Ask a Revenue Cycle Leader is a new series featuring insights from health system and hospital revenue cycle executives nationwide. Becker’s poses questions on the most pressing issues in healthcare finance — from payer relations and automation to workforce and patient experience. We welcome responses from all revenue cycle, finance and reimbursement leaders.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What is one thing you look for in a revenue cycle hire that doesn’t show up on a resume?
Robert Boos. Senior Vice President, Revenue Cycle Services at Covenant Health (Knoxville, Tenn.): Beyond experience and credentials, I look for genuine empathy. Revenue cycle touches patients at some of the most stressful moments in their lives, and employees who understand the human impact of their work make better decisions and provide better service. Whether they are in patient access, billing, coding or collections, the best hires balance financial stewardship with compassion. That perspective is difficult to quantify on a resume but invaluable in healthcare.
Joanna Caballero. Corporate Vice President, Revenue Cycle at Scripps Health (San Diego): Ability to be nimble. One thing everyone in healthcare can agree on is how quickly things change — even more so with technology! Someone who can pivot quickly when the ground shifts and bring their team with them. A resume shows the projects they finished, not how they responded when the plan changed halfway through. With outsourcing, technology advances and constant payer pressure, I look for candidates who adjust fast, are change champions and keep the work moving even when there may not be perfect clarity. A great candidate will be able to talk about how they reset and moved based on change.
Amanda de los Reyes. Vice President of Revenue Cycle at Renown Health (Reno, Nev.): Beyond technical skills and experience, I look for candidates who are highly motivated, adaptable and able to thrive in an environment of constant change. The most successful revenue cycle professionals are those who take ownership, remain solution-oriented when challenges arise, and are eager to learn and grow. I value resilience, accountability and a continuous improvement mindset just as much as what is reflected on a resume.
Rita Genovese. Director of Revenue Cycle and Business Operations for MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper (Camden, N.J.): One thing I look for during an interview that never shows up on a resume is how someone thinks when faced with a problem they have never encountered before. I want to see curiosity, adaptability, and whether they are willing to ask questions rather than pretend they have all the answers. In revenue cycle, there are constantly complex situations that require people to think beyond the workflow and find a solution. Some of the strongest people I have hired were not necessarily the candidates with the most impressive resumes, but the ones who took ownership and said, “I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure it out.” A resume tells me what you’ve done; an interview tells me how you think, and that tells me what you can become.
Joel Gentry. Vice President of Revenue Cycle at OU Health (Oklahoma City): One thing I look for that doesn’t appear on a resume is a willingness to learn. As AI and automation continue to reshape healthcare revenue cycle, the skills that made someone successful five years ago may not be enough five years from now. I look for people who are curious, adaptable and willing to challenge themselves to learn something new. In my experience, those qualities are often a better predictor of long-term success than any job title or technical skill listed on a resume.
James Hartman. Director of Revenue Cycle at Thorek Memorial Hospital (Chicago): On a resume, every candidate in this field reports the same things: A/R days down, clean claim rate up, denials under 5%. What the resume can’t show is how someone behaves when a metric is bad and the cause sits outside their department, such as a registration error, a CDM issue, a physician documentation gap or an IT build flaw. Revenue cycle failures are almost always cross-functional, so the people who perform are the ones who trace the problem to its source, bring the other department’s data to its leader, and get it fixed without waiting for permission or assigning blame.
Ryan Horn. SVP and Chief Revenue Officer at Bronson Healthcare (Kalamazoo, Mich.): One thing I try in an interview to discover about a potential candidate is their ability to critically think. Revenue cycle management is extremely complex, and we are often navigating payer volatility, multimillion-dollar risks, and internal cross-functional politics. Today’s revenue cycle leader cannot simply be a transactional task manager; there are no standard operating procedures for the problems they encounter daily. We live in the gray, and our leaders have to be able to look upstream for root causes, anticipate unintended consequences of decisions and use creativity to solve complex billing issues. Critical thinking is a definitive trait that we require, not want, from all our leaders.
Anna Petrone. Senior Director of Revenue Cycle at White Plains (N.Y.) Hospital: One thing I look for in a revenue cycle hire that doesn’t show up on a resume is ownership, the willingness to follow an issue through to resolution rather than simply hand it off. I listen for how candidates describe a problem they encountered, what they personally did to address it, and how they worked with others to prevent it from recurring. Technical skills are important, but so is the curiosity to ask why a denial happened or where a process broke down. I value people who see beyond their individual task and recognize how their work affects the patient, their colleagues and the organization’s financial health.
Kaci Ramsey, MSN, RN. Vice President of Revenue Cycle at Confluence Health (Wenatchee, Wash.): The quality I value most, and one not often reflected on a resume, is an individual’s commitment to collaboration and continuous growth. Revenue cycle is a highly team-oriented environment where success depends on adaptability, resilience, and the ability to work effectively across departments. While technical skills can be developed through training and experience, qualities such as teamwork, flexibility, problem-solving and professionalism are much more difficult to cultivate. In my experience, these attributes are the strongest predictors of long-term success and organizational impact.
Ryan Reyes. AVP of Revenue Cycle at Adirondack Health (Saranac Lake, N.Y.): I look for ownership. Revenue cycle is full of issues that don’t have an obvious answer, especially due to the constant changes in government and payer regulations. I want someone who is curious enough to investigate, persistent enough to follow an issue through and accountable enough to own the outcome.
Vaibhav Srivastava. COO at Salud Revenue Partners (West Lafayette, Ind.): Revenue cycle is full of exceptions, changing payer behavior and problems that do not come with a clear playbook. I value people who do not simply work the account in front of them, but ask why the issue happened, look for patterns and take ownership of finding a better way forward. Skills and systems can be taught; that mindset is much harder to teach.
Mike Vigo. Chief Revenue Officer at UC San Diego Health: Resilience. Revenue cycle team members and leaders work in an environment of constant change, increasing payer complexity, and competing priorities that are changing daily, sometimes hourly. The candidates who excel are those who stay engaged when the answer isn’t obvious, continue asking questions, and remain focused on both the patient experience and the organization’s goals and mission statement. Those qualities don’t appear in a resume, but they are often the strongest predictors of long-term success within revenue cycle.
Next question: What is one question you wish people asked revenue cycle leaders more often, and how would you answer it? If you are interested in responding, please send responses to Andrew Cass at acass@beckershealthcare.com.
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