How Do Healthcare Organizations Feel About Autonomous Coding?

Autonomous coding can help streamline revenue cycle processes and reduce administrative burden, but over half of surveyed healthcare finance leaders are not familiar with it, while others do not fully trust the automated tool.

A survey from the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), commissioned by AGS Health, asked more than 450 healthcare finance professionals about their knowledge of and expectations for autonomous coding.

Less than half (47.9 percent) of healthcare organizations said they knew what automation claims coding was, 18.6 percent of whom did not know any further details about it. Fifty-two percent of respondents had not heard of autonomous coding.

Coding is the most labor-intensive aspect of revenue cycle management. As finance leaders experience staffing shortages in their revenue departments, it is unsurprising that organizations are turning to automation to help with the process.

Around 60 percent of healthcare organizations said they either use autonomous coding or plan to. Half of the respondents who plan to incorporate the technology intend to adopt a solution within six to 12 months, the survey noted.

When respondents were asked if they trust autonomous coding, whether they use it or not, 26.7 percent said they didn’t know. Three percent said they did not trust autonomous coding at all and 8 percent believe it is often faulty.

On the other hand, 46 percent of respondents believe autonomous coding often works well, while 16 percent completely trust it.

Bridging this trust gap will help encourage adoption of autonomous coding and promote efficient billing and reimbursement, the press release noted.

Autonomous coding can help improve the billing and coding process by eliminating the potential for human-introduced errors that lead to backlogs, delays, and claims errors. Additionally, the artificial intelligence-powered tool can flag charts that need human review and enhance accuracy levels.

Healthcare organizations have certain expectations for autonomous coding. For example, 66 percent of respondents expect the tool to speed up the revenue cycle, 63 percent expect coding to be more accurate, and 59 percent anticipate less human intervention.

Finance leaders also expect autonomous coding to optimize coding for the greatest reimbursement (48 percent), improve patient satisfaction (23 percent), and improve patient care (22 percent).

While autonomous coding can generate value for healthcare organizations, adoption has challenges. A past AGS Health poll referenced in the press release revealed that finance leaders cited budget/cost, previous investment in computer-assisted coding, and the belief that coders do more than coding as adoption barriers.