2024 is here, and it’s time for trendspotting as we look forward to a new year. It should be no surprise that healthcare will remain under pressure from staffing and budget issues. Becker’s Hospital Review outlined five trends you can’t ignore. We’ll examine three of them through a revenue cycle lens and discuss how automation can help stay ahead of the trends.
Workforce stabilization
Staff burnout and turnover wreak havoc on the health of the workers and the work. Keep the people you have by making them happy, healthy, and engaged. Experienced rev cycle workers hold valuable, specialized knowledge that allows them to navigate the complexities of working with payors and understand rev cycle processes. These people are vital to keeping revenue coming. Empower them with insights that show them the best way to combat denials. Use automation to eliminate monotonous tasks and give them more time to focus on high-value work. When they have automations to be more efficient and insights into how their work matters, they’ll be more satisfied and engaged.
You can read more on the topics covered in previous blogs:
Four ways automation can take revenue cycle productivity to a new level
Staffing shortages
More qualified people are needed to fill the open roles across the healthcare industry. Boosting HR efforts can only go so far when the talent pool is empty. You have to fill gaps and increase output without adding people. Your mandate is to do more with less. Automation can free fifteen minutes every hour. Each worker will have tools to supercharge productivity, and the team will see output increase.
Controlling costs
Keeping costs in line is always on-trend. However, margin pressures remind us that time is revenue. AR days, denial rates, and pre-authorizations are KPIs you can tackle in 2024 with the help of great technology and the right partner. You must focus on solutions to increase productivity and revenue in a crowded, noisy marketplace. It’s easy to get sidetracked by point solutions that promise a quick fix but don’t factor in integration and maintenance. Process mining gives you the big picture. It also lets you quantify the cost/benefit impact of any automation or process refinement. You’ll have a roadmap to execute a plan and make the revenue cycle a poster child of digital transformation.
Looking ahead to 2024 should include an in-depth look at your revenue cycle. Janus can harness data from across your systems, tools, and processes and build you a roadmap for how to use automations to address the trends we discussed above. A well-informed strategy will give you the boost you need to make 2024 a year of meaningful change and the confidence to address workforce stabilization, staffing shortages, costs, and whatever else you may face.
