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.
Question: What is the single most important change revenue cycle leaders need to make to succeed in the next two years?
Editor’s note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Patti Consolver. Vice President of Front-End Revenue Cycle at Ascension (St. Louis): The next critical evolution for revenue cycle leaders is the total transformation of the patient financial journey. Success will no longer be measured by how we process claims after the fact, but by how we effectively remove financial friction before a patient even walks through the door.
To lead, we must bridge the gap between sophisticated back-end systems and front-end engagement, ensuring our operational infrastructure translates directly into a seamless consumer experience. By solving the financial puzzle and providing assistance at the earliest touchpoint, we protect patients from the stress of the unknown while building the trust necessary for sustainable organizational growth.
Brett McMillan. Vice President of Revenue Cycle Operations at VCU Health (Richmond, Va.):
- Read the news: Healthcare costs too much. Accordingly, revenue cycle leaders need to align all strategic endeavors through a lens of efficiency and value.
- Leaders need to relentlessly focus on administrative simplification and consistent execution of standard work to support full deployment of patient self-service tools like scheduling, registration, financial assistance, billing customer service, etc.
- Leaders should reduce the sprawl and complexity of the revenue cycle IT and vendor footprint, and redesign organizational structures to simplify the overall revenue cycle operating model.
- In short, prioritization of efforts that drive down cost to collect and ultimately deliver more value is where the industry should focus.
Cindy Otero. Senior Director of Revenue Cycle at NCH Medical Group (Naples, Fla.): How to manage and/or have oversight of AI vendors.
Next question: What is the most important leadership skill for revenue cycle leaders right now?
If you are interested in responding, please send responses to Andrew Cass at acass@beckershealthcare.com
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