Putting Customers Service Skills to Work for Patients

Health care is Danielle Burkett’s second career. After her mother became ill, Burkett decided to leave her office manager job and return to school. She wanted to use her knowledge and customer service experience to work with patients.

Today, she’s a certified medical assistant at Duke University Hospital’s Pulmonary Vascular Disease Center for the past eight years. She works with insurance companies and specialty pharmacies to get pulmonary hypertension medication approved for her patients. She also helps patients get financial assistance for the expensive

medicine. In 2022, she presented a fourpart webinar series on open enrollment for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association.

Burkett says her favorite part of the job is being able to let patients know their treatment coverage was approved.

“It feels like a puzzle to solve,” she says. “I have the network and resources to find creative solutions for a patient who has been struggling to access the treatment they need.”

“If even one person can go back to their care team and get the treatment they need because of the knowledge I’ve shared here, it will have been a huge success,” she says.