How Internal Complexity Breaks Revenue for Healthcare Leaders to Prevent Denials and Delays

Episode summary

In this episode of Rehabbing Your Revenue Cycle Podcast, host Robert Kowalick, Founder & CEO of Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC and Ascend Solutions, LLC, discusses how and why revenue cycles fail in healthcare practices. Robert explains that failure is usually caused by internally generated complexities, lack of a “revenue cycle team” alignment, and inadequate revenue cycle systems and controls.

Show notes

In this episode of Rehabbing Your Revenue Cycle Podcast, host Robert Kowalick, Founder & CEO of Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC and Ascend Solutions, LLC, discusses how and why revenue cycles fail in healthcare practices. Robert explains that failure is usually caused by internally generated complexities, lack of a “revenue cycle team” alignment, and inadequate revenue cycle systems and controls. He emphasizes the importance of reducing complexity, improving collaboration, and understanding billing time demand and the need to balance that with a data driven billing time supply model to achieve better revenue cycle outcomes.

Listeners will learn how revenue cycle complexity drives billing time demand and ultimately determines revenue cycle outcomes. Robert shares real data proving how internal revenue cycle processes, not payers, are the source of poor revenue cycle outcomes. He explains how reducing complexity by optimizing administrative workflows, and aligning teams can improve cash flow, lower costs, and create more stable and scalable healthcare businesses.

Robert Kowalick is a revenue cycle expert who works closely with healthcare providers, especially physical therapy practices. He focuses on helping organizations identify, quantify and ultimately prevent revenue cycle failures through better data as the foundation for focus areas and action plans. His work for many years has centered on reducing revenue cycle complexities to build more efficient and effective revenue cycle operations and ultimately better healthcare businesses.

Expect to Learn:

• How revenue cycle complexity is the number one driver of billing time demand
• Why most revenue cycle complexities come from internal revenue cycle processes external to the billing process
• Why billing time supply must match billing time demand to keep AR clean and how to know what your billing time supply needs to be
• Why functional silos prevent revenue cycle optimization
• Why reducing complexity is the number one most effective revenue cycle strategy by far for improving revenue cycle outcomes: aligning teams, improving conversion of potential revenue to cash, minimizing days in AR and creating cost effective revenue cycle delivery systems

Timestamps:

• [00:00] – Teaser
• [00:57] – Defining Revenue Cycle and Understanding If, When, and How Much
• [05:12] – Why Healthcare Businesses Are Revenue Cycle Dependent
• [09:27] – Universal Objectives of Revenue Cycle Management Explained
• [19:33] – How Team Structure and Functional Silos Lead to Failure
• [23:18] – Building a Collaborative Culture and Problem Solving Approach
• [26:28] – How Complexity Drives Time Demand in Revenue Cycle
• [32:50] – Internal Process Errors as the Primary Source of Complexity
• [37:35] – Impact of Complexity on Billing Time and Denial Management
• [42:33] – Fixed vs Variable Time Supply Models in Billing Operations
• [01:09:17] – Final Takeaways on Reducing Complexity and Improving Outcomes

Company LinkedIn:

• Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC
• Ascend Solutions, LLC

Company Website:

• Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC
• Ascend Solutions, LLC

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