– Navigant executive survey conducted by HFMA finds providers struggle to integrate revenue cycle operations with clinical operations.
– Survey of 108 hospital and health system chief financial officers and revenue cycle executives find 62% suggest EHR adoption challenges have been equal to or outweighed benefits specific to their organization’s revenue cycle performance.
– More than 60% of providers struggle to derive optimal value from their electronic health records (EHRs).
Only 3% percent of provider organizations feel their organizations are fully successful at integrating revenue cycle operations with clinical operations, according to an annual HFMA/Navigant survey. The 2019 HFMA/Navigant survey of 108 hospital and health system chief financial officers and revenue cycle executives reveals EHR adoption challenges have been equal to or outweighed benefits specific to their organization’s revenue cycle performance.
In addition, more than half of executives say their organizations can’t keep up with EHR upgrades or underuse available EHR functions. In an ongoing effort to better manage these challenges, 69% of executives predict their organization’s IT budgets will increase over the next year, up from 68% last year but below 74% in 2017.
Consumer Pay Concerns
Consumer self-pay concerns also persist for provider executives. Eighty-five percent of respondents – including all large hospital executives – believe the increase in consumer responsibility for healthcare costs will continue to affect their organizations, up from 81% last year but down from 92% in 2017.
Collaboration with External Entities to Improve Revenue Cycle Performance
When asked which strategies they’ve already implemented to successfully decrease revenue cycle costs and increase economies of scale, 46% of executives selected collaboration with external entities, including outsourcing and vendor partnerships. In addition, one-in-four of both health system and large provider executives cited advanced health IT, including robotic process automation (RPA).
Moving forward, the majority of executives (87%) again suggest they’re most focused on technology-related capabilities to drive future revenue cycle improvements. Revenue integrity was the top area of focus for the third straight year, cited by 28% of executives, a 21% increase from 2017. Furthermore, RPA saw a major jump among health system executives – 15% cited the capability, which wasn’t selected by any health system executive in 2018.
Impact of 2019 HFMA/Navigant Survey Findings
“It was anticipated that EHRs would be the main driver of broad performance improvement, but that has not occurred in many cases,” said Timothy Kinney, managing director at Navigant. “Instead, providers are now taking other steps, including looking outside their organizations to collaborate with external entities and leveraging advanced technology solutions, and they’re seeing successes.”
