Complacency is one of the biggest pet peeves for OhioHealth's system vice president of revenue cycle, Girish Dighe, PharmD.
"In order to win multiple awards, you can't get complacent; you have to think about what's next," Dr. Dighe said.
The Columbus-based system is a consistent winner of the Healthcare Financial Management Association's MAP award, receiving it again in June.
"It's part of our foundation because the HFMA MAP award really drives on foundational metrics to a high-performing revenue cycle," he said. "So we want to consistently stay focused on our core, which is driving those operations while still balancing for how we innovate for the future."
On the innovation side, Dr. Dighe said the system is leaning into its digital road map and considering ways it can meet patients the ways they want to be met. That has included launching welcome kiosk stations that allow patients to do more self check-ins. Secondarily, that has included thinking about how the system can use texting and being more transparent with prices.
"I think overall revenue cycle is an exciting place to be," he said. "There's a lot of opportunity when you think about how we can help support the patient."
Dr. Dighe said the patient financial life cycle will continue to be an opportunity to put revenue cycle at the forefront of managing patient experience. At the end of the day, clinical care can be of the highest quality, but issues with a patient's financial experience can compromise overall coordination of care, he said.
"So it's important for me that I think about the experience of patients from that lens, to optimize what their overall care is, whether it's clinical, whether it's operational, whether it's financial," he said.