Igniting The Bottom Line to Spark Success for Healthcare Organizations

One of the key themes throughout our Partner Summit was the goal to have the patient at the center of everything healthcare organizations do. Healthcare leaders discussed how working together can improve the patient experience and focus on a common objective to deliver the best outcomes at a reasonable cost. A positive patient financial experience is crucial, from navigating prior authorization headaches and reducing scheduling delays to eliminating the confusion and stress of denials, especially when a denial can potentially increase patient financial responsibilities.

As our Partner Summit keynote speaker, Robert Grenier, an advisor, consultant, author, speaker, and former director of the CIA CounterTerrorism Center, shared his experience and perspective around both business and personal conflict, focusing on the friction that exists between payers and providers and how that impacts patients. He shared three lessons for the healthcare industry:

1. Your perceived enemy is your partner. Understand and empathize with the needs of others because they get a vote and have a role in the outcome.
2. Do not confuse the battle with the war. Whoever is ahead in one instance can fall behind the next.
3. Know who's at war. In the end, outcomes will be determined by our customers because the ones most impacted by the struggle are our patients.

The event also focused on the role of technology in transforming innovation in healthcare and how healthcare professionals are positioned to identify the most promising opportunities for its use in our work. While artificial intelligence (AI) has exciting potential to replace mundane tasks, it will require humans in the loop who are highly trained and specialized to do increasingly complex work. 

For example, accounts receivable (A/R) work benefits from the use of tools such as robotic process automation to manage menial and repetitive tasks and prescribe analytics-driven next-best actions to support professionals in managing A/R workflows.

We also heard about the use of AI in delivering value to more complex medical coding processes. The use of natural language processing (NLP) and AI helps improve the documentation process identifying missing terminology or evidence and ultimately capturing potentially lost revenue or avoiding a denial. Autonomous coding is an exciting opportunity, and the coding process is an excellent example of how technology and skilled knowledge workers can deliver greater value when working together.

Centralization of patient access can help leverage a remote workforce unburdened by distractions when performed at facilities. This also aids in training, and teams can adopt payer requirements more quickly. By tiering staff skill sets, more experienced staff can understand what payers need and partner with mid-cycle professionals to understand the coding impact and achieve better outcomes.

Our Partner Summit highlighted the crucial role of the revenue cycle in the patient experience by streamlining authorizations, automating AI-driven coding processes, and preventing denials. It also validated the numerous ways revenue cycle professionals can play a critical part in bridging the gap between revenue and expense by improving revenue and operating at a lower cost. Leveraging global teams using technology can optimize RCM processes, improve documentation, and leverage analytics to identify denial patterns, underpayments, and revenue leakage. 

We are proud to have held such a successful event to provide valuable insights into how healthcare organizations can enhance the patient experience by embracing technology and working together. We look forward to hosting future events with our customers and encourage you to contact us to partner with you to meet your RCM needs and exceed your goals.