As healthcare policy and technology continue to evolve, many organizations are reassessing their investments to maintain financial stability and protect patients. From cybersecurity and data privacy to operational efficiency, many of these top concerns are increasingly addressed through digital tool solutions.
Houston-based Legacy Community Health, the largest federally qualified health center in Texas with more than 60 locations, is leaning into that shift.
Becker’s connected with Rebekah Le, chief strategy and financial officer at Legacy Community Health, during a Becker’s “CFO+Revenue Cycle Podcast” episode to discuss how the organization is leveraging AI, automation and data insights through its Epic electronic health record platform. She also shared how collaboration with other federally qualified health centers is helping strengthen revenue cycle performance and streamline operations.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What broader challenges are you following closely in the healthcare industry right now? Why?
Rebekah Le: It’s an interesting time that we find ourselves in. With our focus on healthcare being a right, rather than a privilege, what we’re seeing like HR.1 or some of the more legislative things we’re keeping a close eye on, [we are] ensuring that we can … understand how it impacts the communities we serve. In addition to that, when we step outside of … that legislative front and we think about broader challenges in the industry, it’s things like cyber security and making sure that we’re protecting privacy and managing all the challenges in this increasingly electronic world to ensure that Legacy is at the top of its game when it comes to cyber and privacy.
Q: How is your organization deciding where to invest in the revenue cycle?
RL: Everywhere I go … every conversation starts with the two letters: AI. I think that’s a great place to start. When we’re thinking about where Legacy is investing in revenue cycle, we actually implemented Epic a couple of years ago, and that’s been an enabler for providing more data, being able to leverage things like business intelligence. As we think about how to continue to optimize in that realm, we’re looking at things that are going to allow for better indexing. We’re going to be looking for things that are focused around cash management and allowing for more of the behind-the-scenes, electronically driven reconciliations, allowing our team members to elevate and help us focus more on denials and how we can ensure every penny we harvest can be brought back into the organization. For the revenue cycle, it’s going to be about data centricity and leveraging all the technology and tools that are increasingly becoming available.
Q: How do you decide which technology is going to work best for your organization?
RL: As a federally qualified health center, and being on Epic, — we’re actually a Connect partner, which gives us a broader partnership across multiple FQHCs — we’re able to talk through that together and see what’s working best with our instance of Epic. A lot of it is going to be around what fits best, and what’s going to be the best return on investment.
