For Edmund Pribitkin, MD, executive vice president, chief physician executive and president of the Jefferson Medical Group at Philadelphia-based Jefferson Health, the standard response to industry headwinds — reimbursement pressure, workforce shortages, rising costs — starts with one question: Who among the patients we serve is having the hardest time?
The question produced a concrete answer inside the Honickman Center, a $762 million outpatient facility that Jefferson Health opened in 2024 in downtown Philadelphia. The building consolidates the system’s specialty services — oncology, neuroscience, transplant, cardiology and more — under one roof, with advanced technology throughout. But Dr. Pribitkin said it surfaced a friction point that its architecture couldn’t automatically eliminate: the checkout desk.
For patients with mobility limitations, hearing loss or cognitive differences, the standard post-visit sequence — queuing at a front desk, scheduling follow-up appointments, coordinating preauthorization — can be the point where the care plan falls apart. Jefferson’s answer was to move the checkout into the exam room.
“We created virtual checkout so that when the clinician is done seeing the patient, they hit a button and someone comes on the screen, and they check out and do all the appointment scheduling, the plans for the preauthorization, the surgeries, etcetera, while the patient is in the room,” Dr. Pribitkin said during an episode of the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.”
The patient then leaves directly. No wait, no second interaction at a separate location.
“They don’t have to queue at the front desk. They don’t have to wait in line. They don’t have to communicate with a different individual at the front desk. All of that is eliminated, and that helps so many more people, honestly, than just the most vulnerable,” Dr. Pribitkin said.
The reach of the solution beyond its original target population is not incidental. It’s become a pattern with the most valuable innovation for the system.
“We try to put people first, and I think when we put the most vulnerable among us first, we see opportunities where others see impossible challenges,” he said.
Dr. Pribitkin applies that framework directly to the financial and operational pressures reshaping health systems in 2026. Reimbursement uncertainty, regulatory change and workforce challenges are not, in his view, arguments for protecting existing processes. They are the same kind of design problem the checkout desk presented — most visible to the patients they burden most.
“I think we’re going to approach all these other headwinds the same way,” he said.
At the Becker's 11th Annual IT + Revenue Cycle Conference: The Future of AI & Digital Health, taking place September 14–17 in Chicago, healthcare executives and digital leaders from across the country will come together to explore how AI, interoperability, cybersecurity, and revenue cycle innovation are transforming care delivery, strengthening financial performance, and driving the next era of digital health. Apply for complimentary registration now.
