Challenge
Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) is extremely labor-intensive and uses many repetitive tasks. Although there are core systems to perform many of these functions through established workflows, the systems are disparate, causing issues in the process flow from eligibility verification to underpayments. The processes are well documented but require a large larger force to maintain. Additionally, seasonal swelling of patients caused the organization to hire temporary workers to assist with the overload. This required extra training and onboarding.
Solution
After a careful evaluation of the systems and goals, the RPA platform Automation Anywhere (AA) was selected due to AA’s object cloning technology being the most effective on their EHR’s user interface. The organization had a need to access scanned documentation, which was a function using their IPA technology IQ Bot. The solution also lessened the need for seasonal temporary workers due to the ability of the automation workforce (AWF) being able to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Additionally, a Center of Excellence (COE) was created under a broader Digital Transformation program. This allows for a constant flow of potential automations to be evaluated and keeping them in the production pipeline, while ensuring high quality software design standards and best practice are applied to the RPA program.
Benefits
- 1 million+ manual tasks now automated annually
- 75+ “digital workers” in the production AWF and growing
- Automation connected to 50+ systems
Notes
While automating the repetitive, manual tasks, it is important to acknowledge that no employees were downsized. The organization’s staff are still a very essential part of these processes, but now the human staff can focus on the tasks they enjoy and allow the digital workforce to focus on the repetitive tasks. This combination of human and digital workers is an excellent example of how RPA can enhance staff productivity and overall growth in an organization.