In today’s economy, health systems face many financial challenges. To improve their financial performance and reduce risk, many healthcare systems are choosing to upgrade their revenue cycle processes through new revenue cycle management (RCM) system implementations. However, many implementations do not go as planned, resulting in increased accounts receivable (A/R) days, reduced cash receipts, and longer adjustment periods with payers. And in many cases, these problems don’t appear until after they go-live with the updated system.
Utilizing a standard implementation methodology with proven steps is a necessity for a successful transition. However, it is only when the initiative is led by an experienced project
team that thinks “outside the boxes” and employs thoughtful, innovative strategies to the process that the RCM implementation goals, and desired outcomes of the health system are
achieved.
In their recent report, KLAS research, indicated that “Health systems are increasingly working to get the most out of their IT investments. Focusing on a strong implementation can have a huge impact. Analysis of KLAS data gathered from 2018–2022 suggests that the quality of an implementation may be more important than the technology selected.”
A large, regional health system (multiple hospitals and networked specialists) called on the Signature Performance team to help them convert a newly acquired hospital from its legacy
platform to Millennium Clinicals and Soarian Financials. The health system quickly learned the value of Signature’s foresight, thought processes, and actions throughout the process.
The health system’s Soarian Financials implementation included a proven methodology, team/workstream structure, and meaningful work product that ensured that the success of each step in the project went well beyond “checking the box.” The following are just a few of the components that made this RCM implementation that resulted in zero delays and errors in the transition process.
Signature’s Proven Methodology and Project Oversight
Our subject matter experts have extensive experience including a design/decisions matrix, sophisticated tools, and automation leveraged with Soarian Financials to simplify and reduce manual processes.
Signature’s team delivered detailed, end-to-end management of the Soarian Financials implementation including status reports, workplan, budget, timeline, tracking, issues/escalations management, and activities coordination.
Organized and Inclusive Team/Workstream Structure
Includes all key domains, project functions, and personnel to support patient access through revenue management Functional teams with key stakeholders to support design, build, reporting, testing, training and activation/go- live, as well as migration functions such as backloading existing patients into Cerner’s system, charge/claim migration, etc.
Signature’s Discovery and Design Process of Current and Future State Workflows
As part of the project, our experts identified current state/future state workflows, comparison analysis, gap analysis, design/document new build requirements, including complex state-specific billing/reporting requirements requiring complicated integration into the Soarian Financial model. Deliverables included the following:
Line-by-line review of current system to identify gaps, ensuring no detail was missed, and all functions were covered or replaced with equivalent or better processes in Soarian Financials.
Created detailed Visio workflow documents showing current state/future state followed by work sessions with appropriate department team members to review and finalize prior to implementation.
Expert-led superuser training on real-world workflows
Partnered with the client to create “leads” training based on new model workflows to augment end-user training.
Successfully identified people who understood the current workflow as well as the changes that needed to be made based on the new Soarian Financial application. Additionally, the team trained users and continued to support them on an on-going basis. Our training efforts included often overlooked alternate path workflows and what to do to reduce disruptions to patient flow, time to perform tasks, as well as patient and user frustration.
Signature Performance is on a mission to reduce administrative burden in healthcare and help organizations, including critical access facilities, reshape the landscape of healthcare. Our team of subject-matter experts will help you leverage the latest technology to optimize your revenue cycle processes. If you are ready to take the next step towards increasing your organization’s financial stability, contact us today for more information about our solutions.