Leaders from U.S. hospitals and health systems must navigate today's reimbursement climate and changing expectations related to the patient financial experience.
Here, four leaders share their advice for the journey with Becker's Hospital Review:
Mike Simms, vice president of revenue cycle at Greensboro, N.C.-based Cone Health: "Empower your staff to make decisions. I trust my leaders and staff to make decisions and invite them to make decisions on technology. It's better to have a multitude of ideas and thoughts to have a successful team."
Kathy LeBrew, chief revenue cycle officer of University Hospitals in Cleveland: "Know your numbers and your metrics and how impactful they are to the patient experience, use them to make important changes that result in timely, consistent and personalized service to your patients. Educate your teams constantly and continue to cultivate your culture through advocacy."
Donna Graham, executive director of revenue cycle at the MetroHealth System in Cleveland: "Stay ahead of what's going on while managing the day-to-day tasks. You can't do one without the other. Vision and sustainability require integration – not sequential steps. With the revenue cycle, you have to be tenacious, you have to be passionate, and you have to be unyielding with vision so you're always ahead of the game. You can't be hesitant to be a pioneer, and you have to persevere."
Britton Tabor, executive vice president and CFO/treasurer of Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Erlanger Health System: "I believe that revenue cycle is not just a finance function. A well-run revenue cycle is dependent on the total team. The team should be inclusive of all the constituents, including physicians. At Erlanger, we have engaged our physicians at the hospital service line level to review all the pertinent metrics of revenue cycle, including but not limited to denials, coding, pre-cert requirements, contribution margin, etc."
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