Hennepin County Medical Center's VP of Revenue Cycle Niobis Queiro shares tips for gaining physician buy-in

In this special Speaker Series, Becker's Healthcare caught up with Niobis Queiro, vice president of revenue cycle at Minneapolis –based Hennepin County Medical Center.

Ms. Queiro will speak on a panel during the Becker's Hospital Review 4th Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference that is titled "Key Improvements and Biggest Challenges in the Revenue Cycle," at 2:00 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20. Learn more about the event and register to attend in Chicago.

Question: How does your organization gain physician buy-in when it is implementing a new technology or solution?

Niobis Queiro: We have established an inclusion approach to our patient- and staff-facing technology purchases. When you understand that we are all consumers that need to know the four "W's" — what is it, who will use it, why do we need and when will it go live — in order to start considering the technology, you must facilitate and anticipate the questions to succeed. So, we use the following approach [to engage] our physician engagement council to test [new concepts], [and] this group meets monthly. We also make sure that we include representation of all the impacted parties at all levels by presenting at department meetings and medical staff monthly meetings.

We provide them with a full presentation and demo, [and] we do on-the-spot surveys through electronic media so they can be as honest as possible. The presentation includes three focus items:

  • Know: What do I want people to know, understand, learn or question?
  • Feel: How do I want people to feel when we are done? [The] survey measures the success of feel.
  • Do: What do I want people to do as a direct result of the communication?

We always have an open discussion time that is documented and used for our understanding, and many times, it creates change in concept. We go back to these groups throughout the lifecycle of the implementation to update them and get feedback. We also make sure that they have representation in the project team.

Q: What is the biggest barrier to price transparency in the healthcare industry?

NQ: The fact that healthcare price and reimbursement are misaligned and it is not an industry that [can be amended] to a "shopable" [experience for] consumers. There are so many variable factors that go into a price for a service that, to provide one price for all, it is setting up facilities to have constant errors. [This] is why the best we can do is provide an estimate. The price is only as good as the moment it is provided [because] if there are claims in process, the deductible amount can change ... The concept does not align with reality. When my child is sick, I do not have the time to compare for the price of care — I want him healed. We need to address the real elephant in the room — our broken reimbursement system — in order to make this a truly viable, useful tool for consumers.

Copyright © 2024 Becker's Healthcare. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy. Cookie Policy. Linking and Reprinting Policy.

 

Featured Whitepapers

Featured Webinars