Dive Brief:
- Overextended by "misguided" spending on EHR, HIE and patient portal expenses, about 40% of hospital CFOs are putting off investments in new revenue cycle management software for at least a year or two, according to Black Book.
- At the same time, another 41% of hospital CFOs who said their hospital was financially healthy reported that they were ready to spend on "next generation" revenue cycle management technologies.
- Of these more prosperous hospitals and health systems, 90% told Black Book that they're currently rolling out new RCM systems, are committed to a new system or expect to close a deal on one by 2015.
Dive Insight:
Though buying RCM technology may be painful for some health systems, most have "no choice" but to find a next-gen RCM system if they want to stay solvent, according to Doug Brown, Managing Partner of Black Book. Without new technology, some hospitals will be flattened by trends such as increased self-pay volumes, lack of pricing transparency and a lack of patient financial responsibility/estimation technology, Brown suggests.
Black Book, which surveyed 2,300 CFOs, CIOs and finance staffers at 590 hospital organizations, has concluded that taming patient bad debt is perhaps the highest priority health systems need to conquer. Black Book contends that systems won't be able to cope with bad debt from outstanding patient balances unless they have software that can make patient coverage estimations by verifying insurance, benefits, out-of-pocket costs and real-time pricing.
All that being said, if health systems and hospitals don't improve collections after investing in RCM systems, CFOs' heads could be on the block. "Failing RCM systems will close marginally performing hospitals for good and will get CFOs fired," warns Brown.