Connecting RCM technology investments to financial performance — 3 roundtable takeaways

Sophisticated revenue cycle management (RCM) technology adoption is critical in today's highly competitive, financially strained healthcare landscape. Yet, many organizations do not have an effective process for evaluating and making RCM technology investments.

This was a major theme during an executive roundtable sponsored at Becker's 9th Annual Health IT + Digital Health + RCM Meeting led by Evan Goad, Chief Strategy and Customer Success Officer at FinThrive, and Miguel Vigo, Chief Revenue Cycle Officer at UC San Diego Health.

Three takeaways:

1. RCM technology adoption needs to follow an evidence-based approach. Currently, the healthcare industry lacks an established RCM Technology Adoption Model (RCMTAM) to support digital transformation efforts.
   
   A RCMTAM can help organizations accelerate adoption of modern technology designed to address critical pain points in the revenue cycle, increase efficiency and optimize revenue. FinThrive has developed a five-stage, company-agnostic RCMTAM that does just that.
   
   
2. Adoption of RCM technology is associated with better financial performance. There are numerous workflows where adoption of mission-critical or high-value technologies (as opposed to moderate-value, low-value or no-value technologies) can make a meaningful impact on health systems' financials. Those workflows include but are not limited to registration, scheduling and clinical documentation.
   
   "We've married financial metrics and KPIs to the various stages [of FinThrive's RCMTAM]," Mr. Goad said. He explained that the model helps organizations identify areas for investment by showing how financial results would improve if the organization were to advance to the next stage by adopting more technology. "We can say to a client, 'You're in Stage 2 today — to get to Stage 3, these are the next-level capabilities you should put technology in place for.'"
   
   "The Revenue Cycle Management Technology Adoption tool helps the team drive self-awareness," Mr. Vigo observed.
   
   
3. FinThrive's RCMTAM is benchmarked against industrywide and organization-specific assessments. The model's readouts and assessments are benchmarked against the results of a FinThrive survey of C-level leaders at more than 100 healthcare provider organizations. "The model can show you where your KPIs stack versus the benchmarks we've collected and also the ROI on a particular investment," Mr. Goad said.