As hospitals come to rely more heavily on revenue cycles for efficient cashflow, health systems could seriously benefit from investing in their revenue cycle personnel.
Stephanie Wells, system vice president of revenue cycle/HIM for Ochsner Health System in New Orleans spoke with Becker's Hospital Review about the health system's unique focus on developing revenue cycle leaders.
Ochsner's revenue cycle fellowship program, launched in 2015, aims to give fellows an expansive understanding of a financial and operational cycle that gets more complex each day.
"The fellowship aims to impart a vast amount of information on someone in a short amount of time," says Ms. Wells. "The finance department has had a fellowship program for a long time, so we piggy-backed the revenue cycle program from there."
Participating fellows rotate through positions and departments within the entire revenue cycle, including scheduling and pre-service to training, billing and analytics.
Additionally, revenue cycle fellows participate in a myriad of classes and projects, oftentimes alongside Ochsner's finance fellows. "Participants will take general finance classes on topics such as 340B, bonds and supply chain, in addition to dedicated revenue cycle courses."
Through the interdisciplinary curriculum, "fellows come to understand the interconnectedness of revenue cycle functions, and how the decisions they make in revenue affect the finance department and vis versa," says Ms. Wells. As new regulations, payment methods and technology platforms continue to complicate hospital cashflow, "revenue cycle leaders must have a terrific understanding of healthcare across the board," she adds.
Outside of the fellowship, Ochsner hosts a variety of programs to support and develop revenue cycle employees.
Individuals can be nominated for Ochsner's revenue cycle leader academy, a two-year program that emphasizes leadership skills and comprehensive revenue cycle education to nurture a stronger revenue cycle team.
The health system also hosts revenue cycle leader training events, one day programs that bring leaders together to discuss and emphasize the interconnectedness of revenue cycle processes across the system, from access to analytics to billing.
Since implementing revenue training and development programs, Ochsner has seen hospital best practices skyrocket from 38 percent to 50 percent, says Ms. Wells.
In times of financial difficulty, hospitals and health systems may be tempted to cut back on training programs to reduce costs. But from Ms. Wells' experience, strong leaders are well worth the investment. "Leaders want to work for a system that invests in them. At Ochsner, we understand that the hospital system will get better as your leaders get better."