Strategy, Pacing Key for Rev Tech Expansion

Organizations need clear steps and goals to manage the evolving and expensive rev tech space.

2024 is here, alongside the beginning of Q1, and organizations are initiating their plans to reach their goals for the year. For many, this includes expanding the use of technology within their revenue cycle processes.

As your organization moves forward with digitalization and expansion, keep these two words in mind: strategy and pacing.

Strategy

Rev tech satisfaction varies among organizations, typically due to solutions not being able to keep up with complex processes. With the excitement surrounding automated and artificially intelligent solutions, some organizations fail to develop a clear strategy in their rush to find and implement a solution.

In a previous HealthLeaders story, Shanda Richards, revenue cycle director at Central Peninsula Hospital in Alaska, emphasized the importance of organizations having a strategy and knowing what they want to guide their digital expansion.

“[Know] what you really need instead of just being sold on what somebody’s trying to sell you,” she said.

While different rev tech solutions have capabilities to manage or complete different tasks and processes, there’s a misconception that the digitalization process should happen all at once, which Richards also advised against.

“Don’t just go off being reactionary, where you’re solving the next problem with software. That’s oftentimes where we get the most movement,” she explained. “We’re in a crisis. We’re delaying care because we can’t get prior authorization, so therefore we have to get something in place.”

Pacing

According to Ravi Patel, vice president of digital health at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, pacing is a critical part of digitalization because it allows organization’s to build a strong foundation for future efforts.

Before adding additional functions to the hospital’s patient portal or making any investments, Patel was able to increase utilization to 83% through the Every Patient, Every Time initiative, where patients are informed and offered patient portal access at each point of service.

With the increase in utilization from the initiative, Patel then added other functions to the portal, like a symptom checker and predictive chat bot to streamline contact and scheduling with physicians and specialists, as well as connect patients with social work resources.

“All of that was further investment made by the organization,” he said. “But the ability to go from 27% to 83% [patient utilization] didn’t require any investment. All it did was require time, effort, and a focus on equality.”