One of Chicago-based CommonSpirit's top priorities for fiscal year 2025 is to change its relationship with payers, CFO Dan Morissette said on the company's Oct. 4 investor call.
Mr. Morissette was asked by an investor on the call about how much CommonSpirit is owed in back payments. He said they "tend not to disclose this number," but said, "we have select payers we have in dispute over $100 million in some of our bigger markets for delinquent payments that we believe we're entitled to."
"It's a frustrating process," he said. "It's a slow process. Oftentimes it requires arbitration, or litigation when appropriate. And we are hopeful that some of these payers will step forward and meet the contractual obligations they've committed to us."
CommonSpirit's finance leaders highlighted revenue cycle improvements made in fiscal 2024, including adding new vendors, reducing technical denials and escalating payer issues that improved their point of service collections.
"Although we have seen improvements in our net revenue realization goals, we are not there yet," CommonSpirit Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller Benjie Loanzon said. "We have more to do in the revenue cycle area. Getting paid appropriately for the care we provide is one of our five critical near-term priorities and this will improve our net revenue and our margins."
Mr. Morissette said they are implementing "specific actions in areas of clinical and technical denials as well as clinical documentation and charge capture to improve performance growth."