Becker's Speaker Series: 4 questions with Ontario Systems Healthcare Product Development Director, Shawn Yates

Shawn Yates serves as Director of Healthcare Product Development for Ontario Systems.

On Saturday, September 23, Mr. Yates 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 Mr. Yates' session, click here.

Question: Please share the state of revenue cycle management at your organization. What is your payer mix? What about your revenue cycle is working well, what needs improvement and what do you find yourself spending more time on?Yates Shawn Headshot

Shawn Yates: In talking to clients the biggest problem is with the under-insured. The growth of this group along with reimbursement cuts from federal payers and commercial payers is putting the biggest strain on providers finances. The biggest productivity gap is in following up on accounts with insurance payers. This takes a tremendous amount of time and providers are looking for ways to streamline this.

Q: How have alternative payment models affected your line of work? Can you share three specific steps, if any, has your organization taken to adapt to bundles and ACO payments?

SY: These are still gaining ground. The biggest hurdle we see is aggregating all of the data from the different providers in one place so you can accurately track the payments and subsequent totals.

Q: Percent-wise, roughly how much of your revenue cycle is automated? Do you plan to maintain that percent or increase in the next one to two years? What effects have you seen from automation, good or bad?

SY: I would estimate only about 25% is what we see. Everyone we talk to is pushing for more productivity enhancements which means more automation and intelligent decision routing without manual intervention. Do more with less.

Q: What is one investment you've made in RCM that has surprised you in terms of ROI? How so?

SY: We have invested in a new product called insurance hold manager. This along with our other tools in insurance follow-up gives providers the ability to automate up to 80% of their insurance and denials management process. The ROI has been tremendous as it gives back 25% more time to the rep. allowing them to work 25% more accounts.

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