In 1987, economist Robert Solow observed that the computer age was visible everywhere except in the productivity statistics. The machines were bought; the work stayed put. The payoff came a decade later, once companies rebuilt around the technology.
Revenue cycle is living its own version of that gap. Technology and AI are going into every part of the process, and few organizations can show the yield, because the tools are landing on practices nobody has rebuilt from first principles. Rework, denial queues staffed as a second operating system, nearly $18 billion a year spent arguing over claims that mostly get paid anyway. Every system produces exactly the results it was built to produce, and these were built when payers moved slowly and revenue could be sorted out later. They are working “as designed.”
This is a new-era problem, and running yesterday’s workflows faster will not fix it. Revenue Cycle Leaders from Surgery Partners, Stanford Health Care, and UF Health discuss what their signals are telling them, where technology and AI earn their keep, and how to build the visibility decisions require.
Discussion points include:
- How to tell a failing design from a failing process
- Where to add, remove or simplify technology to cut rework and denial volume
- Which assumptions to retire when sequencing several redesigns at once
- The leading indicators to demand, and how to tie each collected dollar to the intervention behind it