Now more than ever, automation isn’t meant to eliminate headcount and replace employees. Instead, it’s an amplifier of the Patient Access Services (PAS) team’s efforts, enabling providers to care for more patients with fewer resources and to do so with increased safety, efficiency, and cost savings.
Patient Access Services Inundated with Workforce Shortages
Over the past two years, PAS has dealt with workforce shortages. Almost a fifth of healthcare workers quit their jobs during the pandemic, while nearly 30 percent of healthcare workers are considering leaving their profession altogether. Burnout, salary conflicts and dissatisfaction with vaccine mandates and protocols have been reported as primary drivers of increased early retirements and resignations. These shortages add strain on existing staff, discourage new hires and make high-quality service difficult to maintain. The pandemic increased the demand for skilled healthcare providers across the world. Hospital beds are full, patients are sick and in need of care, and those providing the care must endure the stress of working more hours and caring for more patient volume and sicker patients than most have ever experienced. The scenario represents what some are calling the worst U.S. healthcare labor crisis in memory. PAS staffing shortages have translated to employees working longer hours, extra shifts and mandatory overtime. Many wear multiple hats, a balancing act of responsibilities to cover the gaps.
While at its core, a staffing shortage is a people resource problem, artificial intelligence (AI) presents viable solutions to many of the challenges PAS faces in the crisis. PAS has been forced to consider AI as part of the solution in order to resolve many of the challenges that hospital leaders encounter in several areas of healthcare. AI is changing healthcare from driving down appeals and denials to automating population health management and improving the digital front door.
Leveraging Automation to Fill Gaps for Patient Access Services
There is perhaps no better way to increase PAS efficiency than leveraging automation to reduce manual tasks and thereby enable staff to focus on higher-value outputs. Automation can take the form of self-service tools for customer support, automated data entry, system integrations in which data is exchanged via application program interface, paperless patient registration, and many other process improvements. According to an article in NAHAM’s Access Management Journal, PAS is leveraging technology such as automated form recognition and data entry to capture patient data from documents such as orders, registration and insurance forms. At one hospital, schedulers saved 40 percent of their overall processing time by auto-indexing patient demographic data from inbound physician orders. By freeing up staff from manual data entry, the scheduling department has reduced its abandoned call percentage from 10 percent to 4 percent, and hold times are down from 90 seconds to 30 seconds. Across the board, PAS is transitioning manual, patient contact required processes to digital alternatives, giving patients the ability to pre-register, join virtual visits and submit payments online. These options benefit consumers by giving them the ability to engage in their care on their own schedules, while also freeing up the staff who previously conducted these activities by phone or onsite.
AI Technology Enabled Virtual Work
At the height of the pandemic, hospitals across the country deployed their non-patient-facing staff in roles like patient access, patient financial services, information technology and other revenue cycle roles home to execute work. AI technologies designed specifically for hospital PAS workflows enabled a seamless transition to virtual work. Call recording, digital document exchange, team collaboration solutions, workflow management and quality assurance technology are all available and meant to enable productive and connected remote work. Most patient access employees view remote work as a premium benefit that provides a better work-life integration, saves time previously spent commuting, and offers additional positive impacts related to financial and environmental savings. Hospitals also report a productivity increase after sending employees to work from home, along with benefits such as reducing their onsite footprint, increasing flexibility and mobility and improving employee satisfaction and retention.
Windham Brannon offers hospital revenue cycle AI solutions including PAS services. If you would like more information on these solutions, contact your Windham Brannon advisor or reach out to Valerie Barckhoff.