKILLS, SPECIALIZED TRAINING OR KNOWLEDGE     

• Strong verbal communication and listening skills required.

• Demonstrated written communication skills required.

• Ability to perform Spanish and English language translation and interpretation skills.

• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work effectively within a team environment.

• Strong customer service orientation

• Must be a highly motivated self-starter with initiative and follow-through, with the ability to work in an extremely fast paced team environment with attention to detail.

• Exposure to cancer information, medical terminology, social services, and non-profit health organizations preferred.

• Ability to effectively manage high stress conversations and situations, including those that might be end-of-life conversations. 

• Adept at analyzing the stated and implied needs during an interaction and outlining solutions to match the situation.

• Ability to adapt quickly to new technology and tools.

• Basic familiarity with utilization of Microsoft Office Products (Excel, PowerPoint, etc.)

• Typing proficiency of 40 WPM and ability to satisfactorily pass a pre-hire technology assessment and training assessments.

• Comfortable making independent decisions, but willing to seek supervisory input when needed.

• Demonstrates Society’s cultural beliefs of integrity, compassion, , courage, determination and diversity.

SPECIAL MENTAL OR PHYSICAL DEMANDS

• Work is conducted within a Virtual Contact Center environment.  Home office must meet privacy and internet requirements.

• No or very limited physical effort required.

• Flexible scheduling including working evenings, late nights, weekends, holidays, or travel when required.

• Ability to manage stress and compassion fatigue because of working with customers who are in highly stressed emotional states, daily.

The starting rate for this role is $23.25/hr. Actual starting pay will vary based on non-discriminatory factors including, but not limited to, geographic location, experience, skills, specialty, and education.

The American Cancer Society has adopted a vaccination policy that requires all staff, regardless of position or work location, to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (except where prohibited by state law).

ACS provides staff a generous paid time off policy; medical, dental, retirement benefits, wellness programs, and professional development programs to enhance staff skills. Further details on our benefits can be found on our careers site at: jobs.cancer.org/benefits. We are a proud equal opportunity employer.