After spending about 15 years in revenue cycle management roles at hospitals and physician groups, Catherine LoPresti “took a bit of a career pivot” in 2022, joining Walmart Connect as director of billing operations.
For Ms. LoPresti, it was an opportunity to expand her skill set and see how a Fortune One company tackles data, customer service and operational scale, she said on an upcoming episode of the Becker’s CFO + Revenue Cycle Podcast.
After three years at the retail giant, Ms. LoPresti has returned to healthcare as the vice president of professional revenue cycle operations for Edison, N.J.-based Hackensack Meridian Health, and she is ready to apply what she learned.
Walmart Connect is the company’s retail media platform and helps brands create highly targeted ad campaigns by leveraging Walmart’s first-party shopper data.
“At Walmart Connect, I gained a whole new perspective on how data, technology and customer experience can come together at scale,” she said. “I was surrounded by teams using real-time insights to make decisions, test ideas and pivot really fast. That speed and agility is definitely something that healthcare traditionally struggles with, especially in the rev cycle operations space where processes can be rigid and sometimes overly siloed.”
“In healthcare, I think we can take a page from [Walmart’s] playbook, especially when it comes to patient financial engagement,” she said. “Whether it’s billing transparency, payment plans, or digital communication, we definitely have an opportunity to make things more intuitive and patient friendly.”
Ms. LoPresti added that “being in an environment where innovation and cross-functional collaboration are baked into the culture helped me see the value in bringing people from different backgrounds together to solve problems.”
“At Hackensack Meridian, I’m looking to bring that same mindset — driving more agile decision-making, leveraging data in smarter ways and also bringing down these silos to build revenue cycle that is not just efficient but also forward-looking and patient-centered.”
Being back in healthcare is where Ms. LoPresti knew she always wanted to be.
“It’s where my roots are and where I built the most meaningful parts of my career,” she said. “My time at Walmart Connect was incredibly valuable. It gave me a fresh perspective that exposed me to so many different ways of thinking and challenged me to grow outside of my comfort zone. But, at the end of the day, I missed that sense of purpose that comes with working in healthcare. There’s something uniquely fulfilling about knowing the work you do — even on the operational side — is directly impacting patient care and the health of the entire community.”