Q&A: SVP of Finance at Novant Health Discusses Revenue Cycle Success

Novant Well being lately consolidated its billing and established a greater end-to-end affected person expertise.

The affected person monetary expertise is cumbersome and billing statements could be onerous to navigate for the common affected person. Because the affected person monetary expertise begins to play a bigger position in a company’s general success, income cycle leaders are actually turning to streamlined expertise for invoice pay to create a optimistic affected person monetary expertise, shield sufferers from shock medical payments, and permit income cycle employees to spend extra time on significant work.

Doing so, although, will not be at all times simple.

A whole lot of organizations rely solely on mail, e-mail, and/or EHR communications to succeed in sufferers, which hinder sufferers who intend to pay their payments however are in the end left annoyed with their expertise.

Acknowledging this hole in its personal affected person monetary expertise, Novant Well being’s Senior Vice President of Finance, Geoff Gardner, determined the group wanted to consolidate hospital and doctor group billing and established a greater end-to-end affected person expertise for invoice pay although e-mail billing and textual content notifications.

This, Gardner says, achieved the next outcomes for Novant Well being: A 90% affected person satisfaction rating, 87% of collections now fully self-serviced, a 43% drop in days to gather, and nine-times the return on funding.

Gardner lately chatted with HealthLeaders about Novant Well being’s journey in establishing this income cycle success.

HealthLeaders: What prompted Novant Well being to search for an answer to streamline its monetary and billing expertise?

Geoff Gardner: For years we have been working to modernize and enhance our client expertise and income cycle group. We had beforehand relied on mail, e-mail, and MyChart to succeed in our neighborhood. Whereas we noticed some gradual and regular enhancements, we knew we wanted a totally revamped course of to ship on the simplified affected person billing expertise we envisioned.

HL: Healthcare has been going by way of a variety of turmoil and upheaval lately, and it has been very financially difficult. Are you able to share your expertise and the way expertise has helped Novant Well being see an increase in collections?

Gardner: Like many different well being programs, Novant Well being has skilled monetary challenges akin to inflationary pressures on wages, provides, and medicines. Along with that, the need of using contract scientific labor has pushed a cloth enhance in expense throughout the system.

We launched Cedar Pay, a affected person engagement and fee platform that integrates into our Epic system, throughout each hospital billing and doctor billing.

After implementation, we have seen each an increase in collections and a serious lower in time to gather. Particularly, over a 12-month interval, money collections elevated by tens of tens of millions, whereas time to gather has dropped by over 40%. And, along with the monetary affect, our affected person satisfaction improved dramatically, now sitting at 90%.

Pictured: Geoff Gardner is the Senior Vice President of Finance of Novant Well being. Photograph courtesy of Novant Well being.

HL: What adjustments do you see for the affected person monetary expertise inside the subsequent couple of years, particularly in gentle of the No Surprises Act and worth transparency rule?

Gardner: In gentle of latest laws round worth transparency and shock billing, it’s important that suppliers take heed to their sufferers and discover methods to have interaction that work for them. A part of the explanation we determined to implement new expertise was as a result of we needed to optimize our billing expertise on cell units. I am positive we’ll see this pattern persevering with—each at Novant Well being and throughout well being programs usually. Suppliers must be empowering sufferers with a digital-forward expertise that helps sufferers perceive their payments and the way insurance coverage advantages apply.

HL: Are there any further options or methods you intend to leverage sooner or later to additional enhance the affected person expertise and/or your income cycle operate?

Gardner: Our income cycle management crew is consistently searching for methods to enhance our varied processes and the way our sufferers expertise the fee course of. We’re searching for new methods to automate sure workflows by way of robotic course of automation and AI in order that our groups can give attention to the best worth work. Along with that, the pre-service expertise is on our radar, and we’ll be working to modernize and enhance that sooner or later.

HL: What suggestions do you might have for different leaders seeking to digitize sure income cycle processes?

Gardner: I might suggest partnering with a technology-forward vendor that understands the total healthcare billing journey from end-to-end and actually understands what customers need. Combining acute and ambulatory right into a unified affected person expertise was one thing we had needed to do for a very long time. We would requested a number of different distributors, however we went with the one which mentioned they might do it and delivered on that promise.