75% of Health Systems Deployed RCM Technology During Pandemic

About three-quarters of hospitals and health systems in the US deployed revenue cycle management (RCM) technology or underwent active technology deployments during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey.

The survey polled over 350 CFOs and revenue cycle leaders at hospitals and health systems between December 17, 2020, and Feb 5, 2021, using the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s (HFMA’s) Pulse Survey program. The survey was commissioned by the healthcare revenue cycle management company AKASA.

RCM technology deployments came in handy during the ongoing pandemic for some hospitals and health systems, according to about 40 percent of healthcare executives and revenue cycle leaders who said their organizations were able to fully use remote deployment processes to keep projects on track despite social distancing and/or quarantine requirements.

However, nearly the same amount of survey respondents said their projects have been delayed because of pandemic-era requirements, which have limited the ability to accommodate required on-site consultants and knowledge transfer.

Those delays were typically longer than six months, the majority (54 percent) of survey respondents agreed. Even more respondents (90 percent) reported delays of three to six months or longer.

The remaining respondents (25 percent) said they did not experience project delays because they did not have any active RCM technology deployments during the time when social distancing and/or quarantine requirements were in place.

The survey points to an interest in revenue cycle management optimization despite the demands of an ongoing pandemic. But pandemic-era requirements meant to keep people safe from COVID-19 have complicated the traditionally in-person implementation process for these technologies.

Revenue cycle management was one of the areas in healthcare that largely moved to remote work once the pandemic hit. Many hospitals and health systems are considering making a more permanent move to work-from-home employment, whether through more work-from-home positions or by keeping tools in place to enable a quick transition back to remote work if needed.

RCM technology and automation have been key to enabling remote work. Hospital and health systems leaders have relied on their organization’s technological infrastructure to measure items like productivity and quality during the transition to remote work.

“That that is foundational to our success. We know that people are productive, we know people are doing quality work, and they are getting feedback on that on a regular basis,” Colette Lasack, VP of revenue cycle operations at The University of Kansas Health System, recently told RevCycleIntelligence.

Health systems like The University of Kansas Health System already had the infrastructure in place to ensure productive and secure remote work deployment. But RCM automation is generally lagging.

About one-third of hospitals and health systems do not use RCM automation at all, a previous survey published by AKASA showed. About 30 percent of the CFOs and revenue cycle leaders surveyed said their organizations have never used automation in revenue cycle operations, while approximately 3 percent reported that they no longer use automation.

RCM automation deployment is still a priority—over half of those not using RCM automation said they plan to do so by the end of this year—but the current state of in-person and especially cross-company collaboration could dampen hospital and health system plans.

Regarding the most recent survey though, Varun Ganapathi, PhD, co-founder and chief technology officer of AKASA, said in a press release, “The pandemic served as a forcing function for many organizations that may have been hesitant to deploy technology solutions using remote processes in the past. In this regard, healthcare executives have demonstrated strong leadership and the ability to adapt in uncertain times.”