What healthcare system leaders think about revenue cycle automation

Behind every doctor visit, diagnostic test, and medical procedure, no matter how short or minor, is a series of complex and sophisticated revenue cycle processes and workflows that ensure that each party to the episode of care is billed, pays, and receives the right dollar amount for that service.

The people responsible for the performance of those processes and workflows are healthcare revenue cycle leaders at hospitals, healthcare systems, and medical practices across the country. Several hundred of them attended the 2021 Crowe healthcare revenue cycle virtual symposium.

Polls taken during the symposium’s keynote, general, and concurrent educational sessions reveal revenue cycle leaders’ thoughts about revenue cycle automation, data, and technology and their individual and collective effects on revenue cycle performance now and in the future.

On current revenue cycle challenges...

On current revenue cycle automation penetration...

On benefits of revenue cycle automation...

On automation's future in healthcare...

On current revenue cycle challenges...

Question: What percentage of your time do you currently spend on “finding the revenue cycle problem” versus “fixing the revenue cycle problem”? Responses: 50.0% – 20%-40% 25.5% – 10%-20% 19.8% – More than 40% 4.7% – Less than 10% Total responses: 106

Question: How many revenue cycle performance dashboards or reports do you regularly review in a typical week? Responses: 36.5% – Five to 10 31.7% – Less than five 20.2% – 10 to 20 11.5% – More than 20 Total responses: 104

Question: How much of your revenue cycle team’s time is appropriately focused on the top revenue cycle performance improvement opportunities? Responses: 41.8% – Most of the time 32.7% – Some of the time 17.3% – The loudest voice gets the attention 8.2% – All of the time Total responses: 98

On current revenue cycle automation penetration...

Question: How much does your healthcare organization use automation? Responses: 67.2% – Some basic workflows automated; working on the complex stuff now 23.2% – Doing the basics like screen scrapes and claims status 5.8% – Zip, zilch, nada; haven’t even started yet 3.9% – Fully automated; robots, robots everywhere Total responses: 259

Question: How are you incorporating automation into your day-to-day processes? Responses: 67.2% – We are using some automation with manual intervention 19.7% – We are using robotic process automation (RPA) 8.2% – We are not automating anything today 4.9% – We are fully automated Total responses: 61

Question: When making decisions about revenue cycle initiatives like automation, how often do you calculate return on investment? Responses: 46.1% – Most of the time 26.2% – Every time 23.4% – Some of the time 4.3% – Hardly ever Total responses: 282

On benefits of revenue cycle automation...

Question: When you consider automation, what is your main goal? Responses: 35.7% – Increase cash flow 33.6% – Be able to expand without increasing labor expense 16.6% – Reduce claim denials 11.9% – Reduce head count 2.2% – Increase payer no response times Total responses: 277

Question: Why should you invest in automation? Responses: 10.6% – Standardize and speed up complex but repeatable processes 3.0% – Help solve labor concerns 1.5% – Score productive wins on basic administrative tasks 84.8% – All of the above Total responses: 66

On automation's future in healthcare...

Note: Results might not add up to 100% due to rounding.

These nine attendee poll results offer a glimpse of what healthcare leaders around the country think about revenue cycle automation, data, and technology in healthcare generally and in revenue cycle specifically.

Please also read “What Hospital and Healthcare System Revenue Cycle Leaders Think” for insights into what virtual healthcare revenue cycle symposium attendees think about the biggest trends in healthcare and how they’re affecting individual organizations, departments, and people.

To learn more about these and other topics, please view on-demand sessions from the 2021 Crowe healthcare revenue cycle virtual symposium.