Is it the right time to move forward with an AI initiative? Consider this advice when examining your next revenue cycle project.
How is AI likely to affect revenue cycle strategy going forward?
Kathleen Quill Noyes: “I'm extremely excited about the use of AI in the revenue cycle. However, I am also cautiously optimistic. The reason I say that is AI is the next big thing. Everyone's really focused on how quickly they can absorb AI and how quickly they can apply it to their revenue cycle and their processes––and that's exciting. But don't wait until the perfect moment or until that next big thing (to get started). AI IS that next big thing, and it's the next logical step in our evolutionary process. We should embrace it.
That said, we shouldn't stop any of our forward movement (elsewhere) to wait for AI. As Winston Churchill once said, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” We don't want to wait for perfection. We want to take action now on what we have available, and we have a lot.
For example, at my institution, one of the biggest focuses in the last year has been to take all of the data that we have amassed, all of the data that we have on our current processes, and bring it together internally to create this big data lake, so that we can track and trend our data and learn from it and grow from it as an institution. With this data access, we can identify the gaps in the process and bring them back to the correct stakeholders to then plug those gaps. That's what we really need to be doing. I would never recommend that we wait or that we look for that next perfect step. We can move on what we have today. You can track all your data related to point-of-service collections and denials and claims, and you can use that data, bring it together internally, and then produce some actionable results."
