HealthLeaders recently held its virtual RevTech NOW Summit, bringing leaders from different organizations together to discuss the latest topics around revenue cycle technology.
Revenue and finance executives from CommonSpirit Health, Baptist Health, Frederick Health, Northwell Health, and University Health KC served as panelists through the day’s sessions.
Staff and RCM Solutions
During the first session, panelists discussed how they were able to get staff on board with the implementation of a revenue cycle management solution, emphasizing the importance of transparent and open communication.
“We really want to be able to thoroughly talk through the decision making, why we’re moving to [the] solution that we’ve selected,” Anissa Fabrizio, assistant vice president of HIM Coding and CDI for CommonSpirit Health, shared. “And we’re generally doing that once we’ve made the decision that we are truly moving forward.”
A common misconception when an organization tells staff its looking to bring a tech solution into revenue cycle operations is that staff are being replaced, which Fabrizio denied, explaining the technology is meant to help them be more efficient.
Preventing Disruption
As we’ve seen in recent months, every revenue cycle needs a back up or continuity plan in the event of operations being disrupted. During the second session, panelists shared some of their strategies to prevent disruption and ensure seamless workflows.
Vendor relationships play a crucial role here, as Sean McCardell noted, sharing that though Frederick Health was affected by the Change Healthcare ransomware attack, it was able to brings its claims platform back up within 72 hours.
“I understand that having a lot of vendors can be helpful when you run into issues like these,” he said.
“However, I think if you find the right vendors, you can work to overcome many of the obstacles, and as a smaller [health system], it’s a lot easier for us to manage a handful of vendors versus 15.”
Revenue Cycle Resilience
The last panel of the day focused on financial stability and how to develop a resilient revenue cycle through technology. Leaders must be more strategic as they navigate a new healthcare economy where patients are paying more of their healthcare costs and payers grow more stubborn with denials.
Andy Talford, senior director of back-end revenue cycle at Moffitt Cancer Center, explained the organization’s approach to combating denials.
“We’ve always taken the approach of ‘we don’t take a denial sitting down,’ so we pretty much try to find everything we can ourselves,” he said. “We don’t outsource all of our denials, but we do bring in third parties on certain types that they can do either because of volume or complexity.”
Jasmyne Ray is the revenue cycle editor at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Open and transparent communication with staff is crucial when implementing a new solution.
An evolving healthcare economy means leaders are having to be more strategic in how they manage cash flow.