Baptist Healthcare System deploys Mckesson's Horizon Enterprise Revenue Management solution

Kentucky-based Baptist Healthcare System plans to stay ahead of the information technology curve. When a switch was flipped on Aug. 15 at Baptist Hospital Northeast in La Grange, Ky., the health system became the first to simultaneously implement both the access and business management modules of McKesson’s Horizon Enterprise Revenue Management™ solution. The innovative solution, which became generally available Sept. 29, combines rules-based software and connectivity services to help organizations transform revenue management.

“We recently benchmarked ourselves against best practices,” said Carl Herde, chief financial officer, Baptist Healthcare System. “While we were very cost-effective with our existing processes, we expect to see even more significant improvements with this solution, and our plan is to implement so that we achieve quick results.”

The solution’s access management module allows healthcare organizations to collect appropriate financial information on patient treatment to help meet regulatory requirements and collect full payment for services at the beginning of the patient interaction process. The business management module supports the creation of charges, distribution of claims and receipt of payments.

“Our clean claim rate already is 10 percent better,” said Jackie Lucas, vice president/chief information officer, Baptist Healthcare System. “In addition, staff that have been admitting patients for 20 years tell us that the system is so intuitive and easy to use that it now takes them a third of the time to admit a patient.”

The Benefits of Full Implementation

By deploying the entire system, Baptist leaders expect to dramatically improve performance. For example, rather than simply manage denials more effectively with the technology; Baptist business office staff should be able to eliminate denials completely. The entire billing cycle should be reduced from a fourteen-step process with multiple handoffs to a streamlined, efficient process in which the majority of the work takes place within the system in the background.

“Making these improvements on the front end will help us serve our patients better,” said Dennis Johnson, administrator at Baptist Hospital Northeast. “Patients assume that we know how to take care of the technical aspects of medicine – performing surgeries, changing dressings and starting IVs. When we are able to improve customer service by speeding up registration and reducing wait times, patients notice and appreciate it. That’s what this system will help us do.”

The Horizon Enterprise Revenue Management solution also will enable Baptist to maximize its investment in McKesson’s clinical IT systems. Horizon Enterprise Revenue Management, together with McKesson’s Horizon Clinicals^® suite, empowers health enterprises to meet rapidly evolving demands for improved clinical, operational and financial outcomes.

As an “open” technology, the revenue management solution seamlessly connects to both McKesson and non-McKesson clinical technology. These connections make it possible to manage financial processes across all care settings and enables continuous medical necessity checking; coordinated care planning and case management; and collaboration of orders and scheduling. The solution also will enable Baptist to handle emerging revenue management requirements related to pay-for-performance and ICD-10.

The Power of Performance Analytics

Perhaps most importantly, Horizon Enterprise Revenue Management will help Baptist focus even more keenly on performance improvement and prepare for potential economic stimulus incentives. The health system already leverages McKesson’s performance analytics technology, part of the complete Horizon Enterprise Revenue Management solution, to measure organizational performance and make evidence-based decisions.

In fact, Baptist recently won a McKesson 2009 VIP Award for its demonstrated improvements in patient care, clinical efficiency and financial performance. For example, by enabling clinicians to develop and share best practices across its network, Baptist has seen significant improvements in surgical care and treating patients for heart failure and pneumonia.

“Horizon Enterprise Revenue Management will help us build on our long-standing achievements in performance improvement,” added Johnson. “The solution provides data to help us improve key performance indicators. Managers can access information through easy-to-use dashboards and immediately target those areas that need improvement.”

By deploying at Baptist Hospital Northeast first, leaders can identify implementation best practices and then quickly roll out the solution to the system’s four other hospitals.

“Our two organizations share the vision of moving beyond incremental improvements to transformational change in the revenue cycle,” said Loren Buysman, senior vice president and general manager, Revenue Cycle, McKesson Provider Technologies. “We are working together to redefine what’s possible in healthcare revenue management.”