Rather than a rev tech overhaul, use solutions to supplement your staff's efforts.
When implementing technology into your revenue cycle, staff support is vital to ensure a successful rollout.
When Boulder Centre for Orthopedics began using a revenue cycle acceleration platform for pre-collect payments, Director of Revenue Cycle Sherri Lewis’ main consideration was how it could make her staff’s jobs easier.
“I think every practice has their own culture and our culture here in Boulder is very much a “buy in” culture,” she told HealthLeaders.
There’s a misconception about rev tech solutions replacing staff, which Lewis acknowledged. However, she sees rev tech as an opportunity for staff to expand their own knowledge and help them work smarter, not harder.
“It’s [important] to show them the value [of the technology], get their buy in, and have them realize how it affects the whole practice,” she said.
Lewis gave the example of one revenue cycle employee who managed pre-collects and how the solution streamlined the manual tasks, enabling the practice to collect over $1 million in pre-collects.
“I don’t want my staff to think they’re going to be replaced, because we still need hands on the problem,” she explained.
There are still some tasks, like filing claims and denials management, that are still done manually; but with insurers implementing more tech solutions on their end, tasks like these are becoming more difficult and time consuming to accomplish.
“We do so many manual appeals, and I’d say maybe 25% of our appeals actually get paid,” Lewis said. “The office visits aren’t getting appealed unless we can do it in a batch type format.”
Some revenue cycle processes, like coding, require more expertise than others, but Lewis is in no rush to have AI or automated solutions handle them. While she may be excited about AI and evolving rev tech solutions, her goal is to have her staff be able to keep pace with them.
“If I had an AI company [do our] coding, would they pull the right strings? Would they not transpose numbers?” she asked. “Would they do it so great that we would all lose the ability to code after a while and just trust that they’re doing the right thing?”
Jasmyne Ray is the revenue cycle editor at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Lewis is looking at ways rev tech solutions can supplement her staff's efforts, not replace them.
Despite her interest in revenue cycle technology, Lewis aspires towards her staff being able to keep pace with it rather than continous expansion.