Lynne Hildreth serves as director of patient access for Moffitt Cancer Center.
On Saturday, Sepember 23, Ms. Hildreth will give a presentation at Becker's Hospital Review 3rd Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place September 21 through September 23 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Ms. Hildreths's session, click here.
Question: Looking at your IT budget, what is one item or expense that has surprised you in terms of ROI? How so?
Lynne Hildreth: N/A
Q: Finding top tech talent is always a challenge. Say a CIO called you up today to ask for an interview question that would distinguish the best candidates from the mid- to low-performers. What question do you suggest he or she ask?
LH: I like to ask, "What are the biggest barriers to your (or your team's) productivity?" and I think you'll find the responses are enlightening. First, you might get an idea for how the candidate values efficiency and balances volume vs. quality of work. Secondly, you may see if they are someone who is prone to 'blame' vs. personal accountability for issues.
Q: We spend a lot of timing talking about the exciting innovation modernizing healthcare. It's also helpful to acknowledge what we've let go of. What is one form of technology, one process or one idea that once seemed routine to you but is now endangered, if not extinct? What existed in your organization two to five years ago but not anymore?
LH: I'm personally ready to do away with the "let's create an app for that" mentality. I don't think there are enough customers (or demographic groups) that still desire an app from their healthcare provider unless it is something they would use daily (their email, messaging, social network, bank, and perhaps ride-share company). If we're doing our job, our 'customers' won't need an app to deal with us every day (unless, perhaps, it is a dialysis center?) What we do need to offer is simple, secure and speedy access for patients who want to access their records – whether that means past clinical notes, financial records or appointment data. I'm completely enthusiastic for the concept of a health record aggregator (aka Microsoft Health Vault), but even the financial services sector has yet to crack the code on this...not encouraging!
Q: What is one investment you've made in RCM that has surprised you in terms of ROI? How so?
LH: One of the best decisions we made was to spend the time to set up auto-plan allocation coupled with our integrated health plan eligibility checker, HDX. We painstakingly analyzed six months' worth of responses for approximately 200 different payers/plans to write rules so the plans could be linked to the matching plan in our system at the same time eligibility is checked. Having the right plan has enabled us to provide the most accurate estimates for patients, as well as to ensure we are estimating our contractual allowances correctly.