Crowe Healthcare Summit Daily Recap
Previews, tips, recaps and nightcaps
Insights and Highlights From the 9th Annual Crowe Healthcare Summit
Five short years from now, hospitals, health systems, and other provider organizations will manage their revenue cycle, net revenue, and business office tasks in a manner much different from the way they do today. Healthcare finance staffs responsible for those functions will need to change, too, to stay ahead of what’s in store.That was the overarching message from this year’s Crowe Healthcare Summit in Dallas. The 9th annual summit took place at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel from Sept. 16 through Sept. 19. The two official summit days - Sept. 17 and Sept. 18 - were bookended by two days of intense boot camp training on Crowe Revenue Cycle Analytics (Crowe RCA) and other customized healthcare finance and reimbursement courses.
The theme of this year’s summit was "Nurture Your Network: Upskill. Connect. Grow." Those three things are what the nearly 400 attendees at this year’s summit should do to remain relevant in a profession in which 40 percent of more of the tasks ultimately will be performed by machines, not humans.
In his opening keynote statements, Brian Sanderson, national managing principal of Crowe healthcare services, reinforced that point when he said attendees who resist change or who fight against it “will not fair well.” But, attendees and other healthcare finance personnel who take the time and make the effort to learn new skills, network with peers and expand their career goals will be the fortunate ones running healthcare revenue cycle, finance and business departments powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotic process automation technologies in the future.
To nudge the attendees to network with their peers, Sanderson led an interactive exercise in which audience members created their own baseball card. They all created their own nickname, sketched a self-portrait, and wrote their area of function on the front of the card. On the back, they listed key stats or fun facts about themselves.
Crowe staff collected the cards and then randomly passed them out to attendees as they exited the session. Their job was to find the real person whose baseball card they had in their possession. Most people found the owners of their card, connected with them and made them a new part of their professional network.
Prior to spilling out into the lobbies and concourses in search of their baseball-card owners, attendees also heard from Tracey Coyne and Colleen Hall, a partner and the Crowe revenue cycle practice leader, respectively. Coyne and Hall shared personal stories about their own career journeys that led them to their current positions at Crowe.
Each described critical points in their careers at which they decided to choose a new direction rather than continuing down the same path. Attendees must be prepared to make those same choices when the time comes and be ready to do so with newly acquired skills and expertise, they said.
“Those who get ahead of the change will never get left behind,” Hall said.
Summit attendees also witnessed the soft launch of Crowe Hive, the new healthcare online social networking community. Members of Crowe Hive can share stories, ask for advice, and offer guidance to other Hive members in a secure online environment. Those who joined Crowe Hive at the summit got a complimentary color headshot taken and received a jar of Hive honey.
Dan Gautschi, principal and Crowe healthcare consulting leader, and Barry Libert, co-founder and CEO of AIMatters, led the following day’s opening keynote session, “Redefining Healthcare Organizations in the Digital Economy.” During their 75-minute presentation, Gautschi and Libert went into detail about why healthcare needs to change, how it will change, and why managers and leaders at the nation’s hospitals and health system need to re-imagine how they do what they do.
The pair described three progressive “horizons,” or states of being, for healthcare organizations:
- Services, in which providers craft and standardize what they do
- Software, in which providers systematize what they do
- Platform, in which providers automate what they do
Well over half of the attendees physically present and others who attended the session online said their organizations were stuck in horizon one, horizon two, or a combination of horizons one and two, based on a real-time poll conducted during the session.
Gautschi and Libert urged healthcare organizations to transition to horizon three as soon as possible through various methods, including upgrading technology, shifting culture, and adding new skill sets. Those that don’t, they said, will be taken over by new market entrants using their connected platforms to remake how healthcare services are delivered and financed.
Demonstrating that the new world described by Sanderson, Coyne, Hall, Gautschi, Libert and others is possible, the summit featured presentations from leaders at several different hospitals and health systems who are creating a new healthcare finance future for themselves and for their organizations, including such prominent institutions as:
- Ascension
- Banner Health
- Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
- CHRISTUS Health
- CommonSpirit Health
- Hartford HealthCare
- Ochsner Health System
- Renown Health
- Texas Health Resources
- Universal Health Services
In their respective and typically standing-room-only breakout sessions during the summit, the health system leaders described how they’re using the latest technologies, adopting the necessary cultural changes, and upgrading their skill sets to take their revenue cycle, finance, and business office performance to the next level.
Many of the system leaders and other attendees participated in various innovation exercises in the Crowe Blue Sky 360 innovation lab. Nine separate Blue Sky 360 sessions occurred during the four days, giving participants time and opportunity to ideate and create - two things they often don’t have time for in their busy daily schedules. What happens in the Blue Sky 360 lab doesn’t stay in the Blue Sky 360 lab. It goes back to hospitals and health systems across the country to improve revenue cycle, finance, and business office operations.
The summit also made time for attendees to give back to their communities. On the second day, attendees participated in a build-a-bike event during lunch. Partnering with Together We Rise, the Brea, California-based foster care advocacy group, attendees put together dozens of bicycles for foster children in the Dallas area. Also, each time attendees shared a photo, comment, or content on their social media channels using the hashtag #HCSummit, Crowe committed to plant a tree via the Arbor Day Foundation on their behalf. Before the summit ended, more than 150 trees were to be planted.
Finally, 13 summit attendees took their four-hour exam on the final day of the event to become certified net revenue analysts (CNRAs). They will join 69 other healthcare finance leaders who already have their CNRA credential from Crowe.
For more details of what happened on each day of the four-day event, including boot camps, breakout sessions, keynote addresses, roundtable discussions and social and networking events, please click on these daily previews and recaps that were sent to attendees through the Crowe Events app:
Breakout session presentations and other summit presentation materials are available online.
Planning already is underway for the 10th annual Crowe Healthcare Summit to be held Sept. 21-24, 2020, at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel. Get more information on next year's event.
The Crowe Revenue Cycle Analytics (Crowe RCA) solution was invented by Derek Bang of Crowe. The Crowe RCA solution is covered by U.S. Patent number 8,301,519.
Day One of the 2019 Crowe Healthcare Summit
Good morning and welcome to Dallas for the 9th annual Crowe Healthcare Summit. If you’re a Mets fan or an Eagles fan, it might not be a good morning, but more on that later.
Thank you again for joining nearly 400 of your peers in Dallas for this unique educational and networking opportunity. We hope you’re finding the event both professionally rewarding and personally enjoyable.
Today, Monday, Sept. 16, is the start of a four-day stretch of healthcare finance and fun with nearly 400 of your healthcare peers from around the country. Healthcare finance, revenue cycle and internal audit leaders from 35 different states and 50 different organizations are represented here at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel, all taking advantage of the unparalleled professional education and personal networking opportunities that the Healthcare Summit have to offer.
What you’re doing today
Nearly a dozen in-depth boot camps, running from two to four to even eight hours each throughout the morning and afternoon will dominate the day ahead. We’ll be covering such topics as:
- Ad hoc reporting
- Advanced revenue cycle analytics
- Hindsight theory
- Intermediate revenue cycle analytics
- Introductory revenue cycle analytics
- Month-end close
- Uncompensated care
What not to miss
Today’s “don’t miss” session is a one-hour open innovation session in our Blue Sky 360 Innovation lab. That’s the tent-like structure in Austin Ballroom 3 on the second floor of the hotel. You can’t miss the blue light emanating from the lab. Share your revenue cycle innovations with your peers in a session open to all from 10-11 a.m. We’ll also be holding a four-hour revenue cycle incubator session in the lab from 12-4 p.m. led by Colleen Hall, partner, and Andrew Sudimack, manager, from Crowe.
5 tips for an eventful and successful first day at the Healthcare Summit
There’s a lot going on. Make sure you do these five things to make the most of your time here today:
- Take advantage of our free Wi-Fi. The network is: HCSummit19. The password is: HCSummit19. Both the network and password are case sensitive.
- Share what you learn with your peers on social media. Our Twitter handle is: @CroweUSA. Our hashtag is: #HCSummit. Use that hashtag as you share on LinkedIn and Instagram too. Crowe has partnered up with the Arbor Day Foundation to launch the Plant For Trees campaign. For all the social media posts with the hashtag #HCSummit, Crowe will plant a tree.
- If you room’s not ready yet, you can store your luggage in City View 2 on the fourth floor of the hotel and get to your boot camp.
- If you’re hungry, thirsty or both, we have refreshment breaks at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. today in the City View foyers and just outside the Austin ballrooms. Lunch is from 12-1 p.m. in the Chaparral room on the 38th floor of the hotel.
Get your Hive headshot taken today
The Crowe Hive is our healthcare social networking community. From 12-3 p.m. today, you can come by the Hive booth on the second floor of the hotel and get a new color headshot taken from a professional photographer. It’s free. No more trying to crop out that tuxedo or bridesmaid dress for your LinkedIn profile.
Tee it up, double down or stretch it out
What better way to wind down after a day of healthcare finance boot camps than to do a little golfing and gambling. You can do both at our Topgolf Casino Night at Topgolf Dallas. Group transportation to the event leaves the hotel from the Draft Sports Bar Entrance between 5:30-5:45 p.m., and the event runs from 6-9 p.m. Drinks, appetizers, dinner and entertainment are on the menu.
And what better way to wind up for the following day’s educational and networking events than Sunrise Yoga on Tuesday morning from 6:30-7:30 a.m. in the Remington room on the fourth floor of the hotel.
An hour of your time, please
As you plan your Healthcare Summit experience over the next four days, save an hour for the kids—foster kids who don’t have bicycles. On Wednesday, Sept. 18, from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. we’ll be holding our Build-a-Bike event. It’s a working lunch, but you’ll be working on bikes, not balances. Join us as we partner with Together We Rise, the Brea, Calif.-based foster care advocacy group, to assemble bikes for foster children in the Dallas area.
Oh, and about last night
Healthcare Summit attendees who arrived yesterday or even Saturday were treated to two networking and social events last night. The first was a reception for certified net revenue analysts held in the Blue Sky lab. A professional mixologist taught CRNAs in attendance how to make a pinnacle punch cocktail with gin, Cointreau and lemon juice, topped by frothy egg whites supporting a Crowe logo, along with four other tasty beverages. Recipes will be available on the Crowe Hive.
The second was football watch party in the hotel’s Draft Sports Bar. Attendees enjoyed a large buffet of quesadillas, Buffalo chicken wings, batter-fried shrimp, queso blanco, guacamole, chips, salsa and more.
Dodger fans and Falcon fans enjoyed the outcomes of the two big games playing on numerous screens across the sports bar while attendees swapped healthcare finance stories. In baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the New York Mets 3-2. In football, the Atlanta Falcons defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 24-20.
Please check the activity feed on your Crowe Event app for more daily previews and recaps from the 2019 Crowe Healthcare Summit in Dallas. We’re glad you’re here.
Day Two of the 2019 Crowe Healthcare Summit: Sessions, sessions and more sessions. Oh, and some baseball.
Good morning and welcome to the second day of your four-day immersion into healthcare finance, revenue cycle, internal audit and fun with nearly 400 of your peers from 35 different states and 50 different healthcare organizations.Today, Tuesday, Sept. 17, is the first "official" day of the Crowe 2019 Healthcare Summit. As you know, the two-day Healthcare Summit is bookended by two days of intensive boot camps and other training opportunities.
Before we talk about what happened yesterday, let’s give you a preview of what’s happening today so you can design your experience here in Dallas and at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel to your liking.
What you’re doing today
An easier subhead might be what you’re not doing today because the list of those activities would be much shorter. Today’s agenda includes:
- Three Blue Sky 360 sessions on revenue cycle innovation and automation.
- Six breakout sessions on such topics as revenue cycle and finance department collaboration and the top clinical risks facing your healthcare organization.
- 15 roundtable discussions with your peers on such topics as patient accounting system conversions and regulatory challenges facing children’s hospitals.
What not to miss
Today's "don't miss" session is our opening keynote address on this year's Healthcare Summit theme of nurturing your network by upskilling, connecting and growing. This 75-minute interactive session starts at 1:15 p.m. in the Austin Ballroom on the second floor of the hotel. The program will feature six Crowe leaders who will explain where your healthcare career is now and what steps you need to take to get it to where you want it to go. Get there early for a good seat and start planning your future.
5 tips for a productive and useful second day at the Healthcare Summit
There's a lot going on—even more than yesterday. Make sure you do these five things to make the most of your time here today:
- Please check your personal agenda in our Crowe Events app. The app will confirm your specific roundtable assignment and room location.
- Take advantage of our free Wi-Fi. The network is: HCSummit19. The password is: HCSummit19. Both the network and password are case sensitive.
- Share what you learn with your peers on social media. Our Twitter handle is: @CroweUSA. Our hashtag is: #HCSummit. Every time you use the hashtag in a social media post and on the Crowe Hive, we'll plant a tree via the Arbor Day Foundation on your behalf. It's part of our larger sustainability effort.
- Just got in and your room isn't ready yet? You can store your luggage in Pearl 1 on the second floor of the hotel and get to your breakout session.
- If you're hungry, thirsty or both, we have refreshment breaks at 9:45 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. in the City View foyers and just outside the Austin ballrooms. Lunch is from 12:15-1:15 p.m. in the Chaparral room on the 38th floor of the hotel. Come for the food. Stay for the view.
Get your Hive headshot taken today
Don't be the only attendee at this year's Healthcare Summit not to have your new color photo taken. You have two opportunities today: from 9-11:15 a.m. and from 12:15-1:15 p.m. in the Crowe Hive, our healthcare social networking community. We're just outside the Austin ballrooms. Yes, the second time slot is the same time slot as lunch. But if you're a fast eater and you don't like heights, this is the perfect time to have your photo taken. And it’s free.
Having trouble finding the plate?
We'll show you baseball fans and other Crowe attendees where to find the strike zone at this evening's networking and social event. We're heading to Rangers Stadium in Arlington for our Home Plate Happy Hour. At the home field of the Texas Rangers major league baseball team, we'll tour the ballpark, enjoy some baseball-related games and have drinks, appetizers and dinner. Group transportation to the field leaves from the Draft Sports Bar Entrance between 4:45-5 p.m. The event runs from 6-9 p.m. We hope you're still stretched out from this morning's sunrise yoga session. Don't want to pull a muscle.
Speaking of plate...
The annual Crowe Healthcare Summit is known for superior service to its attendees, and near the top of that list of amenities is the food. Here's a partial menu of what attendees tasted yesterday throughout the day, in alphabetical order:
- Bacon cheddar buttermilk biscuits with pepper gravy
- Bourbon corn succotash
- Braised greens with smoked ham hocks
- Breakfast breads
- Celery sticks and almond butter
- Chicken sausage soup with green onions
- Country ground beef meatloaf with spiced tomato jam
- Fresh fruit and berries
- House crafted granola
- In-house whipped butter
- Kale salad with pickled onions, boiled eggs, bacon lardons, croutons and buttermilk dressing
- Local green salad with roasted apple, candied pecans, arugula, radicchio, endives and orange Dijon vinaigrette
- Mud pie shooters
- Peach cobbler
- Portobello cheese bites
- Quinoa salad
- Roasted Texas pecans
- Shrimp and grits featuring chili lime shrimp, smoked gouda grits and chives
- Soft pretzels with yellow mustard
- Southern fried chicken
- Whipped honey butter
Save some calories for the kids
As you plan your Healthcare Summit experience today and through Thursday, save some room for the kids—foster kids who don't have bicycles. On Wednesday, Sept. 18, from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. we'll be holding our Build-a-Bike event. It's a working lunch, but you'll be working on bikes, not breaded shrimp. Join us as we partner with Together We Rise, the Brea, Calif.-based foster care advocacy group, to put together bikes for foster children in the Dallas area.
So what happened yesterday?
Day 1 of the four-day event was filled with educational boot camps and innovation sessions capped off by an evening of golfing and gambling.
Attendees participated in 11 different RCA boot camps of varying levels and lengths. The levels included introductory, intermediate and advanced RCA training. And the lengths ranged from two hours to eight hours each.
Why comes to the Healthcare Summit and spend most if not all of your first day in a conference room with Crowe RCA specialists? Here's what three boot camp attendees told us:
- "It's critical to keep up with all the new accounting and financial standards. That's why continuing your education through boot camps like these is so important."—Keith Waters, senior director of finance, St. Mary's Healthcare, Amsterdam, N.Y.
- "What I like about the boot camps is the opportunity to meet with Crowe RCA specialists face to face, ask questions and build relationships."—Ken Jasin, lead net revenue analyst, Ascension Wisconsin, Glendale, Wis.
- "There is a real and logical progression to the RCA boot camps. You can't do intermediate or advanced RCA until you master the basics first."—Chris Lane, vice president of external financial reporting at Texas Health Resources
The pair challenged the group by asking it whether their healthcare organizations wanted to be market leaders, market followers or market chasers. The same group will reconvene today at an 8 a.m. Blue Sky 360 session to finish its conversation and reach a consensus on a forward-looking strategy.
Yesterday's educational agenda was topped off at TopGolf, where a festive group of Healthcare Summit goers golfed, gambled and enjoyed drinks, appetizers and dinner while networking and sharing lessons learned from a full day of finance and revenue cycle training and though leadership.
Please activate your push notifications and check the activity feed and daily recap folders on your Crowe Event app for additional daily previews and roundups from the 2019 Crowe Healthcare Summit in Dallas.
How can we make your experience even better? Email us at [email protected]. Thank you.
Day Three of the 2019 Crowe Healthcare Summit: A full day ahead of risks and rewards
Good morning, and welcome to the third day of your four-day journey deep into the heart of Texas and healthcare finance, revenue cycle and internal audit accompanied by nearly 400 of your closest friends and colleagues.Today, Wednesday, Sept. 18, is the second and last "official" day of the Crowe 2019 Healthcare Summit. We surround the two-day Healthcare Summit by two full days of customized educational programming and intensive boot camp training.
Before we share some of the highlights of yesterday’s first official Healthcare Summit day, let’s tell you about some of the things that will happen at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel today that we hope you bring back to your healthcare organization to improve your revenue cycle and finance operations.
What you’re doing today
Like yesterday, the sessions don’t stop until you drop. Today’s agenda includes:
- Two keynote sessions, one on redefining your healthcare organization in a digital environment and the other on nurturing your professional network by upskilling, connecting and growing
- Four Blue Sky 360 sessions on such topics as physician compensation, asset management and digital leadership
- And eight breakout sessions on such topics as month-end closes, sidestepping revenue cycle landmines, emerging technologies and top health IT risks
What not to miss
Today’s "don’t miss" session is lunch, and not just because of the always-great Healthcare Summit food. From 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. today, we’ll be holding our Build-a-Bike event. Partnering with Together We Rise, the Brea, Calif.-based foster care advocacy group, we’ll be assembling bicycles for foster children in the Dallas area. That’s why you don’t miss it. We’ll see you in the Chaparral room on the 38th floor of the hotel on time and ready to work.
5 ways to make your third day at the Healthcare Summit a breeze
Who needs the hassle? Here are five things you can do now to make your day go as smooth as possible:
- Use our free Wi-Fi and don’t use up your minutes. The network is: HCSummit19. The password is: HCSummit19. Both the network and password are case sensitive.
- Share the photos that you take from the Healthcare Summit with your peers on social media. Our Twitter handle is: @CroweUSA. Our hashtag is: #HCSummit. Plus, every time you use the hashtag in a social media post, we’ll plant a tree via the Arbor Day Foundation on your behalf. It’s part of our larger sustainability effort.
- If you’re checking out today but not heading home until after today’s events, you can store your luggage in the City View 2 room on the 4th floor of the hotel. See the registration desk or the info station on the 4th floor for details.
- If you’re hungry, thirsty or both, we have two more refreshment breaks today. See you at 9:45 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. in the City View foyers and just outside the Austin ballrooms.
Last one to The Hive is It
Don’t be the last attendee at this year’s Healthcare Summit to have your new color photo taken. You have one last chance today from 7-9 a.m. today in The Hive, which is just outside the Austin ballrooms on the 2nd floor of the hotel. Think of it as a high school yearbook photo redo. And it’s free. The Hive is our healthcare social network community.
Highlights from yesterday’s educational programs
Sunrise yoga started at 6:30 a.m., and the last sessions and roundtable discussions didn’t end until 4:30 p.m. What happened in between ranged from the practical to the inspirational.
The breakout session that attracted a standing room-only crowd was the 10 a.m., hour-long breakout session on bridging the gap between hospital revenue cycle and finance departments. The presenters included revenue and finance leaders from four prominent health systems: Universal Health Services, Ascension Health, CommonSpirit Health and Banner Health.
They all acknowledged the tension between the revenue cycle department, which bills and collects the money, and the finance department, which counts the money and keeps the books. When the numbers don’t match, the fingers start pointing. To avoid the counterproductive animosity and get everyone on the same page, the leaders agreed that the two departments must meet regularly before month-end closes to identify, understand and rectify problems that give each side headaches. Collaboration, not confrontation, is the path forward, they said.
Another breakout session that experienced an overflow crowd was the 11:15 a.m., hour-long program on simplifying financial data analysis through visualization. Finance leaders from three prominent health systems: Hartford HealthCare, Ochsner Health and CHRISTUS Health shared examples of how they use data visualization tools to spot and address abnormalities and outliers in their revenue data. They also said presenting complex data on easy-to-understand dashboards makes it easier for them to explain one-time financial blips and long-term financial trends to senior leaders at their organizations.
The "don’t miss" session of the day turned out to be just that. The opening keynote address by six senior leaders at Crowe didn’t disappoint as it provided a transparent and unvarnished look at the future of the healthcare finance careers of the hundreds of people in attendance. Advancements in technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotic process automation mean as much as 40 percent or more of business office functions traditionally performed by humans could be done by machines. That means job loss for many listening to the presenters. Through several group exercises, the six presenters showed attendees how critical it is to get ahead of the inevitable by upskilling, networking and growing their careers now before it’s too late.
It’s an important message as more than 40 percent of the healthcare finance leaders who attended the opening keynote virtually through a live-stream over their computers and who took an online poll during the session said the people in their offices are “not really” talking about AI, ML or RPA yet. Another 36 percent said the topics have come up “a little.”
A similar eat-or-be-eaten message coursed through a 90-minute session in the Blue Sky 360 laboratory dubbed the "Journey to Automation for Finance and Revenue Cycle" to end the programming day. The five steps on that journey are:
- Craft
- Standardize
- Systematize
- Automate
- Sustain
That five-step process applies regardless of the problem that you’re trying to solve, including
- Accelerating cash collections and improving net revenue
- Creating high-reliability and consistent results
- Improving analytical capabilities
- Improving the patient experience
- Managing risk
- Reducing operational costs
- Replacing legacy systems
The lesson from the session was clear: automation is the future of every aspect of healthcare finance.
Yesterday’s breakfast, lunch and snack menu
A full day of educational programming required fuel. Yesterday’s breakfast, lunch and break menu included the following tasty treats:
- Asian pear salad
- Baby bok choy with toasted sesame seeds and hot garlic oil
- Breakfast breads
- Breakfast potatoes
- Buck wheat soba noodle salad with onions, peppers, crushed cashews and sweet chili garlic
- Cashew chicken with scallions, peppers and sweet soy drizzle
- Coconut flan
- Cottage cheese and peach parfait
- Crisp Applewood smoked bacon
- Egg drop soup
- Fresh mango
- Grits
- Mongolian beef with hoisin honey glaze, green onions, toasted sesame seeds and hot garlic oil
- Oatmeal
- Pork sausage
- Raspberries rice pudding
- Scrambled eggs
- Six flavors of ice cream
- Spiced chocolate tart
- Steamed lemongrass jasmine rice
- Sweet chili glazed salmon with sesame seeds and pickled enoki mushrooms
- Vanilla yogurt, berries and granola parfait
Fun at the old ballpark
What better way to end a full day of finance and food with a trip to the old ballpark. In the evening, we networked and socialized at Rangers Stadium in Arlington for our Home Plate Happy Hour. Attendees toured the home field of the Texas Rangers, played some lawn games in the outfield and dugout, and enjoyed drinks, appetizers and dinner. Everyone was safe at home.
Today is the last official day of the Healthcare Summit before we transition into more boot camps and training tomorrow. How can we make it special for you? Let us know at [email protected].
Day 4 of the 2019 Crowe Healthcare Summit: Nothing but exams, boot camps and goodbyes
Shhhh. Please read this Crowe Healthcare Summit preview and recap in your inner voice. As you scroll through the day's agenda, know that 13 of your peers are taking a four-hour exam to become certified net revenue analysts. And everyone else who’s not rolling their suitcases out to the front of the hotel to Uber to the airport are probably in one of nine different boot camps today.
Good morning Healthcare Summit attendees! This is the final stop of your four-day trip to healthcare finance land along with nearly 400 of your co-workers and peers.
Today, Thursday, Sept. 19, is the right-hand bookend to the "official" two-day 2019 Crowe Healthcare Summit. The left-hand bookend was Monday, Sept. 16, which also featured boot camp sessions along with other intensive and personalized educational programming.
What you're doing today
Today's preview is simple. You're one of 13 attendees who are taking their CNRA exam from 8 a.m.-12 p.m. Or, you’re one of several dozen attendees who signed up for one or more of nine different boot camp training sessions. The nine boot camp sessions offer lessons in Crowe's revenue cycle analytics platform at different levels and on different functions, including:
- Ad hoc reporting
- Advanced RCA
- Hindsight theory
- Intermediate RCA
- Medicare cost reporting
- Month-end closes
- Monthly revenue analysis theory
- Tableau
- Valuation theory
We'll serve you breakfast from 7-8 a.m. in the Chaparral room on the 38th floor of the hotel. You'll get a refreshment break at 10 a.m. We'll serve you lunch from 12:15-1 p.m., also in the Chaparral room. And you'll get one more refreshment break at 3 p.m. before the last boot camp ends at 5:15 p.m.
What not to miss
Today's "don't miss" sessions are obvious. Don't miss your CNRA exam at 8 a.m. Good luck to all. We're sure you'll do well. Don't miss the boot camps you signed up for throughout the day. And you know that food at the Healthcare Summit is great, so don’t miss breakfast, lunch and snacks.
5 ways to make the last day at the Healthcare Summit memorable
End on a high note. Here are five things to do to make your last day at the Healthcare Summit a day to remember:
- You're here. Use our free Wi-Fi. The network is: HCSummit19. The password is: HCSummit19. Both the network and password are case sensitive.
- Why drag luggage into your CNRA exam or your boot camp and annoy someone? Store it in City View 3 on the 4th floor of the hotel until you send for your Uber ride.
- Don’t worry about your CPE credits. A certificate of what you accomplished here will arrive via email to you within the next three weeks.
- If you are concerned about anything, email us at [email protected] and we’ll figure it out.
Talk about a day to remember
Yesterday, the second and last "official" day of the Healthcare Summit undoubtedly created lifelong professional and personal memories for everyone in attendance.
The day began at 9 a.m. with a 75-minute keynote session featuring Dan Gautschi, who heads Crowe’s healthcare consulting practice, and Barry Libert, co-founder and CEO of AIMatters. The personable pair walked attendees through a segmentation of healthcare providers’ state of being into a progression of three "horizons":
- Services, in which providers craft and standardize what they do
- Software, in which providers systematize what they do
- Platform, in which providers automate what they do
Well over half of the attendees physically present and others who attended the session virtually online said their organizations were stuck in level one, level two or a combination of levels one and two, based on a real-time poll conducted during the session.
Gautschi and Libert said healthcare organization need to move to level three as soon as possible through various methods lest they be absorbed by new market entrants who are using their platforms to remake how healthcare services are delivered and financed to patients.
A 10:15 a.m. breakout session on month-end reporting drew lots of nodding and nervous laughter from attendees who filled the room to hear finance leaders from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Renown Health and Banner Health tell stories about how they rolled out Crowe’s RCA platform to their hospitals, physician practices and other care-delivery sites.
The two biggest challenges, the leaders agreed, were: implementing RCA as "a single source of truth" across their entire enterprises; and convincing the senior management at their health systems that the RCA numbers were accurate despite contradicting senior managements' preconceived notions.
Two consecutive breakout sessions, the first at 12:30 p.m. and the second at 1:45 p.m., identified the top compliance risks facing hospitals and health systems in five different areas. Top risk in care deliver? Endoscope reprocessing. Top risk in healthcare IT? Effective IT governance and risk management. Top risk in operations? Pharmacy. Top risk in revenue cycle? Patient access. Top risk in coding? Physician practice management. Now you know what you should be looking at.
The feel-good moment of the day yesterday was the Build-a-Bike event during lunch. Partnering with Together We Rise, the Brea, Calif.-based foster care advocacy group, attendees assembled dozens of bicycles for foster children in the Dallas area. Lots of kids are smiling today because of what you did.
Speaking of lunch, yesterday featured yet another day of fantastic food to keep everyone’s energy up. On the menu for breakfast, lunch and breaks were:
- Assorted jams
- Assorted smoked and candied nuts
- Baklava
- Breakfast breads
- Breakfast potatoes
- Cherry, almond Greek yogurt pot De crème with berries
- Chocolate cake torte
- Citrus scented brioche French toast
- Crispy smoked bacon
- Cucumber and tomato Greek salad with shaved opinion, feta cheese and croutons
- Egg white frittatas with peppers, jack cheese and chive
- Flat iron steak with caper chimichurri and blistered tomatoes
- Garbanzo bean and vegetable soup
- Greek spanakorizo rice
- Grits
- Herb roasted chicken breast with soft herbs, caramelized onions and lemon caper butter
- House crafted beef jerky
- Local cheeses
- Mediterranean breads
- Oatmeal
- Orzo salad with artichokes, Kalamata olives, mozzarella, basil and roasted tomato vinaigrette
- Pork sausage
- Roasted Brussels sprouts
- Romaine chopped salad
- Scrambled eggs
- Seafood stew featuring fish and shellfish, green peas, chorizo and saffron
- Seared snapper with garlic, olive oil, sea salt and fresh thyme
- Sliced cured meats
Yum.
The 2019 Crowe Healthcare Summit by the numbers
You're not here because you're an English major. Well, at least not most of you. You're here because you like math. You like numbers. You like data. And you like statistics. In that spirit, here a numerical look at this year’s Healthcare Summit:
393: Number of clients, guests, Crowe presenters, staff and attendees
156: Number of trees planted, one per each time someone used the hashtag #HCSummit on social media
64: Number of education sessions, including breakout sessions, keynote addresses, roundtables and boot camps
57: Number of organizations represented by attendees
35: Number of states represented by attendees
7: Networking and social events
Another number to remember
367: Number of days until the start of the 10th annual Crowe healthcare Summit. It runs Sept. 21-24, 2020, at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel. We'll see you there and make some new numbers together. If you need anything before then, please let us know at [email protected]. Thank you.
