Banner Health Adopts Cerner’s Revenue Cycle Management Product

Banner Health and Cerner recently expanded their partnership to implement an end-to-end comprehensive suite of revenue cycle management (RCM) solutions and drive population health management. 

The RCM is designed to streamline and simplify the clinician and patient experience across Banner Health’s entire system, which includes 28 hospitals and clinics in six states. The effort is meant to make billing operations more efficient and improve the overall patient experience.“An essential strategy for accelerating our solution capabilities is collaborating with leading health systems,” Cerner President Don Trigg, , said in a statement. 

“Banner Health is pushing strategically to make revenue cycle management a core competency for both the health care financing models of today and tomorrow,” he added. “This next phase of work offers both organizations an exciting opportunity to set a new industry standard.”

Cerner’s RCM solution uses a common, single, and integrated platform to help improve savings, cost-effectiveness, and build a healthier bottom line for health systems. 

But in the past, Cerner's RCM product has been rife with issues.  

A 2019 market report from KLAS stated that one-third of respondents using Cerner’s RCM said they would not purchase it again, and an even larger number reported dissatisfaction with the revenue cycle outsourcing product as a whole. 

And last February, AdventHealth discarded Cerner’s RCM tool due to questions about the quality of the product. 

But things may be looking up for Cerner. A September KLAS report found that provider organizations using Cerner’s revenue cycle management product saw an improved relationship with the vendor.

Specifically, 88 percent of representatives felt their relationship with Cerner improved, up from 44 percent the previous quarter.

As part of the recent expansion, Banner Health will integrate Cerner’s registration, scheduling, patient billing, practice management solutions, and transaction services with its existing EHR on Cerner’s Millennium platform. 

Cerner’s open platform is expected to offer a way to more easily integrate third-party applications.“After comprehensive planning and alignment between our two organizations, we are confident that teaming with Cerner to achieve a fully integrated revenue cycle platform will meet our business needs now and into the future,” said Dennis Laraway, CFO, Banner Health. 

“Building on our past successful collaborations with Cerner for mainly clinical applications, adoption of their revenue cycle management solution is now a critical next step to streamline both clinical and financial solutions for our patients across the entire Banner Health enterprise,” he continued.

Health systems need clinical, financial, and operational data that work together efficiently in order to successfully manage business today.

Cerner noted that this adoption will better position Banner Health to adapt to new payment structures, more quickly adjust to policy and compliance changes, and better coordinate single registration between acute and ambulatory services.

It will also allow the network to centralize single-source patient charting and reporting across multiple care locations.

“The integrated approach housed within Cerner Millennium supports a more efficient and cost-effective approach for our providers and enhances the patient care experience as their health information easily follows them across the Banner Health continuum of care,” Laraway concluded.