At the Becker’s Hospital Review 5th Annual Meeting on May 17, R. Henry Capps Jr., MD, chief medical informatics officer, and Geoffrey Gardner, CPA, vice president of finance, described how Novant Health merged billing processes over their 400 ambulatory locations. Here are five steps to consider in the revenue cycle integration process.
1. Select a single vendor. Novant Health grew from a 100-physician group to include more than 1,700 providers. “We were designed as complexly as possible,” said Dr. Capps. The first step was to align the more than 100 billing offices under the same vendor. Novant began the system build in 2011. In July 2011, 60 locations went live and two years later the rollout was complete.
2. Centralize billing office location. The more than 100 billing offices sprawled through the entire health system were brought under one roof. “The original rollout was planned to be five years, but we finished in two years and under budget,” said Dr. Capps. There are now 320 employees in core revenue cycle services.
3. Align all departments. Prior to integration, Novant Health ran a number of separate revenue cycle departments. All have since been closely aligned with the overall revenue cycle department. Departments under the umbrella of the central office include:
• Core revenue cycle
• Patient advocates
• Coding
• Pre-verification
• Payment reconciliation
4. Create physician buy-in. Transitioning from 100 billing office to one is a drastic transition, one that would not have happened without physician buy-in. Dr. Capps, as well as other physician champions, worked with their practices to make the transition work. “Today with increased accountability at the practice and back end levels, we have reduced A/R aging down to 10 percent,” said Mr. Gardner.
5. Focus on the patient. “We didn’t just think about the business office,” said Mr. Gardner. “We actually thought about the patient and what kinds of tools the patient needs.” As the new centralized system rolled out, Novant Health introduced new patient-friendly tools such as:
• Patient portal
• Online scheduling
• Online pre-registration
• Online bill pay
• App
“At the very heart of this, if you are looking at what patients really need you will find that revenue cycle improves,” said Mr. Gardner.
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