In the face of severe labor shortages, razor-thin margins, and competing health system priorities, what revenue cycle leader hasn’t been asked to do more with less? Automations have eliminated some tedious daily work, but once the most glaring pain points are resolved, it can be hard to recognize and prioritize what’s next. Implementing an operational improvement solution across revenue cycle teams gives leaders a robust view of workflows and productivity to strengthen opportunity identification and decision making.
John Garcia, chief product officer of Janus Health, recently spoke with the National Association of Healthcare Revenue Integrity (NAHRI) on the savings potential and keys to success when implementing operational improvement solutions. Read more of John’s insights. Note: NAHRI membership is required to read the full article.
If you’re considering operational improvement solutions, you may already have faced some resistance. Three common myths around these tools we can dispel right now are:
- Operational improvement solutions replace human touch.
- Operational improvement solutions lack the granularity needed to make decisions.
- Operational improvement solutions require time my team doesn’t have.
1. Built to assist, not to replace
Operational improvement solutions are tools that leverage process and task mining to provide leaders the information they need to make better decisions. A good tool may leverage AI to surface recommendations and provide the context behind them, but it’s the humans doing the work who will prioritize, execute, and measure meaningful change.
2. Working when and where your team does
With a distributed workforce it’s more challenging than ever for process-improvement initiatives or outside consultants to monitor for workflow opportunities. Electronic process mining uncovers workflow subtleties that the human eye can’t even detect. As the data in these solutions expand and mature, leaders can pinpoint specific workflow variances and breakdowns for intervention.
3. Taking time to make time
Change is hard, but the effort required to implement and operationalize an improvement solution is nothing compared to the time wasted on inefficient workflows and uninformed process improvement projects. By laying the foundation for continuous improvement, revenue cycle leaders truly can do more with less.
