Through a scalable, flexible, and holistic performance improvement approach, Nordic helped a large hospital system in Texas accelerate cash flow, decrease labor costs, train staff, and enhance efficiency.
THE CHALLENGE
CHRISTUS Health, a hospital system in Irving, Texas, that has 5,258 licensed and staffed beds, 161 locations (38 hospitals), and uses Epic, needed help with its revenue integrity efforts as resource constraints were limiting the organization’s revenue cycle effectiveness and throughput. The health system wanted to lessen account backlogs, lower volumes, and accelerate cash flow.
“Managing our revenue cycle has become a challenging new frontier with many new opportunities and pitfalls present in an increasingly complex environment. Nordic is a collaborative strategic partner that helped us understand core issues around revenue integrity backlogs, find opportunities for improvement, and ultimately, enable us to optimize our revenue cycle operations without interruption.” - Claire Rabalais, System Director Revenue Cycle and Revenue Integrity, CHRISTUS Health
THE SOLUTION
Leaders at CHRISTUS Health partnered with Nordic for revenue cycle management (RCM) support. Through a scalable, flexible, and holistic performance improvement approach called Targeted Revenue Cycle Outsourcing (TRCO), Nordic’s skilled and experienced revenue cycle professionals integrated seamlessly with the CHRISTUS revenue integrity team, enabling the healthcare organization to focus on core activities and strategic business functions and realize a clear return on investment. In addition to addressing tasks and analyzing volumes, Nordic consultants:
- Reviewed observed charge/claim scenarios in daily huddles, identified duplicative scenarios, and confirmed or provided data-driven details
- Designed, tested, and proposed solutions informed by the depth and breadth of Nordic’s previous performance improvement work
- Monitored solutions post-implementation for completeness and expected behaviors and offered holistic and thorough iteration on solution design as needed
- Provided quantitative measurement of outcomes
Nordic consultants continue to provide production support work and have expanded their scope to include billing and opportunity implementation assistance.
KEY OUTCOMES
Nordic consultants enabled CHRISTUS Health to achieve the following outcomes:
Accelerated cash flow
- Pushed over 20 accounts receivable days worth of hospital billing revenue through the revenue cycle (8-month data range/ total dollars: $1.3 billion)
- Processed $19 million of backlogged charges (100% total volume)
Enhanced efficiency
- Reduced incoming work queue volumes by 25%, saving 67 hours per month (.4 full-time equivalents (FTEs)) *
Trained staff
- Provided seven hours of classroom training for 32 FTEs and 138 hours of on-the-job learning
Additional labor savings potential
- Estimated 101 hours in labor each month, .6 FTEs* from multiple workflow and charging recommendations pending implementation prioritization
“Working with the performance improvement experts from Nordic has been an outstanding experience. They were able to fill gaps in our staffing to relieve operational pressures, determine sources of revenue integrity issues, design and outline potential solutions, and transfer their knowledge to our internal team. Nordic allows us to see meaningful results in the short-term and ensured that we’re set up for long-term success.” - Claire Rabalais
Want a strategic partner that can help you navigate the challenges of revenue cycle management and improve financial performance? Contact a Nordic consultant today.
*Based on initial round of improvement initiatives. Further labor savings expected in future initiatives