Becker's Speaker Series: 4 questions with Cerner Corporation's Vice President, Julie Kay

Julie Kay serves as Vice President for Cerner Corporation. 

On Friday, September 22, Ms. Kay will moderate a panel at Becker's Hospital Review 3rd Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place September 21 through September 23 in Chicago.

To learn more about the conference and Ms. Kay's session, click here.

Question: Please share the state of revenue cycle management at your organization. What is your payer mix? What about your revenue cycle is working well, what needs improvement and what do you find yourself spending more time on?

Kay Julie headshot

Julie Kay: From my perspective working with clients throughout the nation, RCM still remains a challenge in terms of people and process. The "block and tackle" of RCM hasn't changed significantly in the past 20 years. What has changed is the pace in which we must accomplish the process of account resolution and the technology available to us. Many organizations I work with are undergoing a system implementation (or two!) and are therefore distracted with planning for the future — rightfully so — which makes it difficult to manage the day-to-day tasks that keep the revenue cycle running efficiently and effectively. They are overwhelmed with the shear volumes of their own inventory and lack the focus and attention some of the more difficult payer portfolios require.

We find many organizations are turning to an outsourcing partner to help manage the more difficult payers or aged accounts. I would advise those considering an outsourcing partnership to evaluate the "three C's" — competency, capacity and cost. If an organization lacks specialized expertise, if volumes are staggering or if it is less expensive and more efficient to outsource then a vendor partnership should be considered.

Q: How have alternative payment models affected your line of work? Can you share 3 specific steps, if any, has your organization taken to adapt to bundles and ACO payments?

JK: As we help prepare our clients for APMs, we are seeing a lot of activity in preparation for many unknowns and uncertainties. In some cases, our clients are in markets in which there will be little or no affect from an ACO or bundled payment perspective. Nonetheless, all providers will be affected by the shift from volume to value. We are seeing more physicians aligning with health systems, which means not only does the Department of Commerce need to be concerned and adapt to these new measures, but health systems need to be prepared as well.

As organizations prepare for APM adoption, patient engagement will also be critical. These new reimbursement models will require us to re-evaluate key metrics and reporting. Items we have emphasized include data aggregation and analysis from multiple data sources; measuring patient experience or satisfaction and how it correlates to reimbursement; and adjusting metrics such as cash to consider incentive and other payments.

Q: Percent-wise, roughly how much of your revenue cycle is automated? Do you plan to maintain that percent or increase in the next 1-2 years? What effects have you seen from automation, good or bad?

JK: From a partner perspective, as Cerner’s RevWorks takes on the business of care and manages the revenue cycle, we are emphasizing workflow, automation and exception-based intervention. Our objective is to mitigate any work being pushed back to our clients and implement preventative measures that eliminate manual processes and address issues at their source. Although the idea of real-time claim processing and point of sale payments is desirable, insurance companies and other payers still have complex coverage guidelines that can be difficult to maneuver with 100 percent automation. However, we attempt to lift the burden of manual intervention to allow our clients to focus on customer service and patient satisfaction.

Q: What is one investment you've made in RCM that has surprised you in terms of ROI? How so?

JK: Where I see a significant opportunity for ROI is in terms of partnership alignment.

We are continuously asked to do more with less. The speed to value is getting a clean claim out the door and resolving the entire account balance (insurance, governmental, patient) efficiently and accurately. Providers that align with an outsourcing partner are experiencing decreased costs, increased revenue and improved efficiencies. As an industry, we can no longer separate the clinical interaction from the financial transaction. At Cerner we use the term "clinically-driven revenue cycle," which better describes the state of the industry today. How we think about interacting with patients and physicians from a delivery standpoint needs to be transparent and efficient. The emphasis must be on the delivery of care, patient experience and satisfaction, and streamlining RCM with technology and automation. Clients that have chosen us as a partner have experienced a return in terms of cost savings, as well as improved results.

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