Healthcare organizations continue to face tough economic conditions. In January 2023, hospitals' patient volumes and revenues were down, while expenses — especially for labor — were on the rise.
Senior leaders have been tasked with increasing net revenue and cash with a lower cost to collect, while confronting massive payer headwinds and a tight labor market.
At Becker's Hospital Review's 13th Annual Meeting, Xtend Healthcare sponsored an executive roundtable to explore how healthcare leaders are navigating these industry challenges and are driving change. Mike Morris, Xtend Healthcare's president and chief executive officer, facilitated the discussion.
Four key takeaways were:
- Some organizations are turning to remote workers — both domestically and abroad. Very few communities have enough qualified local talent to allow hospitals and health systems to staff all positions. One participant's organization is leveraging overseas resources. "We opened an office in Hyderabad, India, to handle [information services] and now that team is moving into analytics and report writing. As our leaders make trips there, they see the quality of the employees and their confidence is growing. Other health systems are coming to us to see what we can help them with," he said.
- California hospitals and health systems are concerned about proposed changes to the minimum wage. A bill recently introduced in the California Senate is designed to increase the minimum wage for healthcare employees — including contract workers — to $25 per hour. The minimum hourly wage for exempt workers would increase to $50 per hour. "If this passes, using remote workers won't represent a source of savings for us, since we will need to match those pay rates," one participant said.
- Technology solutions are reducing manual work across the enterprise. Artificial intelligence and robotic process automation are transforming revenue cycle management. "We have deployed about 37 bots across our health system. They are used a lot on the front end and for claim statusing. It's also helped with the labor issues — we've eliminated 204 FTE," one participant said. This healthcare leader warned, however, about using bots for payer interactions. "They [payers] will use bots against you, but you can't use bots with them," he said.
- A culture of continuous improvement benefits organizations and employees alike. One participant explained that his organization recently reinstituted a gemba approach that encourages all employees to provide feedback about how to improve their jobs. "This has promoted cohesion and gotten everyone on the same page," he said.
Another participant recommended employee resource groups (ERGs) as a way to generate new ideas for improving the patient experience. "ERGs also give people who aren't in traditional leadership roles the opportunity to run with ideas. It's a great way to develop informal leaders," she said.