Providing high-quality healthcare is about so much more than medical treatment. As a CFO in this ever-evolving industry, you understand this. After all, you regularly oversee critical financial decisions about allocating resources, establishing priorities, forging collaborative relationships, developing strategies, and finding solutions that will drive success for your organization. Technology, particularly as it relates to healthcare data analytics, is a huge part of that picture.
When you invest in a technology or service, you expect a return. It might be related to hospital management, patient portals, diagnostics, therapeutics, patient monitoring, patient engagement, digital health, prescriptions, billing and coding, or another area. The ROI could derive from increased productivity and efficiency, reduced expenses, or some other direct or indirect contribution to the bottom line. In our experience, however, the ROI that CFOs are looking for is revenue.
Here are four ways to increase the chances that your tech investments will yield optimal ROI for your organization.
Tip #1: Find the Right Fit
In weighing technology decisions, you are likely to engage at some point in the “build vs. buy” debate. Are you better off purchasing existing software, for example, or developing your own? To answer that question, you should consider multiple factors, including:
- What is your organization’s level of in-house expertise, bandwidth, and commitment to building a product or system from the ground up?
- How do the potential research and development costs compare with the cost of purchasing a “plug and play” solution?
- Do you have the infrastructure and IT staff to support a new system while ensuring security and regulatory compliance?
- Can you provide ongoing maintenance and training? Will the new technology integrate seamlessly with your existing systems, facilitate information sharing, streamline processes, and reduce workloads?
- Is the new technology designed to accommodate your organization’s continued growth?
The answers to these questions will help you make the right choices for your organization.
Tip #2: Leverage the Data
Data analytics for healthcare is a rapidly expanding field for obvious reasons. Clinicians, administrators, and support staff are practically swimming in data, much of it generated in real time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have discovered how to convert it to insights that will drive action and positive outcomes.
According to an August 2023 article in HealthITAnalytics, data can be characterized by its volume, or quantity; variety of types and sources; velocity of flow; veracity, or credibility; and value, or usefulness. Its usefulness has soared amid hospitals’ transition to electronic health records and digital transformation.
When effectively harnessed, big data analytics in healthcare can pinpoint trends, predict future developments, inform decisions, and help conquer medical and operational challenges. Real-time data can help clinicians provide better and more personalized care, sharing vital patient information among providers, departments, and organizations. It can enable healthcare automation solutions and process improvements that reduce workloads and allow clinicians to work more intelligently and efficiently. It also can have a positive impact on healthcare organizations’ revenue cycle performance.
Your tech investments should facilitate the sharing and understanding of data by those who need it to do their jobs more productively, more efficiently, and better overall.
Tip #3: Optimize Your Resources
Resources are always limited. Even the most successful healthcare organizations are looking for ways to use theirs more wisely, cut costs where possible, and discover new efficiencies. Widespread workforce shortages in recent years have ramped up the challenge, forcing hospitals and other organizations to be innovative in their adoption of healthcare automation solutions, telehealth, and other digital technologies.
The necessity for the safe and appropriate use of artificial intelligence and automation to handle routine tasks spans hospital departments, from clinical to administrative. Letting machines handle routine tasks empowers humans to do what they do best: deliver empathetic care and services.
Revenue cycle optimization has become a top strategic priority for CFOs, along with access to care, strategic cost management, and a stronger workforce, to name a few. As hospitals grapple with workforce shortages, they are increasingly outsourcing revenue cycle management services.
Tip #4: Work Together to Get It Right
A July 2023 article in RevCycleIntelligence listed multiple motivations for outsourcing, including the confusion of ongoing changes in payer processes and requirements, increased A/R days and denials, reduced payment allowances, and time-consuming appeals. Staffing issues make it even more difficult to effectively confront these challenges with only in-house resources.
The RevCycle Intelligence article cited a KLAS Research report in which primary and specialty care clinics identified transparency, accessibility, and accuracy as essential characteristics in RCM vendors. Survey respondents also said they looked for timeliness, expertise, collaboration, and follow-up in an outsourcing relationship.
Data is also important to a successful outsourcing relationship. Benefits of data analytics in healthcare, from an RCM perspective, include:
- Gaining insights into patterns, trends and discrepancies
- Evaluating, classifying, reducing and preventing denials
- Ensuring compliance with payer policies as well as federal and state requirements
Particularly in the areas of complex claims such as workers’ compensation and Veterans Administration, revenue cycle management analytics can help hospitals recover money they otherwise might have written off.
Partner With EnableComp and Reap the Rewards
EnableComp clients see an average >3:1 ROI when they partner with us for their RCM claims. Instead of spending huge amounts of money to build new products or systems for the job, they reap the rewards of our decades of intelligent automation and specialty RCM expertise wrapped up in one powerful platform. That saves them time and money that they can invest in other aspects of their revenue cycle.
Our platform, E360 RCM™, has processed more than 21 million complex claims and recovered over $5 billion in previously “lost” revenue. We help you get paid accurately and more quickly for the work you do.
To learn more about specialty revenue cycle management, healthcare data analytics, and why outsourcing might make sense for your organization, contact us to schedule a consultation.
